by Anne Leigh
Her eyes were closed, her cheeks were flushed, and her breathing was slightly labored.
I grabbed onto her waist just in case her legs were wobbly like mine.
Our tongues were engaged in a war of who was going to surrender first, and I had a feeling that this was a game I didn’t mind losing.
She tasted of mint and cherries and I slowly sucked on her tongue. I let my hands lower to her ass, and gently gave her backside a squeeze.
I’d been watching her the whole night, the way her lithe body moved and I’d never appreciated the view of a woman leaving me as much as her because the way her ass bounced in that tight skirt was something I would deem worthy of getting sacked for.
Not that I ever wanted to get sacked.
But if I were, watching Bridgette’s ass was a worthy cause.
Her small hands reached for my neck and I lowered my face more to her level so she could gain access to whatever she wanted from me.
I don’t know how much time passed between us and I could care less.
But I knew that the moment my right hand crept up to her chest, we had to get out of there or we’d be charged for public indecency.
The last thing I’d want was for someone to take a picture of us and splash it all over social media. My agent wouldn’t be too thrilled, and her brother wouldn’t be a happy camper.
It was a struggle to pull my hands away from her ass and her chest, but I summoned all of my willpower to do so. I let my hands rove around her back, the soft material of her work uniform feeling like a barrier, making me realize that we should really take this somewhere private.
“Bridgette…” I whispered against her mouth, “Can I take you home?”
The request wasn’t really a request. It was more of a let’s get to my place or your place so we can do more of this.
Her mouth stopped moving against mine and as her hazel eyes made an appearance, I kept her body caged in mine.
I didn’t want to let go.
Not yet.
And I had a feeling that once she was out of my embrace, she’d start thinking and thinking led to years of not being in touch with me.
Back then, I didn’t even know what I wanted with her.
Maybe a hi/hello/how you doin’ once in a while.
Maybe a few lunches or dinners just as she’d done with Rikko.
It grated on my nerves when Rikko talked about her, that he went to lunch with her. It wasn’t like I wanted to manipulate her time. I knew that she was busy being a college student. I went to college, played sports, was a part of a frat – I get it, life was busy.
But she found the time to ask him how he was doing, but not me.
Never me.
And tonight, when she’d served Jaelin and I, it bugged the hell outta me that she had spoken to me as if I was someone who was so unimportant that she barely glanced my way.
I didn’t need to feel important but Christ, she knew me. ME.
“Scott. I don’t know…”
Her small voice was now laden with heaviness and as much as I wanted to acquiesce to whatever she was going to say, I realized that I was really annoyed and I deserved more than whatever BS she was going to feed me. I placed two fingers in front of her mouth, stopping her onslaught of common sense.
“You owe me, Bridgette. Two years. I never got an email or a call when you said you would. I didn’t even get a text from you. Not a ‘Congratulations’ on making the draft, not a ‘Merry Christmas’, not a ‘Happy New Year’. Not even a fucking emoji.” I tried to tamp down the irritation that welled up inside of me, but I just couldn’t.
The more I thought about it, the more I realized that I didn’t deserve the cold treatment that she awarded me.
I was always even-keeled. I hardly lost my patience.
On the field, we could be down by twenty points, and as long as I knew that we had time on the clock, I did everything in my power to close the gap and edge out a win.
I never lost my cool.
But this girl.
This woman whose wide eyes were looking at me with shock and awe and whose lips were raw from our kisses, she made me want to grab my hair and pull it from its roots.
“Here’s the deal. Either I follow you home or you follow me home. This night isn’t going to end with me walking away from you, and not knowing if you’re gonna freeze me out again for another year or another decade. So tell me, Bridgette, your place or mine?”
She answered with ‘her place.’
And after placing a quick kiss on her lips, I walked her to her car, and followed her as we navigated down the streets of Westwood.
Now, here I was.
Sitting on a small white leather chair, browsing pages of a magazine filled with stars. The stars that we see in the sky and not the stars that float around Hollywood Boulevard on a regular basis.
Someone in this apartment was obsessed with outer space and the galaxy.
I thought I could find a sports magazine but nope, I just read that Neptune’s storms were shrinking and that SEXTANT wasn’t a code for porn. Rather it was some sort of Space Explorer experiment.
Bridgette excused herself to change into comfortable clothes. Initially, I could tell that she was taken aback when I put my foot down and insisted that I talk to her for longer than ten minutes, which was probably what would have happened if I let her have her way.
She might have gotten the upper hand of putting me out of her life before, but now I couldn’t let that happen.
It wasn’t as if I had an epiphany or some shit when her lips touched mine.
I wasn’t a sappy dude like that.
But I knew that I wanted to explore friendship, maybe more, with her and I wasn’t going to just sit on my ass and wait.
I wanted her.
The way her mouth fused with mine and ignited a burst of energy inside me wasn’t something I’d foreseen.
I’d always been attracted to her and I’d thought it was one-sided.
But I felt the way her pulse quickened with my touch, and the way her eyes glazed with lust when I’d released her from our kiss couldn’t be manufactured. It was real and I wanted more of it.
“Do you want anything?” Bridgette asked. She was now wearing a loose black shirt that had pictures of the sun, moon, and a bunch of stars across the front and a pair of grey yoga pants that fit her tiny body like a glove.
My cock throbbed inside my jeans, remembering how her ass filled my hands and I wanted to see how her legs would look wrapped around me.
“I’m good,” I answered, adjusting my position on the couch so my boner wouldn’t be sticking out.
Her brows lifted and she sighed, “Water? Beer?”
“No, I’m cool. Really.” I gave her a smile and stood up, wanting her close to me again.
She didn’t hesitate when my hands landed on her hips as I asked, “What about you?”
“I’m hungry. Maybe I could find something in the fridge,” she answered, her eyes softening as I lowered my nose to her hair. I liked the scent of her hair. It reminded me of tropical paradise, coconuts and pineapples and sunshine.
She led us to the kitchen and I watched as she took a single serve canister of yogurt and opened a cabinet by the oven to grab a small spoon.
“Do you have to be up early tomorrow?” Eyeing the black square clock on top of the small dining table, she corrected herself, “I mean today?”
I had practice but not until the afternoon. Pre-season conditioning was a must, but I liked to work out later in the day. I was only a morning person when it was warranted. Otherwise, I woke up at nine and didn’t go to sleep until after midnight.
Six hours of good sleep was more than enough for me.
“Not really. I don’t have to be at the gym til around 3 and even that’s negotiable,” I said, planting my ass on a metal bar chair and watching her as she put a spoonful of strawberry yogurt in her mouth. Man, who knew eating yogurt was sexy?
“Ah okay.” She nodded her
head and her soft light curls framed her face. Her hair was lighter in shade from what I’d remembered the last time we saw each other. But the color did nothing to detract from her beauty. Her mom was a beauty expert, and it wasn’t hard to believe that Bridgette was the daughter of a beauty icon.
She had the face that could captivate you just by looking at her.
It was hard to dissect what it was. It could be the way the light in her hazel eyes shone or the glow of her skin.
“What? Do I have something on my face?” A small grin lit her face, “Sometimes I can be a clumsy eater.”
I shook my head, “No. I was just thinking of how beautiful you are.”
She pursed her lips and didn’t say anything for a beat.
“What are we doing, Scott? You and Jaelin…” She placed the spoon inside the plastic cup and continued, “I’m not even sure why I’m okay with having you here.”
“Jaelin’s not an issue,” I said with a firm voice. “I took her out on a date, but that’s about it. When I dropped her off tonight, I told her that we’d be better off as friends. And I also advised her to be nicer to people.”
She looked away for a second, her eyes fixating on the granite counter where her food was resting, “I don’t know what I’m doing with you. I mean, you and my brother’s girlfriend had so much drama between you and the last thing I need is drama and complications in my life.”
This time, I wasn’t giving her space.
I walked towards her and closed the gap between us. Lifting her chin with my hand, I said, “Kara and I have been done for a long time. She’s happy with your brother. Is that way you didn’t call me? You were worried about her and I? Or were you worried about how Bishop’s gonna react?”
“Both,” she answered followed by a quick intake of breath.
I was glad to know that my nearness had this effect on her. Most of the time, I felt like this woman ignored me, but now, with just a few inches between us, I was starting to get to know her tells. Her eyes flitted away when she was nervous and she bit her top lip when she was unsure of something.
“What do you want to do?” I asked, lifting her tiny figure to the counter. She weighed nothing, and I nudged her legs apart so I could stand between them.
“I’m not sure.” Her honest answer was a welcome one. I hated it when girls lied to me and I had a feeling that Bridgette always told the truth. “I don’t know how my brother will react and I’m not really looking for a relationship right now.”
I pressed my nose to hers and said, “How about we take things as they go? I’m attracted to you, Bridgette. I want to be in your life. I’m not looking for anything right now either, but what if we just take things slow and we can tackle the issue with Bishop when the time comes?”
Her silence was a long pause of quiet breathing, then her eyes met mine, and she said, “Okay. We’ll take things slow.”
I breathed a sigh of relief. I may have pushed her into giving me a chance to speak with her tonight, but I knew that I would be sorely disappointed if we didn’t give us a go.
It was hard enough to find a woman who could accommodate the challenges of my grueling schedule.
But it was even harder to find a woman who made my knees buckle just by her kisses.
So hell yeah, I was excited that she was onboard with the idea of seeing where things would take us.
I touched my lips to hers and as she wrapped her arms around my neck, I knew for sure that being with her was going to be the start of a wonderful ride.
And as worried as she was about her brother’s reactions to the possibility of Bridgette and I being together, I had to believe that Bishop was smart and mature enough to handle the truth.
And if not, well, that wasn’t my problem.
It was his.
Bridgette
Are you done with lab?
Scott’s text filtered through my phone just as I was getting out of Dr. Daunte’s class. Being in the lab for six hours could make anyone’s eyes hurt. Looking at computer models and devising patterns that could potentially predict how the stars evolved made me tremendously excited and extremely tired.
Yep, I texted back.
Hungry? He asked, followed with an emoji of pizza and noodles.
He was asking me to choose so I texted him with the noodle emoji.
Thursday evenings were now saved for Scott and I, so in the morning I rode with Rianna to school and he texted me when he was done with practice and he picked up me up from school.
It has been three weeks of texting, and going out on little dates with him since the night he stayed over at my place. I had texted Rianna that Scott was around and since she ended up spending the weekend in Palm Springs, Scott and I had the whole place to ourselves.
We ended up watching a movie and fell asleep on the couch. In the morning we went out for brunch, and before he left he gave me a searing kiss and elicited a promise from me that I would be calling and texting him from now on.
We didn’t talk about relationships. We just went with the flow.
I invited him to board game night with Rianna and Evan and he took everything in stride. We ganged up on him, but he always pulled me close to him when it was Rianna and Evan’s turns in Cards Against Humanity.
He didn’t say much but when he did, he made snarky comments that made all of us laugh.
Evan, of course, hyperventilated when he met Scott, but Scott gave him a bro fist bump and everything went smoothly. As smoothly as Evan not-so-discreetly taking pics of Scott and posting them on his Snapchat. Scott just shrugged and said that as long as he wasn’t naked, it was all good.
We’d seen each other at least once each week, and I had an amazing time. We always ended up eating, or watching a movie, or just doing something mundane like walking around Westwood, but once we were alone in my bedroom, he turned up the heat and we ended up with a lot less clothes than we came in with.
I wasn’t rushing anything and it didn’t seem like he was either.
I’d become really good at kissing him and feeling him grow under his jeans and he’d become an expert at rubbing my breasts underneath my bra and shirt.
It felt juvenile.
But it also felt wonderful.
You game to go out tonight? Another text came through as I trudged along the steps towards the library.
Do I have to dress up?
By this time, he knew my schedule already. I had an afternoon class tomorrow so I’d be okay going out late.
Casual, he texted right back.
Knowing Scott, he was probably getting into his car to pick me up. His training facility was in Agoura Hills and it would take him at least an hour to get here.
I was okay with driving to where he wanted to eat dinner, but he insisted on always picking me up. He said it made him feel more masculine.
I didn’t know how much more masculine he could get, but to me he was already all man.
He picked me up as if I weighed nothing, and I didn’t know that I was attracted to bossy men, but geez, the less he talked in public, the more words he said when we were alone together.
Okay. Sir.
It was meant to tease, but I knew that it made his cock hard when I called him that. He was busy tweaking my nipples one time and the word ‘Sir’ spilled out of me, and I felt his cock harden like granite underneath my panties.
I didn’t get another response, but a few minutes later, he texted me, Rikko’s gonna be with us.
I sent a thumbs-up and decided that I was going to wait by the steps close to Structure 8.
I didn’t know how to define my relationship with Scott, and maybe that was the best thing about it.
We were enjoying each other. Getting to know each other’s quirks and ticks. He was going to be really busy in two weeks when football season started, and I was going to continue living my life until the day I received an invitation from NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas for interviews.
Of all the people I knew, on
ly three people weren’t taken aback when I told them of my dreams.
My brother said to go for it when I told him last year that I wanted to be an astronaut. He joked that my height would be a restriction and he wasn’t far off. Three inches shorter and I might not have passed their anthropometric requirement for height.
My friend, Rianna, told me, you go girl, when I explained to her that being with the stars had always been my dream since I was ten.
And Scott, he’d asked why there were so many SPACE magazines in my apartment and I simply told him that it was a subject that fascinated me, and that one day all the reading that I was doing was going to be beneficial when I was up there at the International Space Station. He’d blinked once and muttered, “Damn.”
I had one year left for my undergrad and after three years postgrad, I could start applying to be included in NASA’s highly selective process.
Rikko’s excited to see you. Scott’s text interrupted my thoughts.
Don’t text and drive, I warned, texting and driving were worse than drunk driving, and I’d seen the many sad casualties on the roads of L.A.
Another thumbs up and it was quiet for an hour as I turned on my laptop to make sense of my latest findings. There was a current model for plasma spectral modeling and as I cross-referenced the literature I’d found regarding the many techniques of studying astrophysical plasma, I got lost in the world of ions, and atoms, and free electrons.
Science came easy to me.
My brother Bishop was the same. Though he loved Quantum Mechanics, and I was more fascinated with the nature and evolution of the universe.
My friend, Rianna, loved to see how a blank space could be changed by the addition of design elements. For me, when I saw a blank space, I wanted to paint it with color and at the same time, I wondered how gravitational forces kept everything inside this planet we called Earth so that we would not be floating in space.
Time passed and my neck started to ache when the phone inside my purse alerted me that Scott had arrived.
I saved my work and started down the steps, looking for a silver Audi SUV whose driver had become a part of my daily routine.
