by Brea Brown
“Maura?”
“Jet?” I say in the same tone, but punctuated with a smile, trying to break the tension.
“What?” he asks. “You go first.”
I laugh. “Nothing. Sorry.” When he tilts his head, obviously confused, I blush. “You say my name a lot.”
He studies my face. “I like saying it. It’s pretty.”
I duck my head. “Oh. Thanks.”
“If it bothers you, I’ll stop.”
“No, it’s fine.” I mumble with a head shake, sorry I’ve made him self-conscious about it.
Fortunately, he doesn’t belabor it. Unfortunately, his tone remains earnest when he continues, “I need to tell you something.”
And things were going so well!
He picks at his jeans and turns toward me, digging his elbow into the back of the couch and resting his forehead in one hand. He rubs his hairline. His other hand grabs my right one, and he threads his fingers through mine. I stare at our woven digits while he focuses on my profile. His right knee brushes my thigh and makes me feel seriously—and dangerously—tingly in some private places.
“There’s something I want to apologize for.”
An apology doesn’t fit into my idea of what I wish would happen next, but I stifle my sigh. “Go on.”
“It’s about something I said last night. This morning. Whenever.”
“You definitely don’t have to apologize for anything you said or did then.”
“Maura. Really. Seriously.”
My smart-ass grin fades as I meet those green eyes. I’ve seen that look many times on the sidelines when the team is down and facing their last drive of the game. “Fine. Go ahead. I guess.”
“I’m sorry I said what I did about playing hard-to-get. I was kidding, but as soon as it was out, I realized it sounded like I was pressuring you or something. That’s not it at all. It was rude, and sexist. I don’t want you to feel like you can’t say no.” He lowers his chin, adding a meaningful look to those last two words.
Oh, I feel that way for many reasons, but not because I’m afraid he won’t take no for an answer. Instead of trying to articulate that distinction, though, I keep it simple.
“I don’t want to say no.”
The left side of his mouth lifts in a sexy half-smile. “Well, that’s different.”
“Very.”
My breath catches in my throat when his face comes closer, and I remember how he felt and tasted last night. I don’t have to anticipate a replay for too long, as he brushes his lips against mine. My eyes flutter closed, and I become so relaxed, I worry I might melt off the couch. But he holds me in place, pulling me more tightly to his chest.
“Where are you going?” he asks quietly.
I open my eyes and say honestly, “Nowhere. I’m staying right here,” before leaning into a deeper, much more intimate kiss.
His huge hands splay across my back, nearly spanning the entire width. In his arms, I’m tiny and delicate. It’s an unfamiliar, yet amazing, feeling.
As his tongue probes my mouth, I release a moan on a tiny puff of air that makes him smile against my lips and would embarrass me if I weren’t so turned on. His right hand slides upward to the back of my head and presses my face more firmly into his. I scoot so I’m practically in his lap, my hands roaming the wide expanse of his chest. When my palms graze his nipples through his long-sleeved t-shirt, he inhales sharply.
Separating from me for a second, he says on a breath, “Maura,” before attacking my mouth once more. His hardness presses against my leg.
Soon, he transfers his attention from my lips to my throat. I wrap my arms around his neck and twist my fingers in his hair, shivering at his breath against the sensitive skin along my chin. My eyes roll backward in my head, which lolls heavily against his hand.
“Oh…” I breathe, letting him push me onto my back. He lifts my sweater, exposing my torso, which he covers with kisses that send tiny shocks southward.
When I’m thinking I couldn’t stop him from doing anything, even if I wanted to (and I don’t want to), a loud yap pierces our panting, and Jet exhales against my belly when a flying white furball lands between his shoulder blades.
He turns his head to the side and laughs. “Torz! Down boy.”
The dog stubbornly disobeys his master and licks his upturned cheek.
Jet pushes himself upright, sending Torz skittering down his back, then scrambling across his legs. The dog plunks himself in his owner’s lap, panting and grinning at me, as if to say, “Take that, ’ho.”
I squint at the pooch. Why, you little cock-blocking son of a bitch…
With a grunt, Jet stands, evicting our distraction, and hobbles to the back door, which he opens a Torz-width. “Out, cur. Go scratch on Jacob’s door.”
The compact canine complies, taking off like a shot across the patio and into the yard. Jet closes the door but watches his little buddy until he makes it to the guest house. I sit up in time to see a guy open the door to the cottage and wave toward us. Jet raises his hand in reply, then faces me.
“I’m sorry.”
“Don’t apologize! It’s not your fault.”
“He’s used to having me all to himself.”
“Lucky dog.”
He narrows his eyes. “Hmm. Spoiled, definitely. But maybe Torzi knows best.”
I smile bravely, but my libido sobs.
There, there.
I’m hoping Jet will return to the couch and kiss me again, but he looks around the room and says, “What do you want to do for the rest of the day? I’d say we could go out, but sometimes being out in public can get unpleasant after big losses.”
I click my tongue. “People are such idiots.”
“They’re passionate about the game, that’s for sure. Once—”
His ringing phone interrupts a story I’m sure would anger—but not surprise—me. He pulls the device from his pocket and grimaces at the name on the display.
“My mom,” he says. “You don’t mind, do you?”
“No. Take it. Please.” I wave him away and move to stand, but he presses me in place with a warm hand on my leg as he lowers himself back down to the cushions.
“It’ll be short. She’s just checking in.”
While he holds up his end of the usual parent-to-adult-kid chit-chat, I wander the room, peering at the framed photos on the fireplace mantle, recognizing him in a group picture of similar-looking people who must be his siblings and parents. As far as the guys in his family go, he’s the smallest. “Yikes,” I whisper. His older sister isn’t exactly dainty, either. Judging by her size relative to Jet, she’s at least as tall, if not taller, than I am. They make ’em big in the Knox family. Eek.
As I’m working my way through framed photos of kids I assume to be his nieces and nephews, including a few red-faced newborns, he says, “Listen, Mom, I gotta go…. Yes, I’m fine. Thanks for calling and checking up on me…. Ha! Well, I’m sorry—I guess?—that I sound happier than you expected me to sound. Look at the bright side: now I can go to the Pro Bowl and enjoy myself…. Yes, but I’ll have to talk to you about it later, okay?… Okay. Love you, too. Bye.”
Hanging up, he pokes his tongue from the corner of his mouth. “Sorry about that.”
“I could have gone into a different room to give you some privacy.”
“Nah. She wanted to baby me. And talk me down from the ledge. But you know what? I’m not on the ledge. We made it to the playoffs; that’s further than I’ve ever been before. Next year, we’ll get further. I hope. With hard work. But I’m tired from all the hard work of this season and don’t want to think about that right now. I want to move on.”
I retake my seat next to him. “You should have taken the time to tell her all that. I could have waited.”
He shakes his head. “Probably should have let her call go to voicemail. Would have fit better with her idea of me sitting here in my underwear, pouting.”
I get a vivid flash of what tha
t would look like and have to stifle the fierce resultant tummy fizz. Fortunately, he seems clueless about his words’ effect, and I nearly fall off the couch with his next seemingly out-of-the-blue question.
“Hey, how would you like to go to Hawaii?”
Fifteen
Getting Lei’d
My initial reaction to his question, since we’ve been talking about how to spend the rest of the day, is, “Now?”
He laughs and shakes his head. “No. Sorry. That probably seemed so random. Do you want to go to the Pro Bowl with me? As my guest.”
As if he’s a doctor tapping a tiny rubber mallet against my knee, my reflexes kick in, and I turn him down, because it’s a crazy suggestion. I still barely know him. I’m supposed to cash in half of my vacation time and jet to a romantic destination to have a once-in-a-lifetime sports experience that most fans would kill for?
Uh, yes. But no.
What if he ends up killing me? I’d be on one of those network TV news magazines, and they’d all shake their heads at the dumb Midwesterner who fell so fast and so hard for the pro football player’s charms that she didn’t see all the warning signs. I can hear that creepy guy on Dateline now: “Maura Richards had no idea one of the only spontaneous decisions she’d ever made… would be her last.”
So I thank Jet for his amazing—and possibly deadly—offer but tell him I can’t possibly accept. He seems to take it okay, even pokes fun of himself for asking, but for the rest of the day, he drops juicy teasers here and there about his upcoming trip. Or he tosses out something about the other players bringing their girlfriends or families. It isn’t a hard sell—if he cajoled, wheedled, or whined, it would be easy to stand my ground—but it’s enough to get me drooling at the prospect of going. Kansas City in the middle of winter isn’t the worst place to be, but it’s not Hawaii, either.
And by the end of the day (yes, it only takes a damn day. I’m weak!), I realize I’m only saying “no” because that’s the less conventional answer to such an attractive proposition. Creepy Dateline Guy is on crack. Jet Knox isn’t a killer. He mentors kids and has pictures of his nieces and nephews on his mantle. He loves his family and thinks a good time is hosting all of them at his house for a week. I probably have a better chance of being killed in his isolated house, alone with him, than I would in the middle of a hundred NFL players and their families at a Hawaiian resort.
So when he takes me home and kisses me goodbye inside my front door, I ask, “Is that trip to Hawaii still on the table?”
His face lights up like a handsome, well-chiseled jack-o-lantern. “You bet! Have you changed your mind?”
I nod. “Maybe. It sounds like fun.”
“It is! It’s also work for me, but not hard work. Fun work. It would be mega-cool if you were there with me. When you said no, I started stressing about who else I was going to ask. Picking one of my siblings doesn’t seem fair, and I guess they could all go, but that gets distracting and hectic. Bringing my parents seems lame. Nice for them, but not very fun for me.”
I place my finger against his lips. “Well, I guess now you don’t have to worry about making that decision. If you still want to take me.”
His features relax, and his eyes zoom in on mine. What feels like a cocktail of soda and pop rocks bubbles in my belly. “Definitely,” he answers. “More than anything.”
“Then I guess I better buy a swimsuit.”
“Or not. My suite has its own private infinity pool.”
And with that teaser/promise/ultimate distraction begins the longest two-and-a-half weeks of my life. I want to go to Hawaii right now. Hop on a plane with no luggage, no stressing about what to bring and what I’ll wear to the events when we get there. No endless phone calls from my brother, with his ridiculous requests for me to get this or that player’s autograph or carry him around on my cell phone the whole time. No snide remarks from Rae about how I’m turning out to be much less of a challenge than Jet probably originally thought and wondering if that means he’ll tire of me more quickly. No Creepy Dateline Guy talking to me every night before I drop off to sleep, reminding me that nobody believes they could be falling in love with a psychopath. “Everyone thought Ted Bundy was a swell guy, too, you know.”
Oh, my gosh. Shut your hole, Creepy Dateline Guy!
We’ve finally made it, though. We’re in sunny Hawaii. Getting lei’d on the tarmac after stepping off the Wise brothers’ private jet. Checking into the hotel on the resort being taken over by some of the largest people in America. Staring at the bed in Jet’s suite, wondering what will be happening here during the next few days. Escaping to the lanai to get some fresh air, under the guise of verifying that the private infinity pool is as amazing as promised. (It is.) Realizing that the dirty fantasies are as intense out here as they are in the bedroom. Returning to the room and trying to become as relaxed as Jet seems while he bounces on the end of the bed like a mattress tester.
“Seeing if it squeaks,” he says with a cheeky wink. His face falls when I don’t laugh, because I’m about to cry. “Hey, what’s wrong?”
What is wrong with me? I shaved, I waxed, I buffed, I wrapped, I polished, I bleached. I did things to myself to prepare for this week that took a huge chunk out of my film fund and made me feel like a vain, shallow idiot. Now that the moment I’ve been dreaming about is here, I’m experiencing some major stage fright. Major. Like, the last thing I want to do is take off my clothes for this guy so he can compare me to every other naked woman he’s ever seen.
What is that number, anyway? Probably huge. Probably mind-boggling. Probably stomach-turning.
If I let him add me to the tally, does that make me a glorified Pro Bowl escort? “Take me to the Pro Bowl, and I’ll have sex with you”? It seems so— so… crass. And unfair. Because he and I have been on several dates now, and we’ve been to each other’s houses, and if he was any other no-name guy, it wouldn’t be a big deal. But he’s not any other no-name guy. He’s All-Pro quarterback Jet Knox. For the past couple of weeks, I’ve been able to somehow forget that. But now, surrounded by his contemporaries, all of whom are here in a professional capacity, no matter how fun it’s billed to be, I can’t ignore it.
He stands and approaches me like one would greet a skittish dog, minus the flat hand to the nose. Gently, he takes both of my hands in his and bends his knees to level his eyes with mine. “You okay? You look like you don’t feel well. Maybe we should get something to eat. When my blood sugar—”
“I’m not hungry,” I quickly say, averting my eyes, which land on the bed again, then dart to the tile floor.
“Then what’s—”
I cross to the sofa and perch on the edge. He sits next to me, resting his hand on my back. “If you tell me what’s wrong, I’ll fix it. Is it the room? I’m not picky, but some people get bad vibes from a place.”
I shake my head. “Not the room. Technically.” His forehead wrinkles, signifying a mixture of confusion and concern, so it’s the moment of truth—or concealment. I either need to tell him what’s bothering me or downplay it and move on. It’s not too late to take the blood sugar excuse and run with it.
But I can’t. He deserves honesty, if nothing else, no matter how mortifying it is for me to say what I’m about to say.
“This place is amazing,” I start. Yes, yes. Always go with something positive first.
“But?”
Oh. He knows this technique.
“But it’s— Well, it’s a little intense. Being here. With you.”
He releases a breath I didn’t realize he was holding. “Oh. Okay.”
“I feel like there are expectations—I had them, too!—about this week, this room. Suddenly… It’s a lot of pressure.”
His response to that is to kick off his shoes, lean back on the couch, fold his arms behind his head, and stretch his legs in front of him. After he’s been quiet for a while, I look over my shoulder at him, and I’m surprised to see him grinning at me.
“Wh
at? What’s so funny?”
He lifts one of his shoulders but keeps smiling. “You are.”
“I’m not trying to be funny. I’m trying not to freak out!” But it’s impossible to remain tense with him looking at me like that, posed like that, so I return his smile.
“You need this vacation more than I realized. It’s a good thing I forced you to come along.”
“You didn’t force—”
“Exactly. So relax.” He lowers his arms and pats his chest. “C’mere.”
It’s quickly becoming one of my favorite places, so I comply, resting my ear against his heart, which, I swear, has a resting rate of about thirty beats per minute. Thud (pause, pause, pause). Thud (pause, pause, pause). Thud (pause, pause, pause)…
“I want you to have a good time,” he says, his voice rumbling under my head. “That’s all. Whatever that means. No pressure whatsoever. If you’re tense or worried or freaked out, that defeats the purpose of this trip.”
I nod my understanding. “Okay. I’m sorry I’m being weird.”
“Please. No apologies, no explanations, no worries.” He cranes his neck to see my face, so I make it easier for him and look up. “You want a different room?”
“I told you, it’s not the room.”
“No, ‘different,’ as in, ‘separate.’ From mine.”
“Oh.” I consider it for a second, but that seems like such a pain, and likely impossible. This place is booked solid. This room is fabulous, now that I look around at more than just the bed.
I shake my head. “No. This is fine.”
“I don’t snore.”
“I do.”
He laughs. “Oh, great. Maybe I want a different room.”
“I’m kidding.”
“Me too. Relax.”
I almost apologize again but worry it will make things worse. Instead, I say, “Thank you.”
“For what? For being a decent human being?”
“You’re more than that.”
He shifts under me and sits up. “What I am is hungry. Let’s order room service, then take a swim. Or go for a walk on the beach.” He nods toward the sound of the waves we can hear and smell but can’t see from where we’re sitting.
