by Nana Malone
He stopped the car at the valet stand, and hurried to help her out. He took her hand and held tight. “You look amazing, by the way. I should have said it earlier, but you do,” he murmured in her ear.
“Thank you. I kinda figured you liked the dress when you tried to take it off right away.” The dress was officially her new favorite.
Dusty rose in color with a soft ruffle accent along the neckline, the airy and sheer fabric tickled her shoulders. The main body of the dress was fitted but breathable through the bust, until it reached the waist, where it clung to her hips and upper thighs at its narrowest point before flaring out, settling around her knees. She wore nude heels—one of two pairs of heels she owned, and avoided wearing if she could help it. Because she was more comfortable in tennis shoes.
They were ushered through the entryway and into the large parlor where most of the guests were gathered. Bryce tightened his hand over hers. She whispered, “Relax,” to him a few times while smiling uncomfortably at all the unfamiliar gazes turned their way.
“I think we’re finally going to be properly introduced,” a familiar-looking blonde woman remarked, approaching the couple. “I’m Echo—Bryce’s sister. We almost met a few times…” She held out her hand.
Tami gripped it tight. “Tami. And yes, I do remember seeing you a few times at the court in my neighborhood. Bryce told me you’re a runner?”
“Yeah, I train a lot on the track at San Diego University.”
Bryce was conspicuously quiet, as Tami and Echo chatted politely. Glancing up to make sure he was all right, Tami noticed him watching someone. She leaned over. “Why don’t you get us something to drink? Your sister will keep me company.” She didn’t want him to go, but he clearly needed to speak to someone.
“Huh? Oh. Drinks. Right. Anything in particular?” he asked, shaking off his daze.
“Nothing too strong.” She wasn’t a big drinker. And, well, she’d need to keep her wits about her with this crew.
With a nod, he wandered off.
“You might regret that,” Echo told her. “Everything needs to be strong to make it in this family—especially the drinks.”
Tami chuckled. “So Bryce tells me. Um…would you mind telling me who that is?” She pointed towards a lithe brunette who was watching Bryce like her life depended on it.
“Oh. Uh…she’s one of Bryce’s exes,” Echo explained hesitantly. “Don’t worry. He didn’t invite her. I don’t know what he warned you about, but I’m afraid there are certain members here who aren’t exactly…enthused about how serious Bryce is about you.”
Fantastic. “They already hate me?” Tami whispered.
Echo scrunched her nose. “Our grandfather can be…pretentious?”
“Let me guess, he’s got someone else in mind for Bryce and is doing everything to make sure I don’t get my gold digging mitts on the golden child?” Tami guessed.
“Not necessarily the way I would word it, but…yeah, basically,” Echo confirmed. “Honestly, the only person most of us had really hoped Bryce would end up with is Jen. Except Dax, of course—he’s had his eye on her forever, and maybe that’s why Bryce never went after her. And then there’s the fact that even though Bryce and Jen get along great, she’s more like another sister to him—they’ve both told me so before. I haven’t seen him serious about anyone the way he is with you. At first, I assumed—I think we all did—that the way he’d been acting had to do with his knee. But it’s been more than that. It’s…well, it’s been you. And I, for one, am happy about it. You seem nice.”
Wow. The girl could talk. Before she could respond or even process, Bryce returned with two glasses of wine. Tami accepted hers gratefully, and resisted the urge to gulp it down. She knew how she felt about Bryce, and had been doing what she could to keep from falling too hard, too fast. But to hear from his sister about Bryce’s feelings was… Yeah. Overwhelming.
Or was it just part of what he’d warned her about? Was Echo one of the members of his family to be trusted, or would she stoop to messing with her mind to get to Bryce? No, the way Bryce had always talked about his sister was loving, and supportive. He didn’t always get on with his brothers, but she was his little sister. As far as Tami could tell, they seemed pretty close.
One thing was for sure, it was going to be a long party if she’d only met one person and was already second-guessing everything she heard.
She and Bryce stayed glued to one another’s sides as he introduced her to his parents, his brothers—she ignored some of the less-delicate gestures of approval they made towards Bryce when her back was turned—and finally his grandparents. Rory Coulter made an imposing frame. He quizzed Tami on her family history and her lack of a tennis career—having run into and spoken with Andrew Sampson earlier in the afternoon.
Tami deflected each question with as much skill as she returned serves. At least, she hoped she did. But at every opportunity, she turned his questions on him. Asking about his parents, and describing her memories of her father telling her about watching him play football. The older man was slippery and sharp as a tack.
As she and Bryce moved on to chat with other guests, he said, loud enough to hear, “I still think it’d be better for the boy to find someone with stronger ties to…well, to anything.” But despite that, there was a definite lightening of the tension that swirled. Maybe she’d passed the test?
The relatively quiet milling around transitioned into lunch, and then a cake was brought out and everyone’s focus reverted to Brent. Bryce tugged on her hand and inclined his head toward the exit.
“I don’t think we’ll need to stick around too much longer if you don’t want to,” he told her, checking his watch. "It's not like this crowd knows how to party."
“You mean the ordeal is ending,” she teased. It had been overwhelming, but she’d done okay…she hoped. And at least she’d been here for Bryce. He wasn’t kidding about his family. Okay, so Echo was good. And his parents weren’t bad, if a bit reserved. His brothers were, well, Alpha males. Dax was flirtatious and inappropriate. Fox just stared at her boobs. But Rory…wow. And then Bryce’s ex, Grace. That had been…special. But despite it all, Bryce looked a lot happier than he had when they arrived. So that was good.
“You know…I haven’t been given a real tour of the place yet,” Tami pointed out. “If I’m going to be banned by your grandfather, I want to see a real-life castle first.”
Bryce smiled before he closed the distance between them, and rested his hands on her hips before ducking his head to kiss her. Automatically, she ran her hands over his chest, her fingers gripping the front of his shirt and raking the skin beneath, before she pushed him gently away. “Behave. We’re in public. Your parents’ house, to be specific.”
“Mmm. Buzzkill,” he sighed. “Fine, but maybe we should begin our tour outdoors and work our way inside when the guests have started to leave,” he suggested.
“I believe you mentioned something about having a tennis court on the grounds.” She doubted she’d ever be coming back here, so she wanted to check it out.
“Would you like to see it?”
Tami didn’t need to respond with anything more than a roll of her eyes to get him laughing, as he pulled her along through the halls that led to the back of the house.
Twenty-Two
“I can see if Echo will let you borrow a pair of shoes from her,” Bryce offered, as Tami shifted her weight from one foot to the other, adjusting to the cold of the court against her bare feet.
“I’ll be fine once we get playing,” she told him. “Hurry up and serve.”
It was the best way to work out the lingering tensions from the afternoon. The moment they’d spotted a pair of rackets in the small equipment shed with an unopened can of tennis balls, there had been instantaneous recognition on both their parts. Without speaking, Bryce had carefully set his jacket aside, removed his tie, and rolled up his sleeves, while Tami pulled off her heels and put her hair up—there wasn’t much she
could do about the dress, and while she was a little worried about ruining it, she knew she could set aside her pride if it needed dry cleaning or repairs and let Bryce pay for them. But they were so in sync it made her smile. They hadn’t even talked about it. Just gotten ready to play.
A cool spring breeze lifted the ruffle at the collar of her dress as she crouched at the baseline and waited for Bryce to serve. He moved gingerly, clearly feeling out his body and gently testing his limitations.
As they got further into the match, she refused to go easy on him. Eventually, he limbered up and she could tell he was clearly more comfortable with how he was pushing himself. Still, he didn’t quite have the stamina to go for very long against her relentless assault.
“Let me pull the ball machine out,” he offered. “Some of the ones left in there might be a little deflated, but they’ve still got more in them than I do,” he joked.
Tami agreed and straightened, bending and twisting in the dress to keep from cooling down too much. The skirt of her dress wasn’t just hugging her curves and thighs anymore; it was stuck to the sheen of sweat she’d worked up. But despite the sweat that was soaking the material, her range of motion wasn’t adversely affected. She brushed the loose curls off her forehead.
Bryce switched the machine on. It was older than the one at the tennis club, and with so many of the tennis balls underinflated, the inconsistencies in speed—and the affect that had on their direction—threw off her rhythm. She heard Bryce picking up the slack behind her, and turned to see him grinning. This felt like home, playing together…
They began taking turns on the serves, moving as they would if they were playing in a mixed-doubles match. When the machine ran out, the sound of clapping behind them made them turn, startled.
Echo was standing by the equipment building, along with Jen and Dax.
“You two could use some opponents,” Echo commented. “Then I’d be able to tell better whether that was really as good as it looked.”
“Any of you up for it?” he asked. He wasn’t as self-conscious as he might have been, if they’d caught him practicing alone, or if his grandfather had caught him. Tami was at his side, breathing heavily and curling into him.
“We were sent to look for you in case you two were…indisposed,” Dax teased with eyebrows raised suggestively. “Dad missed you guys during cake.”
“Shit!” Bryce exclaimed, glancing at his watch. “Have we really been gone that long? We’ll be right in,” he assured the trio, before hurrying to gather the loose tennis balls.
“Make sure you clean up before you check in with Mom and Dad,” Echo warned, as though she were the older sibling. Moments later, the three of them had disappeared back up to the main house.
Tami winced as she put her heels back on, and followed him back to the house. He gave her his arm to help her along.
“We’ll go in the back, and that way, we can stop by the bathroom to straighten up. I can only imagine what I must look like,” he remarked. He had his coat tucked beneath his arm and his tie loose about his neck, in hopes the breeze would help dry the patches of sweat underneath his arms, along his shoulders, and at the base of his spine.
Tami laughed wryly. “I’ll undo whatever good impression I might have made earlier when I walk in like this.” She gestured to her face and hair. Her makeup was smeared in places, where sweat had interfered. And her hair was flat and matted. He wanted her. But then, that was a constant state for him.
“You look stunning,” he assured her. “Rosy and lively and—”
“—stiff and grungy,” she finished for him. They both laughed before lapsing into a gentle silence as the house came back into sight.
There was no one around as they snuck in the back, and Bryce took her hand to lead her to a large bathroom off the hall between the kitchen and the library. The noise of the main party filtered through the dining room and parlor at the front of the house. Bryce locked the door behind them and found a washcloth in the closet for Tami.
“Bless you,” she sighed as she washed her face.
Bryce watched her in the mirror above the sink, trying to keep his eyes off of her ass. If he did that, he’d get distracted and not go through with his question.
“You might have noticed,” he began tentatively, “there are notices posted at the club about a tournament they have coming up in a few weeks.”
“I’m not entering,” she told him firmly, “if that’s what you’re hinting at.”
“Not exactly. I wasn’t thinking about you entering alone.”
She had finished removing her makeup, and she blinked up at him for a moment, before trying to fluff her hair.
“I was hoping you’d consider entering with me…as a doubles team,” he explained, rushing on before she could object. “I don’t think I’m ready to play completely on my own, and I know that we work well together—even Echo and Dax and Jen were saying so,” he pointed out. “If we practice a bit more as a doubles team—Andrew will help us find some practice partners to play against, and he can work with us himself, too.”
As he listed the points of his plan, he approached her from behind, reaching out and wrapping his arms around her so they crossed just below her breasts. She bit her bottom lip—a sure sign she was warming to the idea—as her arms twined around his, her hands resting on his.
She wasn’t the only one warming to something. His cock twitched, and he rested his forehead against her nape, his nose pressed to her neck. Fuck, would he ever have enough of her?
“Please,” he whispered, peering at her reflection in the mirror from over her shoulder. “Say you’ll do it.”
She sighed, but it wasn’t a sigh of exasperation or resignation. Her pupils dilated and her lips parted. Her ass was pressed against his groin, and he knew there was no way she would miss his cock’s insistent nudging.
When she spoke, her voice was husky. “Fine,” she nodded. “We’ll compete together—for this tournament,” she made a point of adding. “Next time, though, you should be ready to do it on your own. I think you can.”
“Thank you,” he murmured as she turned her head so he could kiss her.
It started as a light kiss of appreciation. He hadn’t meant to start anything, but the kiss deepened as he ran a hand across her stomach, moving lower. Shit. Even sweaty and with no makeup, she was so sexy. She shifted her weight, widening her stance just enough to give him access. Damn, she was hot.
Bryce hitched up her dress, and slid his fingers over her satiny thigh to her heated center. Her breathing quickened as he pressed against the fabric to the sensitive folds beneath. With his other hand, he palmed her breast, kneading her, her stiff nipple pressing into his hand. She pressed her ass more firmly against him, and he let out a curse. His fingers slipped under the elastic of her panties, and they both hissed in a sharp breath. She was so wet. So slick. So ready.
“Are you sure…this is a good idea?” she asked breathlessly.
He swallowed hard. This was a bad idea. The worst. But he could give two fucks. “Haven’t you noticed? I’m full of good ideas today.” He pushed his pulsing erection against her.
Her answering laugh was deep and throaty. She writhed against him slowly, rubbing her ass over him again and again. He was going to come soon if she kept that up. The fingers of her right hand began trailing along his back. She gently took hold of him to stop his ministrations and shook him off.
Uncertain and worried he’d misread her body language, he took a step back and watched as she peeled the fabric of her skirt away from her legs and hips, lifting it up past her waist, so the stark white fabric of her string-bikini-style panties contrasted with her skin.
Condom. He needed a…fuck. They were in his room. “Tami, shit baby. I’m sorry. No condoms. I’ve got some here, but they’re in my room. The rest are at your place.”
She bit her lip, even as she met his gaze in the mirror. “I don’t care. I’m on the pill.”
He froze. Fully aware of h
er past, he knew the kind of trust she was placing in him.
From his periphery, he caught the movement of her panties sliding down her legs. She adjusted her stance again in those ridiculous heels. The motion forced the muscles in her legs into taut lines, leading his gaze back up their length to her firm ass. She was bent over, offering herself to him, her arms braced against the counter of the sink. “Bryce, I need you.”
His cock throbbed painfully as he tugged down the zipper of his pants. She held his gaze in the mirror. He couldn’t look away, even as he slid his fingers over her slick heat again, searching for access. Gripping his cock, he traced lightly along the length of her slick opening. They both groaned.
Inch by inch, he slid deep. Fuck, shit, holy hell. He’d never felt anything like this in his life. So damn hot and tight. He had to fight every instinct to take her quick and hard.
Seconds later, he’d buried his cock deep within her. She tried to muffle a whimper, but widened her stance for him, and he choked back a growl of satisfaction. Her panties tore with a loud snap, as she inched her feet farther apart.
He slid his hands from her hips, up along the bare skin of her torso to her waist, as he began to slip in and out of the strong grip she had on him within her. So fucking good. He was never letting her go. Tami’s whimpers rose in pitch with each steady thrust from him. Slow and measured, he took her letting her feel every inch. She tried to increase the pace. And he let her. He had to let go of her as she rocked harder onto him, switching his position so his arms went to either side of her, gripping the counter and using it to pull himself deeper into her. As though they were attempting to pass through each other.
His orgasm raced toward him, but he didn’t want to come. Not yet. He wanted to do this fucking forever. He wanted to take her every way, to possess her like she owned him. With a sharp, sudden gasp, she came hard, squeezing him tight with her velvet walls convulsing around him. Her eyes fluttered closed as she whispered his name. Growling deep, he gripped her hips tight, stroking her deeper, harder, faster, desperate to hit her G-spot. To make her his as many times as he could, before his own release chased him into oblivion.
