She had chosen a light, white cotton summer dress that complemented her figure and looked stunning against her dark skin. With a wide-brimmed straw hat, white wedge sandals, and the same sunglasses she had worn to the tennis match, she looked and felt smart yet comfortable. Brad had promised they wouldn’t be visiting any expensive restaurants, so she was sure her dress was appropriate for whatever he had in mind.
She hadn’t heard from him all day, so she had no idea where they were supposed to meet. She picked up her phone and sent a text to him.
Where are you?
His reply came back almost immediately. Downstairs in the lobby of your hotel. Do you know that there’s a great Mexican restaurant right around the corner?
I’ll be down in five, she sent back.
When she emerged from the elevator two minutes later, Brad was standing by the reception desk, waiting for her. He wore casual pants and a light blue shirt. As always, he looked gorgeous.
When he saw Simone, he came over to her. “You look amazing.”
“Funny,” she said, “I was just thinking the same thing about you.”
“Flattery will get you everywhere. You like Mexican food?”
“I love it.”
She took his offered arm and they walked down the block to the restaurant he had mentioned. As soon as they got through the door, the aroma of spices, fresh tomatoes, and chili made Simone’s mouth water.
The restaurant was busy but not full. On a small stage in the corner, a young guitarist played flamenco music on an acoustic guitar, the notes almost drowned out by the hum of conversation and clattering of cutlery.
A waitress who was dressed smartly in a white shirt and black pants seated Simone and Brad near the window and took their drink order. Simone ordered a glass of red wine, but Brad told the waitress they would have a bottle of it and a pitcher of beer.
“Don’t forget you’re playing a match tomorrow,” Simone teased.
“True,” he said, “but I intend to eat so much food tonight that it will soak up all the booze.”
She laughed. “Maybe that isn’t the best strategy since you’ll be running around a tennis court tomorrow.”
“Hmm, also true. Okay, so just because I order a lot of food and drink doesn’t mean we have to consume it all.”
“I know, it’s just your way. You do everything flamboyantly,” she said.
He nodded. “You’re right. That’s why I struggle to win some matches. I don’t make it easy on myself. If I can hit a surefire winning shot, or a flamboyant shot that has less chance of winning the point, I go for the flamboyant shot every time.”
“That’s what I was trying to tell you,” Simone said. “It’s like you have to show the world that not only can you win, you can show off while doing so.”
“Yeah, I guess it’s messed up,” he said, “because it conflicts with my fear of losing that you’re so keen to make me leave behind.”
The waitress returned with the drinks and set them on the table while Brad ordered a selection of burritos and tacos for him and Simone to share.
Simone took a sip of her wine and said, “Yes, I am keen for you to leave that fear behind. Look, here’s a guy who plays tennis, and his reason for winning is something positive.” She took the salt shaker and set it on the table in front of her. “Let’s say he wants to win because he can use the prize money to provide for his family.”
“Okay, I get that,” Brad said as he poured himself a beer from the pitcher.
“Now here’s a guy,” Simone said, taking the pepper shaker and placing it next to the salt shaker, “who plays tennis, too. But his only reason to win is that he doesn’t want to lose. That’s it. He doesn’t want people to think he’s a loser. Who do you think has the strongest drive to win?”
“Mr. Salt,” Brad said. “That’s obvious.”
“Exactly. But you are Mr. Pepper. You told me that you want to win simply because you don’t want to lose. That’s your drive. A fear of losing. Not very positive, is it? So we need to turn you into Mr. Salt by finding a better motivator for you than fear. Once you find something that motivates you more than fear, you’ll be more in tune with your goals and you’ll play better because you’ll be more mentally focused.”
He nodded slowly. “You’re right. I need to lose the fear and find something positive to inspire me to win.”
“Yes, and you have to find it within yourself. Only you truly know what motivates you. And only you know what fear has been driving you up to this point.”
“That’s what we can talk about,” he said. “When we did that visualization this morning, I realized what it is that’s been making me afraid to lose.”
“Okay, so tell me about that.”
He hesitated as if unsure how to begin. “It goes way back to when I was eighteen. We used to live in a small town in Massachusetts called Paxton Falls. Me, my mom and dad, and my brothers, Carter and Cole.
“Paxton Falls isn’t exactly a regular kind of place. It’s been around since the eighteenth century, and has always attracted preternaturals.”
“Preternaturals?” Simone asked. The food arrived, and she and Brad became quiet while the waitress laid the platters and dishes on the table. The chicken, beef, and tortillas smelled amazing. The waitress told them to call her over if they needed anything else, and disappeared to serve other customers.
Brad leaned forward and lowered his voice slightly, as if suddenly aware that they were in a public place. “Preternaturals is the collective name given to shifters, witches, vampires, and anyone else with a paranormal side to their nature.”
Simone took a mouthful of beef burrito and savored the taste of the spiced beef. She wanted to ask if witches and vampires really existed, but she decided to let Brad finish his story. Not too long ago, she hadn’t believed in the existence of shifters, but now she was sitting across a table from one. Hell, she had even slept with him, so that must make her open-minded on the subject of preternaturals.
“Paxton Falls has always been thought of as special,” Brad said. “There’s a forest there that witches believe to be enchanted. And there’s something about the geography of the town that means it’s sitting on a power source in the earth or something. Anyway, that means there are a lot of shifters and witches living among the people there.
“When I was growing up, I had a best friend named Marcus. He was a wolf shifter. But being shifters wasn’t our strongest bond; it was our love of tennis that made us friends. Ever since my dad got me interested in watching tennis on TV, I wanted to play. When my parents bought me a racket for my thirteenth birthday, I was hooked. When I was fifteen, I signed up for a class at a community center in the next town, and that was where I met Marcus. We hit it off right away, always joking around with each other, and we became inseparable.
“As we got older, it became obvious that I was a better player than Marcus. That was probably because I practiced more than he did. I spent hours on our lawn, serving ball after ball at tin cans until I could hit them any time I wanted.
“Marcus and I used to train together, too, but after a while he stopped turning up for our sessions. He drifted away from the game of tennis and became involved in something much darker.
“He became involved with a group of witches. I didn’t know why, and at the time, I was too busy to think about it too much. I had attracted the attention of some professional coaches and agents, and I was on tour a lot of the time playing in minor tennis matches across the country. Whenever I returned home, I’d get in contact with Marcus, but he always seemed busy. We lost contact eventually, and I heard rumors that his witch friends were causing trouble in town.” He paused and took a sip of beer before taking a bite of a burrito.
“Trouble in what way?” Simone asked.
“They were casting hexes and curses on people. That may sound ridiculous to you, but in a town like Paxton Falls, where centuries of superstition run in everyone’s blood, things like that are taken seriously.
> “I returned home for the summer when I was eighteen, and one evening while I was taking a walk in the woods near our house, I met Cora Dearmont. I had seen her before in high school but hadn’t taken much notice of her. She was nineteen now, though, and she had become a very attractive young woman.
“We chatted for a while. There was an attraction between us. We started dating and, as the summer wore on, I fell in love with her.” He took another swallow of his beer. “When I say I fell in love with her, I mean I fell in love with her the way any eighteen-year-old young man would fall in love with a beautiful woman a couple of years older than himself. This was nothing like The Call, when a shifter recognizes his mate; that’s something totally different.”
“Okay,” Simone said, nodding. She wasn’t sure why Brad was so keen to make the distinction.
“Anyway, the reason I was home that summer was so I could train for my first major grand slam tournament. That tournament meant everything to me, but Cora must have meant more because I was distracted from tennis and hardly trained at all. My parents and my brothers tried to get me to focus, but the more they pushed me, the more I rebelled.
“As the summer came to an end, and I was getting ready to leave Paxton Falls to enter the tournament, I knew I was out of shape and unprepared. I was going to blow my big chance to start my career on the right path, and all because I had been distracted all summer by Cora.
“Even then, when I knew I had thrown away my chance, I told myself that was the price of love, or something like that. I was a starry-eyed, naive fool where Cora was concerned.
“That is, until the morning I was loading my stuff into the back of my car on the driveway. Cora had said she would come to say goodbye, and she did. But when she arrived, she was accompanied by Marcus. And he was grinning from ear to ear like a cat that had just wounded a helpless bird and was playing with it until it was dead.
“My old friend looked terrible. I could see that his association with the witches had taken its toll on him. I had no idea what their arrangement with him entailed, but it wasn’t doing him any favors. He started to tell me that he had resented me ever since my tennis career had taken off. At first, he had asked the witches to help him be as good as me, but when that didn’t work, he gave up trying to elevate himself and focused on bringing me down instead.
“Cora was the daughter of one of his witch friends, urged by her mother to distract me from my training by offering me something more…enticing. And now Marcus was there with her to tell me that everything I had experienced that summer, every emotion and every moment of happiness with Cora, had been a lie.
“I asked her if it was true. She couldn’t look me in the eyes to say it wasn’t. She just stared at the ground while Marcus took great pleasure in telling me that he had ruined my career and that I would never be anything now, except a loser.”
“Oh my God, that’s terrible,” Simone said. “What happened?”
“I lost my first match, and I was out of the grand slam tournament. Distracting me from training all summer had been bad enough, but telling me on the day I was leaving that everything had been fake was the final nail in the coffin. I was too distracted to tie my shoelaces properly. I thought my career was over for good, which was what Marcus had planned all along.”
“But you found the strength to get your career back on track,” Simone said.
“Eventually. I spent a year or so bumming around the circuit, trying to get my head straight. After that, I put aside all my emotions, focused on the game, and didn’t let anything else distract me. Women were fine for one-night stands, but I was never going to fall for anyone ever again. I fought hard and long to climb the ladder, and I couldn’t let anything jeopardize that.”
Simone nodded, understanding Brad’s point of view. “So that’s why you fear losing. You fought so hard to get your career together that you can’t stand the thought of being the loser Marcus said you were.”
Brad shrugged. “I guess so. I never thought of it in those terms, at least not consciously, but it was probably there under the surface all the time.”
“This is all interesting, and it will help me to formulate some techniques to help you. I’m sorry that you went through such a tough time, but thank you for sharing it with me.”
“No problem. It all happened some years ago so I don’t mind talking about it now, but at the time, I didn’t even tell my brothers what had happened. I felt too foolish.”
They ate for a while and made small talk while the restaurant gradually filled with more customers. Simone was glad that Brad had opened up to her, but something he had said stuck in her mind.
I was never going to fall for anyone again.
She could understand why he had made that decision, and he had every right to decide not to fall for anyone, but it made her position more unbearable because she was still dealing with the emotions she felt for him. The story of his past had made her even more empathetic toward him. Brad had been hurt, yet he had fought for what he wanted. His actions were more understandable when put into context with his past experience.
If she was having feelings for him beyond their obvious physical attraction, then that was for her to deal with. She wondered if those feelings would grow stronger after she slept with him tonight, and already knew the answer to that question. She was getting herself deeper and deeper into trouble. If she wasn’t careful, she was going to end up getting hurt.
Yet she was already in so deep that she couldn’t walk away.
When they were done eating, Brad paid the bill and then they went out onto the street. “Is there anywhere else you’d like to go?” Brad asked.
Simone shook her head and cuddled up against him. “It’s getting colder. Maybe you could come back to my place?”
He smiled. “Of course, I’d love to see your place.”
“It’s nowhere near as nice as yours,” she said as they started along the sidewalk toward her hotel.
“We can go back to mine, if you like,” he offered.
“No, come to my room tonight.” She didn’t want to get a cab all the way across town to Brad’s hotel because she couldn’t wait to get intimate with him. Her hotel was close enough that she might be able to resist jumping on him before they got to her room.
He slid his arm around her waist, and they got to the hotel within a couple of minutes, hurrying across the lobby to the elevator as they both became impatient to get to the room.
The elevator was occupied by two other couples, so they stood in silence, waiting for the floor numbers to gradually rise to Simone’s floor. She was acutely aware of Brad’s touch against her back. In a few moments, he would be touching her everywhere. That thought made Simone will the elevator to move faster.
When it finally reached her floor, they almost ran to her room. She fumbled the keycard out of her purse and noticed, as she slid it through the digital lock, that her hand was trembling with excitement.
As soon as they were in the room, their lips locked in a kiss. Brad’s hands roamed over the back of the dress, gently squeezing Simone’s ass. She fumbled with his jeans, stroking his released hard cock when they finally fell to the floor and he stepped out of them.
He pushed the dress from her shoulders, revealing her large breasts held within the confines of the lacy white bra she had chosen earlier.
“Let me get out of this dress,” she offered, stepping back and removing it.
He looked at her in the white sandals, bra, and panties, and growled. “You’re perfect, Simone.” He removed the rest of his clothes and stood naked and aroused before her.
They kissed again, her hand stroking his thick manhood while he unclasped her bra. Her breasts fell into his waiting hands. He moved his mouth down to her nipples, kissing and licking each in turn until they stood erect like two black towers.
Dropping to his knees, Brad hooked his fingers into the waistband of Simone’s panties and slid them down to her ankles. She stepped out of them and parted her le
gs slightly as he leaned forward and kissed her pussy. The contact of his lips against her sex made her tremble. Brad picked her up and laid her on the bed, kissing her inner thighs, moving his mouth toward her pussy.
Simone groaned when his tongue licked slowly and teasingly up the length of her slit. She opened her legs wider and grabbed Brad’s hair, pulling his face closer to her, needing more of the delights his tongue could give her.
His tongue delved inside her, tasting her arousal and making her hips arch with pleasure. “Oh God, Brad,” she moaned as his tongue moved up to her clit. It moved in tiny circles over the hood before pressing against the bundle of excited nerves. Simone gasped at the pleasure pulsing through her body, needing Brad’s tongue inside her again.
Realizing her need, he slid a finger inside her while continuing to stimulate her sensitive bud with his tongue. He bent his finger slightly, finding Simone’s G-spot and gently caressing it.
The sensations of having his finger inside her and his tongue circling her clit sent Simone into a wild, thrashing orgasm. She cried out his name as she writhed on the bed, arching her hips as her pussy muscles clenched around his finger.
He seemed to know exactly when to stop, when the slightest touch would become too much, and slid his finger out of her as he looked up at her trembling body.
She looked at him through half-closed eyes, still trying to catch her breath.
“You look so beautiful,” he said, reaching over for his pants and taking a condom from his wallet. Simone waited patiently for him to get it on. She needed him inside her right now.
When he climbed onto the bed and positioned himself between her legs, she longed for the pleasure of feeling his hard length slide into her. When he pushed forward with his hips, sinking his thick length into her body, she felt as if the sexual tension that had been building since they’d left the restaurant had suddenly been released; Brad was inside her, where he belonged. She squeezed him with her inner muscles, looking up into his eyes as he thrust deeper into her.
McClintock Bears Box Set Page 15
