by Stacy Gail
“I can imagine.”
“He’d go in these cycles. Faith healings, tent revivals that dragged our sorry asses all over Louisiana for a month at a time, speaking in tongues, fasting for the local news crews, and my least favorite, snake-handling. I wasn’t going to be a part of his dog-and-pony show anymore, and I wasn’t about to feed that Godzilla-sized ego of his by allowing him to put another fucking snake in my hand. So I told him exactly that.”
“Good for you.”
“Not good for me. Next thing I know, the old fuck’s dragging me to the front of his flock, saying I’d been possessed by the Devil himself. Then he dropped two rattlers on my head.”
Her skin iced over. “Oh, God.”
“Oh, God is right. I didn’t get bitten.”
She pressed a hand to her chest. “Thank goodness.”
“Not right then, anyway.”
Crap.
“My old man got so pissed off that I hadn’t been bitten, he threw a temper tantrum right there in front of his shocked parishioners. There he was, trying to prove to the masses how evil I was by getting me snake-bit. And there the snakes were, refusing to bite me. Gotta love that irony.”
She didn’t love any of it. “What happened?”
“That asshole began poking me to make me move, but the fucker had a real problem on his hands. He’d inadvertently trained me too well. For years I’d been exposed to venomous snakes, so instead of reacting to the pain he was giving me, I didn’t fucking move. That made him completely lose his shit and he started poking at the snakes. Then he got bit, flailed out and knocked me down on top of one of them.” He showed her the inside of his forearm, where she could just see twin puckered scars, like little starbursts, in his skin. “Come to find out, it was a blessing in disguise. The state of Louisiana took me away from that bat-shit crazy bastard, and after he recovered he went to prison for five years for aggravated assault, cruelty to a juvenile, and child endangerment.”
“Good,” She couldn’t keep that bottled up if her life depended on it. “What about you? Were you sent to live with relatives? What about your mom?”
He grimaced. “She died in childbirth. I never knew her.”
Poor man never had a chance with a crazy father like that. “So where did you finally land?”
“A nice couple who were former members of my father’s congregation took me in, and life became a million times better.” His sight turned inward, and for a split second his mask slipped to show a sadness so piercing it bordered on grief. Then he placed the cue ball on a glowing dot on the table and turned his head back to her in such a way that their faces were only inches apart. “But I don’t want to talk about my old man right now. What I want to do is play with you, Essie.” He was close enough for her to breathe in—citrus and amber, and thoroughly delicious. “Do you want to play with me?”
Her gaze lifted to his. He knew exactly what he was saying, the wicked man. And now that he’s thrown that out there, he was going to do nothing but wait to see if she had the guts to take up the challenge.
Yeah, he’d wait.
He’d never force.
That made all the difference in the world.
“I do,” she said softly. If it involved Steele, she was up for anything he had in mind.
And he looked like he had in mind one hell of a lot.
His smile was brilliant enough to light up the entire complex. Then, while she was still trying to recover from that, he moved in to brush his mouth against hers. “I was hoping I’d get a chance to teach you a few things tonight. I’ve decided we need to start with some basics.”
Her surging excitement fizzled. That sounded utterly harmless. “Don’t you need a stick?”
“Don’t you worry about my stick, sweetness. It’ll get taken care of eventually. Right now this is all about you.”
Oh my.
The way he said stick was downright scandalous.
Maybe his statement wasn’t that harmless after all.
Her excitement started to climb its way back up. “How do we begin?”
“The beginning’s always the most important part, with the exception of the finish. One wrong move and you’re done before you even had a chance to take a winning shot.” Positioning himself behind her and to her left, his hand went to the place between her shoulder blades. He gently pushed her forward toward the table’s felt top, while his other hand coaxed her to bring the stick up. The heat of his hand against her spine branded her skin, and the sizzling sensation made her breath catch. “Don’t be too stiff, baby. Just relax. Let me get you to where you need to be. Trust me, Essie?”
Her throat was so dry she had to swallow to speak. “Yes.”
“Good girl.” His arms came around her, and her heart tried to beat her to death. His body heat was intoxicating, and when the hand at her back reached up to flick her hair to one side so he could nestle his chin against her shoulder, she may have whimpered silently. “Now, before we get started, I need to say something. In this game, the stick has to be used. You know that, right?”
The stick again.
Oh, man.
“Mm-hm.”
“Nothing that’s truly, deeply exciting can happen without the stick, but that’s nothing to be afraid of, sweetness. You got my word on that.”
Her entire body blushed. “I’m not afraid.”
“No?”
“No. I’m just new to this. I’ve… I’ve never voluntarily played before.”
“I get that. It means a hell of a lot to me that you’re willing to learn how to play now.” His face turned into the side of her head, and she closed her eyes when the lobe of her ear was caught between his teeth and sucked into the wet chamber of his mouth to be expertly toyed with.
Her knees threatened imminent meltdown, her pelvic muscles tightened in a way that made her want to squirm, and she didn’t even know what the hell was going on in her panties. The only thing she did know was that if this was how billiards was played, she was now a lifelong fan.
“You’re doing so well.” His mouth blazed a caressing trail to behind her ear, where he paused to taste her with his tongue. “I’m proud of you, you know that?”
“I haven’t done anything.” Oh yay, she could still put a sentence together. Maybe her brain hadn’t melted after all.
“You’ve done so much already, just by letting me get this close to you. I’m going to get even closer now so I can show you how to get a good, long stroke of the stick. Get ready.”
Oh, Lord have mercy…
She bit her lip as the hand at her back traveled to her hip, trying to stifle a moan as a swelling throb pulsed between her legs. She squeezed her upper thighs together to alleviate the achy pressure, but that only made it worse. Then he slowly flattened his chest against her back, distracting her from the unbelievable dampness of her panties. His weight kept increasing, as did the body contact. Before she knew it, she couldn’t focus on anything but the spectacular miracle that they fit together in this position like a couple of spoons, despite their size difference. Of course, he was the bigger spoon. Much bigger…
Much.
Bigger.
Whoa.
Her breathing squeezed to a halt as she registered the stiffness pressed to the curve of her ass. For a full five seconds her brain shot into wild trigonometry calculations to figure out just how big that stiffness was, and where exactly it was coming from, on the off-chance that he somehow had either a heavy-duty pipe wrench or perhaps a summer sausage in his pocket.
But she knew what it was.
His size fourteen shoes hadn’t lied.
Wowie.
“You’ve stopped breathing, sweetness.” He kissed the side of her neck, then opened his mouth on the cord there to gently suck in her taste. “You’re not going to be a total wimp and faint on me, are you?”
“Arrogant.” Despite worrying over that herself—and really, when a man’s hard-on could be mistaken for a summer sausage, she thought she could be
excused—she couldn’t help but react to the taunt. “You really think you’re that magnificent, don’t you?”
A low laugh whispered against her ear. “There’s my feisty fighter. I just wanted to make sure you stayed conscious through this lesson. No sleeping in class allowed.”
As if she’d miss a second of this lesson. “Proceed, Professor. All I ask is that you do your best to keep me awake.”
“You’re a true gem, Essie.” He said it with such sincerity she was left blinking when he abruptly switched back to the role of teacher. “Once you’ve got the stick, freedom of movement becomes your number-one priority. You want a firm, easy glide. When it’s right, you know it when you feel it, because it’s a feeling of pure pleasure.”
“You don’t say.” That sounded good. Better than good.
“The trick is not to tense up.” His left hand trailed leisurely down her bare arm before he placed her forearm on the table’s felt. His hand engulfed hers, moving her fingers to loosely circle the pool cue. “Position is important, but so is how you feel while you’re in that position, know what I mean? You need to relax so that you can enjoy the game to its fullest. Think you can do that?” He caressed her arm again while his mouth nipped at the place where shoulder and neck connected—an ordinary spot until that moment. Now it was a newly discovered erogenous zone that made her muscles liquefy.
“Mm.” She blew out an uneven breath and hoped he didn’t hear it. “I think… I’m ready to play.”
“You’re very brave, but I need you to be sure.” The hand at her hip moved to slide to her front, his palm over the button on her shorts. “Your professor needs convincing that you’re ready.”
How the hell was she supposed to do that? Shit, she didn’t even know how to put into words how she felt—how he made her feel. She shifted back against him and that shocking hardness, if only to make sure it was still there, amazed that he could be in such a state when she hadn’t done anything to deserve it.
At her move, a nearly soundless grunt escaped him, followed by an exhale that shook.
Aha.
Suddenly, she knew exactly what to do.
“I think I need a few practice strokes before I’m ready to play full-out.” It was as honest as she could be, because it was true. Eager student that she was, she wanted some practice in how to get him to make that sound again. “How does it work exactly? Like this?” With her heartbeat shaking her whole body, she did the most brazen thing she’d ever done and rolled her pelvis, her back arching as the swell of her bottom lifted up to stroke against him.
“Fuck.” He popped the button on her denim shorts, causing her to gasp audibly. “Fair’s fair, sweetness. You just took a practice shot, so now I get a practice shot as well. Nothing to get too excited about… and in case you don’t know, that’s a statement that should seriously fucking disappoint you.”
“Nothing you do could disappoint me.”
“Damn straight.” As if to prove it, his fingers stole under the loosened button, his palm nudging against her stomach to ease her back while he positioned a knee between hers. She stepped wider to accommodate the slow invasion of his leg, a natural thing to do. In a heartbeat his thigh was between hers while his hand crossed the proverbial Rubicon, and dived into her panties.
Oh, my.
“I dare you to move that sweet little ass against me again, Essie.” He whispered it against her ear at just the right time. Despite her best efforts, tension at how quickly things were escalating poured into her, chasing away the delicious heat his touch created. “Grind it hard against my cock if you mean business and you’re not just some little girl who’s fucking around with me.”
Automatically she rose to the challenge, refusing to let him believe she thought so little of him. She rubbed her ass against him, her pelvis moving in a deliberate undulation. With that movement his hand cupped her intimately, and his fingers slipped into her cleft to rub against her most vulnerable point. Until that moment, she’d been aware of that spot only in passing, but now it became the center of the universe as she knew it.
“Ohhhh.” God, her bones were melting.
No.
Her everything was melting.
“This is the reason we play the game, baby. This feeling. This.” His fingers massaged her in a relentless, circling motion, and it was such an agony of pleasure she whimpered in her throat while trying at first to get away. A moment later she fought to get closer, grinding hard into his hand with a mindlessness she couldn’t help. It was heaven and hell, this mind-blowing wet heat that surged between her suddenly quivering legs, and it was driving her insane. “This is what it should always be like for you, Essie. All the time. Every time. This is what I’ll make you feel when I’m inside you. And if I don’t make you come so hard you fucking cry, then you’ll have the right to tell the whole world what a shitty lover I am. But that’s never going to happen. Never. I’ll always take care of you.”
She lowered her head until it rested on the felt of the table, because the pleasure was crushing her. It seemed to be folding in on itself—doubling, trebling, an ever-increasing madness that she both craved and had her vaguely terrified. How the hell was she supposed to stand this without imploding?
Then all at once the tension broke, and she no longer had to worry about imploding. Exploding was her problem now—a big one—but it was a problem she yearned to have for the rest of her time on earth. A half-cry, half- moan escaped her as her body moved feverishly, riding his thigh as he worked her, and the pleasure was still trying to devour her when his free hand pulled on her hair to wrench her mouth to meet his over her shoulder. Her cries of sweet ecstasy vibrated against his lips, just as his moans slid beautifully down her throat.
It was the most intimate thing she had ever shared with anyone in her life.
“That’ll do it for Lights Out play for this hour, folks. Stay with us for another edition of Lights Out next hour.”
The lights flickered on overhead, and with it came a stunning realization.
She’d just had her first orgasm.
In public.
And it had been freaking fabulous.
“I like this game.” Ripples of echoing pleasure and a lurking, greedy need for more sifted through her, and her heart broke when his hand slipped out of her panties. She soothed herself by focusing on the sensation of his hardness still straining against her, feeding the edgy need that still growled inside her. “Thanks for the lesson, Professor.”
“It’s the first of many,” he gritted out, and the carefully leashed desire vibrating his voice made her shiver. “Tell me you’re up for that, Essie. Tell me now.”
“I am.” A strange, glowing joy blossomed inside her when his arms squeezed her to him as if he never wanted to let go. “I am.”
Chapter Twelve
“It’s not a bad gig, and you get lots of ricochet pussy, if you know what I mean. That’s a perk that’s not in the contract, I can tell you that much. This one night after a game in Orlando, there were these three bitches who fuckin’ swore they were triplets, but they looked nothing alike—at least on the top. But down below, they had the same, identical piercing…”
Standing at parade rest at the head of the House’s main stairway, Steele sent a sweeping glance over the bustling first floor and barely listened to the bodyguard he knew only as Greeley. Greeley was a big guy, and the epitome of more brawn than brains—thick arms, no neck, barrel chest, and a shaved head that showed a pair of cauliflower ears that told Steele the guy had either wrestling or boxing in his background. Too many knocks upside the head, anyway, to be healthy. But a guy who was used to hand-to-hand combat was just the sort of bodyguard a man like basketball legend Tyrell Lions needed. His fans loved him, but many, many more hated his guts for being the trash-talking showboat that he was. Without a doubt the dude needed security wherever he went, but as far as Steele saw it, Greeley was a piss-poor choice.
This motherfucker talked.
So far he’
d found out how easily Greeley’s employer dodged the NBA’s supposedly “random” drug testing, how Lions had once been too hung over to play, passed it off as the flu, then celebrated getting paid for a night’s work he didn’t do by throwing a Roman-style orgy—something Greeley swore he wholeheartedly participated in. The topper on this shit sundae was how Lions had secretly filmed a much-hated, secretly gay teammate with his equally closeted male lover, then had Greeley sell it to the highest bidder, with Greeley happily pocketing a portion of the sales.
Steele wanted to tell the idiot that he’d better hang onto every penny of it since his terminal diarrhea-of-the-mouth was going to land him in the unemployment line. But he remained silent and tried to calculate how long Greeley and Tyrell Lions had before their careers blew up in their fucking faces.
He could only hope it’d be sooner rather than later.
Movement toward the stairs brought Steele’s attention back to the floor below. House Of Payne’s manager, Scout, led Dizzy Izz and Olivier in the direction of the stairs, her expression diligently blank. Bringing up the rear was Essie. Like a switch being thrown, he went deaf to Greeley while the rest of the world suddenly brightened. Once again, her old uniform of layers of shapeless clothing had been replaced by a wine-colored wispy skirt that hit above the knee and a black crocheted kind of light sweater over a black tank top. No scarf hid her scars around her neck, something he knew had to feel good in the summer heat, and she even wore her hair up in a low knot to show off a dangly pair of earrings that sparkled with her every move.
Right before his eyes, the little butterfly was emerging from her cocoon.
As he watched, she glanced in surprise over at Maximo Kulagin when he appeared out of nowhere to fall into step beside her. Steele’s eyes narrowed, his smile fading as he watched the man lean into Essie’s personal space to murmur something that made her smile, before he flicked a finger at the dangly earring.
What the fuck.
That asshole. He looked ridiculous, like a cat batting at a tree ornament.
And he was in Essie’s space.
