LONG SHOT: (A HOOPS Novel)

by Ryan, Kennedy

  “I know,” she says smiling faintly, her cheeks still rose–gold with embarrassment. “I saw. Nice to meet you.”

  “Likewise,” he says, not trying to hide his curiosity. “You look so familiar.”

  Iris stiffens at my side and tugs harder until her wrist is free. “Maybe I’ve just got one of those faces,” she murmurs, her smile stiff and plastic.

  Her text alert sounds, and she frowns down at her phone.

  “Everything okay?” I ask.

  “Yeah. It’s just Lo asking me to translate something Sarai is saying. Sometimes I’m the only one who understands her.”

  “She’s at home?”

  “No, they actually came with me. They’re in the waiting room.” She rolls her eyes. “Lo thought I was too upset to drive.”

  “Were you?” I tug on one coil resting on her shoulder. She looks from me to Kenan, her smile tight at the corners.

  “I’d love to see Sarai and to finally meet Lo,” I say, sparing her having to answer in front of Kenan. “Give her the room number.”

  “You’ll love Lo, and she can’t wait to meet you.” She types out the text, sinking her teeth into a smile. “I’ll warn you in advance. There’s never any telling what will come out of her mouth.”

  “Lo?” Kenan asks, one brow cocked.

  “My cousin.” Iris stands, and I miss her already.

  The door opens and Sarai darts across the room to her mother, throwing her arms around Iris’s knees as if they’ve been separated fifteen years instead of fifteen minutes. With it being just the two of them for the last year, she probably got really attached.

  Sarai peeks out from behind Iris’s knees to look at me, her lips curving up to match the huge grin I’m giving her.

  “Hi, Sarai,” I say, wishing she felt comfortable enough already to give me a hug, too.

  “Gus,” she whispers.

  Iris snorts, laughing at the nickname I told her I hate. There’s still time to retrain Sarai, but right now she could call me Attila the Hun and I wouldn’t care.

  Iris’s cousin enters the room at a more measured pace.

  The first thing I notice about Lotus DuPree is how much she and Iris look alike. There are marked differences. Her skin is a few shades darker but no less smooth. Her hair is coarser but still curly, cut close and died platinum blond. She’s slimmer than Iris, a little shorter, but she looks like a model. Not in her stature, but with an effortless kind of grace. Over a wife-beater, she wears a fitted multi-colored silk kimono jacket. Dark jeans mold the lean line of her legs. The tiniest hoop adorns the keen curve of her left nostril.

  Beyond her obvious attractiveness, there’s something about her that highjacks your attention. Even with no expression, Lo’s face seems animated. The expressive brows and wide, mobile mouth speak on her behalf without her uttering a word. She’s as hard to look away from as Iris, but for different reasons.

  Iris said they come from a long line of voodoo high priestesses. I see it in Lotus. A regalness—a mystery and an aura, like she knows your thoughts before you think them and is fully capable of changing your mind.

  Kenan can’t seem to look away. His eyes follow her path from the door to the bedside.

  “Nice to meet you, August,” she says, extending her hand.

  Where Iris’s voice is sweet and husky, Lotus’s voice emerges low, commanding, and with an inherent sensuality that would have many men under her spell immediately.

  Is that what’s happened to Kenan?

  He still hasn’t said a word, and, as far as I can tell, he hasn’t looked anywhere else since Lotus walked in the room.

  “Glad we finally get to meet,” I tell her, smiling. “Iris has been talking about you since the night we met.”

  “Well, we’re even because your name may have come up a time or two today,” she says, smiling and ignoring the glare Iris shoots her way. “Or maybe twelve times. I stopped counting.”

  A chuckle rumbles through my chest, and I grab Iris’s hand to squeeze.

  “And this is Kenan, the teammate who put me here in the first place.” I gesture toward the giant beside me, who dwarfs both women considerably. Standing on opposite sides of my bed, Lotus and Kenan exchange looks, neither smiling. Lotus narrows her eyes on him as if she’s seeing beyond the sinew and muscle and bone to the parts Kenan hides from everyone, maybe even from himself.

  “Nice to meet you,” Kenan says, clearing his throat and breaking the silence between them.

  “Yeah.” Lotus slides her glance away from him. She turns to Iris. “She’s getting whiny. I think she’s hungry.”

  “Yeah.” Iris glances at her watch and grimaces. “It’s about that time. She hasn’t eaten since lunch.” She steps a little closer to the bed, still holding my hand. “I better get going.”

  “Of course.” I agree, even though what I really want to say is not yet.

  “When are you getting out of here?” she asks softly.

  “Should be tomorrow. I’ll call you when I’m leaving.”

  “Do you need a ride or anything?” she asks.

  “I got him,” Kenan says. “It’s the least I can do.”

  I shoot him a disgusted look. First the cock blocking. Now this?

  Iris intercepts my look and chuckles softly. We share a look as intimate as a touch. I know she wants to be careful about how Sarai sees her, what she sees her doing.

  “Okay,” Iris says, picking Sarai up and walking toward the door. “Call me.”

  With one last furtive glance at Kenan, Lotus says her goodbyes, too.

  There’s a thick silence once they leave. Their mingled scents still linger. Their presence was so strong, I can practically see an impression of them left in the air.

  I turn my attention to Kenan, prepared to shoot the shit for a few minutes, maybe tease him a little more about hospitalizing me, when I realize he’s still staring at the door Lotus just passed through.

  He turns on me and voices the question in his eyes. “Who the hell was that?”

  42

  Iris

  August: You up?

  The text message lights the phone on my pillow, and I shake myself awake. The Waves flew back tonight from an extended road trip. August hasn’t been home in more than a week. I told him to call me whenever he landed, and I’m glad he’s reaching out. They lost three of the four away games, and the media coverage has been brutal, much of it centering around August, his lucrative contract, and if he’ll deliver on the promise of his rookie season. There’s even been speculation that he’s not the same since his injury.

  Me: I’m up. You wanna talk?

  August: I’m at your front door. Is that okay?

  My heart somersaults, aerobic, quickening my breath. The upper-hand corner of my phone shows it’s midnight.

  I want to see him. I glance down at my breasts, my nipples piqued under cotton sheets.

  MiMi suggested I sleep naked, and she was right. There’s a sensuality to having my bare body caressed by the soft cotton.

  I wasn’t sure how I’d feel being intimate with someone the first time since that last awful night with Caleb. For a long time, I felt no desire, but that kiss in the hospital room proved that desire was simply dormant and not gone for good, if it’s the right person.

  August is the right person.

  Me: Yeah! I’m on my way.

  I grab a robe Lo sent me from her designer’s collection. The silk slides over my arms and kisses the sensitive tips of my breasts. August and I have kissed some since that time in the hospital room, but we’ve mostly kept it casual. I guess we’re dating, even though with his schedule so crazy and me not having anyone to watch Sarai, we haven’t actually gone anywhere. It seems strange, but finally right.

  I make sure Sarai’s bedroom door is pulled closed and then rush to let August in. The porch light streaks amber through his dark, misbehaving curls. Fatigue draws lines at his mouth and paints shadows under his eyes. I’m thrilled that by all rights, he should wan
t to go straight home, but after a week away and a lengthy flight, he’s come to see me.

  “Hey.” My smile up at him is wide and holds nothing back.

  “Hi.” He walks past me when I step aside, but instead of continuing to the living room, he turns me to the door, bends to align our lips. He pulls my bottom lip inside his mouth, sucking lightly and then intensifying the pressure until my knees are putty. His hand at my waist tightens, and he slowly straightens to his full height, pulling me with him until only the very tips of my toes brush the floor. I wrap my arms fully around his neck, angling my head and widening my mouth to accommodate the aggressive thrust of his tongue. When his hands drift from my waist to cup my ass, I moan into the kiss.

  “August,” I gasp, resting my forehead against his chin. His labored breaths pant into my hair, and he’s hard and huge against my belly. If we don’t slow down, there’ll be no going back.

  Would that be so bad?

  I think I’m ready. There’s no doubt in my mind I want him, but sometimes my body flashes back and freezes up. I don’t want that to happen—don’t want to explain when there’s already so much he wants to know that I can’t tell him.

  “Are you hungry?” I whisper.

  He squeezes my ass in one hand and explores my back with long strokes with the other. “Starving.” His eyes run over my face, down my body, suggesting another appetite. “What’s on the menu?”

  Me?

  “Gumbo?” I offer as a half-question. “MiMi’s recipe.”

  The way he looks at me, as if he’d be inside me already if he could, it softens into affection. He sets me on my feet and tucks my hair behind my ear, settling a kiss between my eyebrows.

  I didn’t flinch!

  He tucked my hair behind my ear and I didn’t flinch.

  I’m inordinately pleased with myself while he conks out in the living room and I heat up a bowl of gumbo for him. I lean a shoulder into the archway leading from the kitchen and steal a moment to watch him.

  He’s on the floor, his back to the couch and his long legs stretched out in front of him. His head flops back, eyes closed and hands linked over the tight, muscled plane of his abs.

  “You wanna eat right there?” I ask, hesitant to disturb him.

  His eyes open and he sits up straight, resting his arm on the coffee table. “You sure it’s okay?”

  “So nice of you to be concerned about ruining my flea market table.” I laugh. “But yeah. I eat there all the time to watch TV or whatever.”

  “Okay.” He smiles and runs a hand over his messy hair. “Thanks.”

  I head back to the kitchen to grab his meal, then return and set a glass of water and his bowl on the coffee table. “Unless you want wine?”

  “Nah. I don’t drink much during the season.”

  He spoons the first steaming bite into his mouth, groaning appreciatively and looking at me.

  “This is delicious.” He takes another bite, shaking his head. “Be careful or I’ll be demanding this all the time.”

  “You’re not very demanding.” A sad smile touches my lips. I know what a demanding man is like, and August is the opposite. If anything, he’s constantly looking for ways to help, to make things easier for me.

  “Did you watch the game?” he asks, his full lips tightening and his eyes on his bowl.

  “Of course.” I settle onto the couch and tuck my legs under me, careful to keep the robe closed. “I saw it.”

  He closes his eyes and frowns. “I hate for you to see me lose,” he admits softly. “And we’re losing so much.”

  “You shouldn’t have lost tonight,” I snap, indignation ramrodding my spine. “That ref needs glasses and a lobotomy. All those shit calls in the last five minutes.” I growl, banging a fist on my leg. “And the foul he called on you in the third quarter? Are you fucking kidding me with that shit? I wanted to come through the television and strangle him with his whistle. I mean, really? You barely touched that guy.”

  I’m fuming so much, I don’t notice at first that he’s watching me with a wide smile. “What?” I frown at him and cross my arms under my breasts.

  “You.”

  “What about me?”

  “One, you cuss like a sailor when you watch basketball,” he says. “Two, I love how you’re so outraged on my behalf. I thought you saved all that for your precious Lakers.”

  We share a smile, and I go back to that first night we met in the bar.

  “Well they have to share me with the Waves now.” I sober. “I am sorry, though. I know you hate losing.”

  “Fuck.” The hard line of his jaw sharpens. “And of course, everyone’s saying it’s my fault.”

  “Which is ridiculous! It’s a team sport.”

  “Yeah, but I’m the franchise player. When a team is paying as much as the Waves pay me, when they build their team around you, the expectations are higher.” He shrugs and grimaces. “This kind of scrutiny comes with the territory,” he says. “Thank God for Kenan. He’s so much more mature than the rest of us. He’s been doing this a long time and knows what it takes to win. He’s the real leader in our locker room.”

  “I’m sorry about the losing streak.” I sift my fingers through the silky curls at my knee while he sits on the floor. He leans his head back into my touch, a deep breath lifting his shoulders and swelling his broad chest.

  “That feels great,” he says huskily. “Don’t stop.”

  It feels great to me, too—touching him, breathing in the scent unique to his hair and skin and whatever molecules combine to make August. I want all of them wrapped around me. I shift on the couch, feeling myself growing wet at the juncture of my thighs the longer I touch him.

  I clear my throat hoping to say something that will make my horniness feel less awkward. “Your hair is getting so long.”

  What am I even talking about right now? Should we discuss the weather, too?

  He turns his head to peer up at me. “You said you like it longer, right?” he asks, almost uncertain, which August rarely is.

  Now I really don’t know what we’re talking about.

  “I said that?” My fingers tunnel through his thick hair, from his neck where it’s shorter and straight to the crown of his head where it lengthens into amber-streaked sable curls.

  “Yeah. That week in Baltimore,” he reminds me, his voice soft.

  My hands go still in his hair as his meaning sinks in.

  “Are you saying …” I swallow and try again, unfolding my legs from under me and setting my feet on the floor. “You’re growing your hair out because I said I liked it longer? For me?”

  He flips his body so that he’s facing the couch, still sitting on the floor, angling a grin up at me.

  “Let me get this straight,” he says. “You were completely unimpressed when I turned down forty-five million dollars to live in the same city as you, but you’re kinda blown away that I’m growing my hair out?”

  When he puts it like that, I feel like an idiot. We both laugh, our eyes tangled in affection and something more—something that neither of us acknowledges, but it fills the air around us.

  “I wasn’t unimpressed,” I say, teasing him with a look. “But you do kinda blow me away.”

  He watches me, taking in all my details, starting at the hair casually knotted on my head and the silky robe, then my bare feet. He grabs one foot and kisses the arch.

  “August!” I snatch my foot back, laughing and trying to ignore the feeling simmering low in my belly. “Don’t kiss my foot.”

  “I’ll kiss your foot if I want to.” He grabs my other foot and kisses the arch, this time lingering, then running his nose up my leg. It’s hard to swallow, and I’m struggling to breathe. With his eyes closed, he feathers kisses up my bare thigh. He lifts my leg just enough to gently suck at the flesh behind my knee.

  “Ah, August.” Pleasure arrows through me, and I press my back into the sofa.

  “You’re sensitive there,” he says, his voice husky. �
�What about here?”

  Open-mouthed kisses climb the inside of one thigh while his hands minister to my other leg, stroking, kneading my calf. I stare at his mouth drawing on a muscle in my thigh, an erotic suction that ripples shockwaves to my core. The sound of it, his lips and teeth and tongue working in tandem to mark me, leaves me a trembling mess.

  August lifts his head, catching my dazed eyes with his. “Are you naked under this robe, Iris?” His voice is a hope and a prayer, and he makes me feel divine. Worshipped.

  I nod, gulping down my anticipation, the nerves over what happens next.

  August groans and drops his forehead to my thigh, still stinging and wet from his mouth. “You’re killing me, babe.”

  “I was asleep when you texted, and—”

  “You sleep naked?” His palms skid along the outside of my thighs through the silk, heating me up even more. “Shit, Iris.”

  He draws the panels of the robe together over my legs, concealing me from view, and drops a chaste kiss on my thigh before standing up. “I should go.” He looks around. “What’d I do with my keys?”

  “Why are you …?” I stand, too. Barefoot, I rise no higher than the middle of his chest. “You’re leaving?”

  He studies me and squeezes the back of his neck. “Keeping it one hundred here, Iris. You said you needed to take this slow, and I don’t want to make you feel … I don’t know. Pressured.” His broad palm cups my chin, and he caresses my lips with his fingers. “I want this so badly.” He shakes his head. “But I’ve waited a really long time for you, and my out-of-control libido isn’t fucking that up.”

  He starts to pull away, but I place my hand over his on my face.

  “What if I like your out-of-control libido?” One step forward narrows the space between us.

  “Iris, don’t …” He bites his bottom lip and knuckles my cheekbone. “I’m gonna go.”

  When I thought of this moment, the moment when I’d have sex again, I thought there would be trepidation. Terror. That the memory of what Caleb did to me that last night, and all the nights before, would shadow my intimacy with someone else.

  But it’s not the pain of that night on my mind. I’m not remembering his hostile takeover of my body at all. I’m navigating these seas for the first time—waves of want I’ve never ridden. My body is a stranger to me, an imposter wearing my skin, but disguised in new urges.