LONG SHOT: (A HOOPS Novel)

by Ryan, Kennedy

  “Would you like to see me, August?” I rub the silk ties of the belt between my fingers.

  “What?” Shock and hunger vie on his face. “What do you mean?”

  Instead of talking, since that seems to be getting me nowhere, I slowly untie the belt and let the silk glide over my shoulders and puddle at my feet.

  His sharply indrawn breath and the ravenous way his eyes eat at me lick fire under my skin. I reach up to the hair knotted on my head, releasing it so it cascades in heavy coils around my shoulders and down my back.

  Power surges through me. The power to render such a huge, beautiful man speechless with the gravity of my robe falling to the ground. With his first sight of me, naked and ready and strong. I have the power to determine when I share myself and when I will withhold.

  Your body is yours. Yours to keep and yours to share.

  “I want to be with you, August.” I step so close my nipples brush against his T-shirt. He hasn’t moved—hasn’t touched me or said a word. His Adam’s apple bobs in his throat with a deep swallow. “I choose you.”

  “Are you sure?” His voice scrapes, scratchy and barely audible. “Because once we start …”

  “I don’t want to stop.” I walk past him, my body buzzing from the heat of his eyes on my back, my legs, and my ass. I head toward the bedroom, turning to see if he’ll follow. “I’m sure.”

  I expected some other response. I didn’t think I’d have to persuade him. Maybe I miscalculated. I’m considering running back, grabbing my robe and yelling April Fool’s in October—anything to retract my offer. But then large, warm hands span my waist from behind, and the cotton of his sweatpants brushes my legs as he matches my steps. In my bedroom, I turn to face him, reaching around to lock my door. It brings my naked body into contact with his fully clothed one.

  “Sarai stumbles into my bedroom sometimes,” I whisper, gulping at the sudden nerves assailing me.

  Only minutes ago, I felt like a sensual, adventurous creature. Now, I’m starting to just feel exposed and relatively inexperienced compared to all the women he’s been with.

  He doesn’t respond to my statement but leans down to capture my lips, swirling his tongue inside my mouth. Driving one hand into my hair, he sends his other hand to my waist and down to cup the globe of my ass.

  “I’m struggling here, Iris,” he says against my lips, his breath picking up. “I want to give you time to change your mind, but with you like this …” He catalogues every nuance of my body, starting at my toes and working his way up until he meets my eyes.

  “You’re the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.” There’s passion, desire in his eyes, but also rampant emotion. And I realize I’m not just sharing myself with him. He wants to share himself with me, too, and my mind eases. Any leftover doubts and residual fears fade.

  I go down on my knees in front of him, slipping my hands into his sweatpants and working them down narrow hips and over powerful thighs. I lick my lips at the sight of his erection tenting his briefs.

  “Babe, you don’t have to …” He draws his brows together. “What are you doing?”

  I know he doesn’t mean that literally. He’s probably lost count of how many blow jobs he’s gotten over the course of his life. Hell, even just over the course of his career.

  He won’t lose count of this one. This one, he’ll never forget. Not because I’m better than those other women, but because I want him more. There’s no way they had this with him, what started between us that night and has only grown since.

  “What am I doing? Making you feel like a winner,” I say, trapping his eyes with mine and taking the tip into my mouth.

  “Holy …” His breath stutters, and he slumps against my bedroom door. “Babe.”

  I lick the rigid length of him, my tongue wrapping around warm steel. He plunges his hand into my hair, commanding my mouth to take him deeper. For a second, I freeze, thinking of all the times Caleb forced me to do this at gunpoint. How he liked to make me choke and drool—how he invented ways to debase me. Before fear can take root, I look up, and it’s still August. The look on his face is not sick pleasure, but awe.

  “You make me feel so good,” he says huskily. “There’s never been anyone like you, Iris. There never will be.”

  With every encouraging word, I take another inch. I roll his balls in my hands, emboldened by the sounds of his pleasure. Even when he becomes the aggressor, holding my head still, pumping between my lips, growling and tugging my head back, I don’t forget who’s fucking my mouth. I don’t lose track of this moment—of its scope. Its breadth. It’s one of the biggest moments of my life, and there’s only room for the two of us. There’s no room for anyone else. Not Caleb. Not even the naysayers who’ll accuse me of being a gold-digger who hops from player to player. No one else intrudes.

  It’s just me and the man I love.

  43

  August

  I come in spectacular fashion. Iris sucks it all down, flattening her small hand around my ass, clutching me as close as she can get me. Her eyes are molten, the pupils golden and nebulous. I’ve seen her eyes change colors, oscillating through every shade of brown and green, but right now they’re almost gold. She glows with the satisfaction of pleasing me, licking her swollen lips, rubbing them back and forth over my still-wet tip.

  Desire resurges, overtaking me like a hurricane. I pull her to her feet and lift her. She wraps her legs around my waist, and her forehead drops to rest against mine as I walk us to the bed. Our breaths meet, a sultry congress between our mouths. I lay her down like she might break, but I already know I’m gonna fuck her like she’s indestructible.

  How can I not?

  Dark hair streams behind her, and I study her for long minutes, determined not to rush this. She’s small. Her shoulders are slim, her breasts full, her waist narrow, and her hips flared. A master craftsman took his time with the dips and lines of her body, ensuring symmetry. He exaggerated her curves, balancing them to perfection.

  With one knee, I nudge her leg to the side. Taking my cue, she silently opens both wide.

  “I want to look at you.” I glance between her legs, waiting for her subtle nod. I push her legs up until her knees are bent and she’s completely exposed to me. A self-conscious laugh slips past her lips.

  “August.” She covers her face, hiding her eyes. “Are you just gonna stare at it all night?”

  “Definitely not.” With my hand under her ass, I guide her up to me and swipe my tongue through her wet folds. Her taste, her smell, the silky heat of her saturates my senses. I press my palms inside her thighs, widening her even more until that bud buried between her lips plumps and rises, begging to be sucked, bitten, consumed. I comply, giving her clit the complete and undivided attention it deserves, while one hand slides up her torso to twist and pluck her nipple.

  “Oh my God.” Her hips buck into my face. Her back arches. Inch by inch, her body loses control, loses inhibition. When I probe her entrance, rolling my tongue tight enough to slip into the small opening, her hands claw into my hair and rake over my shoulders. God, she’s wild. She presses the arch of her foot on my shoulder, urging my face deeper between her legs. She grinds against my lips, and I love every hot, juicy second of it.

  Her orgasm is an infinite refrain of whimpers and moans, a keening sound set loose in her throat. She unravels before my eyes, liquefying right into my hands, her lips moving in a soundless, sensual prayer.

  She’s limp and sated. She got hers. She took it, and I love that. I shower her shoulders and breasts with kisses like she’s the only girl in the world, because for me she is. I glide my fingers over her clit, inserting one, two, three fingers until she’s fucking my hand so hard, the headboard knocks the wall. She wrestles with her passion, pinning it down and then bucking wildly when it flips her and regains control. I love her wanton and disorderly.

  I suckle at one breast and continue working between her thighs. Her eyes glaze over. Her mouth slackens with un
relenting pleasure. I lick the underside of her breast, my open mouth kissing the curve.

  “Oh, God, August,” she says hoarsely. “Now. Please now.”

  I get up to grab my sweatpants and pull a condom from my wallet. It’s on before I even make it to the bed. Her eyes fix hungrily on my cock. I pump it lightly, as much for me as for her.

  “It’s all yours, Iris.” I settle between her hips and thighs, relishing this last moment of mystery when I haven’t known this part of her. The moment before a miracle of intimacy, when we merge and for those moments, become one.

  I plan to ease in, take my time, but as soon as my cock gets that first taste, I surrender to a force that is almost centripetal, drawing me in deeper. I plunge into the tight clutch of her body. She folds around me as I enter. When I withdraw, there’s a reluctant letting go. With every thrust, she takes more of me. Her body is the call, and mine is the response.

  “Holy shit, Iris,” I groan into her neck.

  I’ve never had anything like this. Not just her pussy, though the tight, wet grip of her is the best I’ve ever had. No, I’ve never felt anything like this. Like my soul is being turned inside out. Does she feel this, too? I rear up on my elbows to watch the answering passion play across her face. I dip to kiss her, and the contact ignites a scorching intercourse of lips and teeth. We’re mouths clashing, hips colliding, and hearts pounding in tandem, in sync. This feeling is sorcery. Her touch is a spell, and Iris? She’s my witch.

  She goes first, her hands shaking as she cups my face, her head tipping back into the pillow, the elegant line of her neck straining and exposed. I rut unrelentingly, pounding between her legs, gripping her thigh tightly, holding onto her for dear life because I’m coming apart. Splintering. Parts of me peel away, falling at her feet.

  “Don’t stop,” she whispers. “More, August. I didn’t know it could be … I had no idea. Oh, God, I had no idea.”

  The awe in her words and in her eyes undoes me. I grip her neck, nipping at her lips and muttering words of worship into the untamed spill of her hair.

  I empty myself of all I was before and take whatever she has to give. There’s a newness when our eyes meet—wonder in the laughter we share while I hold her. We don’t speak, but there’s eloquence in our fingertips, in our hands as we touch and explore. Our bodies commune, confess.

  I don’t have to say the words.

  She knows I’m hers.

  44

  Iris

  “Okay if I move that one here,” I say, shifting a number on my spreadsheet, “then I could put that over here.”

  I move fifty dollars from the column marked electric bill and squint at the bottom line like it might have grown bigger when I look back.

  Nope. Still a tiny amount of money to live on after the bills are all paid.

  Paid-ish.

  I’ll call on the water bill to see if I can get an extension.

  I’m still doing the dollar shuffle at my makeshift desk, also known as the dining room table, when a pair of huge hands slides under my arms to cup my breasts through my T-shirt. My nipples instantly pebble beneath the cotton, and my breath constricts. August’s thumbs tease the tips of my breasts, and he sucks at the curve of my neck.

  “Come back to bed, Iris,” he says huskily. “You know I have to leave soon and I reeeeeeeally need to fuck you again.”

  The words stroke a finger along my clit.

  This man.

  I had no idea—no earthly idea sex could be so addictive and satisfying and transformational. Every time August is inside me, I feel different afterwards. Like we’re swapping atoms—I’m taking some of him and giving so much of me.

  I used to think Lo was being silly when she said I settled for sex with Caleb because I had nothing to compare it to. Boy, was I wrong. I want to write letters to Cosmo about my experience. Diary of the Previously Underwhelmed.

  Maybe that could make me a little change on the side …

  “Okay,” August whispers. “Don’t make me pull out all the stops.”

  “Is that a metaphor for your dick?” I laugh when he twists my nipples.

  Also, I may leak a little.

  “My dick doesn’t need a metaphor to know how awesome it is. It’s a literal dick, and I will literally pull it out whenever you want. It’s at your service.” He laughs at his own joke into my shoulder. “No, I meant the oral. That seems to always get you.”

  August has a talented tongue, and it’s in league with his teeth and lips to drive me crazy every time we make love.

  #Keeper.

  Some things, like brain-bursting orgasms, never get old.

  Despite the temptation, I ignore him and keep moving my little—and I do mean little—numbers around. I need to figure this out before the day begins.

  “Are you seriously passing up sex for this spreadsheet?” August groans into my hair. “You know I have to leave soon.”

  He never stays all night. That first night we made love—was it only two weeks ago? That night we agreed that for now, he would be gone before Sarai woke up. Seeing men walk in and out of my mother’s life made me feel insecure. I hated getting attached to some man I just knew I wanted to be my daddy and have him leave. Then, the next one would come, and the cycle started again.

  Not that I anticipate August going anywhere anytime soon, but that’s part of my hardwiring I’m just not ready to let go of.

  “Are you coming willingly?” he whispers, instigating a battle of butterflies in my belly. “Or do I need to throw you over my shoulder?”

  “You wouldn’t dare.” I look up from my laptop, momentarily distracted by the rungs of muscles in his abs and the sinewy slash at his hip where his sweatpants hang low over the shape of him already semi-erect.

  “See something you like?” He grins and flexes his pecs. “’Cause I do.”

  Before I can respond, he pulls the hem of my T-shirt over my head, plunging me into semi-darkness. I’m quietly screeching so I don’t wake Sarai, when I feel the first hard, wet pull on my nipple. Needless to say, my arms drop limply to my sides and I lean back. August spreads my thighs and, on his knees I presume since I can’t see, settles between them, his lips never leaving my right nipple. He employs his other hand on my left. My head falls back, my breath coming fast, hot and humid into the T-shirt covering my face. He finally relinquishes my nipple, and the air cools my damp breast. I’m tugging the shirt from over my head, ready to refocus, when I feel him mouthing me through my panties.

  “Lord, please,” I beg, blindly thrusting my fingers into his messy curls.

  “Answering your prayers down here,” August mumbles into my thigh, his stubble a welcome abrasion. He tugs my panties aside to lick and suck and groan into my pussy. “I could do this all day.”

  It does not take all day.

  I stuff my fist into my mouth to muffle the sounds fighting their way out. Bliss spirals from my core and explodes over my limbs, my extremities, my nooks and crannies. My head goes galactic, a black sky awash with stars. For just a moment, I seem to float outside of time and space. I come back to my body in inches and seconds, surprised to find my heels digging into August’s back, my fingers buried in his hair and my thighs bracketing his handsome face.

  “Hi.” He grins up at me unabashedly, his mouth shiny and wet. “Welcome back.”

  I answer with a husky laugh and a shake of my head.

  “You distracted me,” I slur, sex-drunk. “Now it’ll take me forever to finish.”

  “I’d say you ‘finished’ in record time.” He ducks when I swing my hand lightly at his head. “Now about me finishing.”

  My eyes flick to the flashing cursor, awaiting my executive decision on the electric bill.

  “Babe, come on.” He licks the inside of my thigh. “When I go on the road next week, you’re gonna miss my loving.”

  “Do you think I don’t know that’s an old Lou Rawls song?” I ask, carefully lowering my legs from his shoulders and turning back to the laptop
so I can move more money around.

  “What do you know about Lou Rawls?” he asks skeptically.

  “Dude, I grew up in the Ninth Ward,” I say with a touch of NOLA pride. “We took R&B classes.”

  For a moment, he looks uncertain. Like he wonders if it really was that hood. I mean … it was, but we didn’t actually take the classes. It was a much more informal education of the OGs blasting classics while we played outside in the streets.

  “Seriously. Come back to bed.” He picks me up, ignoring my yelp, and sits down with me on his lap. “I don’t even need to get off. We’ll just cuddle before I have to leave.”

  “Every time you say we’ll just cuddle, we actually end up screwing anyway.”

  “And that’s a problem?” he asks, lifting my hair and sucking along the curve from my neck to my shoulder. I shiver but refuse to get up, refocusing on the bills, some of which are already past due. If I don’t get this figured out, Sarai and I may come home to the water turned off.

  “Okay. Be like that.” He blows out a longsuffering breath, sitting forward and pressing his chest against my back, patting out a rhythm on my bare legs. “What are you doing anyway?”

  “Robbing Peter to pay Paul.” I tilt my head to calculate if I’m breaking even yet.

  “Is that another joke?” His hands go still mid-tap against a thigh.

  “If you’re asking if my utility company is actually named Peter, then no.”

  “But you’re joking, right?” He shifts forward so he can see my profile. “You don’t need money, do you?”

  “No.” I shrug, wanting him to drop it. “Things are just a little tight this month.”

  “Money should never be tight for you.” With my eyes trained on the screen, I don’t see his frown, but I feel it.

  “I’m a single mom living paycheck to paycheck in one of America’s most expensive cites. Just living the dream. Of course things get tight sometimes.”