“What kind of push?” I insisted.
“Just… I don’t know. She wants me to be sure I want you in my life. That I want to be in your life.”
This time, it was my turn to lose my ability to speak for a bit. But finally, I said, “And do you? Want to be in my life and want me in yours?”
“I couldn’t have gone through with any of this if I didn’t.”
That was answer enough for me. And suddenly, I felt a lot lighter. My life was still a mess, sure, and I couldn’t bear the thought of having to say good-bye to my grandmother soon—probably forever—but maybe in this one area of my life, things were starting to look up.
And thank fuck for that, because I needed something good to hold on to. Might as well have that something good be Bea. Especially if she’d allow me to hold on to her like I had during the photo shoot.
LATER, MIA STARTED gathering up her husband, kids, and camera equipment, but she took a moment to pull me aside while Bea was busy talking to Grandma. “I’ll send the proofs over for you both to take a look at in a few days. Once you know which ones you want, just let me know and I’ll edit them and send you the final copies. If you want any prints done, I have some recommendations in Portland, or I can have them printed locally and then ship them to you.”
“Thanks, Mia,” I said. “I just hope it’ll be worth it.”
“It was absolutely worth it. Maybe she won’t see herself the way you see her right away, but she won’t be able to deny it for too much longer once she sees the actual pictures.”
“We hope.”
“Have a little faith in her, hmm? She’s been through a lot. It takes time to see the differences in ourselves. It’s a lot easier to see them in someone else.”
Q came over and slapped me on the back in an awkward former-teammate sort of non-hug. “When are you heading back to Portland?”
“Not sure. Probably soon.”
“Say hi to the boys for me.”
“You guys are playing San Jose next week, right?” I asked.
“Yep.”
“How about you and your boys do us a solid and kick their asses to Timbuktu?” We’d been battling it out with San Jose to see who could land at the top of the Pacific all season long. Every time we won, they did, too. We couldn’t get any separation from them in the standings.
“That’s the plan, but for us, not for you.”
“Mm hmm. Just do it.”
A few minutes later, the Quinceys were all gone, and suddenly it was quiet in Grandma’s room again, other than the beeping and whirring of the machines and the general bustle of the hospital taking place out in the halls.
I took up the seat next to Grandma’s bed that Mia had vacated.
“You two need to go back to the hotel and get some rest,” Grandma barked.
I snorted. “I think you might be the one who needs rest. You’ve had kids here for hours. Probably drove you up the wall.”
“Okay, then you two need to go back to the hotel and get some nookie. Then you can rest after.”
“Nookie?” Bea spluttered.
“Isn’t that what you kids are calling it these days? There’s that song.”
“Limp Bizkit hasn’t been a thing for a decade or more,” I said, glancing over to Bea.
She looked like she couldn’t decide between utter embarrassment and ridiculous laughter. Which meant Grandma was having the desired effect on her. That was what my grandmother always went for, but it rarely worked with me. I didn’t embarrass easily.
“That’s still what you’re calling it, though, right?” Grandma insisted, catching Bea’s eye.
“I don’t…” She couldn’t finish her thought. Her embarrassment was beyond adorable.
“You won’t hear any arguments from me,” I said, but Bea wouldn’t meet my eyes. Or maybe it was that she couldn’t make herself, which was kind of cute. “Sorry,” I added, looking her way. “But you know Grandma doesn’t mince words.”
“It’s not— I’m just—”
“She’s just frustrated because she wants to see the pictures and your photographer friend wouldn’t show them to her. And now we’re making jokes about sex, and she’s a teacher, which means she’s more dignified than all of that. But they look good, honey.” Grandma gave Bea a reassuring pat on the back of the hand. “And you’ll need to get over the need to be dignified if you’re going to spend much time with either of us.”
“It’s not that,” Bea insisted.
“Mm hmm,” Grandma replied. “Well, either way, you look good.”
“Good enough to eat,” I said, and my stomach growled.
After rolling her eyes at me, Grandma said, “Sounds like you need to feed him or he might try to eat you.”
“That’s not the worst idea you’ve ever had,” I said.
“What? Getting some food in you? Or eating her?”
I shrugged, raising a brow in challenge in Bea’s direction. “Either? Both?”
And just like that, Bea was on her feet, with her coat and backpack in her arms, and on her way out the door. I happily and readily followed her…with Grandma cackling in our wake.
“I HAD a good time today,” I said later, when Bea and I were curled up together on the bed. We were both still fully clothed, other than our shoes, but she was at least allowing me to spoon her.
The soft coils of her thick, curly hair tickled my nose as I nuzzled her neck. I’d discovered just how much I enjoyed the sensation earlier, when Mia had asked us to lie in this position for a few shots. My dick liked it, too, so I kept having to think boring thoughts to keep from getting too far ahead of myself.
“You might be surprised to hear it,” Bea murmured after a moment, her voice thick and husky and so sexy I couldn’t stand it, “but so did I.”
“So it wasn’t all torture?”
She laughed and turned her head, looking back at me over her shoulder. “Not all torture. But there was still plenty of it.”
“You looked hot in all of it. But that green thing?” Cautiously, I slid a hand down the length of her side, settling it on her hip.
She didn’t jerk or pull away, thank fuck. “What about the green one?”
“It’s going to fuel my dreams for months. And once we get the pictures, it’ll probably do that for the rest of my life.”
“Don’t tease me, Blake.”
“I’m not teasing you. That’s total jerk-off material.”
“Classy,” she said, but at least she was laughing.
“You know I say whatever pops into my head.” And seeing her in that lingerie earlier was going to remain in my head forever. “I’ve been into you for a long time, but today just cemented it. I need you.” I inched closer, and my hard-on nestled against her ass. She was so soft and inviting everywhere. I couldn’t get enough. But then I had to fight back a groan, because all I could think about was slipping between her thighs and settling more fully into her warmth and softness. “But even more than that, I want you. I want to be with you.”
“I want to be with you, too,” she whispered, as if it was one of the worst things she could ever confess.
It might be pressing my luck, but I had to try. “I bought condoms today, while you three were out shopping.”
She went unusually still against me, almost rigid.
Damn. Too much, too soon. “We don’t have to—”
“I want to,” she interrupted. “But this has been a lot for me in one day.”
“Too much for one day? Do you need me to wait a bit longer?”
Shaking her head, she rolled toward me, but she buried her face in the space between my chin and my shoulder so I couldn’t see her expression. “I don’t want to wait anymore. I just…”
“You just what?” I prodded when she fell silent.
“Can we have the lights out?”
My heart dropped into my stomach. “Even after today?”
“Even after today. I might get there eventually. I hope I can. I’m trying to.”
<
br /> “But not yet,” I finished for her.
“Not yet. I want to be with you,” she rushed to say. “But—”
“But you’re not ready to let me see you naked.”
She nodded so softly I barely felt the movement.
Patience, I reminded myself. Rushing her wouldn’t do either of us any good. Besides, I’d already pushed her enough for today.
“But as long as we keep the lights off?” I asked.
In answer, she reached over to the light switch next to the bed and flipped it off with a single outstretched finger.
And then she kissed me.
THE QUIET SOUND he let out fell somewhere between a growl and a sigh, and he opened his lips, allowing me entry.
I pressed up onto an elbow for a better angle.
As I tentatively slid my tongue against his, he pressed a hand to the back of my head, tangling his fingers in my unruly curls and somehow steadying me at the same time. But he didn’t draw me closer; he only provided enough pressure to prevent me from falling away from him, not enough to set the pace.
Apparently, making the next move was up to me—and I wasn’t sure how to react to the realization. Should it make me feel strong or possibly anxious about getting something wrong, doing something that would prove my inexperience? Not that either of us could have any doubt about my lack of skill in this area—it was as evident as the nose on my face. And anyway, just now, I felt both strong and anxious in equal measure.
I took my time, exploring his tongue and lips and teeth with my own until I was breathless and panting and had to pull away to gain a moment of clarity.
“I want to touch you,” Blake rasped into the dark.
My tongue went thick, but I replied, “So touch me, then,” with a heck of a lot more bravado than I could properly account for.
He slid his hand from my hair to my shoulder, the tips of his fingers trailing along the back of my arm with a featherlight caress and leaving gooseflesh in their wake. When his progress finally came to a stop, he settled his palm on my hip for a moment before gently kneading my bottom.
I had to fight the urge to stop him because the pathetic, drooping skin of my butt wasn’t very sexy, but his touch made me feel warm and tingly and nice.
Besides, he would have to touch me if we were going to go through with this. And I had every intention of going through with it. Maybe this would be the only time I’d ever be with him or any man, because he’d likely be repulsed beyond any chance of recovery once we went through with it, but I wanted at least this one time to happen. It was enough that I’d probably be sad, lonely, and single for the rest of my life after this.
But I wanted to rid myself of my virginity first, at the very least.
“You’re so soft everywhere,” he murmured with a hint of amazement before fusing his lips to my neck and stealing my ability to wonder whether he meant that in a good way or a bad way.
I splayed my hands over his abdomen to steady myself. His skin was supple and smooth, but everything beneath the surface was hard—he was nothing but strong cords of muscle everywhere I could reach.
Just how dissimilar could two bodies be?
Apparently very.
I might not be fat any longer, but I was all lumps and bumps (each existing in places they didn’t belong), stretched-out skin, and every inch of my body was covered with the sorts of ugly marks that supermodels never bore. Or maybe they’d been thoroughly airbrushed to hide their flaws? If so, I could hope that Mia Quincey would do a bit of airbrushing in Photoshop to make my photos look better than I did in reality.
But thinking about all of that wouldn’t help me in the present. I had to get back into the moment, keep my mind away from the things that would haunt my waking hours as much as my sleeping hours. Besides, I was beyond fascinated by discovering the differences between Blake and me.
I tugged up the bottom of his shirt, baring his skin to my touch. His abdominal muscles jumped slightly when I slid first my fingers and then my palm toward his chest. I almost stopped because of that virtually insignificant movement, thinking I’d done something wrong, but he kissed me again before I could, urging me on.
“Is this all right?” I asked, smoothing my hand over his skin when he let me up for air.
“You can do anything you want to me, Bea.”
“Anything?” I trailed my fingertips down his chest and abs again, moving them toward the waist of his jeans.
His almost-black eyes locked to mine, he said, “Anything.”
That whole breathing thing that humans were supposed to do all the time? Yeah, right. I doubted I’d ever breathe normally again after hearing the heat in that single word.
Undoing his button and fly turned out to be more difficult than it should have been because my hand was shaking and I needed my other arm to support my weight. Blake helped me by lifting his hips and shucking the jeans, then tossing them somewhere on the floor.
My fingers hovered over the elastic waist of his briefs, but I couldn’t seem to lower the fabric. My bravado was already fading, giving way to anxiety.
“Touch me,” he pleaded.
I swallowed the lump filling my throat. “How?”
“Any way you want.”
“I don’t know what I want,” I lied.
“Well, I do.”
“What do you want?”
He chuckled. “No, I mean I know what you want.”
“Tell me, then,” I said, breathless. Or better yet, show me.
He removed his briefs, too, flinging them away into the darkness. Circling my wrist with his powerful fingers, he guided my hand toward his pulsing heat. I slid my palm over his length, reveling in the soft hiss of air from his lips that intensified when I gave him a gentle squeeze.
“Rub me,” Blake said, rough and needy. “That’s what you want. You want to touch me. You want to feel every inch of me. You want to make me hard and hot so I’m aching to be inside you.”
Only somewhat surprisingly, he was right. I did want all of that, but I was also nervous to follow through with what I wanted because I was sure it would lead to all my fears coming true.
Still, my fingers tightened around him, and I stroked.
It was tentative at first.
No, I was tentative, not some random it.
But there was a sort of power I felt with Blake on his back beneath me, his pleasure literally in my hands—and I’d never experienced anything quite like the headiness of this sensation before in any other area of my life.
“Like this?” I asked.
He nodded, but then one of his hands came down over the top of mine, adding more pressure, and he closed his eyes with a deep groan. “That’s so fucking good.”
And maybe it was good for him, but it was amazing for me. There’d been plenty of times I’d thought about doing something like this, but the act of experiencing fell into an entirely different realm than I could arrive at through mere imagination.
His free hand came around my waist, and he drew me closer to kiss me again. He tangled his tongue with mine; I could get drunk off the taste of him and the heated sounds he made. When he broke away, he kissed a trail down the column of my neck, stopping to suckle at the soft hollow below my voice box.
My hand stilled.
“I want to touch you,” he said, his voice reverberating against my skin. “I want to make you come. I need to be inside you, Bea.”
I shivered from the neediness in his tone and the anxiety racing through me and making my blood go hot and cold all at once. “Then touch me,” I replied.
Faster than I could blink, he was out from under me and had us flipped around so he was hovering over the top of me. With his lips fused to mine, his practiced hands went to work tugging the waist of my shirt free from my jeans and undoing buttons and zippers. It was as if he’d done this many times before.
Well, who was I kidding? No one but myself. Blake was a young, sexy, professional hockey player. Women likely threw themselves at
him all the time—women younger and hotter than me. He probably did this a lot more often than I even thought about it. But allowing my thoughts to stray to ideas like those wouldn’t help me get through this at all, so I shoved them aside.
He tugged my shirt over my head. I shivered in the moment before he covered me again, warming me with the heat of his own body while he worked my jeans down my hips.
Then his mouth was on mine, and his hands were everywhere at once.
Finally, blessedly, my brain shut down and all I could do was feel.
Blake suckled on the sensitive skin where my neck and collarbone met, and I shuddered. He slipped his hand inside my bra and cupped my breast with his palm, and I moaned against his lips. He pressed a knee between my thighs, grinding the top of his thigh against the spot that was throbbing with heat and need, and I stopped breathing.
If only I could stop thinking, too, because now my brain was racing at a pace of a thousand miles a minute.
“Do you want this?” he asked, his voice like gravel as his lips hovered over my skin.
My body zinged when he slid his fingers beneath the elastic edge of my panties, and I nodded desperately.
“Tell me,” he insisted. “Tell me what you want.”
I squirmed to get more of his touch, and I felt him smile against the overheated skin of my neck.
“This?” Blake asked, lightly swirling the tip of a finger around my clitoris.
I shuddered and drew up my knees, opening myself to him. “More.”
One long, thick finger slipped easily inside my opening while he continued to rub my clit with the pad of his thumb. “Like this?”
I nodded, biting down on my lower lip.
“Can you take another finger?” He kissed my shoulder blade, his tongue darting out to lick my overheated skin. “You’re so wet, Bea, but I don’t want to risk hurting you—at least not any more than I have to. I want to take this nice and slow.”
“I—” My breath caught in my throat when I felt a second finger joining the first. But even though the way he stretched my body was slightly uncomfortable at first, the discomfort quickly gave way to a pleasantly full sensation. I nodded, closing my eyes with a moan.
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