Scoring Off the Field

by Naima Simone

  “Dinner, obviously.” He cocked his head. “You more than anyone should know it’s one of my favorite restaurants.”

  Yes, she did, but he hadn’t mentioned anything about a date tonight. And she scheduled all his meetings—including dates, and there had been nothing entered in. She’d double-checked before choosing this restaurant. The coast should’ve been clear, but no. Fate and life hated her.

  “Right,” she agreed, and couldn’t help that the word emerged sounding like she choked on it.

  “Sooo.” Adam glanced from her to Dom, fidgeting with the frame of his glasses. Again. “You two obviously know each other.”

  She slid a look at Dom, and he winked at her. The fall of sleek, dark brown waves framed his chiseled cheekbones and wide, carnal mouth. The amusement in his eyes only made them appear bluer.

  Damn, the man was beautiful.

  Before he’d arrived, the round table she and Adam shared had seemed small, but with just enough space for them. But Dom’s giant, wide-shouldered frame dwarfed everything—the table, her, Adam. His thick thigh pressed against hers, and a fantasy image of those same heavy legs widening hers as he crushed her body to a bed swamped her. She tried to suck in a deep breath, but his presence that brimmed with energy and sexuality seemed to vacuum the air from the entire restaurant, overwhelming their mismatched foursome. Poor Adam, with his perfectly handsome features, trendy glasses, and clothes, didn’t stand a chance against him.

  “Yes,” she agreed, forcing a smile. She hated that she was once more comparing a man to Dom. And the other man fell short. “We’re childhood friends. More like brother and sister,” she added, more for her own benefit than her date’s. The reminder would serve to usher the erotic vision of her and Dom out of her head.

  “Well, I don’t know about that,” Dom drawled. “I mean, I’ve never seen my sister in her underwear.”

  Did he just…? Oh shit, he did. She gaped at him. “Y-you don’t even have a s-sister,” she sputtered, caught between outrage and shock. Which explained the completely inane comeback.

  Though he nodded solemnly, a wicked gleam brightened his eyes. “True. But if I did, I doubt she would take off her clothes in front of me.”

  Adam’s gasp had her head snapping back toward her date. For the time being, she opted to ignore Julia’s snort that reeked of disapproval. Since she probably had every intention of stripping for Dom later that night, she really shouldn’t be a judgy bitch.

  “He’s not telling the whole story,” she hurriedly explained to Adam, who regarded her and Dom with wide eyes and parted lips. “It isn’t as bad as it sounds.”

  “Again, true,” Dom added, his tone helpful. All kinds of oh fuck trickled through her. “She was wasted at the time,” he stage-whispered.

  She briefly closed her eyes. Yes, she’d been about to abandon the date with Adam before Dom showed up. But that would’ve been her decision, not a result of Dom’s interference. And she’d rather Adam not leave thinking she was a lush.

  “It was a girls’ night out,” she ground out between clenched teeth, trying a reassuring smile with Adam. But from his flinch, it must’ve appeared more like a feral baring of teeth. Because it definitely felt like it.

  “Yes, a girls’ night out,” Dom recited, a wealth of That’s her story, and I’m sticking to it, all up in the words. “She’s not a drunk.”

  He shifted her half-filled glass of wine closer to him.

  Dead.

  He was so dead.

  And as Adam lifted a hand and signaled for the check, apparently so was this date.

  …

  Dom punched a code into the keypad next to the large, black, iron gate that served as the front entrance to Tennyson’s Kirkland private community. Impatient, he waited until the gates swung open the minimum required amount of space before driving through. He barely noticed the well-maintained and beautifully kept townhomes and apartments. When Tenny had first toured the area, she’d fallen in love with the small neighborhood feel of it with the towering trees and so much…green. Dom had liked it because of the security system. Twenty-four-hour guards. Cameras covering every section of the complex—he’d checked. State-of-the-art alarm systems in the individual units. If she refused to stay with him, then he’d wanted to ensure she had the best protection possible.

  Still, as he pulled into a guest parking space and climbed the steps to her second-floor apartment, he doubted all that security would shield him from the Wrath of Tennyson. Not after his performance at the restaurant earlier. He winced. Yeah, he might have gone a little overboard with the alcoholic insinuation. And her death glare as she’d stalked away from him promised retribution. Painful retribution. But hopefully, the hour and a half it’d taken to disentangle himself from Julia and make his excuses before dropping her off at home had provided Tennyson with enough time to cool off.

  Or, at least, enough time where she would no longer want to inflict bodily harm.

  Sighing, he reached her front door and knocked. And waited. Knocked again. Waited some more. Still no answer.

  He knew Tenny better than anyone. And the woman had a heart the size of the Atlantic, but when she got angry, she could hold it until the damn cows came home, left, ventured on a whirlwind vacation, and returned again. Since he only had one life to live, he’d rather let her get this fury out of her system now, and then they could move on.

  Inserting his emergency key to her place into her front door, he unlocked it and, like he had thousands of times before, let himself in. Silence greeted him. The television that continually remained on whenever she was home sat dark in the enormous entertainment center he and Zeph had put together. Only the light over the stove and the pale glow from the streetlamps peeking through the slats of the closed blinds provided dim illumination of the spacious living and dining rooms. This early in October, the wide fireplaces in both rooms remained unlit.

  He roamed through the rest of the apartment, finding the guest bedroom and bathroom empty. Just as he neared her bedroom, he caught a faint sound. Pausing, he identified the low drum as water. Shower water. Relieved that Tenny was home safe, he returned to the living room, switched on the television, and settled on the couch.

  But part of him was attuned to the sound of water pounding against tile upstairs instead of SportsCenter. Focused on the image of wet, slick, golden skin. And when the shower stopped, his mind immediately conjured up a corresponding vision. That same skin, flushed and smooth, patted dry with one of the same kind of fluffy towels Tennyson kept in her room at his house. He tightened his grip on the remote, shoving the sensual pictures from his head where they definitely didn’t belong. Hell, maybe he shouldn’t have been so quick to take Julia home. Maybe he should’ve accepted her invitation, stayed, and fucked away this completely inappropriate preoccupation with his best friend.

  Still, when her bedroom door opened, he was aware of every movement.

  “What the hell are you doing here?” The snapped question interrupted Scott Van Pelt discussing the upcoming Denver vs. Seattle game but didn’t surprise him. He casually turned, but the light-hearted reply he had ready died a swift death on his tongue.

  Damn.

  He’d thought the black dress she’d worn to dinner, with its figure-hugging material and deep neckline that revealed the inner curves of her breasts, had been bad. Bad as in barely checking his urge to yank the white tablecloth off and throw it around her like a reverse cape. But that dress didn’t compare to Tennyson standing several feet away in a purple robe that hit her mid-thigh. The silk clung to several damp spots on her shoulder, chest, and legs. And he couldn’t tear his gaze away from them. Couldn’t stop imagining how slick the wet material would feel under his fingertips.

  “Since you have televisions at your house, I’m guessing you’re not here to just watch SportsCenter,” she drawled, crossing her arms under her breasts. A groan climbed up his throat. The movement caused the lapels of her robe to slightly gap, exposing a sliver of skin that
wasn’t hindered by a bra clasp. Jesus Christ. Of all his bad mistakes in life, his decision to show up here unannounced had now zoomed into the top five.

  “Dom, hello? What’re you doing here?” she repeated, arching an eyebrow.

  “I have a key,” he said, holding up his ring.

  “A. That’s an emergency key. Which means unless you see flames pouring from my windows or my house falling into a crack because of shifting plates, then you don’t just get to use it when I’m mad at you. And B. That doesn’t answer my question. What do you want?”

  Okay, this wasn’t good. There’d always been an open-door policy between them. For her to revoke it meant she was royally pissed off. And probably not in the mood to hear how he was sorry to have crashed her date. That he’d made an impromptu date with Julia with every intention of dining and then ending up in her bed that night. But when he’d seen Tenny with that Adam guy, all his intentions to get laid had gone the way of the wooly mammoth. All he could think about was making sure she was safe meeting this complete stranger from an online dating site.

  Besides, after he’d gotten a closer look at the guy, his intention had been to save her. HappilyEverAdam had definitely not been her type. Not that Dom could pinpoint what her “type” was since she rarely dated, but he could definitely say Dull as Fuck wasn’t it. The guy had looked like he’d come straight from an episode of The Big Bang Theory. Since she probably wouldn’t appreciate his opinion at the moment, he kept it to himself.

  He stood and shoved his hands in the front pockets of his dress pants. “I wanted to apologize for tonight. I might’ve gone too far.”

  “Might have?” Her eyes narrowed on him. “You horned in on my date. Then you insinuated that I was a drunk who made a habit of stripping in front of people. I’d say there’s no ‘might have gone too far’ about it,” she snarled. “When was the last time I popped up in your bedroom, climbed up on the mattress, and plopped my ass in between you and one of your football groupies while you were trying to get your one-night stand on?” She jabbed a finger at him. “Have I ever followed you to one of your DTF starlets’ houses, knocked on the door with a tray of milk and cookies, and proceeded to talk to her about her latest movie? I’ll tell you when. Never.”

  Milk and cookies? He swallowed the snicker tickling the back of his throat.

  “How did you find out where we were anyway?” she demanded.

  He held his hands up. “Purely accidental, I swear. I should be asking you why you’d take your date to the same restaurant you know I frequent.”

  Maybe she’d subconsciously wanted him to horn in on her date… Yeeaah, that glare said differently. Actually, it said, Go fuck yourself.

  “You didn’t say anything about a date tonight,” she pointed out. “It wasn’t on your calendar. How was I supposed to know you’d show up and torpedo my first meeting with Adam to hell and back?”

  He shrugged. “C’mon, Tenny. You were about to fake a heart attack or something to get out of that place. I saw it all over your face when I arrived.”

  “That’s not the point. Oh, hell, never mind.” She waved a hand. “Why, Dom? Your actions tonight just prove why I didn’t tell you about my date. You can’t help yourself, can you? Interfering in my life? Making my decisions for me? Deciding what’s best for me?”

  “That’s not true,” he objected, his own irritation starting to rise. She made him sound like some kind of control freak. Honestly, he didn’t know what was wrong with him lately. Actually, he just cared about her—her welfare, her safety, her happiness. And granted, Adam, aka HappilyEverAdam, hadn’t come across as the next serial killer to be featured on an ID Discovery special, but he damn sure wouldn’t have made Tennyson happy. Hell, if Adam hadn’t been so busy flapping his gums, he might have caught on to her boredom.

  Dom wisely kept that observation to himself.

  “But you know what?” she continued as if he hadn’t spoken. “I only have myself to blame. Paying my college tuition, setting me up with a job, finding my apartment, even choosing my freakin’ car insurance—I let you get away with it all because it was comfortable. It’s what I’ve known for so long. Too long.”

  “What the hell are you talking about now?” Dom barked, striding across the several feet that separated them. “I did all that because we’re family, not to control or manage you.”

  “We are not family,” she replied, voice sharp. And those four words jabbed him in the chest, expelling all the air from his lungs. “I’m not the broken little girl from the foster home who you took under your wing anymore. No matter how much you still think I am.”

  “Goddamn it,” he growled, getting up in her space. Anger shoved at him, ate at him. The hell he wanted her to be that eleven year-old with the wounded eyes and heart. It’d been his life’s mission to make her forget what betrayal, pain, and hunger felt like. And here she stood, accusing him of… “If you think I want that for you, then you don’t know me one fucking bit, Tennyson.”

  “No, you don’t want me to be her, but you see me as that girl. You’re still trying to be my hero, my protector, my big brother. I don’t need to be protected, and I damn sure don’t want you as my brother. My life has revolved around yours for the last fourteen years. I want my own. I want to walk my own path. Make my own way. Without you hovering over my shoulder, trying to force me into the direction you think I should go for my own good. I’m tired of it,” she stormed. “You don’t respect me as an adult capable of making her own decisions—”

  “Could you please stop for a minute?”

  She complied, blinking up at him, probably shocked at his asking her to be quiet or the “please”—maybe both.

  We are not family.

  I don’t need to be protected, and I damn sure don’t want you as my brother.

  You don’t respect me…

  Anger licked at him, burning him in its flames. Anger, frustration…hurt. They all propelled him forward. Before he could question himself—reason with himself—he was moving, pinning her to the wall, thrusting his fingers through her thick, nearly black curls. Pressing his chest to hers, grinding his cock into the soft give of her stomach. She didn’t utter a word, just stared up at him, shock darkening her eyes, parting her lush lips.

  “We’re not family? You don’t want me to protect you?” He hurled her words back at her, tightening his grip on her hair, pulling her head back just a little farther. Her lashes fluttered, and her breath caught, the soft gasp of air brushing his mouth. Oh hell. She liked that. Eyes narrowing on the flush that lightly colored her cheekbones, he tugged on her hair again, a little firmer than the last time. Once more, she gave another of those almost imperceptible pants, a small, hungry sound accompanying it. Her fingers curled into his shirt, her nails barely scraping his chest through the material. But he felt the light scratch all the way in his dick as if she’d drawn them down his already throbbing erection.

  Fuck.

  Common sense railed at him to unravel his fingers from her hair, let her go, and back away. But lust had smothered reason as soon as he heard that greedy sound and sexy gasp. He’d always been mindful of his bigger frame and strength, and gentle in his interactions with her. But it seemed Tennyson liked it when he wasn’t so…gentle. The knowledge sent a blaze of fire blasting through him.

  “Dom,” she whispered, her lashes lifting. Confusion shadowed her eyes. But so did arousal. And it was the heat there that had him pressing closer until she raised on her toes, another of those whimpers escaping her. Hell, he could make dragging that sound from her another career.

  What are you doing? the rational side of his brain scolded. But he barely paid it any heed. The primal side of his psyche had taken hold. And screw it, he let it take over.

  “Let me show you what I do to women who aren’t family,” he rasped.

  He crushed his mouth to hers, not waiting, but thrusting his tongue between her lips. Her flavor exploded over his senses—the sweetness of the Riesling wine she’d h
ad with dinner and a unique, earthier taste that he’d never sampled before but still somehow knew belonged only to her. With a deep groan, he tilted his head and delved deeper, claimed more of her with a carnal sweep.

  Yet something—reason, instinct, the protective side of him he couldn’t ever banish—cautioned him, reminded him that she wasn’t just one of the women he casually fucked. Even as he rocked his cock into her belly and widened her thighs with his, he remembered this was Tennyson. And the hard possession of his mouth gentled just a bit. Became a little more tender. More sensual.

  He licked at the roof of her mouth before curling his tongue around hers, inviting her to tangle with him. And she did. With bold strokes and strong sucks. With a hard nip to his bottom lip. His hips bucked at the sting, and he growled his approval, returning the favor.

  Need clouded his head in a thick haze. Running on straight, pure lust, he released his grip on her hip and slid his hand over the dip of her waist, stroking up until he cupped her breast. He moaned at the weight of her. Firm. Feminine. Heavy. Lifting his head, he stared down, fierce pleasure barreling through him at the sight of her silk-covered flesh in his hand. Her nipple, hard and tight, poked his palm, and he squeezed the mound, shaped it. Swept his thumb over the tip.

  She jerked against him, loosing a soft cry. Damn, he loved that sound. He flicked the peak, pinched it. And was rewarded with another of those needy cries. She arched into his hand, her body begging for more of what he could give her. Of what he wanted to give her. Lowering his head, he brushed his mouth over her jaw and traveled down the elegant line of her throat.

  With a growl, he bent further, studied the steady pass of his thumb over the tightly beaded nipple thrusting against the silk of her robe. Unable to resist the lure of her aroused flesh, he captured the tip with his mouth, sucking it and the soft material deep inside. Her fingers tangled in his hair, her nails scratching his scalp. The tiny bite arrowed straight to his dick, and he ground harder against her…