He groaned, long and deep. “And I promise you’ll have exactly that…tomorrow.” I playfully stuck out my lower lip. “It’s just that the guys are talking about, like, four different parties tonight and I kind of feel like I need to—”
I shushed him with my fingers. “I’m kidding. We should have a good time tonight. You’ve all earned this. But tomorrow, we’re doing nothing but staying in bed, eating food we shouldn’t eat, and turning off our phones.”
“Deal.” He started tugging me away from the hoard of people, toward the stands. “They’re going to do the trophy ceremony in just a minute, but there’s enough time for you to meet my mom.”
I stilled. “Your mom?” I should have thought about that happening tonight. “Oh, God, Cam.” I looked down at myself. “I look terrible. And it probably looks like I’ve been making out with you.”
“Sweetheart.” He pulled me in tight. “You have been making out with me. And chances are she saw it. It’s not like we were hiding or anything.” A smile lit up his face. “Finally.”
I groaned. “You’re not making me feel better.”
“Hey, you have it easy compared to what I’ve had to endure with your dad.”
Okay, he had a point there.
“Besides, she’s already impressed by you. Hell, she’s probably in love with you by now.”
“And how do you know that?” I asked.
He tilted his head down, laying a gentle kiss on my swollen lips. “Because I love you and she just wants me to be happy. And since you make me happy, that automatically gives you an in with her.”
“I hope you’re right.”
“I’m always right. Haven’t you figured that out by now?”
My laughter was cut short when he froze in place. I glanced up and saw Trey blocking our path.
Shit. What were they going to do? I could barely breathe as I watched them face off. Trey looked miserable and pissed off all at the same time. Cam’s arm around my shoulder had tensed, but other than that, he didn’t show much of a reaction. Trey looked between us, taking in the sight of Cam’s arm around me, our closeness and general happiness. He clenched his jaw and stared me right in the eyes for about three seconds before he switched over to Cam. His chest rose and fell with his heavy breaths but he didn’t say a word.
And then he just…
Walked away.
No niceties were exchanged—not that I expected there to be. It was just a silent departure, and with it, I got a sense of finality. What more could be said, anyway? Cam had beaten him in every possible way there was to beat a person. I had a feeling that Trey Warren was out of our lives for good.
Cam kissed my forehead and breathed against my hair. “You’re mine, Reese. You know that, right? I’m never letting you go.”
I laid my head against his chest. “I never want you to.”
Because I’d found everything I’d ever been looking for.
If someone had told me after I first met him that day in the locker room when his naked body had barely been covered by a T-shirt that I’d be standing here with him now, like this…I would have told them they needed to stop drinking the Kool-Aid.
But I would forever be grateful for that little potty break.
Who’d have thought it would be the beginning of the rest of my life?
Epilogue
Cam
One year later
Thrust.
Gasp.
Thrust.
Moan.
“Do you know how proud of you I am?” I said between pants.
“You think we can maybe talk about this after?”
I chuckled and drove into Reese harder. She was all spread out on the training room exam table, the same one that held such fond memories for us—what can I say, we were feeling nostalgic—with her graduation gown splayed open and her generous tits pulled out of her mint-colored dress. Completely on display for me.
I’d thrown her graduation cap across the room after I’d practically dragged her through the door.
I didn’t care if she was graduating with her Doctorate in Physical Therapy today. I’d been away on a recruiting trip with her dad and the other NCU coaches for four days. Which meant I hadn’t touched her, smelled her, and definitely hadn’t fucked her in ninety-six hours.
Graduation day or not, I knew I was going to have that nice dress of hers hiked up over her hips before the ceremony started.
I leaned down and took one nipple into my mouth. The sweet sound of her lustful moan was music to my ears. The feel of her nails scraping the bare skin of my torso—because she’d insisted that I unbutton my shirt for her—only made my cock swell bigger inside her.
“You always know…God…you always know how to make me feel good,” she whispered, her head thrown back as she fell down the rabbit hole.
I released her and growled, “You’re damn right I do. You know why?”
She grinned up at the ceiling, her eyes closed. “Because I’m yours?”
I gripped the back of her neck and drew her in for a punishing kiss. Not that it was her fault that we hadn’t seen each other in four days. It was mine. But I still felt like punishing her, anyway. It was a new thing we’d been playing around with over the last few months.
“Because you’re mine,” I said against her parted lips. “And I’ll always make you feel good. You never have to worry about that.”
She wrapped her long, perfect legs around my waist and scooted forward to take me deeper.
If I ever had any doubts that things wouldn’t be as good between us or get even better after we’d won the championship last year—which I didn’t—those fears had been demolished within the first week.
This last year had been nothing short of amazing. Hands down the best year of my life.
Sure, we still drove each other crazy sometimes, and there were definitely times where we fought until we were both blue in the face. But I usually ended up getting turned on by those moments and then bam! Makeup sex. We had our differences—mainly because we were both pigheaded fools—but nothing in my life had ever felt so right.
I’d been working as an assistant coach for the NCU men’s basketball team, learning under Coach Bradley, which had brought a whole new dynamic to our relationship. I’d learned a lot from him, and this year the team had made it all the way to the Last 4 before losing.
The entire country had been shocked that I wasn’t entering the draft due to my knee injury—at least that was the reason I gave. But as soon as I’d made the announcement, job offers had been thrown at me left and right. Several colleges offered me positions within their sports organizations, there’d been a few offers from sports networks, and more than a few coaching offers. Most were assistant jobs at various colleges, but there had even been a head coaching position thrown in there.
Obviously, I’d turned it down, for multiple reasons. One, Reese had still had one more year of school to get through and there was no way I wanted to attempt a long distance relationship. Two, I wanted to take the opportunity to learn as much as I could from Coach Bradley before I branched out on my own. He was, after all, one of the most successful coaches in history, at any level. He’d offered me a job not long after I’d graduated last year, and I’d been all too happy to accept. So had Reese.
We figured that since she had been offered a fellowship at a very reputable physical therapy practice over in Eaglesville, which was only about fifteen minutes away, we would stay in the area until she got more experience under her belt and I could do the same with my coaching. We were both willing to move away, but we’d both been offered great opportunities and we were happy with the situation for the time being.
“Cam, baby, I’m so close.” I could feel her starting to clench around me. “Please. Do it harder.”
No problem.
I slammed in harder, rocking my hips at a frantic pace. We’d been so fucking hot for each other when we met in the parking lot, it was like spontaneous combustion. Her dad and I’d had t
o rush here straight from the airport to make it on time for the ceremony. I’d had a boner practically the whole time just thinking about this moment. Pounding her dirty in the training room, knowing she’d have my cum inside her as she walked across that stage and received her diploma. I hadn’t been able to stop thinking about it.
It had definitely been one of the weirdest cab rides of my life.
She let out these short little gasps that told me she was about to reach her climax.
“That’s it. Do it, sweetheart. Come for me. I want to feel you let go on my cock.”
I had to cover her mouth with mine to muffle her screams of pleasure. There shouldn’t have been anyone down here in this hallway, but you never knew. I released seconds later in a torrent of rough groans and satiated sighs.
“How am I supposed to even walk after that?” she asked.
I laughed as I carefully pulled out of her—wouldn’t want to get anything on her pretty dress—and helped her tuck her breasts back in.
“Well, try your best and if you’re a good girl, I’ll give you your present tonight instead of tomorrow.”
With me not getting back into town until today, she’d wanted us to spend the evening alone together tonight and then go out and celebrate with family and friends tomorrow. I was going to surprise her with a celebration trip to the Outer Banks. We’d been talking for a while about going on a fishing adventure in the same area my dad used to take me when I was a kid. I knew she was going to flip out when I told her.
But that wasn’t my only surprise.
Her eyes gleamed with excitement. “When am I not a good girl?”
I lightly nipped her bottom lip with my teeth, foreshadowing what was in store for her later. “Oh, Reese. You’re a naughty girl who’s always getting into trouble, and you know it.”
She winked. “And you wouldn’t want me any other way. Oh, I almost forgot to tell you. We have to add two more people to the dinner reservation for tomorrow. Gemma and Syd can both make it, after all.”
They’d been able to come the whole time, but she didn’t know that. It was all part of the plan. I played along, though, and asked, “What changed?”
“Gemma’s audition in New York got pushed back to Wednesday, so she doesn’t have to fly out for another few days. And I don’t really know what’s going on with Syd. All I do know is that she and Boyd aren’t on speaking terms right now. Anyway, they both said they’d be there.”
The plan was coming together. It had been her roommates’ idea to pull a prank on her at dinner, though they didn’t know the rest of my plan.
“Sounds good,” I said, checking my watch. “I’d better get to my seat, and you need to go find your place in line.”
She hopped up to straighten her dress and zip up her gown, smiling knowingly. “Have fun sitting next to my dad while he wonders if you’ve been gone this whole time because you were busy screwing his daughter’s brains out.”
My head fell back and I sighed. “Come on, don’t say shit like that. We’ve finally reached this non-awkward place where I can talk about you and me to him without him flinching.”
She laughed and pinched my cheek. “He loves you.”
“And how do you know that?”
She raised an eyebrow. “Because I love you and he just wants me to be happy.” She was repeating my words to her from the championship game a year ago. “And guess what? You make me happy, so he automatically loves you. Even if it took him a while to figure it out.”
Damn, I loved her so much I could hardly think straight.
She looked so damn gorgeous standing there with her wild, wavy chestnut hair and red lips. She was the most beautiful woman I’d ever seen in my life, and I couldn’t believe that I got to spend the rest of my life with her. She balanced me out in every way. She got me, and no one had ever gotten me before. I could completely be myself around her, which was a monumental relief after spending the majority of my life in the public eye.
She was everything to me.
She was my whole life and I never wanted us to be apart. It sent a rush of panic coursing through me just thinking about it. I couldn’t imagine going on with the rest of my life and spending it with anyone but her.
That’s when I made up my mind.
Everyone would probably hate me for it, wishing I would have waited until tomorrow night. But that suddenly just didn’t feel right. This was something so pure and intimate and special, I didn’t want anyone else sharing it with us. Call it being selfish, but I didn’t care.
This was about us. Just us.
As she searched for her cap on the other side of the room, I subtly fingered the diamond ring I hid in my pocket.
I was going to propose to Reese tonight.
Like I said, best year of my life.
But I knew there were many, many more to come. And every one of them would be spent with her.
The love of my life. My reason for living.
My sweetheart.
THE END
STAY TUNED FOR MELANIE’S NEXT BOOK…
Sweet Attraction (Slow Seductions #2) will release on
January 15, 2018
with Entangled Brazen!
Pre-order for this title will be available soon!
Enjoy a Sneak Peek of Sweet Attraction…
Chapter One
Dr. Phil could kiss her ass.
Jade Hollingsworth scowled at the road in front of her, her insides quivering with anxiety as she drove down the highway. What had the good doctor said during the one episode of his show she had ever watched?
“You can’t play the game of life with sweaty palms.”
Well, she was sure as hell playing the game of life now.
And her damn palms had never been sweatier.
But none of this was a game. And she should never have listened to a TV psychologist in the first place. It would have been a lot more helpful if the dude had shared what to do when your palms got so sweaty you could barely maintain your control on the steering wheel of life.
Buy a stronger antiperspirant?
The drive from Washington, D.C. to Shell Grove, South Carolina was over seven grueling hours. After driving five, she was on the verge of throwing up her greasy fast food dinner. Not because she was carsick or had the flu. No. She was ready to toss her cookies because of the huge, life-altering decision she was making.
Although, Dr. Phil never told her to open up her own swimsuit shop in a strange town where she didn’t know a single person.
But he’d implied it with the whole sweaty palms comment.
She would have been a coward if she didn’t do it, right? And she didn’t want to be a coward. So, she’d said sayonara to her bitchy boss at the swanky bakery where she’d worked in downtown D.C., flipped off all the asshole customers she would never have to deal with again, slammed the door on her hated stepmother and pig of a stepbrother, and packed up her car for greener pastures.
Actually, she didn’t know what the pastures were like in the coastal town of Shell Grove, because she had never seen the town in person before. Everything she knew about it was based on internet research. Her Realtor had found her a house there and a storefront for her swimsuit shop. But other than that, she might as well have been moving to Timbuktu.
Was it risky? Definitely.
Could she fail? Absolutely.
Was she terrified beyond all belief? You bet your ass.
It hadn’t been her intention to start this journey off on such a melancholy note. But hey, no one had ever accused her of being an optimist before. Maybe a realist. After all, failure was a real possibility, and she had to prepare herself for—
Oh God.
She had to pull over.
Thankfully, she spotted a decent-looking hotel chain at the next exit and whipped her five-year-old BMW convertible into the parking lot. After turning the ignition off, she fought to get herself back under control by taking deep, calming breaths.
She could do this. She had to d
o this.
She had taken far too many steps to get where she was, and she couldn’t turn back now.
She glanced over at the shoebox in her front seat. The meager cardboard box held all of her most prized possessions, which was why she hadn’t risked it to the fates of the rickety moving truck that had picked up her furniture the day before. The contents of the box haunted her, always making their presence known in her subconscious.
She had to pry her eyes away.
Focusing back on the hotel, she pushed out a heavy breath.
Time to sleep in the bed you made for yourself, sweetheart.
Having left D.C. much later than she’d planned to, night had already fallen, and besides, the moving truck wouldn’t be at the house she’d rented in Shell Grove until the next morning. So, she had some time to kill.
Two more hours on the road didn’t sound as appealing as drinking her worries away in a bottomless glass of wine. Or vodka.
She grabbed her luggage and purse, checked herself into a standard room with a queen-size bed, and trotted back down to the hotel’s restaurant-slash-bar. She didn’t bother changing out of her high-waist shorts and crop top because one, it was hot, and two, she didn’t give a rat’s ass what she looked like. Okay, so maybe she’d touched up her beehive ponytail just a little. And she may have reapplied her trademark plum lipstick. But so what?
If she was going to attend her own pity party tonight, she wanted to be dressed for the occasion. She wasn’t completely devoid of pride.
Dignity, maybe, but not pride.
She made a beeline for the bar and immediately flagged down the bartender. “Dry martini and a shot of the best stuff you have,” she told him. “I don’t care what it is.”
He tossed her a half grin. “The last woman who said that to me, I ended up marrying.”
Jade glanced down at his bare ring finger. “And that charming smile wasn’t enough to keep her around?”
He chuckled, the sound coming out gravelly, making him seem older than he was. She’d bet he was a smoker.
King of the Court Page 36
