by Tessa Bailey
Too close. He was standing way too close. The smell of sweat and Nautica Blue climbed on board and got cozy. Lord, his calf muscles were the size of grapefruits. Those mesh shorts, riding so breathtakingly low on his pronounced hip bones, were doing exactly zero good at hiding just how effective her unplanned striptease had been. It hadn’t been her aim to turn him on, but she definitely had. And now her own screams and moans from all those years ago were echoing in her ears like a taunt.
Kyler knew exactly how to use what lived inside his shorts. The memories of just how well were creating a weight in her tummy, pressing down, down, until wetness formed between her thighs. His parted lips and quick breaths said he knew it, too. “Don’t let me keep you from your workout, Bree.”
“Right,” she rasped. Brushing past him, her arm grazed his ridged chest, making him groan. Bree barely resisted doing the same.
He followed her through the maze of equipment, slowly, close enough that she could hear his breaths. Her inner walls clenched tight when he made a rough sound and without turning around, she knew he was admiring her backside. God. God, this was a very bad situation. Closed in the tiny gym with Kyler, no one there to interrupt or distract them, if he made a move, Bree wasn’t sure she had the strength to decline. It wasn’t merely the fact that she’d gone four years without sex. No. It was her chemistry with Kyler, specifically. They’d gone from daily wild, desperate encounters at the creek, in his truck, behind the school…to nothing. No contact.
Her hormones were demanding she fix the way she’d slighted them. And since they hadn’t been this vocal since prom night, she couldn’t deny that the yearning was all for Kyler. Dammit. This was very bad. She’d made so much progress moving on.
Hadn’t she?
Bree stopped at the vertical knee raise, a machine designed to work the abdomen, turned, and climbed on. Right away, she realized she’d chosen the wrong machine. It was a well-known fact that lifting your knees up to your chest while suspended sparked a down low tickle, which only increased with repetition. Throw in the scenery—her bare-chested, sexy as a motherfucker, fresh from pumping iron, aroused ex-boyfriend—and the down low tickle threatened to become a riot of lust.
“I don’t need an audience,” Bree managed, executing her first lift.
Kyler fastened his gaze on her stomach, where she hoped a decent flex of muscle was taking place. “Maybe not, supergirl, but you demand one.” His tone was deep, sending the pulse in her neck into a flutter. A fast one. “Where were you when Heidi called?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking—” Bree huffed a sigh. “You knew she was going to call me, didn’t you?”
He appeared to be fighting a grin. “Didn’t answer my question.”
“A coyote got hold of a golden retriever named Bowser.” That low thrum began between her legs, intense and weighted, but she kept raising her knees, because Kyler was watching, waiting for her to say uncle and quit early. “He’s going to be fine after some rest and healing.”
“I’ve never had a chance to see you work.” He didn’t look happy about it, but the brooding set of his brow only made him sexier. Lift. Lift. The dull throb between her legs turned sharp, urgent. “Let me. While I’m here.”
While he’s here. He’s leaving. “If the chance arises.”
“Fine enough. For now.” His tongue slid from one corner of his lips to the other. “How are these leg raises treating you? Feeling a pull anywhere?”
“Uh-uh,” she said too quickly. “Nope.”
“Oh no?” The next time she raised her legs, Kyler caught her beneath both knees, his movement so lightning quick she sucked in a breath, her heart flying into a chaotic hammering pace. A wicked glint flashed in Kyler’s eyes. Bree didn’t have a chance to decipher it before he pushed her knees higher, all the way to her shoulders, squeezing all those sensitive, aroused muscles and starting a ringing in her ears. “How about now?”
“Uh…” She gave up pretending to breathe normally, her neck ceasing to support her head. “Ky, please…”
And then she felt it. Tiny bites along the insides of her thighs, branding her through the cotton leggings. Slow, precise, just enough pressure. Commanding her neck to play ball, Bree looked down to find Kyler’s eyelids at half mast, his white teeth sinking in every couple inches, his own chest and stomach shuddering in and out, his nipples in tight points. At the sight, the walls of Bree’s core constricted and released with enough force to send a rattling gasp flying from her mouth.
“Kyler.”
“Bree?”
“Just…”
“Yeah.” His double grip beneath her knees vanished, but before her legs could fall, Kyler was inserting his hips to catch them. One arm snaked around the base of her spine, sliding her forward and out of the machine…and then there she was. Legs wrapped around her ex-boyfriend’s waist, heart pounding, moisture pooled between her thighs, their mouths separated only by a matter of an inch.
“You wore that cologne on purpose,” she breathed. “Admit it.”
His grin flashed. “Guilty as charged and unrepentant as a sinner.”
Her gasp only widened his smile. “Bragging about sinning now, are you, Kyler?”
“You say my name all shaken up and sexy like that when you want me to kiss your pretty mouth.” Hunger made his tone sound like two knives sharpening each other. “I reckon nothing has changed.”
With those vivid green eyes penetrating her defenses, Bree couldn’t have lied to save her life. “Yes,” she whispered, her voice catching at the feel of his erection full and proud against the seam of her leggings, the warm press of his abdomen muscles at her belly. “I-in the name of being friendly and all.”
Kyler rolled his hips and Bree saw stars. “It’s just good manners making your pussy wet, is that right?”
“Yes?”
“Hush up, Bree.”
His mouth claimed Bree’s at the same time one big hand found her bottom, pulling her close, grinding their lower bodies together. And so their first kiss after four years started with an identical groan born of frustration, before it spiraled straight into madness.
Kyler wasted no time taking on the role of aggressor, his tongue sliding in to mark its territory, licking over hers once, twice, three times, before twining around it, sucking with a desperate sound, licking more.
Sensation exploded in Bree’s body…but also her mind. It was like turning on a Jumbotron in a dark stadium, waking up an entire sleeping crowd and having them erupt with a foot-stomping standing ovation. Heat pulsed between her thighs, in her nipples, the sensitive areas of her neck. As if she were being touched everywhere at once, her skin kneaded by fire.
Kyler’s strong hand moved in punishing efficiency on her backside, gripping her flesh tight, hefting her up when she started to slip, growling every time she re-settled on his hardness. Teasing her with low-key upthrusts designed to drive her insane. Craving a loss of control from him, ready to sell her soul for friction, Bree’s legs began to move involuntarily, up and down his hips, trying to get closer, climb higher, rubbing herself on Kyler’s thick flesh in the process.
“Jesus, Bree.” His lips slanted open over hers, released a shuddering breath right against her mouth before diving back in with barely leashed intensity. “This is how it always used to start. ‘Hug me, Kyler. Keep me warm.’ Soon enough, you’d have a leg around me. Didn’t take long before the other one followed, did it?” They both shook their heads no, causing their lips to graze together. “No, it didn’t. Now open your eyes and keep them on me while you remind me of the rest.”
Bree didn’t realize her eyes were closed until Kyler’s words shot them open. “We’d be at the creek, most times.” A lusty haze wrapped around them. “And y-you’d wait for my say-so—”
“Soon as you flashed me those eyes—you know, you know the hot little teasing way you did it—then I’d get on top of you, wouldn’t I? Pin you down like I couldn’t help it.” His groan made her nipples tighten
painfully. “Shit, Bree. I could barely unzip my pants and shove up your skirt, you’d have me shaking so hard.”
“I’d be shaking, too,” she admitted huskily, wondering if it was possible to have an orgasm just from knowing how well Kyler remembered those nights at the creek. When they were so high on each other, nothing and no one else in the world existed. Kind of like right now?
The thought might have thrown off Bree, but Kyler’s tongue danced back into her mouth with enough skill to muffle it. Her fingers tingled with the need to plow through his hair and Bree obliged them, savoring the hitch in his breath. She felt the shift of control, Kyler allowing her to play. He rocked back on his heels, hips angling out to give her a sexy perch while she charted the kiss, desire detonating along her spine as his hands rode up, up and around to her breasts.
“Tell me the rest of the story,” Kyler rasped at her lips. “What would happen after I’d get your skirt shoved up to your belly button? After I got a good look at your tight pussy in the moonlight?”
Bree opened her mouth to answer or moan—she had no idea which—but the response stuck in her throat when Kyler lifted her sports bra, exposing her breasts. “Kyler.”
With a croaked curse, he sucked one bud into his mouth, his hands sliding down to span her waist, squeezing. And he didn’t let up, mouthing the tip of her breast between his lips, flickering his tongue against it. Bree could do nothing but hold on to the strands of his hair and offer herself up.
She was so lost in the oncoming rumble of a climax, she sucked in a breath at the ragged sound of his voice. “Waiting on that story, Bree. My cock is aching like a son of a bitch from having your legs around me. You’ve given me the look. Now you’re pinned underneath me with your panties off on the creek bed.” His tongue curled around her left nipple before giving it a light bite. “What happens next?”
“You’d…” The words she was about to say made her tremble, right down to her throbbing center. “You’d push yourself inside of me.”
As if he thought she wouldn’t have the nerve to say it out loud, his body dipped and staggered forward a step. “Had to find a different spot every week because we’d wear the grass down to nothing. From fucking on top of it. Wouldn’t we, Bree?”
Oh my God. She could feel the grass beneath her now, tearing away at the roots, Kyler’s hips pumping, his voice straining near her ear. “Yes.”
Kyler wound a fist in her hair and tugged, his face looming above hers. “You want me to push myself up inside you right now?”
Yes, yes, yes. So close. She was so close. There was a good reason she should say no, but her body was in the throes of arousal so painful, tears were prickling behind her eyelids. “I-I—”
With a massive sigh, Kyler stopped rolling his body, dropping his forehead down onto hers. “That’s not a yes.”
She searched his heated expression up close. “I just can’t…shake the feeling you want more than this from me.”
Until that moment, Bree hadn’t acknowledged the little voice in the back of her head telling her Kyler wasn’t operating like his usual self. That his behavior was suspicious. And at her words, his green gaze sharpened. “Dinner,” he said after a long hesitation. “I want dinner.” His right eyebrow lifted. “Unless you’re scared.”
Bree dropped her legs and shoved away from Kyler, not too proud to admit she was still dangerously turned on. So was he. Every single inch of him. But until she figured out his angle, no way was she taking any chances letting her guard down. “All right, Ky. I’ll have dinner with you.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah. Tomorrow night at my house.” She fluttered her eyelashes. “My daddy will be so thrilled to see you.”
Kyler narrowed his eyes, but not before she saw grudging approval drift across his face. It was a well-known fact that Bree’s father was the one person in town Kyler had never won over. Probably because he’d been sneaking her out to the creek after dark since junior year and returning her home with grass stains. The fact that Bree was an active and eager participant wouldn’t have mattered to Samuel Justice, though. No one was good enough for his girls and that, as they say, was that.
“I’ll be there,” Kyler said. “Your father still a Scotch drinker?”
“Now and again.” She found her coat on the floor and put it on, determined to ignore the observance of Kyler’s hungry eyes. “Bring whatever you like; it won’t make a difference.”
“Sounds like this calls for a bet.”
Despite her better judgment, Bree’s interest was piqued. “What did you have in mind?”
Kyler ambled toward her, looking like a big, sexy beast who’d had his meat dragged away before he could devour it. “If I win your daddy over this time around, you come down to the creek with me afterward.”
Yearning and excitement braided together in her middle. “So your plan is to win him over, then lose favor just as fast?”
He smirked and held out his hand. “Do we have a bet?”
Again, the intuition that she was missing a piece of the bigger picture simmered in the back of her mind. But she’d never turned down a challenge from this man and wouldn’t start now. She reached out and shook with Kyler, but before she could retrieve her hand, he snared her wrist. Dragged her right up against him.
“I would trade anything that happened on the field over the last four years…” He spoke in a rough whisper against her ear. “…to keep that kiss we just had from fading away. You hear me, Bree Caroline?”
Her heart rolled over and purred inside her chest. “Still a charmer, I see,” Bree managed, easing past Kyler toward the exit just as Heidi returned. She muttered a hello and good-bye to her friend, prepared to leave. Before opening the door, she turned and glanced over her shoulder, finding Kyler staring after her in a way she recognized. Like she was a football about to be snapped. But his smile restored itself when he caught her looking.
Moments later, when Bree reached the sidewalk, a thought stopped her in her tracks. She’d called Kyler a charmer. As if sweet words were something that just rolled off his tongue in every direction. That wasn’t true, though. It never had been.
He’d only ever been a charmer…for her.
Bree shook herself and kept walking. Time had changed everything and she needed to remember that. His charm wasn’t reserved just for her anymore.
But a hazy intuition continued to gnaw at her.
Along with an army of angry, thwarted hormones.
Chapter Eight
Kyler leaned against the porch rail of his family home, staring out at the surrounding cornfields and really seeing them for the first time in his life. When he was a child, the Tate farm was a given. The immortal place he’d been born that would never change or be taken away. Last December, however, they’d had the notion of immortality torn away when the bank attempted to repossess the land on account of late mortgage payments.
Now the cornfields looked completely different. They were more elusive. Looking at them called to mind the passage of time, the people that came before him and would come after. As he’d gotten older, a tug of war had begun inside Kyler, the farm right at the center of the rope. Football could support the people and place he loved…but pursuing the sport professionally required his absence. Required him to grow and change in a place far away from Bloomfield. Maybe even meant he would return a different man some day.
The ink was finished drying on his contract with the Rage. He’d stood on the Draft Day stage and pledged loyalty to a team. A lot like the cornfields, continuing on in the sport seemed like a given.
But not so long ago, him and Bree being together forever had seemed like a given, too. Having the rug ripped out from beneath a man brought into perspective what was important. Was it coming too late to make a difference?
Kyler’s mother pulled up in her station wagon, kicking up dust on the dirt driveway. When he caught her hooded glance through the windshield, common sense told him he was in for a lecture about something. In no
rush to find out what it concerned, he jogged down the steps to help with the groceries, slinging all five tote bags onto one arm. “Who’s all this food for?”
“It’s for you, Kyler. You bottomless pit son of mine,” his mother huffed. “You’ve been eating five full meals a day since you got here, or didn’t you notice?”
He thought back over the last few days and admitted silently that most of his time had been spent at the refrigerator or stove. “It’s all the working out making me hungry. Sorry about that.” Holding the door open for his mother, he planted a kiss on her cheek as she passed, pleased when she flushed. “You don’t have to worry about me tonight. I’m having dinner with the Justices.”
“Don’t I know it. The news is all over town.”
There it is. Kyler dropped the tote bags onto the counter, feeling his optimism sink down to the pit of his stomach. Bree would hate being the subject of gossip. As if he needed his odds of winning her back to be any lower. “Shit. Don’t tell me that.”
“Watch your language. And when you go closing yourself into the gym and sharing dances with a woman, you can’t expect anything less. Not in Bloomfield.” She busied herself emptying her supermarket haul into various refrigerator compartments. “Sandy down at Kroger—you remember her, don’t you?—she’s taking wagers on whether or not Samuel Justice is going to poison your dinner.”
Kyler paled. “Shit. Really?”
“Language. And no, I’m just softening the blow.” She propped an elbow on the counter, looking downright gleeful. “The wager is whether or not the town football hero will take back up with its star animal doctor.”
Oh, even better. He could only pray Bree hadn’t been in town much since he’d seen her yesterday and she’d avoided the gossip. If she started to put together why he was in Bloomfield too soon, it could blow the whole plan to hell. “Did you take any action?”
“Of course not. That would be disloyal.”
