by Rie Warren
“They didn’t even hiss.”
Raquel laughed. Reggie chuckled, shaking her head.
I drew her back to my side, saying, “Show’s over, fuckers. Get lost.”
Left alone on the sidelines of the practice field, Reggie nudged me in the ribs—thankfully not the bruised ones. “Are they always like this?”
“Sweetheart, that was them being tame.” My eyes left her beguiling face only long enough to trace down her body—curvy in all the right places—before returning to her gleaming gaze.
“They remind me of Chris and his squadron a bit.” Her head tilted. “You were never that different. Needing a team. But both leaders in your own ways.”
I caressed her cheek, the thud of my heart slowing a little. “You think?”
A wistful look crossed Reggie’s face. “Sometimes I think he felt more at home with them. In the combat zone.”
“I don’t know how anyone could not feel at home with you.”
“Different times.” She shrugged. Looked across to the other players fucking around, roughhousing near the coolers. “Chris held a lot inside himself. He had to.” Touching my chest, she clutched her fingers before releasing my jersey. “It’s different here. With your crew. They’re welcoming.”
“It’s not just because of them,” I said in a rough tone.
She looked at me, bemused.
“It’s you.” I cleared my throat. Removed my hand from her cheek. Dropped back a step. “You make it easy.”
Her eyes brightened. Her face flushed. Her breasts lifted as her lips parted. She didn’t touch me again, but it sure as hell felt like her stroking fingers traced all over my body.
She swallowed. She backed up, too. “I should go. I’m assuming you still have a full afternoon of getting your ass reamed by your coaches?”
“You know it. Same way your choreographer drives you to exhaustion.” Reaching out, I skimmed a light knuckle beneath her eye where the sleepless nights showed.
She grasped my wrist. “That’s not because of the stress of my job, Calder.”
“I know.” I rubbed the back of my neck. “And you’re right. I’ve still got a workout and an O-line meeting.”
“See you at home later?” She paced backward.
Oh damn. That sounded so good . . . It’d been so long since anything, anyplace, felt like home, and Reggie cemented it somehow.
“Yeah. At home.”
****
Hours later, with tomorrow’s plays drilled into my brain and the St. Louis Legends MO practically tattooed on my eyelids, I opened the door to my house. Stepping inside, I dropped my bag, and listened to the strains of music coming from my kitchen.
Reggie.
And suddenly I felt rejuvenated. Possibly redeemed.
But seriously? The pop music had to go.
Until I walked into the kitchen. She looked so natural there, dancing from counter to stove to fridge while I leaned against the doorframe. Hip-shaking hotness and she certainly didn’t need the revealing costumes to make a man—me—completely overcome and throbbing hard in an instant.
“Your taste in music sucks.” My voice had dropped several levels.
Reggie spun. “Calder! You scared me.”
“Not as much as Lady Gaga scares me.”
“That is not Lady Gaga.” She shoved tresses of hair behind her ears. “And I thought I was alone.”
“Well, you weren’t.” I advanced slowly, captivated by the way her eyes snapped down to my groin.
“I’ve got dinner ready.” Reggie turned back to the stove.
She’d changed. Cut-off sweats hung down to her ankles, lay low on her hips, hair bouncing down her back, and—if I had to chance it—tits bouncing freely beneath the T-shirt.
Absolutely nothing contrived, and nothing that could hide her curvaceous pin-up body.
“You turned up the thermostat again.” My heated breath landed on her neck, and she shivered.
“I’m not an Eskimo.”
“No. You’re not.” I snuck a kiss to her cheek, tempted to swat her full ass, too. “I could get used to this.” Lifting a lid, I saw stir-fry with bright veggies.
“Sexist.”
“Honest.”
“Back up, big boy.” She hip-checked me. “Get out the plates and silverware.”
I stepped off. “Yes, ma’am.”
But as soon as the table was set and she sat down after I held her chair for her, I brushed a knuckle against her bottom lip. “Snow White.”
“What?” Reggie’s shudder barely concealed, she wet her mouth with the tip of her tongue.
“Your lips are berry red.”
“Snow White and berry red that doesn’t make sense.”
“You’re innocence and sex, Reggie.”
Her breath hitched for a heartbeat. “So you’re the Huntsman?”
“Oh no. I don’t have to hunt. When I want something, I go after it with my whole heart until I get it.”
She met my serious look, but played it lightly. “Good thing you don’t own a crossbow. Looks like Cupid has some competition. Although I wouldn’t mind seeing you in the wings and nothing else.”
“I’d probably score a Nike deal.”
We laughed, and it was there between us. The friendship from forever ago.
Home.
Later we cuddled on the sofa, my feet resting on the coffee table, Reggie curled beside me. We had a debate about what to watch.
I made popcorn, she jawed on about some funny hockey movie on Netflix.
Hockey?
Gimme a break.
Football is the only true sport.
I said as much, but Reggie won. No brainer. Sprawling together on the couch, sharing the bowl of popcorn, my laughs bounced her head, and every time she giggled her fingers dug into my side.
Something heated between us. The embers that had always been present, at least for me.
A chance I shouldn’t/couldn’t take.
As soon as the movie ended, I yawned, stretched. “I think I need to hit the sack.”
“Big game tomorrow, right?”
“Got you a ticket, of course.”
She cupped my jaw with her hand. “So sweet.” Her gaze roamed to my mouth.
“Not really.” Rough. Gruff. I planted a kiss on the top of her head. “See you in the morning, sweetheart.”
Hours later, after tossing and turning, I hadn’t slept at all. Reggie was just downstairs. A short walk through an abnormally warm house away.
The stairs creaked, and I jerked up to my elbows in bed.
Reggie appeared in the open doorway, the hall light illuminating her like an angel. She wore that same ’Bama shirt and crossed one bare foot over the other.
“I can’t . . .” She hugged herself as if she was cold.
Her arms pushed her tits up.
My cock hardened. My pulse pounded. The sheets pooled at my naked waist.
“I can’t sleep without you, Calder.”
Fuck.
I inhaled. Exhaled. Made sure the blankets covered my thick dick that wanted to invite her right into my bed.
“I think this—” I waved a hand around, and the blankets slipped.
Reggie’s dark eyes darted to the tight grooves at my hips before I yanked the sheet back up.
“This is moving too fast. Whatever it is. Or I’m thinking too much. But I’m not in the right headspace, Reggie.”
“I’m the girl.” Her lips flirted with a sudden smile as she crossed the threshold. “Aren’t I supposed to say that?”
“Tease.” Jumping up, I wrestled her to the bed before she had a chance to see me naked.
I toppled her down, my chest against her breasts, and our mouths an inch away.
One. Hot. Inch.
Her fingers cinched in mine.
“I just . . . I finally slept peacefully last night for the first time since . . .”
It took a lot of maneuvering to keep my cock from waving like a flag in the air, but I mana
ged to cover both Reggie and me. Inviting her into my heart where I’d never be free of her whether she truly wanted me or not.
A silent beat of air held us just an inch apart as anticipation spread its hot fingers. Seconds later, I clasped her to me, levered my mouth to hers. Berry red lips. She tasted like heaven, warm and spicy, and actively seeking the reach of my tongue as her fingers tugged at my shoulders, hauling me closer.
Through the groaning wet heat of kiss after kiss, I managed to keep my hard-on from making contact with what I now knew was the softest skin imaginable. Reggie clasped me to her, though, and a thrilling throbbing sensation spilled between us, echoed in my grunts and her moans while the twisting, twirling kisses went on.
I pulled back at the breaking point, a growl clawing from my throat when she kept searching for my lips.
“God. You’re killing me here, honey.” My cock was so rigid it hitched up to my stomach.
Her eyes flickered to mine, her lips red and soft and swollen. “In a bad way?”
“A good way.” I disentangled from her gently, kissing her eyelids that fluttered, her cheeks that lifted in a smile, the small scar from a bicycle fall when she was fifteen. A tiny white crescent near her chin—almost invisible—that no one knew about but me.
I kissed her lips and brushed the thick coiling hair off her forehead. Then I toppled her to her side and snuggled right in behind her, keeping the sheets crumpled between my groin and her ass.
“Big spoon, huh?” she asked.
“Obviously.”
“I could do that to you, you know?”
“I don’t think you have the right equipment.” For all of a second, I shifted and my about-to-burst cock eased against her ass. “Plus, I’m way bigger than you,” I growled at her ear.
“This is not helping me go to sleep.”
I banded an arm across her belly, warmed her back with my chest, her neck with my low words. “You’re beautiful. Gorgeous. A real pain in my ass—”
“Hey now.” She bumped an elbow into my side.
“And you need some sleep.” I smoothed her hair with my palm. “I’ve got you now, Reggie.”
No nightmares. Not that night. For either of us.
Reggie snuggled deeper, closer. Always seeking warmth, touch, feeling.
Her heart ran so deep I wondered if I could ever tap it.
I fell asleep, curled around her. A bulwark. Protecting. Holding. Wanting. Always wanting.
But the biggest case of blue balls in history?
Yeah. That.
Chapter Eleven
Trap Game
Reggie
GOD, I NEVER TIRED of watching Calder in action. Watching him, period. I sat, rapt, in the Crush stadium while they took on the St. Louis Legends. This was supposed to be an easy win but could turn into a potential trap game if the players didn’t keep their wits about them. Carolina Crush’s second to the last chance to secure a playoff spot.
My lips still tingling and swollen from last night’s kisses, I took to my feet when Marquis—the wide receiver—landed another touchdown. Crush maintained the lead in the third quarter. The man beside me waved an unlit cigar around.
He’d introduced himself as Frankie, nothing more than that. He didn’t wear jeans, a Crush T-shirt, and definitely not a baseball cap on the perfectly styled crest of black hair that topped a very strong, handsome face. No, Frankie was dressed in the type of sharp suit that reminded me of the old days, the Rat Pack, the fifties.
Glamor.
Gangsters.
Sitting beside him, I felt somewhat overwhelmed and protected at the same time. A moll. A dame.
I almost laughed at the absurd notion. But then the offensive team jogged off the field and entered my line of vision right below us. Calder glanced up, his eyes bright and intense, the jersey clinging to his biceps the same way his pants stuck to that tight ass of his.
“I ain’t averse to some hot chocolate action myself, and Marquis sure knows how to score, but I got my eye on Holt,” Frankie mentioned, leering at the definite tight end of the team. “You?”
“Number fifty.”
I was all about #50. So much so I didn’t even pay much attention to the rest of the players or the rest of the game.
I’d woken that morning to the evidence of Calder’s arousal. Sometime during the night he must’ve gotten up and grabbed a pair of briefs, because it wasn’t his naked cock pressed against me anymore. The briefs were hardly a barrier, though, against the hot barrel of hard flesh. Reveling in the sensation of virile man pressed against me, I’d snuggled back, his arms surrounding me, tightening.
Thick and solid, he rocked against me before jerking back with a groan. A spark of need coiled in my belly.
He’d flipped to the edge of the mattress, rubbed his hands through his short hair. I rolled behind him, placing a kiss on his shoulder.
“Sorry.” His glance had been a little sheepish, a lot hungry.
I rose up to my knees and stared down his bare chest to his groin. The tight boxer briefs stretched to capacity around a long thick pole of flesh and a visible cockhead.
“Wow.” I tickled my fingers at the back of his neck. “Something sure doesn’t look sorry.”
“You little . . .” Calder spun so fast he dizzied me.
He drove me down onto my back and slugged me with a pillow before tickling my tummy until I kicked up. Flipping him, I sat right on his erection. I grabbed his thick wrists in both my hands.
“Little?” My breasts in his face, the heat of his breath made my nipples tighten.
A flush spread across his cheeks beneath the dark shadow of his morning stubble. With both hands at my waist, he easily handled me and set me on my feet.
His breath gusted over the top of my head when he stood half a pace away from me.
I peered at him, so wanting to reach up. Touch. Kiss.
Heal.
Both of us.
Calder’s hooded eyes stroked down my body covered in his shirt. He took a step back. His cock was pretty much about to burst out of those sexy boxer briefs.
I licked my lips.
He groaned, and those changeable eyes narrowed.
“I’ve got a call to make. Why don’t you go start breakfast”—he swatted me on my butt—“little woman?”
“Sexist pig.” I turned on my heel.
His forearms around my waist tugged me back into his body for an instant. “Feisty sweetheart.”
I didn’t start breakfast. Sexist pig. Sexy man. I hopped into the shower, trying to extinguish the fire Calder had started instead of getting myself off with a soft slick rub of my clit. Over two years—way more than that—and all I’d had was my vibrator, my fantasies, my fingers.
I wanted to fuck. Needed sex. Wanted to make love with a man who mattered to me.
My body zinged as I dried, dressed in yoga pants and a sweatshirt, and entered the kitchen with a towel wrapped around my hair.
Why don’t you make breakfast, little woman?
Calder had made breakfast.
Sweet man.
I’d heard him on the phone, his voice hushed, as I helped myself to hot coffee, buttered toast, diced fruit, a bowl of granola and yogurt. So he wasn’t Julia Child. But he was talking to his sponsor, and that meant more than anything to me.
I didn’t listen in, but I knew. His fourteen-month chip was on the counter next to his wallet.
Like the chips thrown down on the Vegas strip—a gamble. Except this time Calder wasn’t gambling, he was getting his life back in order. Making it all right in his head.
I touched the marker. Brought it to my lips before setting it back down. Another one of those rogue tears slid down my cheek before I dashed it away.
The hurt and the pain and the mourning. Calder and I could only heal together.
Now I watched him, his knuckles planted on the field, sweat glistening on his forearms, squatting low and tight. The fourth quarter now, with Carolina set to clinch this win.
A front row seat c/o Calder.
And the mysterious man beside me who mentioned, “You’re the dancer.”
“What dancer?”
“From the Rouge show in Vegas.”
“How did you know?” I tore my eyes from Calder after he snapped the ball to Macintyre.
“Frankie knows all.” The man flashed a full-lipped smile.
“Reggie Malone.” I held out my hand
“Frankie Burelli.” He gave me a firm shake and a sharp grin.
“You like to go to Vegas.”
“What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas, right?” He smirked.
“That hasn’t always been my experience.”
He snorted. “Well, sweet thing, this man knows how to keep a true secret. Even if I’m a flaming gay who loves to gossip.”
Just like Peyton and Philomena, I felt like I’d made an instant new friend.
The fourth quarter played on with one hairy moment that had my new friend storming to his feet after a ref made a seriously bad call against the Crush.
“That’s fuggin’ bullshit! No way was Holt out of bounds!” he yelled boisterously.
I merely grinned. I couldn’t agree more.
Moments later the ref’s call was overturned, and Frankie sat down, plucking the creases of his perfectly pressed trousers. “Sorry ’bout that. It’s the hot Italian temper in me. Plus Brooks is my man. Not like that, unfortunately.”
“Remind me not to get on your bad side.”
“Not possible for a beauty like you.” He gave me a sidelong wink.
At the next bad call, I rose right beside Frankie, adding my bellowing voice to his, and he nudged against me. Fledgling friendship officially solidified.
I grasped Frankie’s hand as the final whistle blew. We both stomped to our feet—Frankie almost yanking my shoulder from my socket with his greater height.
Then he tossed me up in his arms with a loud roar that brought Calder’s attention to us while the fireworks blasted overhead, all the Carolina fans in attendance celebrating the win.
Calder’s gaze seared right through me with sizzling power, all the force he’d laid out on the field flooding through me.
I didn’t want to stick around to watch the reporters glom onto him. Didn’t want to watch the cheerleaders or the Carolina Cougars—or Raquel—congratulate him.
