“Home sweet home,” she announced, forcing lightness into her tone as she moved ahead of him, switching on lamps and dropping her bags beside the sofa.
He put his duffle beside her purse, and she caught the quick, scanning movement of his eyes as he took in his accommodation for the night.
She hadn’t lived in the apartment long enough to be immune to its defects—she saw exactly what he did. The linoleum-floored space vaguely demarcated into a kitchen and a living room. Cabinets hung crookedly above scarred countertops. A foot-height dent in the bedroom door, damp stains above the sink, a network of cracks below the window.
He straightened. “Where’s all your stuff?”
“What do you mean?”
“This isn’t your furniture, right?”
“How did you know?”
“I went to college, I know what you get in a cheap furnished apartment.”
“I sold everything when I moved to Saudi Arabia, or gave it to my mom and sister. I guess I haven’t had time for interior decorating.”
“I mean your stuff, like books, pictures, trinkets.” He waved a hand. “This place is barren.”
“Not totally.” She pointed to a cardboard box, still sealed and shoved in the corner beside the bedroom door.
He arched a brow. “You are an enigma, Kate Mitchell.”
She laughed, tossing the cushions off the couch and unfolding the rickety pull-out bed. “I’m an open book. You’re the one who never gives anything away.”
“And you always undersell yourself,” he said pointedly, helping her straighten the metal frame before easing down beside her on the bare mattress.
She studied her thumbnail, suddenly uncomfortable. Her apartment seemed smaller with him in it, the pull-out bed shorter and more cramped.
“I’ll get you some clean sheets. And a towel. Did you want a shower? The pressure’s great, but to get it hot enough you have to turn the right knob all the way to—”
“Kate.”
The single syllable, the crisp K and T, drew her eyes up to his.
“Why do you do that?” he asked.
“Do what?”
“Hide from me.”
“I don’t. I don’t even know what you mean.” She half-stood, but he tugged her back down with a hand on her wrist. A hand he didn’t remove.
“I’m interested, okay?” He edged closer. “I’m here because I’m interested in you. Attracted to you. What else do I have to say before you’ll believe me?”
His words hit her like a sucker punch—just as hard, just as sore. She inhaled, readying herself to be brutally honest. “You said yourself that you’ll know your Miss Right when you find her. Clearly she’s not me.”
“I’m not trying to marry you, Kate. I just want to spend time with you. Figure out this thing between us and enjoy it.”
“You barely know me,” she protested, but her grip on her objection was slipping. His eyes were so bright, his tone so earnest, and it had been so long since anyone had made her feel so important…
He took her by the shoulders, his voice dropping to a low rumble. “Let me know you. I’m telling you I want to.”
Fear constricted her throat and stalled her breath. She shook her head tightly, and when she spoke the words were short, hard, barely above a whisper. “I don’t know how.”
He pulled her to his chest and wrapped his arms around her. She let herself soften against him, relaxing into his firm body.
“You know I won’t have sex with you tonight, so trust me when I say that’s not what this is about,” he murmured into her temple. “I will touch you, though. Touch you, and taste you, and open you up until you’re ready to show me who you are.”
She shuddered, pulling back just enough to link her hands behind his neck and nod. “Do it.”
His dark eyes flashed with hunger in the second before he captured her mouth, his tongue instantly demanding access, his hand rising to grip her nape. Mentally, she gathered all her self-consciousness, her self-doubt, her lingering wariness, squeezed them into a ball and hurled it to the farthest reaches of her mind.
She wasn’t going to be that Kate, tonight, the one who worried and fumbled and woke up embarrassed and full of regret, who was complex and withdrawn and hard to know. She would be the strong, confident, desirable woman she knew she could be. The woman Oz wanted—the woman he saw despite all her attempts to hide.
She reached between them and found the hem of his T-shirt, and slid it up over his ribs. He drew back and took over, yanking it off and tossing it aside.
He moved to kiss her but she planted a hand on his chest, taking him in. He was as lean as she’d expected, with a light dusting of dark hair between his pecs and a smooth, hard stomach.
She traced a line in the tattoo that wrapped his arm from his shoulder to his elbow, an intricate, complicated matrix of shapes and colors. “What does this mean?”
“It’s a tessellation. Sacred geometry. If you look at the way mathematics is rooted in nature… I’ll explain later.” He dragged her into his lap so quickly she had to clamp her hands on his shoulders to steady herself. He brought his lips to hers again and she flattened her palms on his bare chest, murmuring in satisfaction as he moved her legs apart, arranging her thighs on either side of his hips.
He released her mouth and tugged on her olive-green T-shirt. “Take this off.”
She obeyed, pulling it over her head. He ran his forefinger along the underwire of the bra she wore beneath. “This too.”
She reached behind her back to undo the clasp, and then her bra joined their shirts on the floor.
Oz didn’t hesitate. He leaned forward and closed his lips on her nipple, teasing the tip with his tongue. She arched into him and he shifted to give her other breast the same treatment, his thumb rising to fill the absence of his mouth.
She moaned huskily, digging her fingers into his hair, sliding her hands down his chest to grip the thick ridge of his erection through his jeans.
He echoed her moan, then unceremoniously shoved her off his lap and got to his feet. She had only a second to stare up at him, bewildered, before his hands were on her again, tilting her onto her back and unbuttoning her jeans.
He tugged off her sneakers, then her socks, then peeled her jeans down her legs. She reached for his zipper but he paid no attention, mercilessly yanking her panties over her ankles. He knelt on the floor in front of the pull-out bed, parted her knees and pressed his mouth to her core.
Immediately she cried out, a primal, ultra-female sound that would’ve startled her if she’d had any space left in her brain to acknowledge it. Instead she was consumed with sensation and the delicious torture of his steady, insistent rhythm. She dug her fingers into his shoulders, alternately urging him faster and pushing him to slow down, all of which he ignored. His pace was unyielding and controlled, and within minutes Kate’s eyes slammed shut and her back arched and her fists clenched with the shuddering force of her climax.
When her breathing steadied and her heart rate regained some semblance of normalcy, she looked between her splayed legs to see Oz’s smug smile.
“You okay?” he asked.
She rolled her eyes in mock irritation. “Don’t look so pleased with yourself.”
“I bet I don’t look as pleased as you do.”
“Shut up and get undressed.” She planted her foot in the center of his chest and pushed him back onto his haunches.
He stood, shucking off his shoes and undoing his fly. She leaned back on the bare mattress and slipped her hand between her legs, letting him know she was enjoying the view. His eyes flashed with heat as he followed the movement of her fingers, and the rise and fall of his shoulders betrayed the quickening of his breath.
He stepped out of his jeans, revealing boxer briefs with a designer logo and long, thickly muscled legs. He paused f
or a second, giving her a chance to take in the view, then hooked his thumbs beneath the elastic and sent the briefs to the floor.
Kate purred her approval. She crooked her forefinger at him, inviting him to join her on the bed.
He climbed on top of her, and she felt the heat radiating off his trim form as he ducked his head to lick each of her nipples in turn. She wished she could feel his full weight on her. His length inside her. She shivered at the thought.
She guided him to a sitting position and straddled him, nothing between them now. His erection pressed against her clit and she reached between them to cup him, bringing him tight against her folds.
He swore under his breath, gripping her hips as she rocked against him, simultaneously stroking him with her hand and the edge of her sex. “Fuck, you’re so wet.”
“I am,” she agreed, moving faster, her own desire simmering hotter and higher, on the verge of boiling over a second time.
Oz’s shoulders heaved with his rapid breathing, his gaze flicking between hers and the place they came together. He brought one hand around and pressed his thumb to her clit, doubling the friction and nearly sending her over the edge. She groaned his name and he yanked her closer, her nipples grazing his chest with every movement.
“Do you have anything?” he asked, his voice rough with urgency.
“Any what?”
“Condoms.”
She froze, and touched his chin so he looked into her eyes. “I do. But are you sure you want me to get them?”
He nodded. Then shook his head. “No. I don’t know.”
“It’s okay,” she soothed, resuming the rhythm. “This is good. I like this.”
“So do I. I like you, Kate.”
“I like you, too.”
“Do you like this?” He drew a slow circle with his thumb, counterclockwise to the movement of her hips.
She couldn’t speak. She couldn’t think. She pitched forward as she unraveled for a second time, waves of pleasure tightening and loosening, tightening and loosening, over and over until Oz pressed his forehead against hers and made a helpless, guttural sound. She wrapped her arms around him, feeling his liquid warmth spill against her abdomen, his body stiff with release.
They clung to each other for another minute, and then Oz suddenly pulled back.
“Did you hear that?”
“Hear what?” But as soon as the words left her mouth she heard the strange, metallic creak.
“What was that?”
“I don’t know.” She glanced around the apartment, trying to identify the source. “It almost sounds like—”
With another creak, a clang, and then an almighty thump, one of the legs of the pull-out mattress folded inward, dumping them unceremoniously on the floor.
“Oh my God.” She stuck out her hands to stay upright, glancing at Oz in alarm. “I think we broke it. Are you all right?”
“Fine.” He grinned. “Naked. Sweaty. On your floor.”
Then he did something she hadn’t seen before.
He laughed.
Not the wry chuckle she’d heard occasionally, or the vaguely bemused exhalation he used in interviews. A real, honest-to-God laugh. It lit up his eyes, exposed his back teeth and softened every angle in his face.
She couldn’t help it—she started laughing, too. She’d just humped a professional athlete to climax—the evidence of which still glistened on her stomach—with such vigor that they’d broken her landlady’s sofa bed.
Soon they both had tears in their eyes as they gasped for breath. She flopped down on her back and he lay down beside her, briefly mopping her stomach with his briefs before tucking one arm behind his head and drawing her into his side with the other. She rested her cheek against his warm skin and closed her eyes, listening to the rumble of his laugh and wondering if she’d ever heard a more beautiful sound in her life.
Chapter 13
Oz plugged in his phone to charge and lay down on the tilted pull-out bed, flipping onto his back and crossing his arms behind his head. It was just after six o’clock in the morning and he’d been awake for half an hour. He’d scrolled through all his social-media accounts, skimming past the Islamophobic comments that had become par for the course and focusing on the positive notes from fans, pleased to see the reactions to his performance on Saturday.
He’d replied to a couple of goading messages from Glynn asking about his whereabouts, quickly thumb-typed an e-mail to his worried agent, and stared unseeingly at an article about a bombing in Pakistan before he put the phone aside and gave in to his clamoring thoughts.
Last night had been one of the best and worst he could remember. Seeing those protesters in front of his house was like walking in to find the pig’s head all over again. He felt violated, outraged, impotent. Part of him wanted to get out of the car and confront them, show them how their actions affected a real, living, breathing person, prove to them that he was a good person who paid taxes and bought groceries and watched TV, not some America-hating, caricature terrorist with a suicide vest hidden in the basement.
Another part of him wanted Kate to drive away as fast as she could and never turn back. The thought of his neighbors seeing this spectacle, and of his name being forever affiliated with it in the annals of internet news sites, was beyond humiliating. He saw the bodyguards trailing him in Boise and Charlotte and cringed. Is this how he would be remembered? Not as an agile, impenetrable left-back but as the pitiable victim of hate crime. Would Citizens First ring louder in his legacy than anything he ever achieved? What if someone added an Islamophobic Incidents section to his Wikipedia page and he went down in history as a link from the article on xenophobia?
He turned onto his stomach, forcing his mind to the opposite direction.
Kate.
He closed his eyes, reliving the taste of her, the weight of her muscular body in his lap, her rare openness as bald emotion flashed across her face. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d enjoyed such a strong, hot connection with a woman. Maybe at the beginning of his relationship with his girlfriend in college, but even then he’d been only seventy-five, maybe eighty-percent confident they belonged together.
Kate had been a different person after their antics on the couch. No, not different—more. She’d been more of the Kate he kept seeing in snapshots, with the full picture still a long way off. Relaxed, joking, unself-conscious. She’d slipped into his T-shirt, he’d tugged on his briefs and they’d rigged the pull-out back into some semblance of working order. He’d helped her put on the sheets and gotten instructions on how to use the shower, but when he’d made a wry remark about their sleeping arrangements she’d balked. Hesitation had moved like a shadow across her sunny mood and then she was gone, back inside the shell from which he’d only briefly coaxed her out.
He wasn’t sure what his comment triggered. Would sharing a bed be too much like they were a couple? Was she worried about her job? His house? Maybe it was something else entirely, something that would never occur to him.
On paper they were oil and water. Yet in person they became kerosene and a lit match.
Because she stood up to him, called him out, didn’t let his wealth or fame or talent buy him any latitude. And because as much as he enjoyed and respected her tough exterior, he had to know what lay beneath. He’d seen glimpses of the soft, vulnerable core she was dead-set on concealing, and he’d seen her refusal to allow herself to be weak. She was so hard on herself. Unforgiving, demanding. He wanted to still her self-punishing hands and comfort her instead. Show her how unique and precious and beautiful she really was.
A floorboard squeaked. Light illuminated the edges of Kate’s bedroom door and he heard her voice, low and muffled. Dawn warmed the thinly curtained windows in the main part of the apartment as he mapped her movements. The gentle swish and thud of drawers, bare feet padding on a creaky floor, the uniquely fem
inine sound of a brush clattering against a vanity. He imagined her efficiently clasping her bra, yanking jeans over her long thighs, and shifted onto his side to make room for his burgeoning erection.
The light clicked off and a second later the door opened slowly. Kate edged out, then paused, probably listening to make sure he was still asleep.
“I’m awake.” He pushed up on his elbow.
Her loose hair framed her face, and he’d been wrong. She clearly wasn’t wearing a bra under that thin T-shirt.
“I’d ask how you slept, but I guess I know the answer if you’re already up.” She perched on the arm of the sofa, but he reached over and tugged on the hem of her jeans.
“Come here.”
She hesitated. He wrapped his hand around her ankle. “I said, come here.”
She sank down beside him so slowly that he grew impatient. He pulled her the last inch to the mattress and drew her against him, sliding his bare leg between hers so she could feel what she did to him, finding her mouth so she knew how much he liked it.
She eased into his arms, trailing her tongue lightly over his lower lip before pulling back with a smile. “Good morning.”
“Hi.” He tapped her nose. “How are you?”
“Tired. And the bearer of bad news.” She winced. “The patrol guys from your neighborhood called at six for their shift-change update. Protesters still in place.”
“I figured. It’s a public holiday. Hopefully they have to work tomorrow so they’ll go home tonight.”
“Let’s keep our fingers crossed. Do you have plans today?”
He shrugged. “Sean is having a barbecue this afternoon. He gets a good view of the Centennial Park fireworks from his balcony. I have training tomorrow morning, though, so I won’t stay late. And you?”
“Driving out to Jasper to see my mom, sister, and niece.”
“You don’t sound too excited.”
“I’m not.” She sighed. “They’re fine—they’re a handful. Anyway I need to hit the road by eight so I’m in time to see my niece’s Brownie troop in the Independence Day parade. I’ll take you out to the training complex to get your car. I hope Glynn won’t mind you turning up to his place so early?”
Defending Hearts Page 14
