by Kathy Lyons
Nothing was left to chance as he set my legs on his shoulders. He braced my hips, shifting them to where he wanted me. Then he pinched my clit in a sharp and stunning bolt of sensation.
I cried out and arched in reaction, my legs pulling me higher on the mattress.
He caught me in the air and held me where he wanted. And then he waited.
“Connor!” I gasped.
“Say it, Gia.”
“Say what? That I want this? Yes! I want you? Yes!” I surged upward, grabbing his shoulders and holding firm. “Fuck me already!”
The coarse word sparked something in his eyes. It was dark and dirty, and I loved it.
Then he impaled me.
It was a single thrust that had my whole being stretching to accommodate him. I tried to grip him with my legs. I wanted to draw him deeper inside, to hold him close and not let him go. But I had no leverage and no strength. Not compared to him. Not when he held me wide open as he pulled back out.
“No!” I gasped. “Don’t leave.”
It was a stupid thing to say, but he felt that perfect inside me.
“Touch your breasts. Plump them for me.”
I blinked in confusion, but my hands were already obeying. I pushed my breasts together, creating full cleavage. And I squeezed my nipples because I wanted to.
He slammed into me again.
The impact made me squeeze my breasts tighter. I cried out because I had to. So much sensation. So much desire.
“Again!” he ordered.
I squeezed, and he drove in again.
“Show me your nipples. Pull them out for me.”
He was slamming into me with steady, hard thrusts. And his eyes were on my breasts as I squeezed my nipples and pulled.
I wanted to arch my back to deepen his impact. I wanted to split myself apart so he could touch the very heart of me. I wanted deeper, harder, stronger.
And he gave it to me.
Suddenly, an orgasm ripped through me. My entire body squeezed tight and burst, but he barely seemed to notice. He was pounding still, the steady movement making me writhe against him.
Harder. Faster.
But he wasn’t done yet. He seemed to need something from me, but God, I couldn’t think. I couldn’t do anything but feel.
“Now, Connor! Now!”
His face pulled tight. His jaw thrust forward, and his teeth flashed in the light.
He exploded. I felt the power of it, deep inside me. He ground down against me and gripped my hips like a vise. My climax continued, squeezing him as he pushed at my walls. And his face…God, what a sight.
Bliss. Pure, unadulterated beauty. Rapture in the lift of his chin, the parting of his lips, and the shimmering joy in his eyes as he held my gaze.
He was looking at me while his body climbed to the heavens. And I held on to him so he could take me there.
We stayed like that for I don’t know how long. Him in ecstasy, and me rippling with pleasure because he was inside me. Because he was still coming. Because he was Connor.
Eventually he stopped, his expression softening from the rigidity of rapture to the gentler planes of joy. His lips curved into a smile.
“Are you okay?” he whispered.
“I’m amazing.”
“That’s true,” he said, smiling.
Then he pulled out, and I mourned the loss. He set my legs down, then he leaned over and pressed a kiss to my belly.
My muscles rippled in reaction, my stomach tightening in a flash of energy. He grinned at me. “I like making you move like that.”
He went to the bathroom and cleaned up. I lay on his bed and inhaled his scent from the sheet and my own skin. I felt languid and deliciously naked. Normally, I’d cover up after sex. I wasn’t the type to just lay there, exposing all my body flaws to a guy who’d just taken me to sexual heaven. And yet, I was doing exactly that.
He came out from the bathroom and grinned when he saw me. My eyes had been at half-mast, but at his smile, I perked up. And with it came self-consciousness. I stirred—slowly—and tried to close my legs.
He stopped me quickly, crossing the room with his characteristic speed. I didn’t even notice his limp, though something must have brought it to mind. Perhaps it was the way he grimaced as he sat down on the bed next to me.
“How are you feeling?” I asked.
He hesitated as if thinking, then shrugged. “I’m ready for round two.”
He was hiding from me. Keeping his personal thoughts to himself. And after the intimacy we’d just shared, that felt like a slap to the face. He must have read my reaction. I’m sure my face tightened, and I finally managed to pull my legs together.
But he touched my shoulder and frowned at me. “Are you hurting?”
Yes. “No. I, uh…I’m just trying to gather my wits.”
“Don’t.”
I looked at him and decided to challenge him. “Then you don’t. Talk to me, Connor. What were you really thinking?”
He frowned and spoke slowly. “I was thinking that you’re beautiful. That I now have two times with you to remember. That I want to make it a third.” He waggled his eyebrows at me.
I did, too, but there was more to this man than catching baseballs and great sex. There was pain and defensiveness behind his eyes, and I wanted to know what had caused it. I wanted to heal him. And I wanted…
I looked away, feeling awkward and stupid. I was the smooth-talking publicist, but suddenly, I had nothing to say. I felt his hand stroke the hair from my cheek. It was an idle caress, but I felt it through my whole body. His heat, the callouses on his fingers, and even the occasional scrape of his nail. I was that sensitized to him.
“Gia, we can stop anytime you want,” he said. “You can even leave, and I won’t stop you.”
Leave? I wanted to crawl inside his life.
“But we said one night, and I’d rather not cut the time short.”
I shifted my gaze back to his. I could see he meant it. And even more disarming, I couldn’t find any hint that he was holding back. There were no emotions hidden behind his eyes. No pain that I could detect. In fact, what I saw was the same restraint he’d shown with his sister. He’d held back to give her the space she needed. And he was doing the same for me.
Damn. He was giving me the choice…and the decision. Whatever I wanted, he would work hard to accommodate.
“What do you want?” I asked.
“To lick you until you scream.”
I blinked. That was not at all what I thought he’d say, and it temporarily robbed me of words. My body, however, had no trouble keeping up. My belly clenched, and my thighs tightened in hunger.
“Um.” What could I say? “Okay.”
He grinned as if I’d just given him a gift, and maybe I had. Sure, I was about to get another mind-blowing orgasm, but he got to avoid being truly intimate with me. We both got what we wanted. I wouldn’t speak about being so lonely that I built elaborate fantasies around a coworker, and he wouldn’t tell me about whatever made him so paranoid about publicity.
Win-win, right?
Wrong. I was going to figure out his secret, but right now, he was kissing my breast, and I lost all coherent thought. Coiling his tongue around my nipple, he sucked it in while pleasure spiraled through my body. He was thorough and leisurely, and everything else disappeared beneath his steady intensity.
Chapter Nine
Connor
You can’t have her. Stay focused on baseball.
I’d just had the best orgasm of my life, and already the negative self-talk had begun.
You can’t have her. You can’t have her…
Sports psychiatrists spent a lot of time addressing self-defeating habits. At least once a season, someone forced me to sit and listen to psychobabble around mental toughness. It all boiled down to mind over matter, even if your mind whispered bullshit in your ear. Especially if it did.
So I’ve rooted out all that crap when it comes to baseball, but I was up
to my ears in it in my dating life.
You can’t have her.
I knew it was bullshit. I was a good guy. I deserved a special woman who loved me. But that didn’t stop the endless stream of negativity in my brain that told me I wasn’t good enough for her. That I’d be better off if I didn’t want her in the first place.
But damned if Gia wasn’t the most special, the most amazing woman ever.
I loved that she didn’t hide, but attacked the world with gusto. Like every time I nipped, or pretended I was going to abandon those glorious breasts of hers, she gripped my head and drew me back. She loved what I was doing almost as much as I loved doing it to her.
“Let me touch you,” she’d begged as she reached for my dick. I angled away. This was all about her. About enjoying a special, wonderful woman for the one night I had her. But she was determined—my Gia—and she wriggled against me in a way that made my dick pulse hot and hard.
She wasn’t ashamed to spread her legs beneath me, either. There was no girly shyness, which I appreciated. I intended to taste her in all the ways I’d been dreaming about since she bounced into the locker room and introduced herself as our social media mistress. I wasn’t the only one who’d envisioned her in black leather that day. But I was the only one who was going to make her scream.
In a minute.
After I spread her out like a banquet before me, then went in for a taste.
It was like chasing a baseball in the best possible way. She moved. That’s what was so fun. But it was nothing compared to what happened when she came.
She always started with a whimper, as if she was surrendering to the tide when it was just starting. And then her butt cheeks would pulse in my hands. I was holding her ass as a way to control her movements. It didn’t help much, but it filled my palms with sweet Gia, so I didn’t mind. I had a choice, then, whether to go for the gusto right away or drag it out. I chose both, just because I could.
Eventually, though, I would head for her clit. By that time, her hands were on my head, demanding I do what she wanted. She loved it when I licked, but when I sucked—wow—she was like lightning in my hands. She stretched tighter and tighter, her sounds building in pitch until I knew she was on the verge. And then, after one hard pull on her clit, her whole body seemed to fly apart—legs wide, chest lifted, arms splayed.
Glorious.
And God, I wanted to spend the night watching it, over and over. But a man can deny himself only so many times. Especially when she lay there gasping, but still managing to give orders.
“Condom now.”
I was happy to agree. I was so close. So once the latex was in place, I sunk deep inside her. One single thrust and she welcomed me like she’d been waiting for me her whole life.
God, yes.
Inside sweet Gia.
The rush built quickly. After all, I was covered in Gia’s scent, buried inside her honey, and looking at the greedy glee on her face. I’d have come from any one of the three, but combined, I was out of my mind with need.
Two thrusts and the roar was inside me.
One more and I gave myself over to it. To her.
I released every part of myself into her. And when that was gone, I still tried to give her more. If I could have, I would have frozen myself in that moment of emptiness, where everything I had was in her. No thoughts left, no feelings except bliss, and no concerns except how to do it all over again.
Perfect emptiness.
Perfect Gia.
Until that dreaded moment of post glow closeness. I wanted to spoon with the woman, feeling her breasts against my arm and the way her breath slid in and out in rest. I’d press my nose to her hair and breathe. And together we’d sleep, an extension of the sweet emptiness of orgasm.
But not with Gia. Not even when it was well after midnight. When I went to pull her backside against me, she wriggled around and faced me, nose to nose. I could work with that. Except she wasn’t closing her eyes in sleep. While my eyelids were too heavy to lift, she stroked a couple fingers across my cheeks and lips. She traced the length of my nose and brushed the hair away from my eyes.
She was looking at me and thinking…things. I didn’t know what. I wasn’t sure I wanted to know, but the more I wondered, the more I became less empty.
“What?” I finally asked.
Thankfully, she didn’t play games and answered clearly. “You’re such a mystery to me.”
“I’m a dumb jock.”
“Then I’m a stupid blonde.”
“You’re a brunette.”
“And you’re the smartest guy on the team. You analyze baseball like some people analyze the economy. You read the field like nobody else. The Bobcats wouldn’t be heading for the pennant without you.”
A rush of pride coursed through me. I was smart about baseball, and I managed the team as well as anyone could when trying to control a bunch of thoroughbred athletes with the egos to match. But I didn’t say any of that. I simply enjoyed the heat where her fingers still caressed my face. Then she pinched my nose. I snorted but didn’t open my eyes.
“You’re smiling,” she said, the words almost an accusation.
“I’m happy.”
“I want to know everything about you, but you’re just going to fall asleep.” I heard the mournful note in her voice, but that was nothing compared to the rush of alarm that shot through me.
Danger, danger! The word screamed through my cells, even though I tried very hard to keep my breathing steady. I could handle this, I told myself. I had a plan I used with the media but also any girl who got too close. Start with denial.
“There’s nothing to know. I’m just a dumb jock.”
“We already covered that,” she said as she flicked the tip of my nose.
Okay, so I already knew Gia was smart. Step two: distraction.
I tugged her closer and fondled her breast. “We could always do something that doesn’t require talking.”
She laughed as she wrapped my hand in hers and held it firmly between us on the sheets. “I think we’ve thoroughly covered that, too. I don’t think I would survive another round.”
I opened my eyes a little and waggled my eyebrows. “Are you sure?”
“Yes.”
“Damn.” Then I exhaled and pretended to drift off to sleep. I didn’t think I’d make it, but maybe she—
“You never talk about yourself.”
I groaned. “You’re like a dog with a bone. It’s late. Get some sleep.”
She blew out a breath, and I believe she made an attempt to stay quiet. She certainly remained still for a few seconds, long enough for me to hope that I’d won. Then she flopped onto her back with a growl of frustration.
“Gia—” I protested, but she cut me off.
“I’ve got one night with you. One night. I want to use it to get close to you. To find out—”
“My secrets?” I rasped out. My eyes shot open as I glared at her. “So you can use them against me in some article?”
She reared back as if I’d slapped her, and with good reason. That wasn’t at all what she’d meant, and I knew it. But that little voice in my head kept telling me that whatever I told her would come around to bite me. Meanwhile, she was insulted enough to fight back. Hard.
“First, I work for the Bobcats, so whatever I wrote would be in your favor.”
Until she didn’t. Jobs changed. Priorities shifted.
“Second, do you really think I’m that kind of person? To take pillow talk and splash it all over the sports pages?”
No.
“Third, I told you that you would see anything I wrote. You have the power to ax anything.”
I didn’t trust promises. I rarely trusted contracts. So why would I trust her word that she wouldn’t change her mind somewhere down the line?
She grimaced. “You don’t believe a word I’m saying. I can see it in your face.”
I really needed to turn off the bathroom light. It revealed too much.
>
“Damn it, Connor, why won’t you say anything?”
I was saying a lot, but only in the privacy of my thoughts. Which, honestly, wasn’t fair.
“What if I swore that I won’t print anything you say now?” She waited, and when I remained stubbornly silent, she grimaced with frustration. “What the fuck is it going to take for you to talk to me?”
“A miracle.”
She reared back enough that she nearly fell out of bed. And in the scramble to stop herself, she ended up sitting up—a glorious sight with her breasts bouncing free as she glared down at me.
“What the hell did I ever do to you?”
I heard the hurt in her voice and knew she didn’t deserve it. And since she was up, I knew the chances of her drifting off to blissful dreamland was at an end. So I matched her pose, pushing up in bed so that I could face her, eye to eye.
“I don’t trust anyone, Gia.”
“Bullshit. You trust your teammates. I’ve heard you give that speech to the guys. All about trusting each other to do their jobs right. You trust your coaches and the docs.”
I grimaced. She was right. “I trust them on the field, not with the details of my life.”
She nodded as if she’d expected as much, but she kept pressing me. “You trust Cassie.”
“She’s my sister.”
“So, you trust Sophia?”
I buttoned my lip. I didn’t trust Sophia out of my sight. I didn’t trust her with a camera anywhere near me. And I sure as hell wouldn’t trust Sophia with any of my inner thoughts.
She waited, and I knew she was watching my face closely. “Well,” she finally murmured. “I’m glad you have reservations about her.”
What I had was a deal with her, and that was the only reason she was in my life. It was a bargain we made three years ago, when Cassie was in the hospital. Sophia could be my publicist and live off of my fame—but only if she never spoke to Cassie again. Because that was priority number one: keep Cassie safe from my piranha of an older sister.
At Gia’s questioning look, I shrugged and quoted Sun Tzu. “Keep your friends close and your enemies closer.”
