by Jaci Burton
His lips curved. “Yes, ma’am.”
He did his own hurried undressing—in fact, he was sure he’d never stripped faster. But then he stood still and gaped at Josie while she teased him by doing a jaw-dropping strip tease with her underwear that left him hard and aching for her.
He came over to her and turned her around so her back was to him. He dropped a soft kiss on her shoulder.
“I like your hair short like this,” he said, smoothing his thumbs over the muscles between her neck and shoulders. “You know why?”
“Why?”
“Easy access to your neck.” He kissed the back of her neck, breathing in her sweet, sultry scent.
She shuddered. “That feels so good, Zach. I like your mouth on me.”
He turned her around. “Where do you like my mouth on you?”
She tilted her head back, her eyes dark pools of desire. “Anywhere. Everywhere.”
“I’m going to need you to be more specific in your descriptions, Ms. Barnes.”
She offered up a hint of smile. “Here. On my jaw.”
He kissed her there.
“And right here, in front of my ear.”
He followed her direction.
“On my lips, Zach. Kiss me.”
He brushed his lips lightly across hers, then went deeper, taking a full taste of her, enough to make him groan.
He’d wanted to slow things down in order to build up the tension for Josie. He didn’t want to just climb on her and give her a quick release. He wanted her relaxed and ready to go off. And with every touch of his lips against her body, he felt her shudder, heard the little moans she made. It made him slightly crazy—and achingly hard—but she was worth it.
He pulled back. “Now where?”
“My … my neck.”
That’s where he could fully breathe her in. He pressed his nose there, took a deep breath, then lightly kissed along the soft column of her throat, letting his tongue rest along the pulse point, feeling it beat faster and faster.
Oh, yeah. The pulse in his cock pounded, too, and he didn’t think it was possible to get any harder, but he did, swelling until he felt like he was going to burst. He pushed his erection against her hip, letting her know what she did to him. She reacted by letting out a breath and reached for him, teasing his shaft with her fingers.
“My breasts. Lick my breasts.” She was panting out the words.
He knew exactly how she felt. It was like all the air had been sucked out of the room, and he found it hard to breathe. Then again, didn’t he always feel like that around Josie?
He maneuvered her toward the bed until the backs of her knees hit the edge of the mattress. Then he pushed her on top of the bed and leaned over her, placing his lips over one of her nipples. It perked up against his tongue like the petals of a flower, soft and delicate. He swirled his tongue around the bud, wrapping his lips around it to give it a gentle suck.
Josie arched her back. “Oh yes. Like that. More.”
He gave her more, to both nipples for a while, pleasuring her until she was writhing against his bed. God, how many times had he fantasized about her doing just that?
Sometimes dreams did come true, didn’t they?
He kissed under her breasts and lifted his head. “Now where?”
She snaked her fingers over her ribs and down her stomach, cupping her sex, and lifted her head to give him a dazed, sex-fueled look. “Here. Lick me here, Zach.”
He gave her a half smile. “Relax. I’ll take you there.”
She dropped her head to the bed and opened her legs for him. He kneeled down and draped her legs over his shoulders, giving him the perfect view of just how beautiful she was.
Now it was his turn to shudder. Here she was, spread-eagled on his bed, open and vulnerable and so trusting it made his balls quiver.
He put his mouth on her, and she lifted and cried out. She tasted like tart sweetness, so damn good he wanted to slide inside of her and relieve his own ache.
But first, Josie. He went gently at first, getting her used to his mouth and tongue, letting her ease into this. She was relaxed at first and he listened to her sounds, went with how she moved against his mouth to gauge the pressure she needed.
Fortunately, Josie was vocal, telling him how much or how little to give her, and he appreciated that, because he wanted this to be good for her.
And when she tensed and rocked against him, he knew she was close. He gave her more, then used his fingers to heighten her pleasure.
She cried out and shuddered. He held his tongue against her, letting her feel everything as she rode out her orgasm until she fell flat against the mattress.
Then he licked his lips, wiped his mouth, and gently laid her legs down. She raised herself up on her elbows and offered him a lazy smile.
“That was spectacular, and just what I needed.”
He crawled on the bed next to her. “You’re welcome.”
Then she surprised him by pushing him onto his back. “And now it’s your turn.”
“You don’t have to—”
She straddled him, splaying her hands on his chest. “Seriously? Of course I don’t have to. I do what I want, Zach.”
She leaned over and kissed him, a hot, long, kiss that made his dick pound hard. When she raised her head, she rubbed her breasts across his chest. “You want my mouth on you, don’t you?”
She was trying to kill him. He was sure of it. “You’re damn straight I do.”
“Then lie back and think about how good this is going to be.”
He’d lie back and try not to come right away, because he was primed and ready.
She slid down his body, then grasped the base of his shaft in her hand. When she put her lips over the head of his shaft, he lifted his hips, and his breathing quickened.
“Yeah, I like that, babe.”
He couldn’t resist telling her exactly what he liked, just how much he wanted her to keep doing exactly what she was doing. And when she went fully down on him, the visual coupled with the sensation was almost too much to bear. But he needed to hold on just a little longer, because Josie’s mouth was magic.
And using her hands and mouth on him took him to nirvana. He slid his fingers into her hair and gave himself up to her.
He lost it within minutes, and when it was over, he wasn’t sure he still had a brain cell left. It took him some time to be able to form words again, and when he could, all he could say to her was, “Damn.”
She sat back on her heels and gave him a satisfied smile. He lifted up, wrapped his hand around the base of her neck, and kissed her, deeply. When he pulled back, he stared at her, realizing how utterly lost he’d become in this woman. So lost that the L word hovered on his lips.
But he needed to be able to separate “I Love You” feelings from “Hey, That Was a Damn Good Blow Job” feelings before he said something he might regret later, so he hopped off the bed.
“I need to let Wilson in,” he said. “Plus, I don’t know about you, but I’m thirsty. You want something to drink?”
“I’d love a glass of water.”
“I’ll be right back.”
“Okay.”
He lingered long enough to watch her get comfortable against his pillows. Totally comfortable naked.
He liked her in his bed. In his house. In his life.
So maybe all these feelings mixing around inside of him weren’t all about the blow job.
He went downstairs and let Wilson in, then fixed two glasses of ice water. Wilson got himself a drink, then followed Zach upstairs and made himself comfortable on the dog bed in his room.
Zach handed the glass to Josie.
“Thanks.”
He climbed onto the bed and took a sip from his glass, then laid it on the table.
Josie changed positions, moving herself halfway down the bed where he’d raised his knee. She wrapped her arms around his leg.
“This okay?” she asked.
“Of course it
is.”
“It doesn’t hurt?” She looked down at his knee, motioning to the scar from his surgery.
“No. I don’t feel it.”
“Okay.” She smiled at him. “It was a good game tonight, Zach. And next week’s team hasn’t won a game all season. You’ve all but sewn up first place in the division.”
He hadn’t expected a football conversation. Why did she always surprise him?
“Yeah. I never count on a win, so we’ll practice hard for next week’s game anyway. I don’t like looking too far forward.”
“If anyone could take those boys to state, it’s you,” she said. “Though I wasn’t here before, from what Jane and Chelsea have told me, they’ve improved a lot since you took over as their coach.”
“Thanks. I’m having more fun coaching these kids than I ever thought I would.”
She circled her finger over the scar on his knee, then looked up at him. “More fun than playing football?”
“Nothing’s more fun than playing football.”
“I imagine that’s true if you had it in your head that’s what you wanted to spend your whole life doing.”
“Yeah. But things change, and you have to adapt.”
“You seem to have taken it well.”
Zach remembered how well he hadn’t taken it when he’d been given the news he’d never play football again. “Not so much in the beginning. After the knee injury, I was unpleasant to live with for a good long time.”
“I doubt anyone could blame you for that. It was your dream. And losing it had to have crushed you.”
“Yeah.”
“Did you ever talk to anyone about it?”
He frowned. “About what?”
“How you felt when you lost football.”
He thought back to those days. All he remembered was darkness. “No. I was mad for a long time. Then I let it go and moved on.”
She slanted him a questioning look. “Can you really move on without talking about your feelings?”
He let out a laugh. “Josie, talking about how I felt about the injury and the end of my football career won’t bring it back for me. So it seems kind of pointless.”
“Of course. You would know best.”
She reached over and grabbed her drink, took a couple of sips, and placed the glass on the nightstand, then leaned against him.
He rolled over and kissed her, trying to get lost in the kiss. But then he raised his head.
“It really sucked.”
She pulled back. “What sucked? The kiss?”
“No. When I couldn’t play football anymore.”
“I can’t even imagine what that must have been like for you.” She swept her hand across his cheek, the action filled with a tenderness he didn’t even realize he’d needed.
He rolled over onto his back and crooked his left arm over his head. Josie sat up next to him.
“For the longest time, I thought my life was over. I felt alone after the injury. When I was playing, I was on top of the world. The team was winning, I felt great, and then, boom. I was injured, I had to have surgery, and my season was over. I learned that I couldn’t play football anymore. Suddenly all my friends just … disappeared.”
She rested her hand on his chest. “What do you mean, ‘disappeared’?”
“I mean they left. All my college buddies and my teammates who would always hang out with me stopped coming by to see how I was doing. They wouldn’t return my calls or my text messages. I got ghosted in the worst way.”
She raised her hand to her heart. “Oh no. Right when you got injured?”
“No, not right away. They were there in the beginning when I was in the hospital. At that point, I just thought I’d be out for that season, you know? But then as I started to rehab, it became clear that the doctors weren’t going to clear me to play the next season. And the MRI showed an instability in the knee. I kept thinking that was all bullshit because I was young, in great shape, and I could get back out there. But in short order I was released from my contract, and football was over for me.”
She rubbed his chest. “That had to be the absolute worst time for you.”
“It pretty much sucked. And then slowly, week by week, my friends started dropping off, stopped coming by, stopped calling. They gave me the standard excuses of practice and games and said they’d call me back and come by, but right then they were busy. Until eventually every single one of them ghosted me.”
“Oh, God, Zach, that’s terrible. Even your best friends?”
“Even my best friends. Or the two guys I thought were my best friends. Guys I’d known since my college days at the University of Oklahoma.”
He saw the hurt on her face. He knew the feeling.
“Why did they do that to you?”
He shrugged. “Football players don’t like to be reminded how short a player’s career can be, ya know? And if you don’t have football in common anymore, then what do you have?”
He’d forgotten how much that had hurt. Being abandoned when he’d needed his people the most had gutted him.
She smoothed her hand over his chest. “What about your parents? Were they there for you?”
“For the medical part, yeah. They didn’t care about the football. They thought that was stupid.”
She blinked. “They thought your football career was stupid?”
“Pretty much. But they’re rich snobs, anyway. They told me a career in sports was wasting my life.”
“Well, that’s ridiculous. What did they expect from you? To become a brain surgeon?”
He laughed. “They wanted me to follow my father into the family oil business.”
She wrinkled her nose. “That doesn’t sound nearly as fun as playing football. You should be able to do what you love.”
“I did. I am.”
“How do they feel about you being a high school teacher?”
“I don’t know and don’t really care. I don’t talk to them anymore. After their lack of support about the end of my football career, I was done trying to please them.”
“I don’t blame you for that.” She went quiet for a few seconds, then toyed with his fingertips. “I’m sorry you lost touch with your family. And your friends.” She lifted her chin. “I’m mad at all of them. If I had been there when all this happened, I’d have told them all to go suck it.”
He smiled at her righteous anger. But at the same time, he liked her standing up for him. He liked that she’d taken up for him, even though she hadn’t been there when his parents had looked their noses up at his choice of career and told him how he’d shamed the Powers name. For a while, he’d felt guilty about it. Until he’d gotten hurt and they’d told him maybe he could come to his senses, forget about the whole ridiculous football thing, and enter the family business.
They hadn’t cared at all about his feelings, only how they’d looked to their friends and business associates. It was then that he’d walked away from the Powers family and hadn’t looked back.
Josie smoothed her hand down his leg. “Families?” She shrugged. “God knows they’re hard enough to deal with. But your friends? They should have been there for you, and they weren’t. A friend is a friend for life.”
He swept his hand along her thigh. “Is that how your friends are?”
She shrugged. “I was speaking theoretically. I never made lifelong friends.”
“Why not?”
“When I was younger, I didn’t get close to anyone, for obvious reasons. Most of my high school years were spent dealing with my mom. Then in college, I was either studying or working. That didn’t leave much time for developing friendships.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Me, too.”
“But you’re making friends now.”
She offered him a warm smile. “I am. There are great people in this town. And the women I’ve made friends with kind of don’t let you be standoffish.”
He laughed. “So I’ve noticed. Hope is a good place, Josie
. Filled with good people.”
“Yes, it is. I hope you’ve noticed that as well and you know you can count on the people you call friends. They’re not going to abandon you when you need them like your former friends did.”
He did know that. He’d made friends, people he could depend on. “I guess we both got lucky coming here.”
“Yes, we did.”
He pulled her next to him so he could kiss her and lose himself in the softness of her lips. When he drew back, he said, “And we got lucky finding each other.”
She laid her body fully on top of his. “Speaking of getting lucky, we just finished round one. You ready for round two?”
Just having her naked and on top of him made him hard. “Yeah. And round three, and four, and after that, we could—”
She shut him up by kissing him.
Chapter 26
* * *
JOSIE NOTICED EVERYONE was in a bad mood this week, especially at school. Then again, midterm exams were always tough—on both the students and the teachers. But after it was over, everyone could relax. She could relax.
Plus, Zach had told her he wanted to take her on a mini getaway out of town this weekend since the football team didn’t have a game Friday night. She was down with that, especially when he didn’t tell her where they were going but did tell her to make sure to pack a couple of fancy dresses.
She was so excited and yet in the dark about their location and what to wear, she’d immediately gone to Chelsea, who’d happily loaned her a couple of dresses—one red and one black. Since Josie’s tastes ran more to the vintage side and none of what she owned had any sequins or sparkle, she’d wanted to make sure she was appropriately dressed for whatever Zach had in mind.
Zach had told her he’d pick her up at five on Friday, which gave her plenty of time to get home after school and meet up with Emma to give her a key to her house. Emma had graciously offered to stop by twice a day to feed Arthur and Tumbles and cuddle them both. As if the vet didn’t already have a plate full enough. But she was amazing that way.
“Are you sure this isn’t going to be a huge burden?” she asked.
