Zach angled his head and lowered his face to her lips, ripe and slightly parted, as ready for him as he was for her. He touched his lips to hers, as soft and careful as his hands on her skin. Despite the lust surging through his body, he wanted more than just a hard, rowdy fuck, he wanted more than her body, and he wanted to show her that she was more than that to him.
He wanted her to trust him without needing proof of that trust, but because she believed in him. But trust was a two-way street, and he wasn’t there yet himself, but he was closer.
Holding her face between his hands, he kissed her and let all the feelings he’d kept bottled inside too long rise to the surface. She pressed against him, kissing him back, attempting to push the passion higher, but he didn’t want wild passion tonight. He’d settle for nothing less than her soul. Her heart. Her love. Because he’d always loved her and always would—the former mean girl and the once socially inept jock. What a pair. But maybe they’d both changed enough that the thought wasn’t so outrageous after all.
They had a chance if Kelsie wanted to play ball and he could find the forgiveness in his heart.
~ ~ ~ ~
Kelsie melted like wax dripping down a candle. Zach’s mouth tasted sweet and tender, all those things she didn’t associate with sex, because in her experience, sex with Zach was passion-ignited and hot, heavy breathing. This tender side of Zach left her off-kilter and more than a little turned on and wanting a lot more.
He’d distracted her by pulling her into his big, strong arms. Those arms should’ve scared her, stifled her, made her run like hell for fear of being controlled and belittled, made to feel less of a person. But they didn’t. Instead, she felt precious, safe, and content. She’d never felt those things with any other man, especially not Mark.
Zach made her feel like a person of value, and he’d said he loved her. Maybe he hadn’t really meant those three words. He’d been in the midst of an orgasm. They both had. Yet she cherished them all the same and waited and hoped he’d say them again.
Kelsie pushed his T-shirt up his chest, and he complied by lifting it over his head and discarding it. Her body burned with need, but she followed the slow, gentle pace set by Zach. She took her time, perusing his body in the bright kitchen light that didn’t conceal a thing. Zach’s body was beautiful just as it was. Each scar told a story, and someday he’d tell her each one of those tales. She’d know him more intimately than she knew herself.
Someday?
She didn’t know if they had a someday. For now, she’d be satisfied with today.
He groaned into her mouth and unzipped her jeans. She shrugged them down her legs and kicked them aside. The panties followed. Wrapping his arms around her waist, Zach lifted her onto the counter.
“I think something’s cooking in the kitchen.” He grinned at her. His smile wrapped around her like a warm blanket just out of the dryer.
“I’m pretty sure I’m simmering.”
“Hmmm. You smell like the best thing in here.”
“Am I making you hungry?”
“Starved. But I think you’re a ways from done.”
“Perhaps a master chef might be able to bring me to a boil.”
“I’m at your service, madam, using all the skills you’ve taught me to prepare an appropriate meal designed to impress the most jaded guest.”
“Are you saying I’m jaded?”
“Not at all. I’m saying I need to work on presentation.”
“Ah, you’ve been listening?”
“I wasn’t just thinking about sex while you were teaching me about which wineglass to use for certain types of wine.”
She opened her mouth to say something.
He held a finger to her lips. “Hold that thought.”
Zipping out of the room, he returned with four bottles of wine, the necks gripped in his long fingers. Kelsie stared at him, wondering what the heck he had planned now.
“I think it’s time to impress you with my knowledge.”
Her eyes grew big, and she stared at the bottles grasped in his big hands.
“Before we start, we need to make sure we’re both properly dressed.”
She nodded mutely as he left the room one more time. Kelsie craned her neck in the direction he’d gone. He returned a few minutes later with nothing on but a burgundy condom and bow tie around his impressive erection, and a crookedly tied one at that. He handed her a pair of stilettos and bowed deeply. “Your ensemble, madam.”
Kelsie giggled and clapped her hands. Zach never kidded, never played around. Intrigued and more than a little turned on, she slipped off the counter, yanked off her shirt and bra, and slipped on the shoes.
“Now, if madam would take her place.”
“And my place would be?”
“Ah, let me help you with that. He gently laid her on the counter, leaving her legs dangling off the edge. Zach rolled up a towel and placed it under her head.
“Comfortable?”
“Yes, but it’s going to be difficult to taste wines in this position.”
“Not for me.”
Now that sounded like fun. The bow tie bobbed in agreement. Scranton sat in the doorway, ready for an exhibition.
Kelsie lifted her head and pointed at Scranton. “Get the kid out of here.”
Zach nodded and shooed him away. He returned with a corkscrew and opened the first bottle of wine, a rich, red Cab she’d purchased at a little wine store down the street. When he uncorked it, she expected him to give her a sip. He didn’t. Instead, he dribbled the red liquid on her naked body from her breasts down her stomach, into her navel, over her thighs. It ran down her crotch and mingled with the wetness of her sex. Kelsie gripped the countertop and watched him, waiting for whatever Zach came up with next.
“First, to examine the wine by sight.” He bent down, his hot breath on her skin as he studied her body from different angles. “Ah, clear, sparkling, showing depth of color.”
He had been listening.
“Now to swirl it.” He circled his finger between her breasts, where some of the wine had pooled, then moved lower, teasing her with that circular motion over her midsection. Kelsie’s legs fell open, and she wished he’d swirl between her legs. She groaned as his fingers teased but never quite hit the mark.
“Now to smell.” Without touching, but close enough she felt his hot breath on her wine-slickened skin, he sniffed the length of her body. Straightening, he closed his eyes for a moment, as if savoring it to the hilt.
“And what did you find?” She managed a strangled croak.
“Fruity with just a pinch of saddle soap.” He held his fingers about a half inch apart.
“Pinch of saddle soap?” Well, maybe he did need a little more instruction, but she gave him an A for effort.
“Yes, saddle soap.”
She raised one eyebrow. “And what does that indicate?”
“The wine is full-bodied and ready for consumption.”
“Or ready to be ridden off into the sunset.”
“We’re a long way from sunset here, darlin’.”
“Ah, consume away then.”
The man took his job seriously. Starting at her neck, he licked his way down her body, paying special attention to her puckered nipples and leaving them tight with need. He sucked the small pool of wine from her belly button, and she drew in a sharp breath, tickled and aroused at the same time. He moved lower.
“A little more tasting is required.” He poured more wine on her sex, grinning with enthusiasm far beyond most wine connoisseurs, but then most wine experts never tasted wine the way Zach did.
He spread her legs wide and placed them over his shoulders, pulling her upward until his mouth met heaven. He lapped up the wine with long, slow strokes from the front to the back of her labia, pausing on each stroke to torture her clit. Kelsie arched her hips and bared herself to him as much as possible considering the position she was in.
He lifted his head, his dark eyes shining, his face wet
from her juices and the wine. It was one of the sexiest sights she’d ever seen. “Ah, a balanced array of flavors, not too sweet or tart, but with a kick of spice and an abundance of class. Just the way I like it.”
Right now, she’d like it any way he wanted to give it. “Now that you’ve tasted it, perhaps you should partake of the entire bottle.”
“Hmm. That seems rather tacky.”
“Or adventurous, and I do adore an adventurous man.”
“I do adore a woman who loves her wines.” He dipped his head between her legs and partook some more. And more. And more. Until Kelsie panted and writhed on the counter, begging for mercy or release or both. He might be the one actually drinking the wine, but she was definitely drunk on him.
“I adore a man who takes his lessons so seriously.” She gasped as he sucked her clit into his mouth. She hung on by a thread stretched to its breaking point. The next minute, it broke, and her body shattered like a wine bottle on a tile floor, splintering her soul and her heart into a million pieces of extreme bliss that reunited with the beauty of a stained-glass window.
Zach watched her with devotion on his face. An odd combination of pleasure and panic slid through her, as her heart picked its way among the leftover shards of glass and hoped it didn’t get sliced in the process.
Lowering her, Zach pulled her to the edge of the counter and positioned his penis, bow tie still in place, at her opening. She smiled as he sank into her soft, slick opening with one long, easy thrust. He groaned the groan of a man in heaven and not ready to leave it for earth. He moved, retreating until the tip of his erection barely grazed her opening, then thrusting back inside, deep inside, past all her defenses, past all her misgivings, to a place she kept secret from the rest of the world. Only Zach had snuck inside, and now that he had the key, her life had just changed forever.
He maintained the slow, sexy torture, even though every vein stood out on his neck from the strain, while his biceps bulged, and his eyes dilated.
With one final thrust, he held himself inside her, high and deep, his big hands spanning her butt cheeks, his balls between her legs. She tossed her head back and forth and begged him to take her home. Reaching underneath and between his legs, Kelsie cupped his balls, squeezing gently, while he reciprocated by rubbing her sensitized clit. They brought each other to climax at the very same time with hoarse shouts, lots of hot, slick skin, and panting.
Zach fell forward, his body heavy across hers and her heels pressed to the small of his back. Both of them too sated to move, their muscles turned to liquid and mellowed by their private wine tasting.
Finally Kelsie stirred beneath his crushing weight. He took the hint and sank to the floor, his back against the kitchen cabinets, chest heaving, breath coming in little, short pants, like he’d just intercepted a ball and run it back ninety yards for the score.
“What about the other wines?”
“We’ll save them for another time. I liked this one just fine. We’ll need to buy more bottles.” He looked up at her. She sat on the counter gazing down at him, feeling inexplicably tender. “Did I pass the wine-tasting test?”
“You scored an A in my book.”
“I don’t know about an A, but I did score.”
She rolled her eyes and slid off the counter to cuddle with him on the floor. “The kitchen is a mess.” Rivulets of wine ran across the counters and dripped down the cabinets to a puddle on the floor.
“Who gives a shit?”
“I don’t.” She actually didn’t.
He tilted his head and studied her. “Tell me about Mark.”
She opened her mouth, then hesitated, torn between revealing how weak she’d been with Mark and wanting to give a bit of herself to Zach.
“Please.” He looked so earnest, so sincere, she couldn’t deny him.
She told him, every last sordid detail from I do to I don’t. She told him about how he’d beaten her down emotionally, stripped her of her confidence, belittled her into being nothing but a cardboard recreation of Mark’s idea of the perfect wife, seen but not heard, with no opinions of her own, her only purpose to make him happy, which was an impossibility. She told him about the night she found out there wasn’t any money left. It was gone. All gone.
Through her confessions, Zach held her tight. His brown eyes reflected sympathy for her and anger toward Mark, but never once did she see ridicule or censure or blame. Afterward, he whispered in her hair as she sobbed silently in his arms.
“I’m so sorry, baby. I’d break every bone in his body if it would take away your pain.”
She raised her head and ran a finger over his chin. “You take away my pain, Zach. You, and you alone.”
One lone tear ran down his cheek, and she kissed it away. They held each other for several more minutes before they climbed to their feet and cleaned up their mess.
Together. As a team. Just like a committed couple in love with each other.
If only it weren’t an illusion.
Maybe it wasn’t.
Chapter 22—The Clock is Ticking Down
Another fucking loss. Six and seven with only three games left. When HughJack threw down the clipboard at least twelve times during the course of a game, it wasn’t going well.
Thank God the plane ride from Arizona wouldn’t be a long one.
Zach stood in the visiting team’s shower and let the warm water run down his bruised body. It’d been too damn hot, something he wasn’t used to, and he’d sweated a gallon or two. The subdued sounds of a losing team were muted by the running water. Today, there’d be none of the horseplay associated with a winner.
Next to him, Brett stood under a showerhead and stared blankly at the wall. The poor guy got into the games to hold the ball for the kicker and that was it. Zach guessed he was happy to play at all.
The defense had played like crap, like they’d been slogging through a deep, dark swamp for several hours. The offense limped along like a wheel missing several cogs. Five starters were out with injuries, including the majority of the receiver corp. Derek, Harris’s favorite target, was nursing a sprained ankle. Even though he’d attempted to play a few downs, he couldn’t beat his coverage or leap to catch the ball, resulting in an interception in the red zone. The young offensive line couldn’t have held back a bevy of senior citizens on Bingo night. Harris had spent more time scrambling for his life or flat on his back, ground into the turf by an ambitious rookie linebacker, than he had throwing the ball.
Zach felt every one of his thirty-four years. Damn, even his big toe ached. Turf toe or some stupid-assed term like that. He’d been invincible for so long that he’d considered himself impervious to pain or injury. Now he figured it was only a matter of time before he succumbed to the same fate as the majority of the team’s wide receivers.
Last year, the team’s implosion would’ve been the center of Zach’s world, a tragedy of huge proportions. This year, while he hated it, he had Kelsie to go home to, which helped compensate for the team’s losses. That simple fact scared the piss out of him more than never getting a ring.
Then there was that stupid-assed gala, not to mention a Thursday Night Football game at home and only a few days to prepare, and he’d promised the kids he’d be there on Tuesday night for their big game against another group of kids. Crap.
Zach ran his fingers through his short hair. He hated messing with his hair, which was why he’d let it grow long. Kelsie saw to it that he kept it cut. Not that he gave a shit either way. He needed to win football games and figure out what he was going to do about Kelsie. Yeah, that’s exactly what he needed to do. He needed a plan. A big one.
She’d pinned her hopes on this gala. If it was a success, her business would get a boost. He’d do his part, be the guy that she wanted him to be, and prove to everyone how brilliant she was. He’d romance her, sweep her off her feet, impress her with how suave he’d become. As much as he hated the thought, he’d study Harris, pick up a few pointers on women. Speaking of
Harris, the guy was a virtual donation-grubbing machine. He charmed men and women alike, selling out the tickets to the gala and garnering some large auction items, along with donations. It looked like they’d surpass last year’s total after all.
Grabbing a towel, Zach dried off and wrapped it around his waist. Back in the locker room, guys were dressing and talking in muted tones.
Harris sat on the bench and rubbed his throwing arm. Zach hesitated as he walked by and grinned. “You’re getting soft.”
“Screw you.” Harris looked up and almost smiled. The quarterback looked haggard, beat-up, and exhausted. As much as he’d like to, Zach couldn’t fault the guy’s heart in the past few games, but even Harris couldn’t stop this plane from going down.
Zach nodded. As long as Harris and he were needling each other, things were as they should be. He watched the man out of the corner of his eye, concerned one of those hits Harris had taken might have damaged his arm. Without the game-changing quarterback, they didn’t have a rat’s ass chance in hell of making the playoffs.
They might not be best of friends—and never would be—but Harris had earned a grudging respect from Zach lately as the two team captains presented a show of unity and attempted to keep the team together.
Only they were a platoon of soldiers with half their men down, while the wounded survivors fought on for honor and pride. Zach had spent the first twelve years of his life playing for nothing but pride. He sure as hell hadn’t planned on doing so this year with this team.
He pulled on his slacks and buttoned his shirt.
“Now aren’t you stylin’?” Harris looked him up and down. The QB shrugged into his shirt and winced when he moved his shoulder.
Zach studied him with concern, even though he wouldn’t voice it. “Kelsie.”
“I figured she’d been buying your clothes. That woman is good for you. You’d be wise to keep her around. You aren’t such a single-minded jerk with her having a thumb on you.”
“Thanks. I’ll be sure to pass that on to her.”
“You do that.”
Offsides: The Originals (Seattle Steelheads Book 3) Page 22
