“I’m telling you, buddy, Neve Angel drives me to drink.”
He picked up the bottle, ready to pour half the contents down his throat if it meant softening the hard-on busting through his pants. This bad news day was made all the worse by the fact that his traitor cock had been standing at attention ever since his parking lot encounter with Neve.
“I envy you, you know,” he muttered to the gecko. “Happily alone. Minding your own business. Good life.”
He poured a hefty double shot into the tumbler, no ice, and took it to his master-bedroom bathroom, shooting back the amber-colored bourbon in a single gut-searing gulp before shedding his work clothes.
No need for a tie for a while.
He ripped it off his neck and tossed it onto the stone floor. Once naked, he stepped into the shower and turned on the spray without waiting for the temperature to adjust. The chill before the hot water would douse the throb in his balls.
A quick glance at his shaft showed the thought for what it was—a whole lot of wishful thinking. He gripped himself hard at the root, hissing more from the sensation shooting to the pit of his gut than the now-hot water needling his bare chest. He eschewed lubing with the body wash perched on the ledge, stroking himself the old-fashioned way. He kept his rhythm methodical,up and down, down and up, up and down, down and twist over the head.His other hand braced on the granite tile.
But try as he might to make this a run-of-the-mill jack off, his mind unlocked a back door and forbidden thoughts slipped through, ones where Neve watched him, her dark eyes riveted on his cock as she devoured every inch.
His fingers on the wall curled into his palm at the idea, making a fist, and before he pounded it against the stone in a half-hearted, frustrated punch, he paused to imagine what it would be like to slide his hand down and cup the back of her head, to press her to his groin, urge her to take everything he had to give. Her wavy dark hair always looked so lush, so shiny. Yeah. He’d grab a great greedy fistful as her tight little mouth took him straight to heaven.
He rocked his hips harder. How long had it been since anyone had touched him?
Not since Maddy left.
A pathetic fact when so many puck bunnies would be willing to spend a night with a championship coach. He registered on a basic level that he was good-looking. At forty there was no sign of middle-aged paunch. He kept his body lean with a shit ton of running. But random hookups had never been his thing. Not even in his twenties. He was a feast-or-famine kind of guy, either in a serious long-term relationship or alone.
And more often than not... the latter.
He increased his rhythm, frowning at the sound of friction, the rasp of skin against skin. Hard for a guy to lie to himself when he was working over his dick. Neve Angel had lodged under his skin with all the ease of a barbed cactus. God, that woman was a pain in the ass. Always quick to call out a question that he had hoped would pass unasked, and with that small pouting smile that communicated one thing:Gotcha.
Heat licked up his neck. He needed to come, to purge his body of the poison, the unwanted attraction toward his small, sleek nemesis. But his body revolted. Unwilling to grant him the victory of an easy release.
Instead, desire pressed like a weight to the pit of his belly, increasing in pressure bit by bit until a shudder ran through his quads, the muscles tightening and bunching in small, involuntary contractions that sent microbursts of heat up his hamstrings and a targeted blast of heat to his sac. He removed the hand propping his weight against the tile, slid it down, his rough palm caressing the thin, ruddy skin encasing his balls, and expelled a ragged “Fuck.”
The spray peppered his chest in tiny licks. As beads of water trickled over his sensitive, flat nipples, the tip of his cock held a gleam that had nothing to do with the shower. He pressed the flat of his thumb down hard over his head, barking out a frustrated moan.
“Come on,” he ordered himself, his cock.
All in good time, Bossy.He imagined Neve’s annoyed tone with such pitch-perfect clarity that the orgasm took him by surprise.
His cock jerked in his hand, the deep, aching muscles clenching even after he came with a roar that might have made his elderly neighbors dial 911, thinking he’d just been murdered.
He leaned his forehead against the tiles, splaying both hands for balance. But his neighbors wouldn’t be more wrong. Because he was more alive than he’d been in recent memory. His nerves tingled. His body was primed, ready to take on the whole damn world.
A frown tugged at his lips. As awesome as he felt, this wasn’t good. What the fuck had he been thinking? This was a dangerous road. He better turn around and get his ass back to safer ground.
After flicking off the shower, he stepped out and reached for a towel, not the plushy soft one either. No, he grabbed the scratchy thin grey one that he’d had since his college days and for some reason never trashed. He scraped it over his damp body until his skin was red. He couldn’t be getting his rocks off to Neve Angel. She was the enemy who baited him every chance she got. She’d even written a piece on his divorce for a lifestyle mag. Probably earned a pretty fucking penny and took a vacation on his personal misery. She was just another jackal who feasted on the remains of other people’s lives.
If this was what happened when he stopped thinking about work, then he was in for a world of trouble. He tied the towel around his hips and stalked back to the kitchen, empty tumbler clutched in one fist. There was only one thing to do with this secret attraction—numb it with more whisky. Time to give himself one hell of a hangover, one that ruined him so much that he’d never be able to equate Neve Angel with sexy times again.
A week later, and there was still no deal to end the lockout doldrums. Neve shuffled into The Twirling Tassels and eyed the line of folding chairs with a growing sense of trepidation. There was a world of difference between having a big idea and executing it.
“Yeah. So. Maybe this isn’t such a good idea,” she murmured to the two women a step behind: her little sister, Breezy, and their friend Margot, who looked effortlessly sexy in high-cut black dancer pants and a midriff-baring royal blue tank top that revealed toned abs still bronzed from her summer trip to Baja.
“Well, for starters you should have worn heels,” Margot hissed, pointing to her own Louboutins for emphasis. “The welcome letter specified that—”
“She doesn’t own heels,” Breezy sighed.
In contrast to Margot’s eagerness, her sister’s face was tight with unease, the same way it was whenever she was called on to do something athletic. But she still rocked a pair of ruffled hot pants that showed off her every curve.
Neve’s heart sank into the soles of her Converse. Breezy’s beehive and cat’s eye makeup gave her a smoky Adele appearance, while Margot looked like the classic girl next door, albeit one who’d shimmy down the apple tree outside her bedroom window to get jiggy in the neighborhood park. But in her grey yoga pants and UC Boulder college T-shirt, Neve felt about as sexy as a mushroom.
