“Dak,” I whisper, my voice thick with desire.
He pulls away from me, his eyes smoldering with lust.
“Do you want this?” he asks, his hand stilling on my thigh.
I pause to see if the driver is paying us any attention, but he’s on a phone call speaking another language I don’t recognize.
“Yes,” I breathe, my body trembling with need.
Without another word, he pulls me towards him, his mouth finding mine once more as he slides his hand inside my panties. I arch into him as he strokes my clit, his fingers moving in quick methodic circles that make me see stars.
“Fuck,” I moan against his lips, my body trembling as I come quickly undone in his arms.
The taxi pulls to a stop, but neither of us moves. We stay in our embrace, our breathing still ragged from pleasure.
“Promise me you’ll always be honest with me,” he says, his voice low and intense.
I nod, my heart pounding in my chest. “I promise,” I whisper, leaning forward to press my lips against his. He wraps his arms around me and holds me close, our bodies entwined in the car until the driver clears his throat to get our attention.
“It’s twenty-two dollars,” he tells us.
Dak hands him thirty dollars and tells him to keep the change. He takes my hand as we step out of the vehicle, both of us still lost in our own thoughts. It’s not until we are standing on the sidewalk that I realize we are not at my apartment, but we must be near his because of the proximity to the park.
“I told you we weren’t doing apartments yet,” I tell him, unable to shake off the feeling that something is not quite right.
“I want to make love to you in a bed where we can be as loud as we want and wake up next to each other. This sneaking around is getting a little old for me.”
A ringtone blares from his phone that sounds like a death march and I can only assume it’s Jana. It’s been her all night.
As he speaks in hushed tones, I notice a group of shady-looking men lurking in the shadows nearby. My heart pounds as I realize they’re looking directly our way.
“Dak,” I hiss urgently, tugging on his arm. “We need to go.”
But it’s too late. The men have spotted us and are closing in fast. Dak hangs up the phone and turns to face them, his fists clenched.
“Stay behind me,” he orders me, his voice low and dangerous.
When one of them pulls out a five-thousand dollar Nikon camera instead of a knife or a gun, we realize these men have not come to attack us but to get information.
“Dak, do you have any comment about the statement Hunt McCall made about his hopes that the NFL will do better in protecting their players from injuries?”
A light from a camera flashes.
“Is this your new girlfriend, Dak? What’s your name, miss?”
Another man points his video camera at me.
“When will the team let you play again?”
“What’s your comment on trade talks to send you to Chicago?”
A third reporter juts his arm holding his cell phone, which must be recording audio.
The questions come hard and fast as I get a hard smack of what it must feel like for celebrities like him every day.
Without a second thought, Dak covers me under his broad wingspan and tells me to, “Bend your head down.”
The intrusive reporters follow us to the parking lot of his building and isn’t until one of them tries blocking my path into the car that he gets truly angry.
