“Dwayde sketched it during one of my games. I promised I’d make a three-point basket for him, and I did better than that. It was the winning shot.”
“I can feel how special the drawing is to him. How proud you look and the joy he felt watching you.”
“It was one of the few times that I loved playing. The game meant something having Dwayde there.”
She turns to me, her smile warm and reflective, her face breathtakingly beautiful. It’s in these moments when Dee’s guard is down that she is hardest to resist. But before I forget the vow I’d made less than ten minutes ago, I hand her the clothes.
Sweatpants and a limited-edition sweatshirt with Chicago Bulls printed on the front and my name and player number on the back. If I can’t have Dee sleeping in my bed, I’ll at least have her wearing something of mine that bears my name.
“Thanks,” she says lowering her gaze to the folded sweats and the white gym socks sitting on top.
“I noticed you curling your toes.”
Her gaze lifts back to mine, and our eyes lock in a moment of heated remembrance. I haven’t forgotten that Dee’s feet always felt the cold first. Or the many times I rubbed them warm to catch up with the rest of her body. It’s going to kill me to step out of this room when I can see the longing in her eyes and feel my desire pushing like a caged animal behind my zipper. But I force my feet to the door. And only then, with space between us, do I pause on the other side and say over my shoulder, “Make sure you grab a shower to warm up. There’s soap in the cabinet.”
“Mick.”
I attempt to wipe all need off my face before I turn around.
“I’m sorry for the way I acted earlier,” she says, clutching my clothes to her chest as if to shield her heart. “I shouldn’t have run off like that.”
I could be gracious and accept her apology without question, but I don’t have it in me. Dee ran before without giving me an explanation. This time, I need one. “Why did you?” I ask, leaning against the doorjamb, crossing my arms over my chest.
She goes quiet for so long I doubt I’m going to get an answer until I hear her sigh of resignation.
“I’ve worked hard to build what I have and put the past behind me. When you showed up a week ago, you threw the order and control I require out of whack. You brought all the emotions and guilt I had tried to bury to the surface. I resented you for that. And then I resented you more when I realized my attraction to you was still…” She purses her lips and her eyes squint, as if she is searching for the right word. “Powerful,” she breathes with a sexy little catch in her throat. “But for reasons that are my own, I can’t afford to act on it again.”
“And those reasons are why you left Springvale?”
She nods. “The way I left was wrong. I offer no excuse. But I won’t discuss it.”
Hearing that sets me off. “I’m getting tired of you telling me what we can and can’t discuss. We can’t talk about anything personal. We can’t talk about why you can’t act on our mutual attraction. We can’t talk about why you left. That’s bullshit, Dee. You’re not over the past. And you’re never going to be unless you talk about it.”
I strip off my wet clothes and throw them forcefully across my bathroom into the laundry hamper. What happened to gentle persuasion?
Too keyed up to think straight, I take my frustration under the hot shower spray. Closing my eyes, I let the water pulsating from the wide showerhead work the kinks out of my shoulders and loosen my anger. But how’s a man supposed to calm the fuck down when the woman he wants is in the next room, probably peeling the slick material off her ripe, full body right now?
Feeling aggrieved by the hard-on I’ve had for Dee for the past week and all the roadblocks I keep hitting, my body claws for release. I lean my forehead against the marble tile as my mind flashes back to sliding the pepper between Dee’s soft pink lips.
I curl my hand around my rock-hard dick, telling myself this isbest behaviorinsurance for the night ahead. My calloused palm doesn’t feel nearly as good as Dee’s mouth. But I let my memory do the work.
In the back seat of my Mustang, Dee lay on top of me, wearing some pretty, gauzy dress I hadn’t seen her in before. She smelled like sunshine and flowers. With light fairy kisses she tracked her mouth across my bare chest and down my torso to the waistband of my jeans. I shuddered beneath her touch; the anticipation of what she was about to do firing through my veins.
“Are you sure?” I grated out.
“Yes,” she whispered, looking up from her position between my legs and unzipping my jeans. She slid her warm hand inside my briefs to free my erection. “I want to kiss you here.”
With that, she dipped her head and licked across the tip. “Dee…” I groaned; the stroke of her tongue hitting me like a lightning bolt of ecstasy. And when she opened her mouth and took me inside all that soft, damp heat I knew I wouldn’t last long.
Watching her head bob up and down was sexy as hell. But sexier still was when I pulled her curls back to see her lips wrapped around me and her cheeks hollowing as she sucked as much of me as she could.
Your mouth is so sweet…so soft…so…yes…baby…ahh…Dee, I’m gonna come…
It was as much a warning as it was a benediction. But Dee didn’t pull away. And holding back would have been like trying to stop a launched rocket.
A ragged growl tears from my throat and the blistering shout of her name echoes off the bathroom tiles as I blow against my fingers.Goddamn.If a memory of Dee could almost bring me to my knees, there was no telling what having her again would do to me.
Gasping for air, I lean against the marble wall, recovering slowly under the spray. Once I catch my breath, I finish up my shower and get dressed.
