“Aurora,” he breathes against my skin, causing tiny flickers of goose bumps to scatter across my chest.
I haven’t felt passion or desire in so long, I don’t know how to handle even the teeniest sensation of it.
Knox tentatively strokes my shoulder with his tongue. “I really want to kiss you good morning now.”
I need to move on. I need to allow myself to open up. I need to live again. Knox has always been so gentle and loving with me. He’s been such a wonderful, devoted friend. If there is anyone I would trust not to break me again or leave, it would be him. Which is dumb because Knox is always gone touring or competing. In a sad way, I’m okay with that because I know he will come back. He always comes back for me. Besides, it’s not like he can take my heart with him. Someone else stole it five years ago.
“Okay,” I tell him, and he lifts his head from my shoulder, rolling over on top of me. He trails his fingertips gently across my forehead, the heat of his body warming me through my cotton sleep shirt and boy shorts.
“I will never hurt you, Aurora.”
A tear I didn’t know that formed, slides down the side of my face as I look up at the handsome man hovering over me with so much emotion in his uniquely colored eyes.
“I may hurt you though,” I tell him, wishing more than anything I wasn’t still broken. That I could give Knox everything he deserves. He shouldn’t have to settle for a woman who is only half herself.
“Baby, don’t you already know that I’m yours and have been since the moment we met?”
He doesn’t give me time to form a response before he’s kissing me deeply. I let go and allow his kiss to block the pain that still festers inside of me, ashamed that his lips are not the ones my body secretly craves.
Chapter 30
“I’m sorry, JD.”
Those three words bring such relief.
It’s eight in the morning as I watch my agent, Bill Byers, pace back and forth in my living room, clearly upset.
I’m not paying him any attention because my focus is on the text that just arrived on my phone.
Fallon: Time to come home.
I look at the text right above it. The one Fallon sent me a couple of weeks ago.
Fallon: It’s done.
Bill stops in front of me. “Why the hell are you smiling? These aren’t things to smile about.”
He’s wrong. So, very, very wrong. This is a cause for jubilant celebration.
“Your dad died and you’re happy about it? I don’t get you, man.”
“You never knew my dad.”
My first thought when I got the call last night from one of Dad’s associates was: finally. My second thought was to call my manager, coach, agent, and team owner and tell them I was officially retired from the game as of eleven last night. They thought I was joking. No one in their right mind would give up a multi-million-dollar contract. They thought it was grief over losing my father that was causing me to make sudden, rash decisions. I wouldn’t be swayed. I’m done. Out of the game.
I’ve been playing football since I was five years old. Got drafted my third year of college into the NFL and have been first string QB for the Panthers the past year. My football career was taking off. I had endorsements. I had a legion of rabid fans. And I didn’t care. Not one bit.
Bill glares at me and points his finger. “You need to get your affairs in order, JD. You can’t just walk away from an NFL contract without there being consequences, and those consequences are attached to dollar signs.”
“I’m fully aware and prepared for all that.”
“Are you?”
I grin.
I’m free. I’m finally free. My grin grows wider.
Bill looks at me as if I’ve lost my ever-loving mind.
