Hook Up (A Bad Boy Sports Romance) (10 page)

“
I
think moving
to Louisiana was a mistake,” Jo choked out when we were ten minutes from my place.

“Come on now. Why would you say that?”

“Just look at the stuff I’m going through. I lost a crappy job because that filthy piece of shit who’s probably on the damned NOLA sex offenders registry walked into the corner store thinking he owned me and copped a feel of my lady parts. And that was a shitty job to begin with. My sister’s drunkard boyfriend groped me and tried to sleep with me. I have no place to live, and where I was staying with Rose was already expensive as hell. I got nothing here and no reason to stay.”

I would have told her she had me, but it felt forced and empty when I thought about it. “Stop talking like you lost your mind.”

“I haven’t lost my mind. I had nothing in El Paso, but I have even less than nothing here… I’m gonna ship my things out, take the bus, find a whole apartment for less than what I was paying for that tiny section of Rose and Mike’s living room, and maybe if I beg real nice, I’ll get my waitressing job back at the Ribeye Family Restaurant. Yes, that’s what I’ll do. I’m just gonna move back, plain and simple. “

“Why the hell for?”

“What’s the point of staying here?”

“Listen. Don’t go making any rash decisions, okay?”

“How do you know my decision to come out
here
wasn’t a rash decision?”

“Okay. Then don’t go making another one. Maybe you need a break for a while.”

“I can’t afford a break.”

“How about this, then? If you really want to go back home, at least wait a few weeks. I’m driving home for Thanksgiving. You can save a bunch of money if you wait and take the ride back with me. It won’t be a problem. Everything will fit in my car like the last time.” That got me thinking. “Hey, you know what? I think we should be talking about upsides.”

“Where do you see any of those in my sorry-ass life?”

“Let’s start with an obvious one. You didn’t go all shopaholic since you’ve been here.” I pointed to the back seat with my thumb. “Take a look back there. You have all the same stuff that you came with, except for two extra framed portraits.”

“Yeah, I did a bit of painting these last couple of months. And I didn’t go all shopaholic because I can’t afford to.”

I quickly looked over at her for a second. “Come on, Jo. Try it. Think of one good thing.”

She rolled her eyes and leaned her head onto the headrest behind her. After a minute or so, she said, “Well, I didn’t get shot.”

I smiled. “There you go. What else?”

“I didn’t get mugged or arrested. I didn’t kill or maim anyone.”

“Good. Anything more? Tell me one thing that’s good about having some time off.”

“Oh, there’s nothing good about that.”

“Why would you say that?”

“Because it means I’m going to have to dig into my savings again. And it ain’t much.”

“Why do you think you need to do that? You’re staying with me. You won’t have any extra costs.”

“Oh no, no, no. I’m paying my way.”

“That ain’t necessary. This place is paid for. There’s plenty of food in the fridge. Hold on to your cash, okay?”

“I ain’t no charity case. I said I’m paying my way.”

Christ, this woman stubborn. “Forget that for a minute. Let’s get back to the upsides. What’s one good thing about having a few weeks where you don’t have to rush off to a full-time job?”

She closed her eyes for a while. “I know! I can paint.”

“There you go.”

“And I get to maybe see you play, if you’d like me to go…”

“For sure. I’d like that. I have three games before Thanksgiving. You’re more than welcome to come. You can hang out with Pat.”

“Who’s Pat?”

“One of my buddy’s friends. He comes to every game. He is a little weird but he’s all right.”

“Okay. Oh and you can finally taste my cooking,” she added.

“What? You can cook?”

“Of course I do. It’s the least I can do while I’m here.”

I turned to her with my eyebrows raised and a suggestive smile on my face. “I don’t want you to think you have to earn your keep that way… but I gotta say, I can think of a few other things I’d like to taste.”

Jo bit down on her bottom lip and rested a hand on my knee, looking over at me with her eyes full of lust. “That ain’t ever gonna to be a problem between you and me, honey.”

This woman sure knew how to get my dick hard. I was close to home and starving, but the truth was I didn’t want to spend any time in the kitchen. I wanted Jo in my bed. Instead of turning onto my street, I continued on and picked up some dinner for us at the only place that served steaks to go. We were set. Returning to my street, I parked in the driveway in front of my row house apartment. “We’re here. Let’s get these things inside so you can settle in and relax a bit.”

Before I stepped out of the car, she said, “Chris, I just want to say…you didn’t have to do all this for me, but you did and…thank you.”

“Don’t worry about it. Come on, sweet thing. Let’s go.”

I
walked
into Chris’s apartment and I think I fell in love with the place before I’d even stepped away from the front door. I’d never seen such a well-organized and trendy hallway. Artwork with dramatic colors lined each wall of the neutral hall which ended at a modern kitchen with stainless steel everything. There was nothing mundane or run-down. Even the coat rack and cushioned seat for getting shoes on and off were stylish and fit right in against the wall that led to a modern floating oak and metal staircase.

“Wow. This is nice. Who designed the place?”

“The landlord I guess. It was all like this when I moved in.”

“I like it,” I admitted, stepping further inside with two of my plastic storage containers. “Where should I put these?”

“Stack them near the bottom of the stairs. There’s extra space up in the spare room. I’ve been using as an office to study, but I can rearrange a few things to fit all your things in there.”

“Great.” I looked up the stairs, then to the left into the living area. “Does the spare room have a window? I’m not trying to be ungrateful or anything. It’s just that natural light is ideal for when I’m painting.”

“Oh yeah. There’s a window in each room, so wherever you want to set up your art, it’s fine. As for sleeping arrangements, it’s just a one-bedroom, but I’ve got a sofabed down here in the living room.’

“Cool.”

We brought everything else inside, and Chris showed me the rest of the apartment. It was a gorgeous space, full of light and with an open feel to it. And it was so clean. I kept a clean house, but Chris had to be a neat-freak or something. I’d never seen a guy’s place this tidy. Either that or he had a maid here once or twice a week.

As he was hungry, we ate first, then I headed over to my suitcase for a change of clothes before going to the upstairs bathroom for a long, relaxing shower. I desperately needed to wipe the slate clean and try to forget the chaos of this evening. Chris was moving things around in the spare room when I got out.

“How’s this for space?” He asked after pushing his mahogany study and laptop desk to one corner. There was more than enough room for all my things and more, so it would be a breeze to put my art supplies and easel near the large picture window.

“It’s more than enough.” I found the fold-up easel and placed it beside the window. “This faces south so it’ll have great lighting. It’s perfect. I’ll get my stuff sorted. I was about to turn around and grab my storage container with oil paints and acrylics when I felt his warm, strong hands on my shoulders.

He pressed his body into my back. “Hold on a minute,” he whispered into my ear. “Take care of that tomorrow or something.”

I rested my head back on his firm chest, letting myself soak up the wicked heat that radiated from his chest and groin, warming me up to the core and causing me to want more of his skin against mine. “Okay.”

“I waited way too long to get you next to me again.”

“Three months,” I hummed. I couldn’t bring myself to admit that I’d been craving him all this time, and hadn’t been with anyone else. I had no delusions about the fact that we were a casual thing and nothing more. Still, it felt good to fantasize that there was something special between us.

“Like I said, too damn long.”

“I missed you,” I heard myself admitting then bit my tongue.

He kissed the top of my head, turning me to look up into his face. I couldn’t help but notice his
Don’t mess with Texas
t-shirt straining against his muscled chest and biceps, or the lock of his dark hair that had fallen into his face over one eye. “We’ve got lots of catching up to do, little lady.”

Gripping the back of my head firmly, he ducked down. “You smell amazing,” he said in a low gravelly rumble that left me aching between my legs. “I’m curious whether you still taste as good as you smell.”

I groaned out a sigh. “You tell me, cornerback,” I breathed out.

My breath hitched as he placed the softest kiss against my neck, nibbling on the spot with teeth, delivering a sweet, hot breath on my skin that made my skin tingle and my toes curl.

“Better than I remember,” he whispered.

He pulled back and his mouth drifted up to make contact with my lips. My eyelids drifted closed, and my hands gripped the sides of his t-shirt, surrendering to him and melding into his touch. He buried his fingers into the hair at the back of my head, claiming my mouth and lighting me on fire in every spot where our bodies made contact, plus a few other places I was already wishing he’d get to.

His kiss was full of need and lust and longing. I have to confess that the way he parted my lips and tangled his tongue with mine had me wrapped up in the fantasy that this wasn’t just one of those kisses that led to wicked hot sex, but one that made his chest feel like it would burst, the way mine felt right now. Thank God he was kissing me, so I couldn’t say what my lips were dying to utter for some reason unknown to me. They had never desired such a thing before.

It appeared that my lips weren’t the only things with a mind of their own. One leg was already rubbing against his calf, rising high until I felt his hand grip my ass and pick me up off the ground. I wrapped both legs around his hips, loving how strong he was, how he made me feel so weightless. He broke from the kiss, turning toward the door with an arm on my back, pressing me into his tight abs and thick erection, protecting me as he carried me out of the spare room down the hall to his bedroom. If we hadn’t been so close to his bedroom, I was pretty sure I’d have tugged him down to the floor or pulled him over to his study desk so he could take me. With us in such salacious contact his heartbeat thrummed beneath my chest, kicking the throb between my legs up a notch to where I just didn’t want to wait a second longer.

Before he could get me fully into his room I feverishly nipped at his lower lip, pulling it between my teeth. Chris stopped short, pressing my back more tightly, groaning against my lips before he returned the favor. He tempered the sting of his bite with a slow movement of his tongue on the spot, then he pressed it back into my mouth.

Chris’s kiss was primal, wild, hungry. It took my breath away. I was anticipating how he would ravage me with unrelenting, persistent, mind-blowing strokes along every inch of my body the way he promised. I moaned into his mouth, greedy to have his erection inside of me instead of pressing against my opening through all our clothes. My hips ground down of their own accord, looking for its own way to relieve my aching center. His hand at my back tightened and he almost leaped forward, lowering me into his bed with his torso between my legs. We hurriedly pulled from the kiss and gripped at each other’s clothes, tugging them off piece by piece between savage kisses until all our clothes were thrown off the bed and onto the floor.

My hips rose up toward him, ready for that yearning to be satiated with his thick cock buried deep. His hands found my hips again, and his lips covered over my mouth hungrily as though he couldn’t get enough of our faces pressed together. I moaned as his fingers inched their way from my hips and up my sides to the soft flesh of my breasts. He lifted his body slightly, rubbing his thumbs in a circular motion, teasing my skin, causing me to squirm and moan and lock my legs around his hips again. His kiss morphed into a smile. Chris was enjoying this torture of making me wait. His lips strayed from mine and wandered over to my ear and down my neck, slowly nipping the skin as he went. My body was buzzing and on overdrive, hips cantering into his hardness, almost ready to grip his shaft and press it into my center all by myself.

He made his way down my neck to my sensitive, aching, pebbled nipples with a combination of tender and rougher bites. Every tantalizing bit of contact thrilled me, shooting straight to my core as though he was hardwired to my every nerve ending. I moaned out a plea for mercy with no words, caught up in desire yet enjoying his every move. I arched my back, pressing the nipple he was feasting on further into his mouth and running my hand through his thick hair. He pulled back and blew a cooling breath over each breast, then he placed his palms on each one, rolling each tender nipple between his thumb and forefinger. The man had me on fire and weak and trembling before he wandered lower still, kissing down my stomach and lower belly until his tongue was flicking against my clit and circling along my fleshy, wet folds. His hands gripped my inner thighs, spreading me wide when he dipped his tongue into my opening.

My eyes threatened to forever roll into the back of my head when he began to suck and lick and enter, feasting on me from my clit to my folds and deep inside. Without releasing my clit, Chris pressed two fingers inside me, and I rocked my hips into them, delighting in the sensation until I heard my own cries that signaled the orgasm which was now rocking through my body in overpowering waves. Chris didn’t stop. Oh no, he continued to devour me. I was weak and trembling and wet, and he was enjoying it from his spot between my legs. I don’t know what made him decide to finally bring his cock out to play, but I was fucking ecstatic when he reached a hand over to his night stand and got himself nicely wrapped in a condom.

I groaned, and he paused a second to look down into my eyes. Somewhere in that gaze was a promise of something more than what we were up to. I caught sight of it for a moment, then I looked away, just in case I was the one imagining things. I gripped his shoulders as he positioned himself again, but a second later he flipped onto his back and pulled me on top to straddle his hips. His hands found my waist, lifted me high over his massive erect staff, and I took my time lowering along each inch, savoring how he stretched and filled me so completely. I was halfway down when he placed a finger at my asshole. With the other hand, he pulled me down the rest of the way, impaling my core with his cock and taking my ass at the same time. The sensation and shock of it shot electricity out from my core and took me straight to the beginning of another climax. I was gripping his shoulders so hard he was sure to have welts where my fingernails dug into his skin.

A second later I slumped forward, weak from this second peak. Chris kissed my cheek and whispered that he wasn’t done making me come tonight. Jesus Lord, that voice of his sent my need to a whole new level. I wanted him all over again, and gasped out a cry as my hips picked up the pace again. I held him at his waist while he continued his attack, pumping his hips up and driving his finger deeper inside, moving more quickly until he growled out a wild roar as he came. I used my hands on his stomach to keep lifting myself as his hips jerked haphazardly, clenching my thighs and core while he emptied into me, releasing him only when he palmed my back and pulled me down to rest on his chest.

I was panting to catch my breath, filled with this incredible sensation. I didn’t try to label it. It would come out wrong in my head and my heart. Instead I smiled into his neck, let him rub my back, closed my eyes and let the sleep take me away.