Pitch Perfect: Boys of Summer, Book 1 (20 page)

“You thought this was Alex’s condo, didn’t you?”

Emmy found the nearest barstool and sat on it, her knees pointing towards him but her gaze focused on the refrigerator.

“Yeah.”

Tucker leaned against the countertop, stealthily turning on the coffeemaker with a nudge of his elbow, and crossed his arms over his chest, intent on getting her to look at him if it killed them both.

“Are you disappointed it’s not?”

Emmy’s head snapped up, and she stared at him slack-jawed. “Of course not!”

When she saw his wry grin, she realized she’d been had, but he was grateful she didn’t glance away again. The brewer on the counter burbled to life, and the coffee began to pour into the pot, filling the kitchen with the rich fragrance of good San Francisco coffee. Chicago could keep its pizza. The City by the Bay would have his love forever because of the coffee. Funny how he hadn’t
loved
San Fran coffee until Emmy told him how much she had.

Her stomach growled, and he chuckled in response.

“Do you think you could handle some food?”

She made a face and started shaking her head, but her stomach protested, gurgling loudly.

“That’s humiliating,” she said, crestfallen.

“Nah. You should hear mine after a full day of training. You’d think there was a family of angry bears in it.” He filled a cup of coffee for her before the pot was done brewing and passed her the steaming mug. “No sugar or milk. Black is best for what’s going on in there.” He tapped her forehead and smiled. “Trust me.”

“You’re an expert on dealing with hangovers?”

“I’ve had one or two in my time. Champagne is the worst, but beer and shots aren’t a cakewalk by any means. I’ve been on the receiving end of an Alex-sponsored drink-a-thon before. I know what you’re going through.” A wink, not unlike the one he’d given her during the previous evening’s game, showed he wasn’t judging her for getting her drink on.

Sometimes you just had to do it, and if Emmy had felt like finding some solace at the bottom of a bottle with Tucker’s best friend by her side, well, she wouldn’t be the only person in this room who had done it.

Emmy accepted him at his word and drank back a big mouthful of coffee. She winced at the bitterness—he tended to use a darker roast espresso—but took another sip as soon as it was done. “Thanks.”

“No problem. Now let’s get some food in you.”

“And maybe you can tell me how I ended up here?”

“Maybe.” Tucker went to the fridge and pulled out eggs, cheese and butter, then grabbed a loaf of rye bread from the pantry and set about making breakfast as if the woman of his dreams wasn’t six feet away watching his every move.

He used a glass to cut holes out of the middle of each slice of bread, then buttered the slice and threw it in a hot pan. While the butter sizzled, he cracked one egg into each of the bread holes, and once he’d flipped it, sprinkled the shredded cheddar cheese over each piece. The kitchen smelled warmer when he was done, like toast and pizza. He presented Emmy a clean white plate with two slices, then put the remaining three on his own plate.

“I’ve never seen Toad in a Hole made with cheese before,” she remarked.

“Then you haven’t seen it made right before. And it’s called eggs in a basket.”

She had another big gulp of coffee, the green-gray tone of her skin becoming rosier and more healthy by the minute. Balancing the plate on her knees rather than turning her back to him, she used the side of the fork he’d given her to break apart the bread, letting the gooey yellow center of the egg yolk seep out onto her plate. She proceeded to drag her toast bite through the yolk before popping it in her mouth.

He couldn’t remember the last time he’d seen a woman make such a big show of eating before, and it made him sad for all the women he’d shared meals with in the past. Emmy made a satisfied groan, and the sound went straight from his ears to his groin, bringing to mind a dozen other ways he might get her to make that sound again.

“This is perfection,” she said between mouthfuls. “I didn’t think I could eat anything, but this is amazing.”

“Now you’re overselling it. I make it okay, but you should try my sister’s. Damn. You only think this is good because your stomach is loving you for all the butter and bread.”

“I don’t care why I think it’s good. It’s delicious. End of story.”

He laughed. “Far be it for me to argue. If you think it’s the best thing since sliced bread, I will take the compliment and run with it.”

“As you should.” She popped another bite into her mouth and smiled at him, all the self-doubting shyness of earlier gone, replaced with the smart-mouthed woman he knew.

Tucker poured his own coffee and waited for her to finish what was on her plate before he said the words that would doubtlessly make her attitude darken again.

“So…last night.”

“Ah.” She set her mug on the counter and steeled herself for his answer. “What happened?”

“Alex texted me while you two were at the bar.”

“
You
were who he couldn’t stop sending messages to? I was sure there was some hot booty call he couldn’t wait to ditch me for.”

“Nope, this time it was only me. On a non-work day you might have caught him hitting up the little black book, but he has a strict self-imposed curfew on game nights. He’ll drink himself silly, but he always goes home to his own bed.”

“Well…I guess that’s something.”

“It’s the best you’ll get from Alex.”

“I’m just the trainer, I’m not going to judge what he does in his spare time.” She traced her finger on the lip of the coffee mug. “That still doesn’t explain how I ended up here.”

“A little before one he texted to say you had
maybe
tried to match him for one too many shots and he wasn’t in shape to take you home, nor did you have a firm grasp on where you lived.”

“Oh.”

“So I came, dropped him off and tried to get you to tell me where your apartment was. I know you live in the Mission, but you kept saying
The big stupid
Full House
one on the street where hope goes to die
. And while I’m sure there are a lot of places in San Fran matching that particular description, I wasn’t about to go to all of them and hope I let you out at the right one.”

“How considerate of you. And explains why you brought me here. But it
doesn’t
explain why I wound up in your bedroom and not on the couch or in the guestroom.” She looked embarrassed with herself for saying it, and Tucker wasn’t sure what answer she was hoping to hear. Did she want something to have happened between them, or was she hoping he hadn’t touched her?

“You asked for the grand tour when we got here, and I obliged. When you got to my bedroom, you announced it was the prettiest bedroom on the face of the planet and promptly passed out on my bed.”

“Jesus.” Emmy nestled her head in her open palms.

“You were very ladylike about it.”

“I’m sure.”

“So I covered you with the blanket and left you there. That’s it, end of sordid tale. Everything after that you know.”

“Did I, uh…” She rubbed her temples with her fingertips then looked at him directly. “Did I do anything to really,
really
humiliate myself?”

“Like try to take off my pants in the car, or offer to show me how you can do a backflip?”

Emmy’s whole face went slack with horror, and Tucker managed to maintain a straight face long enough he was sure she might die of shame before he laughed. “Only the latter, I swear.”

“Did I
actually
try to do a backflip?”

“No, you got distracted by my neighbor’s corgi.
Can
you do a backflip?”

“I was in gymnastics in high school, but it’s been easily that long since I’ve tried.”

“Impressive. Next time you get tanked, I’ll need to let you show me how bendy you can get.”

“Not very anymore.”

“I bet you’re plenty bendy where it counts.”

She sputtered into her coffee mug, but when she didn’t respond with outrage or by immediately scolding him, he put his own coffee down and moved to clear the space between them. The kitchen was a good size for a condo, but there still wasn’t a hell of a lot of distance for him to cross.

Before he had time to reconsider the move, he had eliminated the gap and his thighs were up against her knees. She stared up at him, hazel eyes wide with wonder, her lips parted slightly.

“Hi,” he said softly.

“Hi.”

“You can tell me to stop.”

“I know. I’ve done it before.”

“Are you going to now?”

“I don’t know.”

It wasn’t exactly an invitation. “What are you worried about?”

“Right now? My breath, mainly.”

Tucker laughed. “And otherwise?”

“I worry about a lot of things.”

“I’ve learned that about you. But now there’s no other man in your way. Now you can be with who you want to be with. So what are you worried about?”

“Is it too soon?”

“Emmy…” He cupped her chin in his palm so she couldn’t look away. “As far as I’m concerned, it couldn’t be soon enough.”

Chapter Twenty-Six

What was she doing?

Tucker’s fingers caressed the sensitive skin along her jaw and followed the upward curve of her face until he was holding the back of her head, his hand buried in her hair.

He’d told her she could say stop whenever she wanted, but she didn’t want him to stop. She never wanted him to stop, and finally she could let him follow through without the guilt.

Tucker kissed her cheek softly, and she let out a little sigh. He paused for a moment, but when she made no other sound aside from the exhalation, he continued the task at hand.

His delicate kisses moved with practiced slowness from her cheek to the dip where her jaw met her neck, and there he gently licked her skin. The shocking warmth of his tongue on her made a thrill shoot through her, piercing her groin and taking her from mildly aroused to downright horny.

Emmy no longer wondered what she was doing. She wondered instead how she had gone this long without doing it.

She raised her palms to the front of his shirt and clasped two handfuls of the cotton into her fists, tugging him closer. Since he couldn’t physically come nearer to her with her legs in the way, she parted them and made room for his body between her thighs.

The heat of his skin was evident even through their two layers of clothes, and once his body was flush against hers, his kiss moved from her neck to her lips. He seized her mouth in such a way she momentarily questioned if he really was the nice guy he seemed, because no nice man should kiss with the owning, demanding power Tucker was using. The way his lips parted hers and his fingers clawed at her hair was needy and insistent, full of something far more primal than she’d expected from her mild-mannered pitcher.

She was intoxicated by it. Wanting
her
had made him this crazy, and she wanted to know how wild he could be.

Her mouth yielded to his kiss, lips opening so his tongue could meet hers, teasing, playfully nipping with his teeth, deepening the kiss each time she hesitated until she was sure she might melt into a puddle on his floor. He had a robust taste of dark coffee and something else that was masculine and entirely Tucker. She’d kissed him before, but never so much and so deeply. It was as though this embrace were an abyss and he was willing her to fall into it with him.

Releasing her hair, he braced one hand on either side of her against the counter and leaned into her so she was forced to bend backwards, the countertop meeting the small of her back.

“Tucker,” she mumbled when he pulled away briefly. She had no other intention, nothing specific to say, she just wanted to hear how his name sounded now that she had the taste of him all over her lips. Delicious. It all sounded delicious.

This time she closed the gap. Her hands still fisted in his shirt, she dragged him back down to her, reclaiming his mouth and returning the fevered passion with which he’d kissed her. He pushed closer, his crotch seated against hers and the rigid presence of his cock unmistakable along her inner thigh.

Emmy wanted to say his name again, as an invitation or a call to arms, but her tongue was too tied up with his to make time for words. He growled into her mouth when she arched her hips towards him, and in response she let a moan rumble in her throat.

She wasn’t going to say no, and if he was waiting for her to stop this, he had another thing coming. It had been months since she’d last had sex—yet another sign things with her and Simon had shifted gears into the platonic—and she’d been denying herself Tucker all that time.

To let him know what she was thinking, she pulled back abruptly from the kiss and looked him in the eyes. His cheeks were flushed, and the skin around his mouth was red from their rough kisses. She was willing to bet his morning stubble had done a number on her skin, but she didn’t care. None of it mattered except for getting him out of his stupid pajama pants and getting them both back into those beautiful cotton sheets.

“Yes,” she said breathlessly, trying to remember the last time a kiss had made her dizzy with need. To drive home her words, she let go of his shirt and grabbed his ass with both hands, tugging him so close they both gasped. “
Yes
.” This time there was a growl to the word.