19. Brent
What You Do To Me
Valentine’s Day fell the weekend after All-Star Weekend—which the Eastern Conference team won, thanks to a game-winner from yours truly—and I wanted to make it special for Berkley. I wanted to make every day special for Berkley, but Valentine’s Day was, after all, a holiday devoted to love, and I loved that girl.
I’d always considered myself a bit of a romantic. Despite having been a college athlete living on an allowance while at Michigan State, I’d always found fun and inexpensive ways to make date nights magical for Ashley. I’d set up picnics on the field in front of Munn Arena. I loved to cook, so I’d frequently spent evenings in my apartment testing out new recipes on her—and, a lot of the time, my roommates—as we sipped wine and talked about life. Those were the early days, the good ones, before she’d become the hollow, vapid version of herself, completely at odds with the girl I’d fallen for.
After Ashley, and until Berkley, I hadn’t done emotional relationships. I’d been strictly invested in the physical sort, providing a good meal, some wine—I wasn’t a total heathen—and only enough conversation to seal the deal before moving on to the next one. I wasn’t proud of the man I’d been, but it was how I’d survived.
All of that had changed with Berkley, and I’d told her as much the night I’d told her about Ashley.
She knew everything there was to know about me, and I her. There were no secrets between us.
We’d spent last weekend surrounded by people, so the last thing I wanted to do was take Berkley to a restaurant. Instead, I’d gone shopping, picking up the ingredients for chicken marsala, garlic roasted vegetables, salad, and chocolate mousse for dessert, plus a bottle of Duckhorn Cabernet because I remembered Berkley had loved it during our first date.
I’d told her to dress comfortably since we wouldn’t be leaving my condo, but when she walked into wearing an oversized Warriors’ sweater—one she’d stolen from me—and leggings, my mouth dried out. Her hair was piled on top of her head, and she walked in with her book bag slung over her shoulder, which she dropped onto the floor with a loud thunk.
The fact that I got to call this woman mine was a miracle.
Yeah, even in lounge clothes, she was still the sexiest woman I’d ever laid eyes on.
She turned and caught me staring. “What?” she asked. “You told me to dress comfortably! This is a studying outfit, which is what I was doing before I came over. This is as comfortable as I get short of being naked. Which I’m all for, but at least let me eat first.”
I approached and lifted her off her feet, setting her on the island and stepping between her legs. Cupping her face in my hands, I kissed her long and slow, sweeping my tongue into her mouth. She tasted minty, as if she’d been chewing gum before coming over, and I licked my lips as I pulled away.
“Hi,” I said.
She giggled, pushing her fingers into the hair at the nape of my neck in a way that drove me fucking wild, and my dick twitched in response. “Hi. Happy Valentine’s Day.”
“Happy Valentine’s Day. Do you want your present now or later?”
Berkley’s eyes narrowed. “Present? You didn’t have to get me anything.”
“I wanted to.”
“Good, because I got you something too.”
“Definitely not necessary,” I told her, pressing a kiss to her cheek and stepping back. I helped her off the counter before I stripped those leggings off and had her for dinner instead.
Then again, the night was still young.
“Oh, I know,” she said. “But I wanted to. So let’s exchange now.”
Taking a seat on a barstool next to her, I reached across the counter and grabbed the gifts, sliding them in front of her.
“You first.”
Berkley opened the smaller present, flipping the lid off the jewelry box to reveal a rose gold necklace with a pendant shaped into the number twenty-two and flanked by two stones, deep blue on one side, dark red on the other.
“Your jersey number,” she breathed. “With the Warriors colors!”
“Do you like it?” When I’d ordered it from the jeweler, I was a little worried she’d see it as me branding her. Kind of like when Haley got Nathan’s jersey number tattooed above her ass in One Tree Hill.
At least this, she could remove, and it had been my idea, not hers.
“I love it,” she said, already shoving the box toward me and swiping the hair that had come loose from her bun off her neck. I strung it on and clasped it, pressing a kiss to the skin right above when it was secure.
“Now the other one!” I urged.
She reached for the larger box, gently lifting the lid, then lifting the dark blue garment out.
“Your jersey?” she asked, hugging it to her chest. “You know I already have one.”
“Not game worn.”
Her eyes widened, mouth dropping open. “What?”
“It’s the one I wore the night we played Boston.”
“My first game after our first date,” she said quietly.
Pleased she remembered, I nodded happily. “I had it dry-cleaned, and it’s been sitting in that box ever since. I’ve just been waiting for the perfect chance to give it to you.”
“I love it so much,” she said against my mouth as she kissed me. Then she pulled away and passed me a box. “Now it’s your turn. It’s not as fancy, but…I hope you like it.”
Greedily, I ripped into the wrapping paper, revealing a black metal picture frame in the box underneath.
“It’s digital,” Berkley said, reaching over to click a button on the side. The screen lit up, and a slideshow began, displaying pictures of the two of us, my family, friends, and teammates. “I figured you could take it with you on the road so you wouldn’t forget about me.”
“I will never forget about you.”
“Good,” she told him with a small smile. “Now where’s this meal I was promised? I’m starving.”
“You know,” I said, raking my eyes over her body. “I was just thinking the same thing.”
I watched as, too late, Berkley realized what I’d meant and tried to make a run for it. Unfortunately, she ran exactly where I wanted her: in the direction of my room. I caught her by the waist in the hallway outside, scooped her up, and playfully tossed her onto the bed.
“What are you doing?” she asked, laughing. “What about dinner?”
“Dinner can wait,” I said. “I distinctly remember you saying something about being most comfortable when you’re naked.” I crawled on top of her, sliding my hands under the waistband of her leggings to cup her ass. “Why don’t I help you out with that?”
Berkley’s protests quieted as I slipped her leggings down the smooth skin of her thighs and off, tossing them unceremoniously behind me. The panties she wore could hardly be considered underwear at all. The sheer lace offered tantalizing glimpses of the smoothest skin on her body, and I grinned wickedly at her.
“What’s that look for?” she asked, propping herself on her elbows to stare at me.
Without a word, I fisted the panties and ripped them from her body. Berkley’s yelp of surprise, followed by a moan when I smoothed the sting with my lips, sent a surge of heat straight to my cock.
“Fuuuuuuck,” she groaned out when my tongue delved into her pussy.
The bed shook as she threw herself backward, her hands coming to my hair. The sharp sting as she yanked on the strands, angling me right where she wanted me, had me driving my hips into the mattress. I was desperate to take the edge off, but not before I got her off. There was nothing in the world as good as this. Nothing got me high quite like Berkley coming apart under me, with my mouth, my fingers, my cock pushing her to the brink. I’d never be fully sated where she was concerned.
But I gave it my best shot.
I licked and sucked and nipped, alternating slow strokes with quick flutters of my tongue until my girl was panting and squirming, begging with unintelligible words. The quivering in her legs told me how close she was, and only a few more circles of my tongue would get her there.
I hadn’t even added my fingers, and I felt fucking powerful knowing I was the only one that could do this for her.
When I backed away, she whined. “Brent!”
“Not yet, baby,” I said, crawling up her body until we were face to face. I brushed an errant strand of hair out of her eyes. “Can you be a good girl and come on my cock?”
“Always.”
Our bodies moved on autopilot. Wrapping her legs around my waist and locking her ankles at the small of my back, she tugged me closer. I fisted myself, groaning at how good the pressure felt, and lined up, knowing my hand could never compare to pushing inside her.
I slowly sank into her body, and we let out twin sighs of relief when I was fully seated.
“Fuck, you feel good,” I groaned, holding still, content for the moment to bask in this connection. I’d been this close to other women before, found myself in this position countless times, but fucking was vastly different from making love.
“Move.”
One word from her perfect lips. A command I happily obeyed without question. There was no slow lead up this time, no working her over until my restraint snapped. Already, her pussy fluttered around me, clenching me so tightly I could burst in a few strokes. She’d been close before I’d taken my mouth off her, and I knew she once again overlooked that cliff, ready for me to toss us both into oblivion.
“Hold on.”
Like a little koala, she wrapped herself tightly around me, the bite of her fingernails into my skin urging me on.
My hips moved frantically, pistoning in and out of her so fast and hard that my headboard slapped against the wall in time with my thrusts. Berkley’s moans gained volume, reaching a crescendo as she fell apart beneath me, her back arching off the bed as she screamed my name. Her inner walls gripped me so tightly that I followed her down, dropping my face into her neck, mumbling her name over and over as I worked us through it. When she stopped pulsing at last, when I’d spilled every drop of release I had to give inside her, I stilled. Withdrawing, I looked between us to watch as my cum dripped out of her, and I swiped a finger through it.
“Open up.”
Berkley unhinged her jaw without question, sucking our combined releases off the finger I shoved it into her mouth.
“This is what you do to me,” I told her as her teeth scraped over the pad of my finger. “To us.”
My finger popped free, and she said, “I love you.”
Every thought whooshed out of my mind as I sat back on my heels.
“I…what?”
She gave me a small, knowing smile. “I love you,” she repeated.
“Berk…you know I love you, but I don’t want you to say it to me in the heat of the moment. I did just fuck your brains out, and I love that for us, but…”
“This is not a heat of the moment admission,” she said, sitting up and crawling onto my lap. “I love you. I wanted to say it back to you in Vegas, but I was so scared. I’ve been hurt before, and it jaded me. I didn’t understand how you could want me. How I was supposed to keep you if I couldn’t even keep a loser like Lee faithful.”
I cupped Berkley’s cheeks in my hands, eyes darting across her face, taking in every detail that had become so precious to me. “There isn’t a single thing about you that I would change, Berkley Daniels. You’re it for me, and I’m not going anywhere. Ever.”
Silver lined her eyes as she offered me a watery smile. “I’m not either,” she said. “You’re stuck with me forever.”
Warmth bloomed in my chest, and a grin overtook my entire face. “I love you.”
“And I love you.”
Our admissions and declarations had hardened me again, and my cock pressed insistently between us. With a slight shift and the help of Berkley’s hand, I was once again buried inside her.
I took her slow this time, letting her raise and lower herself on my cock at her leisure. I kept one arm banded around her waist and the other gripping her thigh, filling her completely every time she dropped down onto my lap. Her fingers anchored in my hair, gently sifting through the strands.
Our gazes held the entire time, never wavering. We murmured affirmations and pleas as we moved together. Hearts beating as one, we came in unison, whispering “I love you” to each other as we broke apart and quivered in each other’s arms, forged into one.
Afterward, we cuddled up together, her leg slung over my thigh, my arms wrapped around her. She traced lazy patterns over the tattoos on one of my arms.
“What do they all mean?” she asked quietly, scraping her nails over the tops of the trees that covered the bulk of my deltoid, a lake nestled between them.
So I detailed them all, the time periods in my life they each represented. The Spartan helmet, the Roman numerals indicating the birth years of Mom, Dad, Nate, and Kenze. The quotes I loved, the flowers my mom favored, the ice rink scene on my right forearm. All the little intricate details—some of them sentimental, some simply things I thought were cool. How that scene with the trees and lake represented my family cabin on Silver Lake, which was about a half hour drive from Lake Placid in upstate New York, less than three hours from where I’d grown up in Albany.
“The cabin has been in my family for years,” I told Berkley, goosebumps raising on my skin as she pressed her lips to the five tiny fingers sitting shoulder to shoulder at the end of the dock. “When I signed my first major contract extension, I began upgrading it to suit my family’s needs. What had started as a tiny, seven hundred-square-foot log structure on two hundred feet of lakefront property had since tripled in size—both the cabin and our shoreline—thanks in equal parts to my purchase of the lots on either side and the massive new house we’d finished construction on a few years ago. My parents had balked at the price tag initially—”
Berkley snorted, cutting me off. “Good to know I’m not the only one who hates when you spend gobs of money on shit.”
I dug my fingers into her sides, her giggles music to my ears.
“But,” I continued, “the miniscule cabin that sat on the lot wasn’t nearly big enough for our entire family, or the families our parents hoped for me and my siblings to have one day. Bulldozing it and building something that was more modern and more practical had made the most sense.
“Plus, I’d reminded them the money was mine to do with as I wished.”
“You’ll never learn,” she said with a sarcastic eye roll, and I flipped her onto her back in a swift move, hovering over her.
God, she was beautiful like this. Naked, all that smooth, creamy skin on display, her pale pink nipples peaked under my gaze, begging for my mouth. Her hair, a wild tangle from my hands, fanned out around her head. Those gorgeous blue eyes locked on mine, shining with the love she felt for me.
I’d never thought I’d find this, and now that I had, I never wanted to give it up.
“I want to see it one day,” she said, scratching a nail down my peck and over my nippled, then lifting her head to flick it then the other with her tongue. I groaned and shifted my hips closer, my cock slipping through her arousal.
I fucking loved how wet she got for me, and how easily I turned her on. Where I was perpetually hard in her presence, one little look from my girl turning my cock into marble, she was constantly drenched—making it so goddamn easy to slide home.
Which I did on a slow, languid thrust, and she arched her back, tilting her hips to greet me.
“I’ll take you there whenever you want,” I said when I seated myself fully inside her. “And then I’ll fuck you on every surface in every room.”
A shiver passed through her body, and she wound her legs around my waist, pulling me closer, eliciting matching moans from us both. “You’ve got yourself a deal, Beej. But how about you start right now?”
Never one to deny my girl, I began to move, giving her exactly what she asked for.