Chapter 13
KAEDE
I’m almost certain that Courtney is the early to bed, early to rise type, with the whole ‘early bird gets the worm’ mentality. But for all I know, Sunday mornings are her lazy days.
Another thing I need to know about her—does she ever have a lazy day? The idea of her soft with sleep, hair mussed, and wearing only a gauzy nightgown that barely covers her ass is something else I desperately want to know . . . intimately.
Courtney: What? Are you serious?
Me: Dead serious, honey.
I chuckle as I tap out my reply to Courtney’s text. I won’t overanalyze it, but it felt good and natural to call Courtney ‘honey’.
Me: Dress for a run.
Courtney: No.
I pause, trying to decide if she’s really saying no or just a grumpy riser.
Me: Yes?
Courtney: Fine.
Success! A good thing, too, because I’m out the door and on my way to Courtney’s as soon as my phone vibrates in my hand.
A small part of me—okay, more like a very big part of me—is hoping that if I make it in under fifteen minutes, I’ll catch her before she gets fully dressed.
Thankfully, I planned ahead and have on compression shorts beneath my workout shorts to try and prevent too much of a show. On my part, at least.
I pull up outside Courtney’s apartment building and look up, my brain taking charge over my cock and making me debate whether I should go upstairs or not. Fantasy aside, that might be too dangerous. If I go upstairs into Courtney’s place and she’s not fully dressed and ready to go . . .
Well, we’d work up a sweat, at least.
Yeah. But I’m not sure if that’s the best idea, no matter what my dick thinks.
This is fake, I remind myself. She’s doing you a solid. Don’t take advantage. Ross will kill you.
Thankfully, the decision is made for me as Courtney comes out a few seconds later, looking as sexy and amazing as I thought she would.
She hasn’t dressed for trying to look good, I can tell. Her hair’s pulled back into a plain, functional ponytail, she’s wearing the same workout shorts I’ve seen her in at One Life a dozen times, and she’s wearing a T-shirt.
But as she gets closer, I can’t help but notice she’s wearing an old hand me down T-shirt, a high school football team shirt from back when Ross and I were playing. And my mind starts ticking away, moving puzzle pieces around as I try to figure out what that means.
One thing’s for sure. She fills it out a lot better than her brother ever did.
“Good morning,” Courtney says as she sits down, giving me a dynamite smile. Up close, I can see she’s bare-faced except for a little bit of lip gloss that makes her look very kissable. But she’s ready to work, too.
“Good morning. You look fabulous,” I tell her honestly. “You ready?”
“I’m always ready.”
Courtney’s sass is in full force this morning.
I like that she’s herself with me now, not the analytical force of nature who’s always considering each step, each word, each outcome before she acts.
The relaxed version of Courtney is even sexier than the ball-busting version.
It feels special, like a secret she doesn’t share easily.
“Yeah, you are.”
I don’t say anything else, just smiling as I drive. We leave the city proper and go outside the limits when Courtney gives me a wary look. When I pull into a small dirt parking lot and shift into park, she looks around at the vista in front of us.
“Heart Attack Hill?” she asks. “I changed my mind. I’m not ready for this.”
“Ross told you about this place, then? What did he say?” I’m fighting down a laugh at the pinched look on her face.
“That he puked more than once,” Courtney admits. “Looking at it, I can see why. And FYI, I refuse to puke on a date. It’s unbecoming.”
“Don’t worry, I’m smarter than I was back then,” I promise her, getting out and coming around to her door. “Back then, we did what we called ten, twenty, thirty. Ten percent incline, twenty yards, thirty sprints.”
“Seriously? What psychopath taught you that insanity?” Courtney asks, getting out. As she passes me, only a scant inch between us, I get a whiff of her shampoo as her ponytail swishes. I want to bury my nose in it while sucking on her neck.
I shrug. “Would you believe Sports Illustrated? I read an article about how Jerry Rice worked harder than anyone, and it’s something similar to what he did. He was something of an idol.”
“So, what’ll we do that won’t kill me?” Her hands on her hips, she looks up the hill with narrowed eyes.
“Fifteen runs,” I assure her. “Run up, walk back down to the start to recover, then up again. I know you’ve got the legs for it.”
“You’ve been checking out my legs?” Courtney teases, digging a toe into the dirt and turning her leg to show off the muscle. It’s a damn good leg show. With no shame, I nod as my eyes inch up the tanned flesh. She blushes and looks me over too. “Maybe I’ve done a bit of the same.”
“You can tell me all about it as we warm up,” I promise her. “Just nice and light, walk up and down twice with some stretching. That doesn’t count toward the fifteen.”
We get started, and like our first ‘date’, we spend a lot of time just exchanging information, filling in the gaps and shading in what we’ve learned about each other so far.
“We need to move into some touchier subjects,” Courtney says hesitantly before the first sprint, but she takes off, and I’m on her heels, unable to question what she means until we reach the finishing mark at the top of the hill.
“Touchier?” I finally ask, huffing a bit. Forget all that super athlete bullshit about not breathing hard. You should be. It helps with flushing the body and preparing it for the next run.
“History. Any serious girlfriends, or have you always been more of a player type?” She seems to be preparing herself for the answer like she doesn’t really want the answer either way.
“Why?” I stutter, not wanting to go into that with her any more than she seems to want to hear it, judging by the way she’s already gearing up to protect herself. Her lips are pressed thin and her shoulders are creeping up, though she’s had perfect form the rest of our laps.
We do another lap, and I stop at the top of the trail, hands on my head as I catch my breath, and look at her.
She bends over, hands on her knees and panting too.
After a few moments, she finally says, “Missy will have done her work on you. Jeffrey too. She’ll have looked into your entire sexual history, especially to figure out an in.
It’s what women like her do. We might be the fairer gender, but bitches be crazy. ”
She shrugs, as if she has any idea what a ‘woman like Missy’ would do. But how could she? Other than sharing a gender, Courtney is nothing like Missy.
“She’ll take the first opportunity to throw it in my face.
It’s strategy 101 to look like she knows something about my fiancé that I don’t.
She’ll want to put me on edge, even better if it can be about a previous lover so she can make me feel inferior.
So, I don’t need a number, but I need to know what ammunition she’s coming armed with so I don’t flinch. ”
Shit. She’s right. What’s worse, I’m going to need the same info about her, except I’m not sure I’m man enough to listen to it without going a bit crazy.
As we walk down, I try to find the right way to say this, but there’s not really one.
“I did the whole sow your oats thing in college a bit, but I was careful. I didn’t want to do anything to fuck up my scholarship.
Since then, it’s been pretty . . . casual.
I was too busy with work and keeping your brother out of trouble.
” I swallow, digging deep to find my balls. “You?”
Courtney shakes her head as we reach the start line for the next run.
“Too focused on studies. In four years of college, I had three boyfriends, and none of them lasted longer than a semester. Later, I was tits deep in work and my graduate studies. And it’s not exactly easy dating when you’re known as the Baby Andrews, Ice Queen Bitch of the Century. ”
“What? That’s not true!” I protest. “No one calls you that. Well, the baby part, maybe. But not . . . the other.”
She tilts her head, staring at me with one raised brow.
“They’d damn well better. Do you know how hard I have to work to have that reputation precede me so that people take me seriously?
” She points a finger my way. “Damn fucking hard. So if they’re not calling me that, I’ll have to take it up another notch. ”
I see her point and concede. “Fine, you do have a certain . . . reputation.”
We do our next run, the walk back down taking longer, and as we walk, I can’t help but notice how sexy Courtney’s legs are, the way her ass flexes as she runs.
“Okay, bonus round,” Courtney gasps when we’ve got just one sprint left. “Favorite position?”
I blink, not sure if I heard right or if the oxygen debt is starting to affect my hearing and my brain. I look over at Courtney, but despite her heaving chest and the flush on her face from how hard she’s been running, I think she’s dead serious.
Holy shit. My mind goes utterly blank and then starts flashing a movie’s worth of images of me and Courtney in position after position, replays of fantasies and dreams I’ve had before but now seem so much more possible with her so close and the memory of her riding my lap so real.
“Hard . . . to say. The eyes are the windows to the soul,” I tell her, stepping close enough to brush an escaped lock of hair behind her ear.
I look down at her, her eyes swirling with so many emotions I can’t pick them out before they disappear.
This might be the worst decision I’ve ever made, but I say what I’m thinking anyway, tempting fate.
“But I love the sight of a tight, curvy ass bouncing as my cock thrusts in and out of her.”
Courtney’s breath catches, and the air between us crackles with sexual tension. She bites her lip, but the timer on my phone goes off and it’s time to run.