Chapter 5
Chapter Five
Cat
“I know I shouldn’t be calling, but since you’re there and I’m here, I figured it would be easier to talk, clear the air.”
“If you think it’s safe to talk on the phone with me at night while I lie naked in my bed, then you’re a hell of a lot more na?ve than I gave you credit for, chicklet.”
Sucking in my breath, I felt his words down to my panties—which I still had on. But if he was naked, that somehow changed things, in more than a switch-on-the-furnace kind of way. It made me feel wicked, sexy, and more than ready. None of the reasons I’d called him.
Pushing his drugging sensuality aside with a monumental effort, while a picture of Hunter naked played in my head, was the hardest thing I’d accomplished yet in my romantic career. But I did it. Cleared my throat and forged on.
“You’re safe. I’m fully clothed,” I said, false brightness fooling no one. Plus, I was lying. I was in a nightie and it wasn’t made of flannel. Because I must have latent sadist tendencies, I turned my bedside lamp off. “And I’m in the kitchen surrounded by . . . food.”
“Any sausages or bananas around?”
I laughed, my panties creamed and the throbbing started.
No way would I be able to resist giving in to the temptation of Hunter Quintanna making me so hot.
I told myself over and over this was not the reason I’d called.
This was his fault for turning me on. I lay back on my pillows and slid my panties over my hips.
“Cat? You there?” He gave a low, accusing chuckle.
“Yes. You’re perfectly evil, you know.” My voice was breathy.
“I do know. But then, so are you. You’re the one who called me, remember?”
I nodded as if he’d hear the movement and maybe he did, because he kept talking in that low sexy growl. Biting my tongue, I stopped myself from telling him what I thought of his voice.
“Tell me what you’re wearing.”
“Panties.” The dark room and the distance made me brave, reckless, like I was a different person, some wanton woman caught in a decadent web of addictive desire.
“Take them off.”
My heart stuttered and my body buzzed with the intensity of my throbbing.
I hadn’t touched myself yet and I could feel that delicious spiral begin.
Obedient to my master, not sure if it was Hunter or my newfound addiction—maybe it was one and the same—I reached down, hands shaky as if I’d never done this before, and pulled my panties all the way down.
Not stopping there, with my other hand I slipped a finger into the swollen folds to find my clit and gasped.
“Done.”
I heard him breathing, heavy and fast, not talking for a beat, while I stroked the cream to the surface, rolling my finger around the hard nub, moving my hips. “Hunter.”
“Sugar Cat, tell me what you’re doing, tell me how you feel right now.”
“Hot and dripping.” I choked the words out and slowed down, backed off the crest, wanting, needing this to last, wanting to orgasm with him, together.
He sucked in a breath and the sound almost undid me.
“What are you doing, Hunter?” My voice sounded wobbly, a vibration in it as if my vocal cords were stretched too tight with tension.
“You tell me, Sugar Cat. What am I doing right now?”
I licked my lips and concentrated on talking while I slowly circled my clit, keeping it plump, but not spiraling out of control, not yet.
“Your hand is on your long thick cock—”
“How do you know it’s long and thick?” There was a hitch in his voice that made me moan and squeeze my legs, stopping my finger from moving.
“When you kissed me, in my apartment earlier, I felt it between my thighs and now the size and feel of your cock is imprinted on my mind forever.”
His breathing sounded hard now, like he was suffocating with the strain, but I kept myself still, aside from the panting and pounding of my heart in my chest. “Hunter, not yet . . .”
“I’m close, Cat. You’re in my head, a picture of those eyes, that mouth of yours. Goddamn, it tasted so good.” He half growled, half moaned and I plunged my finger deep inside and let out a gasp of pleasure, spiraling up, pressing my clit, spreading my juices around and around.
“Not yet.” I barely uttered the words.
“I want you so much. You’ll be my doom if I let you.”
“No, don’t say that.” I almost cried the words. He sounded so desolate, so desperate.
“Cat . . . I’m squeezing, I’m pumping . .
. I’m yours.” I heard the shudder in his voice and the massive groan of pleasure and I plunged my fingers, pumped my hips and screamed with everything in me, almost dropping the phone as I felt myself clench, go rigid, almost black out from the intensity of the pinpoint of pleasure exploding in waves.
“Oh God, Hunter.” I think I was crying, rolling onto my side in a ball, my legs clamped together, holding me from bursting apart, from thinking, from letting in anything else except Hunter and this moment, feeling every last morsel of this moment of .
. . what? While I pondered what the hell we had going on, because phone sex didn’t seem quite right, though it was, I had no idea how many moments went by with my phone to my ear and me breathing, trying to slow it down, to return my heart to normal.
“Cat, you okay?”
I wanted to weep at his thoughtfulness, the concern obvious in his voice, his breathing in my ear on the phone almost normal. But it would be. He was a world class athlete and I wasn’t.
“I’m very okay. You?”
He chuckled. “Wish I had a cigarette.”
“Liar. You never smoked a day in your life.”
“You sound sure about that. You been talking to my mother?”
“Not yet.”
“Smart-ass.”
It was the first real, normal conversation I’d ever had with him, where we weren’t at odds, or tense and wary about our insane attraction.
I ought to feel ashamed that I’d had sex first then talked later, but seeing that it was phone sex, I couldn’t work up any self-recrimination.
Even the pause in our conversation felt right.
“What did you call me for?” he finally asked, voice back to normal, not in a good way. The playfulness was gone as if he remembered I had ulterior motives. He clearly didn’t like me having control over him, interfering in his life, helping him make decisions. And I was just getting started.
“I told you. To clear the air.” I paused a beat.
“How did that work out?” he asked.
I laughed. “You’re a master at clearing the air. You have a way of dealing with tension.”
He laughed. “Sure. Get rid of one problem. Create another.”
“Is that what we just did, Hunter? Because I don’t—”
“You don’t think so?”
“No, I don’t know. But I don’t want there to be any problems between us.”
“Cat, there was never any doubt that you were anything but trouble for me.”
“I-I’m sorry.”
“Liar.”
He was right. There was nothing I could say to that.
“It’ll be fine,” I said. “We’ll work together, do what we have to do. Behave professionally.”
“As if nothing ever happened?” He mocked me.
“As if nothing will ever happen again.” I said the words while my heart broke. But that was what he needed to hear from me and I knew it.
“You sound confident.” He sounded hopeful. Another piece of my heart fell away.
“I am.” Liar, liar.
“Okay, we’ll go with that. Not like we have a choice, do we?”
“No.” He was right. “I won’t mess things up for you, Hunter, I swear. It’s the last thing I’d want to do. My whole job, my purpose right now is to make you whole, to make your second chance happen.”
“You work for the team, Cat. Not for me.” The compelling softness in his voice lifted my heart like a balloon to my throat, made me dizzy with longing. And lust, if I was honest. After a painful moment trying to talk past my choked emotions I finally stated the obvious.
“Doesn’t matter. You succeed, the team succeeds.” I needed to get my poise back, get the vision of him naked out of my head. I needed to embrace the challenge of helping him redeem himself.
“That’s the theory. But the team is bigger than me and you don’t have control—”
“You doubt me, Hunter? I have big plans for your salvation.”
He gave a cynical snort.
“Can’t wait to hear all about it. But not tonight. I need to get some sleep.”
“I’ll see you after practice.” He didn’t respond. “Good night, Hunter.”
He grunted, might have said good night, then disconnected and I was left lying in bed, my panties in a tangle at my ankles and a silent phone at my ear.
Oh my God. How had I managed to end up this night feeling more bereft than when I started, more lost, more confused, more unsure of everything about my future?
Or the future of my heart at least. Except there was one thing I was not unsure or confused about.
I would do everything in my power to help Hunter Quintanna get his redemption.
To get his respect, get his payday, get his career back, and to get him anything and everything he always wanted.
Even if that didn’t include me.
The next morning was hard. As I sat in my office in front of my computer, I did more daydreaming than actual work and that wasn’t fair to Hunter.
He needed my help. Trying to find information about his hometown and his past was proving a challenge, but I needed some clues about what the best charity might be to get him involved in.
And I knew damn well asking him straight out would be fruitless.
Besides, I wanted to surprise him, impress him. About the only constructive thing I got done was setting up some tweets and getting a conversation going about his strengths as a tight end, his uncanny abilities as a blocker, and his promise as an elite receiver.