CHAPTER 19 Miller Banks
Can You Take Me Home
I’ve only had a few drinks, so I know I’m not drunk.
I’m a big enough man that I can put down quite a few before I even start to feel it, but it’s all the other things I’m feeling that are leaving me feeling a little drunk.
I couldn’t help but hold her hand in the back of the car, just like I couldn’t help tossing my arm around her shoulders as we walked into the bar, and like I couldn’t help setting my hand on the small of her back to guide her toward our VIP section.
It all feels so goddamn natural with her. It feels like this was the way it always should have been, and every time I’ve looked down at her and found her looking up at me, I’ve felt more and more confident in that.
“So this is the fiancée?” Clay asks, sauntering up to us. He’s a little younger than us and definitely single, and while he’s a good dude, I still want him far, far away from my girl—I mean…from Sophie.
“This is the fiancée,” I confirm, and I lean down and press my lips to Sophie’s temple as I slide my arm around her waist this time and haul her into my side. She slips an arm around my waist, too. “Sophie, this is Clay. ”
“Nice to meet you,” she says, and they shake hands.
A waitress comes by to take our drink order, and we each get another round of what we were having back at the event.
“When’s the big day?” Clay asks.
We exchange a glance, and Sophie gives what’s becoming our standard answer. “Maybe before next season starts, maybe just after it ends.”
“Dude, that’s only a few months off,” he says.
I nod. “When you know, you know.” And I’ve known since I was fourteen, not that I mention that.
“Do you have all the plans in place?” he asks.
Sophie shakes her head. “Not a single one, but it’ll come together.”
Clay laughs. “Right. I’m sure it will. Good luck to you both.”
He moves along to another conversation, and I glance down at Soph.
“If we’re going to do it before the season, we should probably get the planning underway,” I point out.
“Do it?” she squeaks.
“The wedding.”
Light seems to dawn in her eyes. “Oh! Right. Do it. The wedding.” She giggles, and she seems a little…
off. Nervous, maybe. It’s probably just the wine—or maybe the fact that we’re hanging out with good-looking, single guys like Clayton Mack, Sam Collins, and DJ Evans, three of the wide receivers on the San Diego Storm.
“We should just keep it simple. Maybe we should just go to Vegas and do it there.”
“Is that how you dreamed of your wedding?” I ask.
She lifts a shoulder. “No,” she admits. “But there’s a lot about this I didn’t dream of.”
I raise a brow. “Oh? Like what? ”
It’s dark in here, but not so dark I don’t catch the fact that her cheeks seem to flush. Must be those other football players getting to her again.
She draws in a deep breath and seems like she’s about to say something when our waitress interrupts by handing us our drinks.
Sophie immediately downs about half her wine while I slowly sip my whiskey.
“Is everything okay?” I ask her as I watch her nervously play with the stem of her glass.
She presses her lips together and lets out a little giggle, and then she draws in another deep breath. She snags her bottom lip between her teeth, and I tilt my head as I study her.
I lean in a little closer, and I ask her, “Is it the wedding? Are you having second thoughts?”
Her eyes flick up to mine. Her lip is still caught between her teeth, and she shakes her head as she slowly frees it. Her eyes hold mine captive as she rests one of her hands on my bicep.
My brows pinch together. “You’re not having second thoughts? Then…what is it?” I press, and instead of answering, she sets her glass on the table beside us and turns back toward me.
When her eyes meet mine again, a strange sensation darts through me.
Her eyes flick to my lips, and she tilts her chin up as she rises onto her toes.
Her lips catch mine, and I lean down into her so she can settle back down onto her feet. I slide one palm along her neck as my other hand moves to her hip, where I haul her closer to me.
My mouth opens naturally as I deepen the kiss, and she’s kissing me back with this newfound urgency that I wasn’t expecting .
This isn’t for show.
Strange sensations whip through me at the feeling of kissing this woman, sensations I never want to stop—and I won’t be the one to stop it. I can’t stop it.
I want to live in this moment with these feelings forever. It’s warmth and history and friendship, sure, but it’s also more. It’s lust and need and want and heat, things I’ve always felt for her but never felt from her.
Until now. Until this very moment.
Our tongues tangle together, and she’s grasping my bicep now where she had simply set her hand just a few seconds ago, grasping it as if she’ll fall if she lets go.
I memorize every single thing about this moment—the summer garden breeze of her hair, the feel of her tongue as it brushes against mine, and the deafening sound of my heart beating in my ears as I can almost hear the blood rushing straight down to my cock.
The feel of her in my arms, the sharp angle of her hip under the itchy ruffles of her dress, the way she’s leaning into me, her tits pressed against my chest as I rock my hips toward hers.
The sweet little moan that somehow makes its way through that deafening rush in my head.
Holy shit. Sophie June Summers is kissing me.
And I never want it to end.
It has to end, of course. All good things must come to an end.
But tonight, as this kiss does come to an end, it’s only to briefly pause as she pulls back to ask me a question.
Her eyes are heavy with need. Her lips are swollen from our kiss.
And the single question that drops from her lips is the sweetest sound I’ve ever heard in my life. Her voice is breathless and throaty as she asks, “Can you take me home? ”
I stare at her a few beats before I ask, “Are you drunk?”
She slowly shakes her head, and I don’t answer with words. I don’t bother with goodbyes.
I’m not doing anything to jeopardize this chance.
Instead, I grab her hand and lead her through the bar as I navigate the Uber app on my phone. The car is one minute away when we land on the sidewalk out front, and I don’t dare let go of her hand as we wait.
A black car pulls up, and we slip into the backseat.
We greet the driver, and when I glance over at her, she’s looking up at me. She sets her hand on my jaw and pulls me toward her, her lips catching mine again.
I could’ve justified the one back at the bar. I could’ve said she was only kissing me in public to further our plot of a fake engagement.
But here in the back of an Uber?
It’s just the two of us.
My fingertips glide along her thigh where that gorgeous slit has been tempting me all night, and I rest my hand right at the top of the slit. She shifts a little, and it has the effect of pushing my hand up her thigh toward her hip.
She deepens the kiss as I let my fingers move up a little more, and it’s as if she’s giving me permission to touch her with the intensity of the way her tongue moves against mine.
I shift my hand down a little, and her legs fall open just enough for me to brush against the silky fabric snugly fit against her pussy.
My cock swells as I cross a line I’ve never crossed with my best friend.
There’s no turning back.