CHAPTER 5 JOLENE
I park Sam’s car in Lincoln’s driveaway, carefully checking the rearview mirror to be sure nobody followed me over this time.
I think I’m safe, but I still wear my hood up over my hair as I rush to his front door.
Last time I was here, I was so shaken by what went down with Rivera and then I got called away early to get my son, so I didn’t really get to explore the abode belonging to Mr. Lincoln Nash.
A person’s home can tell you an awful lot about a guy, but I didn’t get the chance to learn much of anything last time.
This time, I’m taking my time. I want the grand tour, and I want him to make love to me in every single room so when he walks into each one, he thinks of me and what we did in there.
Okay, maybe that’s too much too soon.
We’ll see if I get up the nerve to actually say that to him.
He opens the door before I ring the bell, and he’s standing there in jeans, a black shirt, and no socks or shoes. He’s just home on a Friday night all casual and hot with that scruff lining his jaw and those dark eyes of his hot on mine, and I’m not sure how I got so lucky.
Or maybe it’s not luck at all. What we have is simply a curse since I’m madly in love with him yet can’t really be with him the way normal couples can be.
What a confusing hot mess.
“Hi,” I say tentatively once the door is shut behind me.
“Hey. Come on in.”
I’m carrying a duffel bag, and he takes it from me and sets it on the floor by the stairs to go up whenever we do.
I follow him toward his kitchen, a room I never got to explore the last time I was here. It has white quartz countertops and a subway tile backsplash with black cabinets and a white floor. It’s all black and white, very monochrome, but something about it is both sexy and alluring.
“Are you hungry? I was just going to order some takeout.”
“What if we make dinner instead?” I ask.
“Make dinner?” he echoes.
“Yeah…like cook? You know, how normal people make food and then eat it?”
“Are you saying I’m not normal?” he counters.
I laugh. “No, but cooking can be both relaxing and therapeutic.”
“So is getting a massage, but there’s no dishes to clean up afterward.”
“Ha, ha, smart guy. Do you keep anything around here or do you order all your meals?” I ask, curious about his actual lifestyle.
“I have some stuff around.” He nods toward the fridge and his pantry. “Feel free to take a peek around.”
I chuckle but start my exploration, and I find enough stuff to be able to make breakfast for dinner. As I’m bending down to check the bottom shelf of his rather large pantry, I feel his hand connect with my ass, a rather loud crack filling the pantry.
“Hey!” I protest, rubbing my ass.
“You can’t really expect me not to touch your ass when you’re presenting it to me like that.”
I shoot him a glare. “Turnabout’s fair play, my friend. If I see your ass up in the air, I’m smacking it, too.”
“Deal. As long as I get to touch your ass, I’m a happy man.”
I giggle. “Right. So…scrambled eggs, toast, and sausage?”
“I’ve got the sausage covered,” he says, and he grabs his groin.
I roll my eyes. “Already with the sausage jokes,” I mutter.
“What?” he protests. “Sausage jokes and slapping your ass any time you bend over. It’s like a staple of making a dinner together, isn’t it?”
“Is it, though? Does it have to be?”
He laughs, and we get started cooking a meal together. He doesn’t know his way around the kitchen very well, which tells me he’s used to ordering takeout, but he takes direction well. He also likes to interrupt my work with kisses, which I don’t exactly mind…until we burn the first round of toast.
We laugh together as we work, continuing to steal kisses and make conversation, and then we sit and eat together.
“Why’s Jonah at your parents’ house this weekend?” he asks.
“We planned it months ago when I found out about the charity ball. I figured I’d either be covering or attending it, and he likes to do a double sleepover every few months. I just miss him, but I might head over sometime tomorrow to say hi.” I’ll see my parents tomorrow night at the ball, something I haven’t discussed with Lincoln yet. I don’t really want to bring it up, to be honest, but the invitations went out to several local former players, and my parents were all too excited to attend—especially given the fact that many of the Aces players are regulars at their restaurant and my dad has sort of built a name in the Aces community, likely much to the chagrin of our darling new coach.
I have a babysitter I call upon occasion, the teenaged kid of one of my parents’ neighbors, and she’ll be watching Jonah tomorrow night when we’re all at the ball.
“You’re close with them,” he surmises, and I nod.
“And you’re close with yours?”
He shrugs a little. “I guess. I haven’t seen them much since they moved to town.”
“You’ve been a little busy, you know, coaching. And slipping in time with your secret lover.”
“Not enough time,” he mutters as he pulls me against him with his hands on my ass, and I can’t disagree with that.
I think about asking what his family would think about him being with me, but I imagine it’s about the same sorts of things my own parents would think about me being with him. Only…my dad owns a successful bar here in Vegas now. He didn’t lose all his money because of the bar back in New York the way Lincoln’s father did, and Lincoln’s father wasn’t forced to stop playing due to an injury incurred at the hands of his best friend the way my father did. Intentional or not, that’s facts.
But dwelling any longer on the topic of families than we already have feels like it’ll just wedge us apart when we both already feel that wedge from so many different angles.
So instead, I focus on enjoying the time we do have. We have the rest of tonight. We have all day tomorrow until we need to head to the ball—barring an hour or so if I pop over to see Jonah.
This is rare time for us, something I feel like we sorely need if we’re really here to explore a potential future together.
We clean up the dinner dishes, and then we settle on the couch. I sit a cushion away from him and perch my feet over his legs. “What do you usually watch?” I ask.
“ESPN,” he admits. “You?”
“I start with the local news, check ESPN, and then pull up Netflix and let it surprise me.”
He chuckles. “Really?”
I nod.
“I don’t even have Netflix. I don’t get invested in shows because inevitably I’ll want to sit and binge and I never have the ability to do that.”
“Not even in the off-season?” I ask.
He lifts a shoulder. “I guess then. But even then, I’m planning for the next season. Coaches don’t get the same kind of time off players do.”
“Do you like coaching?” The question comes out of the blue, and I’m not even sure why I ask it.
“Some days I love it. Some days it feels like all I was ever meant to do on this Earth. And other days…” He trails off as if to let the conflict speak for itself, but I choose not to let him off quite so easily.
“Other days?” I press.
“Other days I think an early retirement doesn’t sound so bad.”
I chuckle, though I’m well aware of the stress that comes with the position he’s in.
“What about you?” he asks, tossing the attention off himself and squarely back at me.
“What about me?”
“Do you like what you do?” He starts massaging my feet, and I swear I didn’t set them on his legs so he would do that, but I’m certainly not going to stop him.
“I love what I do. I was raised around the game just like you were, and I always wanted to be a part of it.”
“Did you ever want to play? Like even back in high school?”
I moan a little as he hits a pressure point on the bottom of my foot. “Nope. Never had the desire. My preference was watching you in your tight white pants. And I always enjoyed taking part in team activities, which I’m excited to do this year as I travel with the—ohhhh.”
He hits another pressure point, completely derailing my train of thought, and I lay my head back against the arm of the couch and close my eyes.
He drops my foot and crawls up the couch until he’s hovering over me. I open my eyes when I feel his heat, and he’s staring down at me.
“God, Jo. You’re so beautiful. I can’t believe this is real.” He drops a kiss to my forehead. “I keep thinking I’m going to wake up from this dream.” He kisses each cheek. “I always kept the hope in my heart but never really believed it would come true.” Finally his lips land on mine as my chest warms with his words.
I wrap my arms around his neck as he deepens the kiss, and his fingertips start to travel along my thigh, inching achingly slowly along as the need for him builds inside me. I tighten my grip around his neck as my body arches into him automatically, as if I can’t control what it’s doing. And I can’t. I can’t control anything where this man is concerned.
Least of all my feelings for him.
His lips travel from mine down to my neck and then my collarbone. He lifts only when he gets to my shirt, which is clearly in the way here, and he reaches down to pull it off me. He’s quick as he rips his own shirt over his head, too, giving me the show I deserve as I stare at those gorgeous muscles of his.
I let out a breathless sigh without even realizing it, and he smirks at me for a second before he gets back to work.
He yanks at the button on my jeans and pulls them off me, discarding them on the floor, and he traces up the inside of my thigh. He hooks a finger around my panties, and I cry out as he slides a finger into me, my back arching up off the couch as I lie here in just my bra and panties.
He yanks my panties off, causing my entire body to throb with lust before he lowers his mouth to my stomach. He trails kisses down, down, down, and once he reaches my hip, he changes direction as he moves in toward my center. But instead of moving down to my pussy like I want him to, he changes direction and moves back up toward my chest.
He yanks down the cup of my bra, exposing my breast to him, and he groans as he sucks my nipple into his mouth. I wrap my legs around him and thrust my hips at him, desperate for some friction to ease the ache between my legs.
He shoves his hips against mine. He’s ready for me, evident from the hard dick begging to burst free of those jeans. The fabric of his jeans is just rough enough that I’m starting to feel the tiniest flicker of relief, something he must sense—because he lets go of my breast and starts to move back down my body.
And this time, he gives me exactly what I want.
He parts my legs and runs a finger along my thigh again, and I’m waiting for a finger to slip in but instead it’s his mouth first.
He runs his tongue along each side of my pussy before spreading me open and licking my clit. He sucks it into his mouth, and I whimper from where I am, parting my legs even more as I shove my pussy toward his hot mouth.
He reaches up with one hand and grabs my breast, massaging it before he pinches a nipple between his fingers, and I cry out at the pleasure that bolts through me. He keeps nibbling at my clit, but then he moves his tongue down to dip it inside me.
I think I may black out for a second at the sensation. I’m not sure what I say or what I do, but loud moans fill the room as he hammers me with the sort of pleasure I’ve only experienced with him.
He moves his mouth back up to my clit, and he sucks and swirls his tongue around as the climax builds inside me. He pushes a finger into me while he pinches my nipple and sucks my clit, and it’s too much pleasure for my body to take all at once.
I buckle under the heavy weight of it all, my body bursting forward into an intense, brutal orgasm. My hips buck against his face while my knees clamp together on his ears, but he rides the wave with me, keeping up the intensity on my clit and my nipple as he keeps driving those magical fingers into me.
It feels like it goes on for hours, and when it finally starts to wane, my body collapses back onto the couch, my knees falling open and my eyes falling closed as I let out a soft sigh of both relief and pleasure.
“Jesus Christ, Jo. That was the hottest thing I’ve ever seen in my life.”
I can’t force out a chuckle when I’m this relaxed. I can’t even respond.
I think I might fall asleep for a minute, but I jolt awake when I feel him get up from between my legs. “Where are you going?” I whine.
“I’m getting you a blanket,” he whispers. “Close your eyes and rest.”
“Mm,” I murmur. “Not until you’ve come inside me.”
He looks surprised for a beat, like he didn’t think my body would be able to take it this quickly after that violent orgasm I just had, or maybe it’s because I just said something sort of out of character for me, but he reaches down to pull off his jeans and boxers in one fell swoop. “You sure?”
“Mm-hm.”
He climbs back over me, clearly not expecting me to move, and his hard cock bobbles between us for a few beats. I’m instantly awake and ready for more, but before he enters me, he lifts me up and pulls my bra off, tossing it on top of the pile of clothes we’ve started down on the floor.
He moves between my legs again, and I feel his dick as he swipes it through me. He pumps it against my clit a few times, and just the thought of him jerking himself off does strange things to me. There’s something so hot about knowing he’s thinking of me while he does it—like that time in the shower when I accidentally caught him.
The mere thought of it gets me all hot and bothered again, and I shift my hips up so he slides right into me.
We both moan as he pushes into me, the feeling one of pure and utter bliss as we start to move together. My pussy is still wet and so, so ready for him, and he groans and growls as he moves slowly and gently over me. He’s not picking up the pace, instead opting to take his time—because for once, we actually have time.
“Jesus, you feel good,” he murmurs as he drops his lips to my neck. He lets out a soft moan of pleasure as he continues those gentle strokes, and it actually feels like he’s making love to me. This isn’t some quick fuck. This is forever.
I wrap my legs around his waist and I hold onto his broad shoulders as we move slowly together. There’s an intensity between us that makes my heart feel full, like we will find a way to make this work together. We have to. I can’t imagine a life where I never get to feel this way again.
It’s just us here in this space, moving together, souls tangling together like they always have. He buries his face in my neck as he keeps moving, one hand coming up to cup my breast, and I want him to pick up the pace and drive me hard into my next climax, but at the same time, I want to savor this feeling of luxury for the rest of my life.
But like all good things, this too must come to an end. He groans into my neck, and then he rocks into me a little harder a few times before he stills inside me. I feel his cock throb as he starts to come, his one hand gripping my breast tightly as he fights through his own forceful release, and just knowing it was our bodies moving together that made him fall apart pushes me into another orgasm. I arch into him, and he pinches onto my nipple as I fight my way through a second climax, my body tightening everywhere as my legs grip onto him and my nails dig into his skin.
As my release starts to slow, he slips out of me. He grabs his shirt off the floor and uses it to wipe me clean before tossing it back on the pile of clothes. I lay back, my eyes closed and my body completely spent now, and I feel him move in beside me.
He pulls a blanket over the two of us and tosses an arm across my stomach, and we fall asleep naked together right there on the couch as I dream about a time when what we have could really, actually work in the real world.