Chapter 23
CLAY
“Won’t everyone know?” Nova says as I tug her inside.
“You got Michael into Miles’s room. I can get you into mine.”
She laughs as she surveys my room, lifting the lid of the silver pail on the fridge. “Huh. There’s even ice in the bucket.”
There could be a groundhog living in the thing and I wouldn’t blink.
Nova loves me.
The woman I’ve been falling for since the moment she crashed into my life just said she feels the same.
After holding everyone at a distance for my entire life, now, my chest might explode.
Nova opens the drapes and peers outside. “Remember the last time we did this?”
“I told Rookie if he came to my balcony tonight, I’d push him off.” I come up behind her, and her body warms me. I place my hands on either side of her, my groin pressing against her back.
Her head turns, her profile sheer temptation. “I thought you’d forgotten about that.”
“Not for a second,” I murmur before claiming her lips from behind.
I need her alone. The words were like breaking through a dam. I can’t settle for telling her I love her. I want to show her. To prove it with every touch.
I press her against the window until she melts again.
“That first night, I knew you were different,” I murmur as I kiss a path down her throat, taking my time.
“Only because I called you on your bullshit. You didn’t know what to do with me.”
I spin and lift her, her skirt riding up as her legs hook around my hips. I’m used to lifting hundreds of pounds, and she’s nothing by comparison.
Nova grips my shoulders. Her body is sweet and soft, and I’m hard and hungry.
I set her down long enough to yank off her skirt. “I want you in my jersey and nothing else.”
Her pale skin shines in the moonlight, the curve of her breasts and swell of her hips making my throat dry with longing. I can’t see the freckles that dust her shoulders, but I trace them from memory.
I step back to her, my hands skimming up her sides. She sighs against my mouth.
Tonight, I’m going to take my time.
“Get the ice bucket.”
I wait for her to bring it over and open the lid.
Surprise flares in her eyes, coupled with curiosity. “What are you going to do?”
“You’ve been playing a basketball groupie the last few months. Let’s see if you’ve paid attention. Now, lift the jersey as high as it’ll go.”
She uses both hands to hold the shirt up under her arms.
I take the round ice cube, the large kind like you’d use in scotch, and rub it across the hardened tips of her breasts. “It’s all about assembling the right offense to get past the defense.”
When she shivers, her thighs clenching, I do it again.
I’m enthralled by the way her body pulls tight. She doesn’t hide from me, just watches me through lowered lashes.
“You haven’t scored enough this year?” she protests when I move it to the other nipple.
“Not even close.”
Nova’s low moan is muffled by her lip caught between her teeth. The melting ice trails down the curve of her breast in a tiny river.
“Spread your legs.”
She does it without being asked twice.
“Your backcourt handles the ball. Brings it up the court. Takes care of it.” I bend my mouth to skin, licking the underside of her breast.
She hiccups.
I trace the melting ice along the bone of her hip. “Gotta protect it so you get it where you need.”
Across her stomach.
“Get into the paint, where you can make something happen. The other team’s trying to stop you, but you know the secret to being a great shooter?”
Down the inside of her thigh.
“Clay…” Her hips arch toward me.
“Understanding the ball wants to go in the net.” I want to take her, to make her mine every way there is. “Spread yourself for me.”
She starts to move her feet, and I shake my head. Her fingers slide down her body, and she holds herself apart.
I take a long inhale. She smells like heaven. Warm and ripe and mine, her pussy glistens in the low light from the bedside lamp. I run the ice cube down her pink, waiting slit.
“Ohhhhhh,” she whispers, her head falling back and eyes closing.
She’s so open with me, so willing. It’s the best damn gift, and she doesn’t even know it.
“It’s your turn next,” she whispers.
“If you ice my cock, sweetheart, you’re going to be finishing this yourself.”
She laughs softly. “Vengeance might be more satisfying.”
I grin. “I doubt it.”
She’s dripping, from the ice cube and her own arousal, her hips arching with every stroke.
I’ll give her more, but it won’t be what she wants.
I press the ice inside her pussy. Nova gasps when it’s high enough her clenching walls hold it there. Her hand skims up her ribcage and absently plays with her breast.
Fuck. I want to tease her all night, but it’s too much for a man to handle.
I was planning to wait for the ice to melt, but I’m losing patience. I retrieve it with my fingers and toss it at the trash.
Three points. I say it in my head.
“Two points,” she says as if she heard me.
“No way.”
“You lose a point for being an asshole.”
But on her face, there’s only teasing and genuine affection.
I’m going to fuck this girl so hard.
“What?” she asks, smiling.
“Just thinking of all the ways I’m going make you beg.”
My lips brush hers, and we catch fire. She tries to help get my clothes off, but I do most of the work because of my height.
“That what you dream about?” she teases.
My pants get caught around my ankle. I’m seconds away from ripping them off, except that’d probably make my knee worse.
“Nah. In my dreams, we’re…” I trail off, and she waits.
I glance at my wallet, then take a breath and rock back. “In my dreams, I’m inside you with nothing between us.”
We’ve talked before about how I’m clean and neither of us has slept with anyone else since we started this. I haven’t told her I can’t imagine fucking anyone else again.
She inhales, and it’s the longest moment before she answers. “I dream about that too.”
NOVA
I’m here, in Clay’s room at the all-star game, wearing only a jersey that’s doing nothing to clothe me except for maybe my shoulders. My own personal pro-athlete fantasy is driving me wild with his touch and the ice from the bucket.
But when he hears my answer, he looks… humble.
He loves me. It’s plain on every inch of his face, the reverence of his hands.
Clay lifts me, wrapping my legs around his hips and walking me over to the glass doors. The jersey slips down over my breasts, but he doesn’t complain.
“You want everyone to see us?” I tease.
“If it means they know I’m the luckiest man in the world because I get to do this to you, with you, then yeah.”
My heart skips.
He’s huge and hard between us as he positions himself between my thighs.
Clay never gets easier to take, but I get used to him.
I start to ask if he wants me to take the jersey off but think better of it. I like wearing his number like this. I like being his.
When he presses against me where I’m already wet, sinking inside an inch at a time, my head falls back to hit the glass.
“Yeah, sweetheart.”
He moves deeper inside me, holding my hips to keep the depth from being too intense.
It’s intense anyway.
“Fuck, you feel so good. Too good. Every inch of you hot and wet, squeezing me.”
His fingers dig into my ass, and I sigh, an exhale that has me sliding all the way down his cock.
“Clay!”
His grin is apologetic, and I couldn’t love him any more.
“Want to be on top?”
I shake my head. “No.”
He turns ravenous in a heartbeat.
One hand grabs both of mine, pinning them over my head while he holds me up with his other arm.
Clay starts to pump in and out of me, long, slow strokes that leave me aching and breathless.
When he strokes in, I’m so tight, too tight. But the second he’s gone, all I want is for him to fill me again.
Is that what love is? Not comfort and predictability, but throbbing on the edge of freefall?
My hips start to rise to meet his.
He crushes his mouth to mine, lifting me higher so our faces line up.
“You close?” he asks.
“Yes,” I pant against his lips.
“Want to hear you scream.”
“The entire floor will hear.”
“Then make it extra loud. For Miles.”
I laugh, and he grins as if I’ve given him the best gift in the world.
I slip a hand between us, playing with my clit. He takes my breast in his hand, twisting my nipple.
I can’t hold on.
Pleasure splits me, and a low moan erupts from my throat. His name follows, and he fists my hair and drags my mouth to his, swallowing my sounds as he thrust into me, fast and furious.
Then he’s coming too, a wrenching release that rips through his hard body.
CLAY
It’s late when we make it to the bed.
First time is against the windows.
The second is on the chair in the corner.
The third is somewhere between the minifridge and the floor.
I carry her to the king-sized mattress, tugging down the bedspread to lay her between the sheets.
I shift over her, concerned. “You okay?”
I tip her chin toward me so I can look in her eyes.
They crinkle at the corners. “If I didn’t already have your jersey, I’d have to buy it.”
I chuckle, a feeling that reaches my toes. “Every road game, I want pictures of you in it. No panties. Just like this.”
“If I’m naked except for the jersey, I might be too distracted to take pictures.”
She nestles against my shoulder, and I twist a piece of her hair around my finger. It’s pink against the black ink of my tattoos.
I like this.
I could get used to it.
My heart rate’s barely returned to normal when I hear myself speak. “Move in with me.”
She pulls back. “What?”
Hell, maybe I have lost my head. But I plow on anyway. “I like waking up and seeing you in my bed. Going to sleep with you next to me.”
“We do that already.”
It’s not the response I hoped for. “But right now, we have to fight for time together. This way, you'd have more than a toothbrush at my place.” My life is routines and schedules, and I don’t want to leave being with her to chance.
“My place won’t just be a place you crash but a place you’re at home. ”
The last girl I tried to commit to bailed on me, and that hurt sneaks up in my chest, a suspicious snake ready to lash out.
“Can I think about it?”
“Yeah.” I inch away, but she pulls me back with surprising strength.
“Hey, I didn’t say no. I said I want to think about it.
I finally feel like I’m getting my life in order, and you’ve been a big part of that.
” Her lips brush my ear. Her soft scent fills my nostrils and calms my system.
“Would there be space for me to work? There’s this show in New York, and…
I don’t want to get paint in your sports memorabilia room. ”
The knot of tension between my shoulders eases. “I’ll move it out.”
I’d build her a thousand studios if she wanted. Let her drag a wet brush across every jersey and game ball.
The moment before I fall asleep, her heart is still thudding against mine, her arms wrapped around me.
I hope to hell that’s enough for her.