Chapter 15 #2
“Mia—I—” I was losing it. I pounded in and out fast now, she pulled me with her long legs against my back. The sound of our bodies slapping together filled my ears with the pounding of my blood and my heart, my hard breathing and hers.
When she screamed and clenched I let go, felt my muscles go rigid in a final drive, felt the cum rise and then burst from me, spasm after spasm pumping into her, heard the loud guttural release in my throat, as I continued to move, losing everything I had inside her, until the universe stopped and the only thing in existence was the euphoric joining of our bodies.
Holding her tight in my arms, I felt the vibrations in her body subside and my own muscles slacken.
I took her with me as I rolled to my side, feeling her breasts smashed against me, the smoothness of her skin against the hair of my chest, her lips under mine as I nibbled, telling her how utterly magnificent she was.
I stayed inside her a long time as we held each other, as she told me how I blew her away, how I was so much better than she’d imagined, and she admitted that she had imagined making love with me. She bit her lip with the confession.
“Do you know what a turn-on that is?” I asked. “How sexy you are? How you make me feel every time I see you?”
“Yes. I know. Because I’ve felt the exact same way.” She looked at me, her eyes half-lidded in exhaustion and fully satisfied. I stroked a curl of hair from her sweaty face and kissed her.
I could have gone on kissing her, but I pulled back and rested her in the crook of my arm, playing with one of her breasts, stroking lazy circles around the nipple in a mindless gesture of possession and intimacy.
“Do you mind if I go to sleep now?” she asked.
I chuckled. “Not if you don’t mind sleeping in my arms all night.”
“I can’t wait to dream of you again, to wake up with you and remember it wasn’t all a dream,” she said, her eyes drifting closed.
Holding onto her, I refused to think about waking up, instead concentrated on the blissful state of the moment as I drifted off.
The next morning, I woke first. With a grin like a six-year-old kid finding his long-awaited bike under the Christmas tree, I found Mia in my arms, her perfect pear-shaped rear pressed against my morning hard-on.
Wrapping my arms around her, I kissed her creamy shoulders, the sunshine pouring in the window illuminating her skin and making her look like she was straight from a Thomas Kincaid painting.
When she turned to me, a slow smile woke her face and she kissed me without hesitation. I didn’t need any more prompting to make long sweet love to her then, rocking against her, touching her everywhere, playing fingers over her breasts, her rib cage, her belly button, and her clit most of all.
“Gabe,” she whimpered when I drove her to the precipice and stopped.
Chuckling, I rolled to my back and lifted her on top of me, gliding into her juicy pussy, groaning with the world-ending pleasure of her.
She rode me, taking over with relish and morning energy, slow and then fast and teasing until I planted my hands on her hips and took back control, making her throw her head back in laughter until she couldn’t breathe with the taut rise of her need and then her release.
Slamming her down, I raised my hips and groaned loud and long as I pumped into her, the racking ecstasy making me nearly black out with its intensity.
She collapsed, warm and sweaty, and my arms went around her, claiming her as I murmured in her ear, pouring kisses on her. I held her like that for a while, contentment casting a bubble around us and preventing the outside world from having any relevance.
In those moments, I almost found myself telling her I loved her, whispering words of amore. Rash promises had been on the tip of my tongue, but I held back. Years of restraint stopped me now. It was my natural response to hold back with women.
It had been dangerous to even allow myself this much with Mia. And I had no idea where I’d go from here.
As the sounds of traffic seeped in, she sat up and I did too. With one arm still around her, I reached to the nightstand to check my phone.
Damn it to fucking hell. It was seven o’clock. I was usually at the stadium by now. It was game day.
“I’ve kept you in bed too long. I’m sorry,” she said. I jumped up and gathered my clothes. She sat up and then then rose, following me. My heart raced with something like panic as I tried to remember the last time I’d been late. Never.
“Let me get you a cup of coffee to go.”
“No time. I was supposed to be there by now.”
“I thought practice didn’t start until eight?”
“It’s game day. I need to be at the stadium for breakfast. I’ll be lucky to be there by eight fifteen.”
“That’s not too bad.”
I stopped pulling on a sock and looked at her. “You don’t understand. It is bad. Getting to the stadium early every day is the most important thing in my world.”
“I guess you live in a different world than I do.”
She was right. Her world in the emergency room was one of life and death.
She’d turned aside the pretty, petty world of beauty and modeling and chosen the gritty, unforgiving emergency room world.
She’d chosen to work on the edge of life and death.
I must seem like a superficial asshole to her by comparison, treating football as the most important thing in life.
As I pulled on my pants, I had no time to dwell on it. No matter how stupid it might seem to her, football was my reality and I had no business apologizing for it even if I had the time or inclination.
Rushing through the kitchen to the back door, I glanced at the stainless-steel wall clock. Shit. I was going to be at least an hour late with traffic.
She followed, dressed in her shirt and shorts, hair mussed, smelling of sex and sweat and my blood almost heated up all over again. I shoved down the spurt of desire and, with her looking at me with her pleading dark eyes, I stopped.
“I have to go. You’re welcome to stay and make yourself coffee. Let yourself out whenever.” She nodded. I leaned down and brushed my lips against hers, not allowing a real kiss, knowing it would only derail me if I did.
“Goodbye, Gabe,” she said, looking forlorn as I closed the door behind me, leaving her standing there in my kitchen all disheveled and gorgeous as hell.
After years of arriving early every day, today I wouldn’t even be on time. Fuck. Coach was going to need an explanation.
And I didn’t have one. At least not a good one. Not even a bad one, when it came down to it.
I raced into the stadium and when I got to the locker room, most of the guys were dressed and heading for the field or already out there for the walk through.
Fuck. I’d catch some food after the walk-through.
I suited up at record-breaking speed and went to the sidelines, looking around for Coach until I found him.
He was standing with my backup, tablet in hand going over whatever he had on the screen with him.
Taking a calming breath, I hustled over and joined him.
They both looked up and I gave my backup a sideways nod telling him to get lost. He did.
“Where were you?” Coach’s clipped words almost made me wince, but I kept cool.
I hesitated, then came clean. No sense lying. I was done with lying, especially to myself.
“I was . . . with a romantic interest.” I didn’t want Coach to think I was with a random woman, a one-night stand, but there was no way in hell I would share Mia’s name.
He stared at me, game face unreadable, then nodded. “Don’t let it happen again. Don’t lose your focus.”
I let out a breath. “Yes, sir.” As if I were in the military and it was a matter of life and death. It was only a damn game, remember? Blasphemous thoughts two days ago. Now I wasn’t so sure.
But it was my damn job. Football was what I was good at, what I was good for. I was excellent, in fact. So I dredged up all the self-talk, all the things I told myself that gave meaning to my football life, to putting so much of me into the game, and spun it around in my head.
I loved the game. Loved the camaraderie.
That was no bullshit. Shoving the helmet onto my head, I headed onto the field.
Taking a lot of crap from every man out there about being late for once in my life, I laughed it off.
From my periphery, I could see Hunter staring at me, no hint of humor on his face.
No way I wanted to talk to him about it, to answer to him.
My head, and not to mention my gut, was too unsettled.
What I needed to do was put it all aside.
“Hut!” I clapped my hands and dispersed the huddle. We took our places on the line to run the drill. This was a predictable, safe world, one I knew intimately.
One I had control over.
Officially, every game counted the same, every win was important.
In reality, Sunday night games were special.
We were in the national spotlight, the crowds were loud, the excitement palpable, and we had all day long to work ourselves into a riotous frenzy, psyched to beat the shit out of the other team as if we were going to war.
In short, by the time the game whistle blew at a normal Sunday night game, to a man, we’d lost all perspective.
And I was the leader, the main perpetrator of the win or die mentality, pumping up the team crazier than a locker full of steroids.
But tonight wasn’t normal. I’d arrived late.
But I did all the things I needed to do.
Had the massage, got myself examined, taped, and dressed.
Ate the game day meal with the team. I sat in the chair in the middle of the locker room, my helmet in my hands, and yelled at my teammates. Sent the usual messages.
But on the inside, I was on autopilot. I didn’t feel it. The urgency, the energy weren’t there.
At halftime, whipping my towel at a cornerback, I yelled at him to move his ass.