Chapter 6
Chapter Six
Max
Watching Natalie dance with Brandon was doing nothing to calm my cock.
It begged for a fling with Red, the hottest girl at the party, the girl who’d made it clear in so many ways that she wanted me maybe as much as I wanted her.
But in spite of our mutual carnal resolve, the unapologetic electric connection, I didn’t trust her, didn’t trust that she knew what the hell she wanted deep down.
She was young but not innocent, and yet she was far from seasoned.
It was as if she were playing the part of a tart, but the role didn’t touch her.
She was more like a spoiled child reaching for the candy instead of the dinner plate because it was easy and it was what she wanted and she’d never been denied before.
I wasn’t sure in the least that I could deny her.
Still wasn’t sure why I should, Coach’s clear signal aside.
A fling would be easy. I could be her piece of candy, if I were truly convinced that was what she wanted.
But I wasn’t convinced. And whether or not a fling with me was what she wanted, it was most definitely not what she needed. I would not be good for her.
She laughed and flirted as she danced with Brandon. Lifting my glass of ice water to my mouth, it probably would have done more good to cool me off if I’d poured it down my pants. I took a long gulp anyway.
She was all wrong for me. I had too much baggage.
I needed a true fling, a meaningless, uncomplicated fling.
And Red was the furthest thing from that I could imagine.
In spite of the surface simplicity of her bold desire and intention, she was a fucking cauldron of deep and messy emotions and complications.
My sense told me that deep down she wanted far more than a fling, but she had no idea what it was. And I did. And I knew it wasn’t me.
Beyond my baggage and her na?ve ignorance, there were the practical issues.
My twin girls were my top priority. Getting along with my ex took as much emotional energy as I had to give a woman.
And then there was her connection to the team, the fact that she was Cat’s friend and several of the guys knew her and were protective of her, including and most importantly, Coach Marini. Essentially, my boss.
I hadn’t missed the disapproving glance from the coach while I danced with her. Luckily he hadn’t seen us kiss or I might have been bounced.
Brandon seemed enthralled as he held Natalie for a slow dance. My gut clenched when I saw his arms circle her and bring her close.
“Excuse me,” I said to the bartender, to whom I owed no excuse. She nodded.
“Come back any time.”
Turning away, I looked past the patio to the beach. It was time for a cool-down walk. I drained my drink, left it on a high-top, and skirted the perimeter of the patio outside the string of lights and the tent covering the dance floor, heading toward the sound of crashing waves.
The cool salty breeze and the vast dark horizon freed me from more than the confines of the crowd.
Taking a deep breath of appreciation, my soul felt free and unburdened, unconcerned and unpressured, exactly the way it should feel on a weekend escape.
The only tug I felt came from my disappointed cock, longing for a closer look at a certain redhead.
“Max.” Her voice spun me around, put a grin on my face and a jump in said cock. Stopping along the edge of the waves, I waited for her to catch up with me. She held her heels in one hand and her dress shimmered in the moonlight as she splashed through the shallow water.
“This water is freezing.” She laughed as she reached me, breathless and happy. “But it’s bracing, I love it. The way it reminds me I’m alive, waking up every last one of my nerve endings.”
Kind of the way she made me feel, but I decided to keep that to myself right now. Her vitality was intoxicating.
“Walk with me.” All the hesitation about her and the wisdom of a fling flew from my head in her presence.
The intimacy of the endless dark horizon, the hushed sloshing of the surf, the brisk ocean breeze and most of all her energy, her vibrant tantalizing essence, pushed the doubt aside, at least temporarily.
She took my hand and came to my side, splashing at the water’s edge.
“So tell me why a stunning and smart woman like yourself hasn’t been snatched up by some lucky young man by now?”
“You mean at the advanced age of twenty-five years old?” She aimed that sassy look at me, the one with flashing eyes and teeth, accentuated by the moonlight and the wind tossing her curls around her face.
“It wouldn’t take more than a few minutes in your presence for a guy to take notice.”
“You speaking from experience?”
“I have vast amounts of experience at snatching up young women and holding onto them. I met my wife—my ex-wife—in high school at a dance. It felt a lot like this except in the high school gym. I snatched her up then and didn’t let her go—until last year.”
“You sound sad.” She stopped walking, so I did too. The absolute last thing I wanted to talk about with Natalie—or with anyone for that matter—was my ex and the demise of my marriage. She waited without a flicker of panic about the turn of conversation, but I wasn’t going there.
“I’m not sad. I’m sorry—I didn’t mean to let the conversation get serious. We’re here for a good time, aren’t we? This is my big getaway weekend. I’m normally working or with my girls.”
“Working? Is that what you call playing football?” My cock reacted to her sass predictably.
“Don’t let the notion that it’s a game fool you. Football is a lot of hard work.”
“I wasn’t fooled for a minute,” she said, and I knew she wasn’t talking about football being a game. She was still waiting for me to share something heavy.
“Tell me about your life,” I said. That ought to keep her talking, keep the conversation off me. I was having a hell of a time keeping things light. Too damn serious all the time. I pushed the hair out of her face and tugged on her hand to walk again.
“I’d rather hear about your girls,” she said.
“Don’t tempt me. I’ll have you bored with the rantings of a proud papa within minutes.”
“I doubt it—I mean I doubt I’d be bored. I’m a kindergarten teacher. It’s a requirement of the job to be enthralled by small children.”
“I’ll bet they’re enthralled by you right back.” I gave her a look that telegraphed my appreciation, taking in her face, her lively eyes, her pouty mouth. And not least of all, feeling the warmth of her giving heart and soul.
“I think you just gave me an orgasm.”
Her words stopped me in my tracks. She wore a straight face and had one hand clutched to her breast, covering the creamy mound that glistened above the shimmer of her neckline.
I had no choice but to laugh. And then to pull her in close. She was a kick.
“If that’s what you think, Red, then you don’t know what an orgasm is,” I said, managing to keep my voice light while I had her hot body in my arms.
Her eyes went wide, as if she wasn’t used to being one-upped in the game of shocking statements. But I’d been around the block and then some compared to her.
“You . . . surprise me.” She stared, her head tilted at a sharp angle because I had her plastered against me where I could feel her heart beat against mine, could feel the soft flesh of her breasts crushed against me, could feel all kinds of things.
My dick took notice and commanded me to hold on tighter.
Maybe it was my dick that caused me to lean my head down, to bring my mouth close to hers, or maybe it was the vulnerable sweet look in her shocked eyes contrasting with her wanton flaming red hair and barely there dress that made me touch my lips to hers.
Just a soft brush, testing and tasting, and then another, firmer plant of my lips on hers, this time claiming and exploring as she opened herself to me.
I felt her arms go around my neck and the crashing waves seemed to roar in my ears, blocking everything else out under the blanket of the night sky.
It felt like we were alone in the world, like there was nothing but the night, no passage of time, nothing else but our kiss, our bodies pressed together, my tongue tangling with hers, my breath turning ragged in spite of all my vaunted conditioning.
Lifting my mouth from hers, I panted, watching her chest heave as if we’d been running through the night.
We might as well have run long and far because I felt like we were in another world. The way she looked at me, all carnal and innocent mingling together in a heady combination I never remembered seeing. Not since . . . I was young. A long time ago.
“Don’t stop,” she said, breathless. She stood on her toes to find my mouth with hers.
I obliged, bending my head, living in the moment as I’d planned to do, enjoying the time out of life, the aside of this weekend adventure.
She was warm and giving and her plump lips lush and titillating.
My dick didn’t stand a chance against the onslaught of sensations, of the scent of her, feel of her as it stiffened like a pole and found a warm place to nestle between us, against her belly.
Damn. This was fast. My head spun with the rapid escalation of pleasure to desire to need.
She broke away from the kiss, a sheen of perspiration making her face glisten, her lips kiss swollen, her eyes glassy and molten, reflecting the way I felt. I had no idea what to do next—well, not exactly true.
My dick told me exactly what to do, but I still had a few molecules of working brain power to tell me going there here and now wasn’t the thing to do.
“Let’s sit,” she said, pulling on my hand, until she had us down on the packed damp sand.
“Natalie—” I had no idea what to tell her. I felt old and like a teenager at the same time.
“I don’t think I’ve ever been this . . . enthralled by a man,” she said.
As I circled an arm around her, she laced her legs between and over mine, making me wish I was wearing shorts so I could feel them skin against skin. Instead, I reached down with one hand and stroked a leg, moving my hand up her thigh until she shivered.
“Max . . . you are so . . .” She closed her eyes and I kissed her, a tender kiss. I felt my hand shake slightly as it neared the apex of her thighs, the heat of her creamy soft skin searing me, begging me to go on and warning me off at the same time.
Then at the moment when she tugged on me to lie back in the sand an ambitious wave crashed, lapping at my shoes and ankles, startling her and forcing me to take a deep breath and look around.
There was no way I was letting this happen, not here and now, no matter how empty the beach seemed, no matter how irresistible and willing she was.
I leveraged myself to stand and reached out to her.
“We should go,” I said. “Before we have one of those From Here to Eternity scenes.”
She looked at me funny and I laughed.
“You have no idea what I’m talking about, do you?
” I sighed when she tilted her head. “That’s why we should be getting back.
” I helped her to her feet, gently brushing sand from her arm, trying not to let the heat and softness of her impossibly smooth skin get to me, hoping she didn’t notice the shakiness of my hands.
It had been a very long time since I’d been with another woman besides my wife.
Everything about the possibility had blood roaring in my ears.
But it didn’t drown out the words of Coach suggesting that Natalie would be the wrong choice.
And truth be told, I knew it would be the wrong thing to do regardless of Coach.
Natalie had a far too vulnerable underside.
She was made of marshmallow covered in a thin veneer of tempting icing, a layer that could be cracked with the slightest provocation.
I had no idea how she still lived and breathed and walked around so exposed and open.
Though she didn’t seem to have any problem handling Sean Patrick’s clumsy attentions.
There was something going on with Natalie, deep down in the marshmallow of her soul.
My heart itched to explore what it was even more than my hands itched to hold her, to touch every sensitive spot, to kiss those lush lips, to sink into her, claim all that softness inside.
The longing shocked me into action, shamed me into caution. I let go of her hand as she stood and backed up a step, not caring that the waves crashed close by. I needed distance to face those big innocent blue eyes even if they were framed in a face meant to undo a man.
“Tell me. About the scene in From Here to Eternity. It’s a movie, right? My mom loved the old classic movies and we used to watch them together sometimes on rainy Sundays.”
I didn’t want to feel the connection, didn’t want to be drawn in by her old soul dressed up as a sexy pop culture caricature, a modern-day siren. But I answered. It was an innocuous question, wasn’t it?
“You might have seen it. The scene has been used in commercials. It’s the scene where Burt Lancaster and Deborah Kerr are lying on the beach, in a clinch like they’re holding onto each other for dear life because it’s wartime, and they kiss deep and hard as the waves crash over them.”
The way her eyes, dreamy and intense, suddenly lit up in recognition tugged at me, dissolving my willpower, snapping all but the last threads of resistance.
“I know that scene. It’s devastatingly romantic.
” She poked my chest with her hot pink fingernail as she stood in front of me, almost a foot shorter than I was, holding her sparkly shoes in her other hand.
“You’re a romantic, Max Devon.” It was the knowing look on her face, the triumph, that made me feel overexposed.
I should have been grateful for the uncomfortable feeling since it gave me the grit I needed to push her away, at least figuratively. I turned to head back to the hotel. “We should go.”
When she slipped her hand in mine and walked shoulder to elbow with me, I let her.
Didn’t have it in me to resist the innocent gesture.
No matter how much everything under it reeked of the opposite of innocence.
Natalie, every wildly hot ounce of her, screamed carnal desire.
And yet, there was that soft, sweet nurturer alongside the raging siren, making her seem vulnerable.
I couldn’t shake the certainty that she was far more vulnerable than she was sophisticated, far softer than she was hard. Far sweeter than she was seductive.
I’d need to save up all my resistance to leave her at her door and return to my room alone.