CHAPTER 14 ALEXIS
There is nothing, and I mean nothing, as perfect as waking up in Danny’s arms.
Okay, there’s one thing that’s more perfect.
When he wakes up at the same time as me and immediately pulls my shirt up and starts sucking on my nipples.
I have no idea how much time we have before others start arriving. I have no idea whether we’ll be caught here in this bedroom together.
But when my nipple is in his mouth, I care about very little else aside from the searing ache between my legs.
He must sense that because as he swirls the tight bud of my nipple with his tongue, he reaches down right into my panties and starts to touch me.
He feels how wet I already am—how wet I woke up for him since I slept in his arms—and he groans.
“God damn, I want to fuck you again,” he murmurs, his voice hoarse and raspy and sexy as hell.
“Then fuck me,” I say, and this time he takes control as he tosses the covers off us, tears my shorts down my legs along with my panties and yanks his dick out of the boxer briefs he slept in. He hovers over me for a beat then drops his lips to my neck as he slides into me.
God, this feeling is beyond perfect. He fills me in a way I’ve never felt before, and he pushes against that spot again, the one that makes me positively see stars.
He finds a quick rhythm with his thrusts, pushing me higher and higher toward my orgasm.
Because I’m shorter than him, he can’t quite reach my nipple with his mouth, so he tweaks it between his thumb and forefinger as he continues to drive into me.
I wrap my legs around his back, and he grunts encouragingly when I do it.
I moan softly when he hits a particularly hot spot inside me, and I move my feet so they’re pushing against his ass, urging him to shove harder and harder into me.
“Oh God,” I whisper. “Yes, yes, yes!” I start to come without any sort of warning as I claw at his back, and he roars out a glorious growl that seems to come up and out of his chest as he bucks harder into me.
I ride out the wave as he starts to come, too, the two of us panting and trembling as we fight through this intense new feeling we’ve found with one another.
When it’s all over, he kisses me sweetly as he slides out of me and collapses to the side of me. We both pant for a few beats, and then I know I need to get up and shower.
I glance at the clock. “Shit,” I murmur as I see how late it is, and he chuckles. “What?”
“You hardly ever curse. It’s cute when you do it.”
“Well if you think it’s cute, I’ll fucking do it all the time.”
“God, I love a woman with a mouth.”
I realize he’s said he’s falling for me, but he hasn’t said the three words together yet. Still, these words combined with the way he just pleasured me leave me with a glow that surely the cameras will pick up today.
He sneaks out of my room undetected as I head to the shower.
Every second we’re not filming, recording, or taking photographs, I find myself drawn back to Danny.
Maybe we’re just sitting in a group but near each other on the couch in the big family room as we wait to be called in for our next session, or maybe we’re playing poker at the kitchen table with the man who calls himself The Gamer.
I feel like we’re doing a good job acting like we didn’t have sex—twice—in between some of the deepest psychological conversations I’ve had possibly ever in my life, but maybe I’m wrong and The Gamer and Natasha are off gossiping about us the way I’m about to gossip about them.
They’re not half as schooled at the acting thing as Danny and I are. Or at least not as much as we think we are.
Andrew and Kelly Jean also seem to be spending quite a bit of time chatting each other up. The only one who doesn’t appear to be coupled is Victor, but from what I’ve heard, he does all right for himself at his popular celebrity sex club in Vegas.
I make a mental note to ask Danny about that later.
I forgot last night, but I saw them talking yesterday like they already knew each other.
I wonder if Danny has been to his club. I wonder if he’s a member.
A list of football players from the Vegas Aces who are members was released last year amidst a scandal where someone broke their nondisclosure agreement, but I don’t recall seeing any names from the Vegas Heat.
But the team was new to town when the scandal broke, so maybe none of the players were members yet.
I wait until Danny and I have a moment alone in the kitchen when we both get up to refill our drinks and then I ask. “You ever been to Victor’s club?”
He nods, and my heart sinks a little.
Did he have sex at some sex club? The thought leaves me feeling a little gross.
“This stays between us, right?” he asks.
I nod. “Of course.”
“Troy Bodine was one of the owners. He sold his stake to Victor when the scandal broke so his name wouldn’t be associated with the club, but he brought me there to woo me out of Colorado.
I signed with the Heat at his club, but I never made it past the lounge to the second or third floor, and honestly, as much as I enjoy sex…
it just didn’t feel like the right fit for me. ”
My sunken heart lifts back up at his words.
Why does he continually do or say things that just sort of sweep me right off my feet?
Because he’s perfect for me, that’s why.
When the day comes to an end and everyone leaves, I feel a sense of sadness that we only have one more night.
I’m not ready for this time together to come to an end.
It sounds juvenile to say it, but it’s not fair that we can’t leave here hand in hand.
It’s not fair that these are stolen moments, that as soon as these two days are over, we have to go back to this long-distance thing where he’s in Vegas, and I’m engaged to Brooks.
I don’t know when the merger will go through, but the second it does…I’m out.
I deserve to have the sort of future I want—even if it’s different from the future I thought I wanted when I was a teenager.
It’s ridiculous to think my goals and aspirations wouldn’t change as I navigated through my twenties, and the more time brings me closer to my thirties paired with the more I get to know Danny, the more I see him as my future.
I see suites at ballgames in my future. I see cheering from the stands for the man on first base, and then I see him getting to first base after the game. And second. And third. And all the way around to home.
I see us sharing a home, bacon and donuts, and a hell of a lot of laughs.
I just wish we could skip past the hard part and get there.
But I know we can’t.
He sneaks into my bedroom just like he did last night and finds me pulling pins out of my hair again.
This time, he walks over, stands behind me, and bats my hands out of the way as he pulls them out for me.
I set my hands on the dresser as I watch him behind me in the mirror.
He drops his lips to my neck before he pulls out another pin, and I lean into his touch.
“What’s wrong?” he asks softly.
“I don’t want this to end. These last couple days have been…well, they’ve been exactly what I needed to know how I really feel about you. I don’t want to pretend with Brooks anymore when I’ve found something real with you, but I also feel very much like I don’t have a choice.”
“There’s always a choice, Lex,” he says quietly.
“I’m stuck, Danny.” I sigh softly as he continues pulling pins out of my hair. “I signed a contract when I was young and dumb that gives my agent all the control over my career. And since my dad also owns the record label that produces my albums, technically, he owns all my masters.”
“What does that mean?” he asks. He pulls the last pin out and uses his long fingers to massage my scalp.
“My masters are my original recordings, and if he owns them, that means he can distribute them as he pleases. He considers himself the expert businessman and looks at me like I’m still a child.
I know he’s always looking out for me and that he makes the best choices for my career, but sometimes he does that at the expense of his daughter. ”
“How?” he asks.
“By using me to further his business goals.” I spin around and loop my arms around his waist. “By asking me to say yes to Brooks so he can get this merger to go through.”
His eyes study mine, and I can’t help but think for the ten thousandth time that I can’t believe this is real.
Danny Brewer is holding me in his arms, as if he appeared right out of a dirty fairy tale, and I am the woman who had the power to help him see that if he chooses the right person, commitment isn’t so scary.
Except we can’t commit when there’s a Brooks in the picture.
“Do you think he’ll want you to go through with the wedding?” he asks softly.
I tighten my hold around him. “At first, he said I wouldn’t have to. But later, he changed his tune—when it meant he could get more out of the deal. He’s essentially blackmailing me, and I have no idea how far he’ll go. And then he brought up kids,” I admit.
He chokes a little. “Kids?”
“It’s a hard no. Believe me. I can’t have kids now anyway—not with this movie I’m filming, a new album after that, and a tour next year. It’s not the right time even if I wanted them.”
“Do you want them?” he presses.
I lift a shoulder. “I never thought I had the option, to be honest. But thirty is only two years away, and the older I get, the more I feel like maybe I want some of the traditional things I haven’t had since I was a little girl. What about you?”
“I always thought that life wasn’t for me.
But I see my sister with her kids, even now when she’s going through a divorce, and I see the love she has for them.
Those two boys are what keep her afloat some days, and I guess I can see the appeal of that sort of unconditional love.
But to be honest with you, I never felt any sort of desire for any of that until fairly recently.
” He clears his throat, and I feel like he’s leaving something out.
“What changed?” I ask.
His eyes search mine, and his are full of sincerity when he says one simple word. “You.”
Holy hell.
I’m not just the woman with the power to make him want commitment.
I’m the woman with the power to make him want children. A family. A future he never dreamed of.
The same future I want with him.
Now we just have to figure out how to make it all happen.