My family unit was small: my parents, my sister, and my grandmas on both sides of the family. But the grandmas lived on opposite ends of the country, and we lived in Tennessee, so we didn’t see them often. Being with Ty’s family was like being at a college party, because there were so many people. Cousins, aunts, uncles, grandparents, and friends all congregated together, yet they never made me feel out of place.
While Ty was gone, Stephen came up next to me as I put a few more desserts on my plate. “Last I heard, you’d given him the shaft,” he said.
I huffed and picked at the UTK shirt Ty had thrown at me. I had more clothes in the car and could have put on something else, but it smelled like Ty, and for some reason, I was feeling stupidly girly in my desire to have him close to me. Maybe it was because I’d almost lost him to both of our stupidity. Mostly mine.
“Someone has to keep his ego in check,” I responded with a shrug. “I figure I’m the right person for the job.”
Stephen’s smile slipped. “I think so, too. But…”
“Just say it, Brennan.”
He chuckled. “Don’t hurt him. I have friends in low places.”
“God, that’s so ridiculous.”
He laughed again and moved away.
Ty joined me, slipping his hand into mine again—more PDA that I wasn’t accustomed to coming from him. We’d been in hiding for so long I wasn’t sure how to react to all of it. A part of me didn’t want it. A part of me wanted to just continue to be Maleena and not superstar Ty’s Maleena. But I also knew he’d never ask that of me. He’d never ask me to give up everything to follow him around the country while he played football.
“Let’s get some air,” he said, dragging me toward a back door.
The bitter cold hit me as soon as we exited. “Shit, it’s freezing. Couldn’t we have done this inside?”
“Done what?” He grinned down at me, but he wrapped his arms around my body as we made our way to the barn.
He opened a side door, and the smell of hay and horses hit me. I may have lived in Tennessee my whole life, but I was not a country girl. Horses, dirt, and I didn’t get along.
“I’m not riding a horse today.”
He pulled me to him and slid his hands that were somehow still warm under the shirt I was wearing, all the way up to my bra, caressing as he went.
“You don’t have to ride a horse.”
I snorted. “Please do not make a, ‘Ride me, baby,’ comment, or I’m dunking you in that water trough.”
He laughed. I didn’t hear Ty laugh very often. Not with joy. He would normally laugh with derision or sarcasm, but a joyful one was rare and golden from him.
“Why are we out here?” I demanded again.
“I wanted to talk to you before I called your dad.”
“And it couldn’t wait until we got back to your house?”
“When have I ever waited when I set my mind to something?”
“This. This is exactly why the pros are going to pass you up faster than you can say four-leaf clover.”
“Maybe I won’t be joining the draft yet. Maybe you have time to help me change my ways.”
“Fat chance of you changing for anybody,” I said sarcastically.
“I’ve already changed for you.” His words and his look stilled me. “Before you, I wouldn’t have given two cents about what anybody said. I would have done what I wanted and to hell with everyone else.”
“You still do that,” I said. “So, I’m not seeing the change?”
He sat down on a bale of hay and pulled me onto his lap. Normally, he would have already been ripping my clothes off. Normally, I would have been ripping his off, but for some reason, there was more to us tonight than sex and desire. There was a new emotion. One he’d called love. One I’d called love back. I was still adjusting to it.
“I’m thinking I should wait to enter the draft until I know where you’re at, and then I can make a play for that team.”
I looked into his eyes, shadowed in the dim light. “What if that team doesn’t want you?”
“Then I wait until they do.”
It was said so simply. Casually thrown out. But I knew it wasn’t any such thing. For Ty to offer up football. To say he’d wait to be accepted to a team that may never accept him…for me. It was like a god climbing down and offering you a cloud to ride upon. I sucked in my breath, holding it, then slowly exhaling it. Trying to find words.
“That’s pretty stupid.”
“What?” he said, shocked.
“If you turn down a pro offer because it isn’t where I’m at, I’ll kick your ass from here all the way to Florida and back.”
He chuckled quietly. “We’d have a lot of fun if you tried.”
“Shut up. If we end up on different teams, you can live with me during the off-season, and we’ll travel back and forth during season.”
“You’ve thought this through?” The god-like smirk was back.
“No. I’m just responding to your harebrained ideas.”
“What if I don’t want to be apart from you quite that much?”
“The sex will be better. All that time apart building our anticipation.”
“The sex is pretty damn good now.”
I nodded. It was. “But today was nothing.”
His turn to nod. He knew we could do way more damage to each other than that. Good damage. Damage that would make us both soar to the skies and back. Damage and passion intertwined in a deliciously painful way.
I tugged at his phone that was in the pocket of his sweatshirt and handed it to him. “Call my dad.”
“And tell him that I’m keeping you?”
My heartbeat faltered, skipping a beat, and then colliding into a fast rhythm. “You keep forgetting, I’m the one who broke up with you. If anyone is keeping anyone, it’s me keeping you.”
“I’ve already said I’m yours. I’ll go where you want me to, Maleena. I mean that. With every single fiber of my being. Football, schmootball. You. Me. This.” He waved a hand between us. “It’s all that matters.”
I kissed him. I couldn’t help it. This huge dynamo saying he’d give up everything for me. Repeatedly. Meaning it, because Ty didn’t lie. He didn’t bullshit his way through anything. In fact, the only lies he’d ever told were the ones I’d made him tell about me. Lies about us. I didn’t want that anymore. I wanted people to know he was mine. That he was off the field in that one way. But I also wouldn’t let him give up a career that would have him wearing a Super Bowl ring. Not for me. Not for anyone.
My lips must have conveyed some of what I was feeling, because, before I knew it, Ty had flipped us so I was lying on my back on the hay, and he was above me, legs between mine, rubbing on me in the most delicious way. Making me want our clothes to dematerialize so we could be skin to skin, even in the thirty-degree weather.