“What’s that for?”
“Taking my game to the next level.” He grabbed my ankle and pulled me down to the edge of the bed.
“I don’t follow.”
“You will.” He ran the warm, wet cloth along the insides of my thighs.
Goosebumps broke out all over my body. I let out a hiss as the cloth rubbed against my clit. “Is this the next level?” The words were choppy and shuddery as the pretense of cleaning me up was punted out the window.
“No, this is.” He dropped to his knees and slid his hands under my thighs, anchoring me in place.
And in a flash, his tongue was on me. In me. Everywhere all at once. My hips bucked, but I didn’t get far. Damn he was strong. I wasn’t exactly a waif. “I thought this was foreplay. We already had sex.”
“You think I’d only want to go down on you before sex? Frenchie, I’m ready to eat you any freaking time and any place.” And then his tongue did a magical thing that made me forget my name, how to breathe, and what my body felt like when it wasn’t attached to a live wire of pleasure.
“Fuck!” I screamed and grabbed onto his hair, holding on for dear life through the sexual tsunami that was Berkley Vaughn.
“If you could have one thing in the world right now, what would it be?” Berk brushed my hair back from my face.
He smacked my hand when I snaked it down his stomach through the covers. “Not that. So freaking naughty, Frenchie.”
“If I can’t have that…” I tapped my finger to my lips and a pang of sadness nudged at my heart. “Books my dad used to read me.”
“The Peter Rabbit ones?” He rubbed a messy curl between his fingers.
“You remember that?”
He nuzzled the top of my head. “There’s nothing I forget when it comes to you.”
“Those ones.” Pushing aside the sadness, I focused on right here, right now. “What’s the next game I can come to?” I traced my fingers across his chest and my body buzzed and tingled, basking in the afterglow of sex beyond anything we’d done before.
I’d run out of the bathroom practically naked. We’d had wild, crazy, loud sex in a house with other people. And I didn’t even care. He was a sexual distraction magician.
“We have a home game in a couple weeks, right before Halloween.” His quick squeeze of my ass made me not hate the size of it. It made me sink deeper into his clutches, enjoying the way he didn’t seem to want to let go and the way he growled against my neck, making my stomach flip.
“Can I come dressed up?” Lifting my head, I stared up at him, breathless and ready for another round. He had the uncanny ability to make me feel like nothing bad could touch me when I was in his arms.
He skimmed his fingers down my spine.
Goosebumps broke out all over my body and I bit back a moan.
“I have a few things I’d like you to come dressed up as.”
“Getting arrested trying to get into an FU game isn’t on my list of top tens.”
“How do you know what I wanted you to dress up as? Maybe I was going to say a nun.” He chuckled. His chest rumbled under my ear.
“Damn, and I wanted to dress up as a stripper. But I think your idea will be a better fit.”
“Hold on a second.” He wiggled his fingers into my side.
I shoved at him and rolled away laughing. “No take-backsies.”
Hopping off the bed, I searched the room and grabbed my robe. Outside of the bed, the floorboards were like ice cubes and a shiver shuddered through me.
“Nun, it is.” Triumphantly, I tied the fluffy sash of my robe.
“How about you dress up as a nun for my game and we can have a private costume party back here?” He propped his head up with his arms, every muscle and vein prominent and tasty.
There wasn’t an ounce of fat on him. Tanned. Solid. Athletic. He could’ve been a sculpture brought to life, and he was here with me.
Behind these curtains and in these walls, everything else faded away and the voices in my head—the ones that had been there for so long I wasn’t sure if they were my own words or not—weren’t nearly as loud.
“That might be something we could arrange.” I swung the sash in a loop.
His phone buzzed on my nightstand. He scooped it up and his forehead creased.
“What’s wrong? Did Alexis steal something again?” I meant it to come out as a joke, but after what the guys had said and how Berk always came to her rescue, I wondered if she hadn’t gotten into some kind of trouble again.
“No, why would you say that?” He set the phone down again.
“That was a really bad attempt at a joke. I’m sorry. Is there something wrong?”
The frown lines and creases disappeared and he relaxed back against the headboard.
“Everything’s fine, except for one thing. Why are you out of bed? It’s getting cold without you.” He pushed back the blankets, showing me a few more muscles I hadn’t explored.
“I was going to make us some French toast. Maybe some bacon and eggs.”
“I have a better idea.” He pushed back the blankets and swung his feet around to the floor. “Why don’t I cook and you can ogle me for once?”
My head bobbed up and down. “Yes, please.” My grin at how homey that felt was uncontrollable.
He grabbed his jeans and slipped them on.
I looked out the window behind him and ran to it, staring out wide-eyed. “It’s snowing.”
“In October?” He turned and looked out the window beside me. “They said we’d be getting some weather, but freaking snow?” The snowflakes didn’t dance to the ground blanketing it in a gentle blanket. It was coming down like this was the day before Christmas. There wasn’t anywhere we needed to be. The fridge was stocked. What better way to spend a snow day than with Berk?
I grinned at him and rushed to my closet. “Come on. Let’s go out there.”
29
Berk
I’d always hated snow. For a long time I’d hoped to get drafted to a team somewhere warm where it never hit. Growing up, snow meant walking through it with soggy socks, frozen toes, and plastic bags wrapped around my feet.
No one was buying me boots or snow pants to go out and play or have snowball fights in it. It meant freezing temperatures in my bunk and dreading the morning when I’d have to slide my already frozen feet into ice-cold shoes. No, snow was public enemy number one, right behind rain.
But watching Jules run around in an adorable blue and purple knit hat with a white pompom on top made me want to move to a winter wonderland. Her cheeks were bright red. The dark wisps of her hair stuck out from the bottom of her hat as she ran around with her arms out at her sides, getting covered with flakes like the most beautiful statue ever sculpted.
“Do you think we’ll get enough to make a snow man?” She opened her mouth, catching flakes on her tongue and laughed. The snow whipped at us from all angles. The flakes clung to her eyelashes under her glasses, and the sight left me breathless. Another piece of my heart mailed to her in that second in a signed, sealed, and delivered envelope. I could imagine her doing the same thing with two little kids at her side, a boy and a girl that both looked just like her.