It had been so long since she’d cared after the emotional well-being of a romantic partner like this, and she didn’t quite know how to feel about it, but that was something she could dwell on later. Finally, she gave in to water and gravity and rested her hand on his belly, her head on his chest. He froze for a second, and then his arm went around her shoulders and he pressed her against him. The mattress stopped waving, and they sat there quiet for a few minutes. The lights from the stars and buildings around them bathed them in a blue glow.
It wasn’t silent. The noise from the bar and the pool filtered through, but in this odd egg-cabana, they were alone. It was nice. Peaceful.
He let out a deep exhale, the air coming from his toes. “You want to know what that was all about, don’t you?”
“I mean, I may not understand. Anger over sports isn’t really in my wheelhouse. I reserve my anger for other things. As you’ve seen.”
“People can get real emotional over sports. And me.”
“I’ve heard you called the Lima Charm before. Why did that guy call you a curse?”
His hand rubbed up and down her arm. “When I was a kid, my dad and uncle played for the same team for a while. I would go to some of the games. The games I went to, they won. My dad started calling me his lucky charm. As I went up through college, the name morphed. I had a way with the media, with the public, with women. It turned into the Lima Charm, among my teammates, and then the media heard, and you know how it goes.” His body tensed, then relaxed. Like he was forcing it to relax. “It became the Curse when I retired. Or rather, how I retired.”
“How did you retire?”
“I walked at halftime in the middle of a game.”
“What?” She lifted her head. “You can do that?”
“I did.” That big, calloused hand ran up her back to her neck and he massaged her there.
At the first touch, she wanted to melt into him and forget talking, but she couldn’t do that, not without satisfying her curiosity about one more thing. “Why did you do it?”
His chest rose and fell. “My friend got knocked out with a hard hit. Like out cold. He came to, and they wanted to put him back in the game. He was clearly concussed. Could barely recognize any of us, was seeing double, and they wanted to put him back in the game so he could get a concussion on top of a concussion. I told them, if they tried it, I’d walk. Then they tried it.” He grimaced. “So I had to walk.”
“You walked for your friend.” Do not let that melt your cold dead heart.
But as much as she might wish otherwise, her heart was neither cold nor dead, so there it went. Melting into a puddle.
“We were closer than friends. We were teammates. We played college ball together. He was my brother.”
“I can’t believe they wanted him to play with a concussion.”
“I can.” He lifted a shoulder. “I knew better, because of—well, anyway, the week before, they’d distributed a pamphlet in our locker room about how concussions wouldn’t lead to permanent problems if each injury was properly managed.” He smiled bitterly. “But they didn’t even want to manage my friend properly.” He resettled his weight, the waterbed shifting with him. “Anyway. A lot of my teammates and the fans were angry with me. Someone coined the Lima Curse, and I guess there are still people who remember that ten years later.”
She ran her palm over his smooth jaw. He was leaving things out, but she wasn’t going to badger him. “I’m sorry.”
He grunted. “I can’t believe I spewed all this out. I don’t usually like to talk about myself like this.”
“It’s the waterbed,” she said solemnly. “The waterbed of truth.”
He chuckled. “Makes sense.” He played with her fingers and sobered. Without another word, he leaned down and pressed his lips against hers.
It might be that he was embarrassed by the vulnerability he’d revealed and was simply deflecting any further questioning, but that was fine with her. She kissed him back, eager. Damn it. She did like him.
Which was fine. You could like temporary bed partners. Keep telling yourself that. Emphasize the temporary.
Their lips parted, both of them panting. “Do you remember, back on the beach, when I went down on you?” he murmured. “That first time, right after we got inside the house?”
“Yeah,” she exhaled.
His hand slid over her ass. “I can’t stop thinking about it. Since I saw you again, it’s all I’ve thought about.”
“Is that right?”
“Mm-hmm. Camera’s off, yeah? Now we can get personal?” There was that blasted dimple again. “As per the terms of our contract?”
“Mine is, but I can’t guarantee other people’s are.” She shifted. “These cabanas are dry humping pods, I’m sure.”
He looked around them with disgust. “Okay, as unique as this experience is, I’m ready to leave.”
“Why don’t you walk me to my car?”
HIS BODY WOUND tighter as he followed Rhiannon to the garage where she’d parked. Some other time, he might worry about her wandering around these deserted garages by herself instead of parking at a street meter or surface lot, but not today.
He should have been anxious that he’d opened up to her as much as he had—only a select few knew such personal things about him—but the emotions that had driven him to tell her about his past had morphed into something else, something dark and heavy.
Though, to be fair, he’d been consumed with varying degrees of lust since he’d watched her walk across the rooftop, her bright blue hoodie unzipped enough to give him a peek of shadowy cleavage. When had sweatshirts become an aphrodisiac? The same time peppermint had become one, he supposed. More specifically, when he’d met Rhi.
She got into the back seat of her car, shoving the driver’s seat up and making space for him. He got inside and reached for her immediately. There wasn’t much room, but that was okay. He didn’t need much room to please her.
And he wanted to please her. He wanted to play her body like a concert violinist. He wanted her to remember tomorrow what his tongue and hands felt like, so he could do this a million times more.
He came up for air from her lips and immediately pressed kisses to her cheeks, and down her throat. His fingers went to the waistband of her pants. She wore stretchy leggings today, thank God. Jeans were stiff and inflexible and difficult to wrestle off in the confines of a back seat. He knew, because his jeans were currently strangling his dick.
“I want to lick you until you come,” he heard himself say, and the guttural, deep tone of his voice startled him. He sucked the pulse at the base of her neck. “Will you let me?”
Her yes was almost soundless, but he heard it. That thready, breathless verbalization of consent was sexier than anything on this planet. Even sweatshirts and peppermint.
She raised her hips for him, and he pulled the stretchy pants down to her ankles and then completely off, taking her panties with them. The blood rushed away from his brain.
Her legs gleamed. He ran his hands up her muscular calves and to her round thighs, and then shifted both of them. He placed one of her feet on the seat and the other on the floorboard and crouched between them on the seat.