My head snaps up. “You went through my drawers?”
“Mhm,” she says before taking a bite of cinnamon bun and chewing. “Who knew Søren Bergman color-codes his underwear, socks, shirts—”
I kiss her, if for no other reason than to stop her teasing. And while I know nobody likes morning breath, now we both taste like cinnamon and coffee.
When I pull away, her eyes are hazy, and she has icing on her lip. I lick it away and feel her breath hitch. “I like things tidy,” I say quietly. “Helps me find them more easily.”
Her smile is slow but warm, and when she lifts a hand and brushes the hair off my forehead, I want to drop to my knees.
“Hi,” she whispers.
“Hi,” I whisper against her lips. I kiss her again, then sit back and lean against the headboard, like her. We eat in quiet, but it’s comfortable. Easy and peaceful.
Until Frankie finishes her cinnamon roll and licks the tips of her fingers. Not that I’ve been anything less than hard for the past twelve hours, thanks to Frankie’s proximity, but now my cock throbs as a furious ache builds in my groin.
Frankie tsks and sets down her coffee. “Can’t have that, Zenzero.”
I glance up from my coffee. “Can’t have wha—Jesus!”
Her hand slides over my joggers, right between my legs, and I nearly scald us, violently sloshing my coffee as I throw it down on the nightstand. I want to stop her, but if I do, I’m pretty sure I’ll keel over from the blood rushing to every inch of me that Frankie’s palming with expert strokes.
“F-Frankie, you don’t have to—”
“Søren Bergman, unless you’re about to go into cardiac arrest or the house is on fire, shut up and let me make you come.”
I grunt as she releases me and then slides her hand beneath the elastic of my sweats. Turning toward her, I set the tray off the bed, and drag Frankie down, flat on the mattress. My mouth clamps over her nipple, as I suck hard through the cotton of her T-shirt. With new wetness, her nipple’s evident, a dark berry color I want to lick and bite and tease for hours. Cupping her full breasts, I groan appreciatively.
When I drag my teeth gently over one wet, stiff peak, her fingers delve into my hair. She gasps and arches into me. “Holy shit, Ren.”
Working her nipple with my mouth, I slip my hand down her stomach and curve it over the wet heat seeping through her panties. Just a faint slide of my finger and her thighs clamp on my touch.
“Oh. Don’t stop doing that,” she pants. Her fingers tighten in my hair, holding me close. Her hips tilt upward.
I grin in satisfaction, until I feel her palm gliding over my boxer briefs, her grip hugging the length of me, up and down. “Frankie.”
It’s all I can say, all I can see and feel. Her lips press to my hair as I suck and tease her nipples, as I gently rub her through her panties, quick, tight circles. Frankie’s hand works me, sure and fast, sending dizzying heat and a furious ache for release surging down my spine. The need to thrust, to drive and pound takes over. I press my hips harder into her grip, feeling the warning of release building, hot and powerful.
“Ren,” she whispers.
I lift my head long enough to meet her lips, to kiss her as she cries against my mouth and comes in soft, beautiful waves against my hand.
I want to savor it—the hazy satisfaction in her eyes, the way she smiles wider than I’ve ever seen her—but her hand is temptation itself, and I’m scrambling at the edge.
Holding my eyes, she bites my lip, dragging it between her teeth. The pain of it trips the wire that sends me soaring. On a grunt of pure bliss, I come, while Frankie’s hand works me in gentle rubs that stretch out my orgasm.
After a long, silent moment, I flop back on the bed and pull her carefully with me, holding her head to my chest but distanced from the hot spill all over my stomach. With one firm kiss to the top of her hair, I sigh heavily.
“Ren?” she says quietly.
I peer down at her. “Yes?”
“I’m feeling a little worried.”
I grasp her chin, tilting her head so she’ll look at me. “Why?” Her face is tight, anxiety clear in her features. “What is it?”
She reaches and kisses me. “Because if it’s that great when our clothes are on, what the hell’s going to happen when they all come off?”
Searching her eyes, I try to see why the promise of something so good scares her so much. But I come up short. There’s no answer, other than the fact that all of this is new and unnerving for Frankie, as it is—albeit, in different ways—for me. There’s nothing to be done or dismissed about that. Just space to be made. Time and patience.
With a kiss to her forehead, I rest my head on hers, allowing quiet to be answer enough.
For now.
22
Frankie
Playlist: “Somewhere Over the Rainbow,” Leanne & Naara
At some point recently, my life became an Austen novel. As if the book itself might be capable of some kind of sexually repressing black magic, I’m tempted to throw Sense and Sensibility out the window and hope it sends Ren bounding into my room to make an honest woman out of me.
It’s been beautiful, glorious, dizzying torture. Days of cuddling and finger tangling and making out and dry humping and Holy Saint Francis of Assisi and His Furry Animal Friends, I need Ren to use that big old stick God gave him and score with me already.
I bypass two of the guys in the hallway, breezing into the training room. I need to find Ren, because it’s four o’clock. Which is when my plan of action kicks in.
I’m not the world’s best at lying on the spot, but I am damn good at premeditated subterfuge. In precisely three minutes my stomach will start to hurt. I’ll let Ren known I’m going home for the night, that I’ll miss the game.
Darlene’s in on my plan and made sure one of the PR interns is prepared to at least keep up with Twitter and Instagram during the game, so we’re covered on that front. It’ll only be the second game I’ve ever missed. The first I missed was because I got a horrible chest cold—thank you very much immunosuppressant medications—and finally had to admit defeat, laid up on the couch and yelling hoarsely at the TV while Pazza’s head swiveled furiously between the hockey game and me.
“Seen Ren?” I ask Lin.
He shakes his head as John tapes his ankle for him.
“Schar? Have you seen Bergman?”
Kris glances up from heel stretches. “Negative, Frankie.”
Muttering under my breath, I storm out of the training room and roam the halls, my ears attuned, hoping I catch the warm, low tenor of Ren’s voice.
I’m supposed to be at Ren’s childhood home in exactly one hour, and with the bitch that is LA traffic, I want to leave plenty of time for me to get there and for his parents to make it to the arena. Because Ren Bergman was not playing another professional game without his parents being there, complex family dynamics or not. Plus, it gave me a perfect opportunity to hang out with Ziggy. He talks to her on the phone every day, and a few days ago—sue me—I eavesdropped. Ren caught me, those cat eyes crinkling as he grinned, and the scary connection between that expression and my libido was reinforced, because I nearly came on the spot. “Want to say hi, Francesca?” he said.