“Are you hungry?” I whisper.
He squeezes my ass in one hand and explores my back with long strokes with the other. “Starving.” His eyes run over my face, down my body, suggesting another appetite. “What’s on the menu?”
Me?
“Gumbo?” I offer as a half-question. “MiMi’s recipe.”
The way he looks at me, as if he’d be inside me already if he could, it softens into affection. He sets me on my feet and tucks my hair behind my ear, settling a kiss between my eyebrows.
I didn’t flinch!
He tucked my hair behind my ear and I didn’t flinch.
I’m inordinately pleased with myself while he conks out in the living room and I heat up a bowl of gumbo for him. I lean a shoulder into the archway leading from the kitchen and steal a moment to watch him.
He’s on the floor, his back to the couch and his long legs stretched out in front of him. His head flops back, eyes closed and hands linked over the tight, muscled plane of his abs.
“You wanna eat right there?” I ask, hesitant to disturb him.
His eyes open and he sits up straight, resting his arm on the coffee table. “You sure it’s okay?”
“So nice of you to be concerned about ruining my flea market table.” I laugh. “But yeah. I eat there all the time to watch TV or whatever.”
“Okay.” He smiles and runs a hand over his messy hair. “Thanks.”
I head back to the kitchen to grab his meal, then return and set a glass of water and his bowl on the coffee table. “Unless you want wine?”
“Nah. I don’t drink much during the season.”
He spoons the first steaming bite into his mouth, groaning appreciatively and looking at me.
“This is delicious.” He takes another bite, shaking his head. “Be careful or I’ll be demanding this all the time.”
“You’re not very demanding.” A sad smile touches my lips. I know what a demanding man is like, and August is the opposite. If anything, he’s constantly looking for ways to help, to make things easier for me.
“Did you watch the game?” he asks, his full lips tightening and his eyes on his bowl.
“Of course.” I settle onto the couch and tuck my legs under me, careful to keep the robe closed. “I saw it.”
He closes his eyes and frowns. “I hate for you to see me lose,” he admits softly. “And we’re losing so much.”
“You shouldn’t have lost tonight,” I snap, indignation ramrodding my spine. “That ref needs glasses and a lobotomy. All those shit calls in the last five minutes.” I growl, banging a fist on my leg. “And the foul he called on you in the third quarter? Are you fucking kidding me with that shit? I wanted to come through the television and strangle him with his whistle. I mean, really? You barely touched that guy.”
I’m fuming so much, I don’t notice at first that he’s watching me with a wide smile. “What?” I frown at him and cross my arms under my breasts.
“You.”
“What about me?”
“One, you cuss like a sailor when you watch basketball,” he says. “Two, I love how you’re so outraged on my behalf. I thought you saved all that for your precious Lakers.”
We share a smile, and I go back to that first night we met in the bar.
“Well they have to share me with the Waves now.” I sober. “I am sorry, though. I know you hate losing.”
“Fuck.” The hard line of his jaw sharpens. “And of course, everyone’s saying it’s my fault.”
“Which is ridiculous! It’s a team sport.”
“Yeah, but I’m the franchise player. When a team is paying as much as the Waves pay me, when they build their team around you, the expectations are higher.” He shrugs and grimaces. “This kind of scrutiny comes with the territory,” he says. “Thank God for Kenan. He’s so much more mature than the rest of us. He’s been doing this a long time and knows what it takes to win. He’s the real leader in our locker room.”
“I’m sorry about the losing streak.” I sift my fingers through the silky curls at my knee while he sits on the floor. He leans his head back into my touch, a deep breath lifting his shoulders and swelling his broad chest.
“That feels great,” he says huskily. “Don’t stop.”
It feels great to me, too—touching him, breathing in the scent unique to his hair and skin and whatever molecules combine to make August. I want all of them wrapped around me. I shift on the couch, feeling myself growing wet at the juncture of my thighs the longer I touch him.
I clear my throat hoping to say something that will make my horniness feel less awkward. “Your hair is getting so long.”
What am I even talking about right now? Should we discuss the weather, too?
He turns his head to peer up at me. “You said you like it longer, right?” he asks, almost uncertain, which August rarely is.
Now I really don’t know what we’re talking about.
“I said that?” My fingers tunnel through his thick hair, from his neck where it’s shorter and straight to the crown of his head where it lengthens into amber-streaked sable curls.
“Yeah. That week in Baltimore,” he reminds me, his voice soft.
My hands go still in his hair as his meaning sinks in.
“Are you saying . . .” I swallow and try again, unfolding my legs from under me and setting my feet on the floor. “You’re growing your hair out because I said I liked it longer? For me?”
He flips his body so that he’s facing the couch, still sitting on the floor, angling a grin up at me.
“Let me get this straight,” he says. “You were completely unimpressed when I turned down forty-five million dollars to live in the same city as you, but you’re kinda blown away that I’m growing my hair out?”
When he puts it like that, I feel like an idiot. We both laugh, our eyes tangled in affection and something more—something that neither of us acknowledges, but it fills the air around us.
“I wasn’t unimpressed,” I say, teasing him with a look. “But you do kinda blow me away.”
He watches me, taking in all my details, starting at the hair casually knotted on my head and the silky robe, then my bare feet. He grabs one foot and kisses the arch.
“August!” I snatch my foot back, laughing and trying to ignore the feeling simmering low in my belly. “Don’t kiss my foot.”
“I’ll kiss your foot if I want to.” He grabs my other foot and kisses the arch, this time lingering, then running his nose up my leg. It’s hard to swallow, and I’m struggling to breathe. With his eyes closed, he feathers kisses up my bare thigh. He lifts my leg just enough to gently suck at the flesh behind my knee.
“Ah, August.” Pleasure arrows through me, and I press my back into the sofa.
“You’re sensitive there,” he says, his voice husky. “What about here?”
Open-mouthed kisses climb the inside of one thigh while his hands minister to my other leg, stroking, kneading my calf. I stare at his mouth drawing on a muscle in my thigh, an erotic suction that ripples shockwaves to my core. The sound of it, his lips and teeth and tongue working in tandem to mark me, leaves me a trembling mess.