Second Thoughts: A Hot Baseball Romance (12 page)

He shrugged. “I’m damaged goods. Labrum tear, my second year.”

She nodded, suspecting that the small scars were nothing compared to the pain that had generated them. She leaned forward and kissed the first one, slowly, carefully.

Nick laughed and pulled back. He flexed his arm like a cartoon Popeye, making his muscles pop. “I’m not made of glass.”

Still, her fingers were tentative as she traced the shape of the second scar. Somehow, it seemed important. Like it was a symbol of everything that had happened in the years they’d been apart, all the bad things they hadn’t been able to share, to help each other face.

Nick roared as he swept his arm around her. She was so startled she shrieked, and then his lips were sealed against hers, drinking in her surprised laughter, swallowing her joy. Automatically, she adjusted to the rest of him, the broader back, the trimmer waist.

Never breaking the kiss, she worked his buckle with expert fingers, slipping his belt free with a single, urgent tug. She undid the button on his pants, worked the zipper, shoved the khaki fabric over his hips like she had hundreds of times before.

He still wore boxers—soft silk now, which did nothing to hide his erection. She slipped her hand inside his fly, grabbing him firmly.

He couldn’t hold her lips then. Not when she found the slick of moisture at his tip. Not when she traced around him with the sharp edge of a fingernail. Not when her fingers slipped through the tangles of hair that she knew were coppery red, the tangles of hair she couldn’t yet see as she cupped his sweet weight in her palm.

“Jamie.” His voice was husky, breathed against the corner of her mouth. She covered his lips with her free hand and slipped him through the silk opening of his shorts. She bent low and guided him into her mouth.

His breath came fast as she took him deep. She’d forgotten how hard he was, how it felt to tilt her head back to manage his length. She’d forgotten the thrill of closing her lips over the base of him, of teasing with her tongue as she slowly, delicately worked her way back to the firm ridge of flesh near his tip.

She repeated her stroke, tightening her lips to heighten the sensation for him, for her. Impossibly, he grew harder. His hips shifted. He wanted her,
needed
her. She set her finger against the large vein at his base, knowing how to slow him down, how to make the pure sensation last longer for both of them.

His fingers closed over hers, and he panted her name again. “Jamie,” he said. “I want to be inside you.”

Her body wanted him. The tingling in her lips ignited fires throughout her body. The feel of his hair beneath her fingertips was like a Fourth of July sparkler; every inch of her flesh was awake,
aware
, in a way it hadn’t been in years.

She could smell him—soap and mint now covering a distinctly masculine musk. Mixed beneath that was the faint scent of her leather pants, the animal whisper awakened by her own heat. She was slick with readiness; her lace panties teased her with every gasping breath she took.

He wanted to be inside her, and her body cried out to make that happen. Her body, yes, but not her mind. Not her mind, which had arranged for her daughter—
their
daughter—to be gone. Not her mind, which had selected her wardrobe, had dressed her for the hunt. Not her mind—which had completely, utterly forgotten one crucial step.

Protection.

She pulled away from Nick, letting him slip from the embarrassed grin on her lips.

She’d never bought condoms in her life. She and Nick had both been virgins, and she’d visited Student Health Services for birth control pills before they’d ever made love. In the years since graduation, she’d relied on her rare partners to take care of drugstore runs. After all, she’d had a young daughter at home; she’d never brought a man back to
her
place.

She’d thought she’d been ready for her TrueLove date that night, but she’d deluded herself even before she sat alone at that bar. Something had held her back, something had kept her from getting the one thing any responsible woman would need. It was like she’d known RoadWarrior was never going to show up.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered. “I don’t have…” She trailed off, embarrassed.

But this was
Nick
she was talking to. She never needed to be embarrassed with Nick
.
She rocked back enough to look at him as she said, “You don’t have anything with you?”

He shook his head.

She shrugged and gestured at his mostly-naked body, at her exposed bra. “I don’t think either of us is making a run to the drugstore.”

He shook his head again.

“That means—”

He finished the sentence for her. “—we’ll just have to find other ways to satisfy ourselves.”

“To satisfy each other,” she corrected. The throbbing flesh against her palm let her know he didn’t mind the restatement.

“But not here,” he said. “In a real bed.”

She nodded and let him go. In record time, he shucked his shoes and socks, finally shed the pants that had pooled around his ankles, along with the boxers she hadn’t bothered to strip off him.

She laughed and led the way upstairs.

~~~

Christ
, Nick thought, watching Jamie’s hips sway in front of him on the stairs. The steel chains of her belt whispered of dark rooms and dirty games. The sound of the leather as her thighs touched kept his cock almost as hard as her lips had, down there on the couch.

What the hell had he been thinking, insisting on a bedroom? He should just grab her from behind, pull her up against him right here. They’d never done it on stairs before. He could slip his arm behind her head, cushion her as he lay beside her, as his fingers found her warm, wet heat…

He was in her bedroom before he had a chance to act on the fantasy.

If someone had blindfolded him and released him here, he would have known he was in Jamie’s room. The tailored navy bedspread said Jamie. The trio of black-and-white photos, shots of origami that hinted at plants, at animals, at bodies, all said Jamie. The stack of books on the nightstand, more than any sane person would try to read in a lifetime—they all said Jamie.

She turned to face him. “Home sweet home,” she said.

“There’s just one thing.
You
are wearing way too many clothes.”

Her slow smile restoked the fire in his belly. “You mean this?” she asked. Her fingers settled on her belt buckle, and he nodded. She took her time unfastening the thing, slipping it free inch by tantalizing inch. As the steel cascaded between her fingers, she watched him steadily. She had to know the belt made her look like some horny boy’s vision of a dominatrix. Some horny
man’s
vision, too. She raised the steel to her shoulders, slithered it past her bra before she let it writhe down her body and coil on the floor.

“That’s a good beginning,” he said roughly. He reached for her pants, for the black leather that cupped her ass as closely as his own palms itched to do.

“Ah, ah, ah!” she said, arching her eyebrows and slapping him on the backs of his hands. She wriggled a step away and stared directly at him, a tiny smile pulling at the corners of her well-kissed lips.

The pants zipped on the side. That’s how they clung so tightly, how they looked like they were painted on her. He caught his breath as she undid the fastening, slipping it free tooth by metal tooth. She peeled back the leather slowly, revealing a curl of lace even skimpier than her excuse for a bra.

She probably could have gotten out of those pants without twisting like that. But he wouldn’t have enjoyed the view anywhere near as much. There was something primal and exciting about the dark leather, about the way it clung to her like a second skin. The scent teased him, animal and hot, and he groaned as she finally stepped free from its grasp.

“There,” she said brightly. “That’s enough.”

“Never,” he growled. He reached for her bra, for the panties that teased with their barely-there lace. She danced away a few steps, until the backs of her knees were up against the bed. She seemed startled to find her retreat cut off, and he pounced while he had the advantage.

She laughed as he slipped his hands beneath her bra, as he palmed her nipples back to peaks. He needed to feel them in his mouth, first the left, then the right. He couldn’t help from grazing his teeth against them, even when she shrieked and pressed harder against him.

He reached behind her and worked the single clasp with a twist of his fingers. She gasped as he pulled the scrap off her shoulders, and then she shuddered as he buried his face between her finally-freed breasts. His fingers tightened on her back, pulling her closer. Her skin felt different than he recalled, but then he remembered his beard. He pressed closer then, soaking up the new sensation, adding it to the thousands of memories labeled
Jamie
deep inside his brain.

She was panting now, pressing hard against him. He reached down and slipped his fingers into her absurd excuse for panties.
God, she was wet
. He arched his fingers and pressed his wrist against her clit. Her thighs clamped shut around his hand, and she whined deep in her throat.

His cock throbbed, demanding full satisfaction. His senses were flooded with memories of her heat around him, of her coming and pushing him over his own edge, of the animal sounds she made deep in her throat as his hot flood made her come a second time, even harder than the first.

He eased his hand free from the vise of her thighs, distracting her with a hard kiss before he slipped off her soaked panties and guided her back to the bed. Kneeling beside her, he traced his slick fingers over her body. He painted his need against the hollow of her throat, then kissed her hard and licked away the secret message. He anointed her proud nipples, toying with each before he ate it clean.

He stretched his legs past her head, kicking one of her pillows to the floor. Her hair brushed against his dick as he drew a line down her trembling body. He outlined hidden words with his lips, his tongue, his teeth. He wrote on the inside of her thighs, private words to keep from thinking of his aching dick, of all the secrets he’d shared with her a lifetime before.

He breathed in the smell of her—excited girl and steamy leather and the clear amber soap she’d always used. The combination hit him like incense, pushing him into some other world, a place where every one of his senses was doubled, tripled. He rubbed his beard against her thighs, felt the stirring of mindless need deep inside himself.

She twisted beneath him, thrashing to her side. She was giving him access, opening herself to him, letting him trace the rigid muscles of her thighs. He tasted her salt as he tongued the delicate line where her thighs met her body. She writhed at his touch, making his cock impossibly harder.

He flicked his tongue against her clit. She cried out at the contact, a greedy yelp. He lapped at her again, slipping his hands beneath her hips, positioning her to give him a better angle. She breathed his name on a pair of descending notes.

He owned her. She was his. He buried his face in the heaven between her thighs, feasting on his woman.

And she answered him, in the only way possible. She answered him, with the passion they’d shared for years. She answered him with the familiarity of a true partner, a real mate.

Her lips closed over his cock.

He ate her, teased her, brought her to the very edge. At the same time, she worked his dick, completing the job she’d started on the couch. The heat of her mouth made him dizzy, or maybe that was the taste of her on his tongue. The pressure of her lips made every one of his muscles tremble, or maybe that was the feel of her soft folds beneath his mouth. The track of her tongue made him see stars, or maybe that was the scent of her sweet flesh.

He heard her, felt her whimper deep in her throat. He stroked her long and slow, savoring every drop of her passion. She returned the favor, tracking her tight, tight lips from his balls to the tip of his cock. One more stroke, another, a third, and he felt her break beneath him. Her pulsing shudder pulled her thighs as tight as his own, releasing her as completely as his own hot rush set him free.

They pumped together, thrashed together, gave themselves over completely. He needed to break away, couldn’t dream of breaking away, needed to feel her against him, couldn’t stop feeling her pulsing, hot and heavy.

At last, he could breathe again. At last, he could open his eyes. At last, he could pull himself up her body, stretch out beside her, cradle her damp head on his still-twitching forearm.

“Well,” she said, and her voice was as raw as a wind-stripped beach. “That didn’t work at all.”

“No,” he agreed. “It was pretty much an absolute failure.”

She chuckled, low and sultry, a sound that would have woken up his cock under any other circumstances. As it was, he threw his free arm around her belly, pulling her close against him. Their breathing was perfectly matched—at least for the thirty-seven seconds before they both fell sound asleep.

~~~

Jamie woke up to Nick nuzzling her neck. “Mmmm,” she said. “Are you going to make us Eggs Benedict?”

He laughed. “I’ll take you out for brunch.”

“Still haven’t learned how to cook?”

His fingers started doing distracting things against her thighs. “I thought it made more sense to invest in perfecting my existing skills.”

Her stomach rumbled. With any other man, she would have been mortified. With Nick, she pushed his hand away and said, “Brunch. Now.”

He propped himself up on one elbow and said with mock obedience, “Yes, ma’am. Do I have time for a shower first?”

She twisted her lips in mock disapproval. “I guess so. A quick one.”

He kissed her long enough and hard enough that she almost forgot she was starving. But then her stomach gurgled again. He laughed as she pushed him out of bed.

God
, she thought, falling back against the mattress. She’d forgotten how amazing sex was with Nick.

Maybe it was because they’d been each other’s firsts. Maybe it was because they’d devoted so much time to studying each other, putting as much energy into their relationship as they had into all their classes combined. Maybe it was because four years, four over-eager college years, added up to a
lot
of sex, a lot of time to experiment, to figure out what was mind-blowing, what was just amazingly, overwhelmingly good.