Coach Love(43)

“Yes. Please...please...Cara....” He exhaled when she slipped her lips over his head, teasing, licking, sucking while gripping his length. “Ah yes!” he cried out, twisting his fingers in her hair and filling her mouth with a loud groan of relief. “God,” he sighed. She rocked back on her heels, wiping her lips, more turned on than she’d been in a hell of a long time.

Crawling up his body, skin against skin, sweat making them slippery, she smiled when he kept pulling at her until she straddled his face. “Mine,” he growled.

They lay together later, sweat drying under the rotating ceiling fan. Kent’s fingers trailed down her arm. She stroked his chest.

“It’s not anything serious, you know?”

She nodded, but her brain spun with too many emotions to sort through at that moment. Angry jealousy coiled around exhausted confusion, making her too tired to even think, much less respond.





Chapter Sixteen





Kieran wiped the sweat out of his eyes and focused on the basket, took a few bounces and executed another perfect, string-music shot. Then he grabbed the ball and repeated it for the hundredth time that morning. The August heat baked his shoulders. The humidity pressed against his face and filled his lungs. In his zone, doing his second-favorite activity in the world, he barely felt even mild discomfort.

Antony’s truck roared into the parking lot, followed by Dom’s Harley. All three of his brothers headed his way, a cooler swinging between Dominic and Aiden. When the basketball bounced to him, he turned and buried it once more.

“Good thing you’re getting some extra practice,” Antony declared, snagging the ball before it could reach him and running down to the other end for a layup. But instead of chasing him down and shoving him into the chain links surrounding the court as he would have done any other Sunday, he stood there, arms dangling at his side. He felt inert, slow and useless, his head stuffed with cotton, his limbs mired in warm sand.

“How’s the strip club gig?” Aiden asked, as he shot free throws with his own ball.

Kieran shrugged, chest tight, as the others prepared for their Sunday ritual—the weekly two-on-two brawl disguised as a basketball game.

His extreme loser-hood engulfed him, leaving him speechless, reminding him of how he’d turned up at Melinda’s place a few nights before, banging on her door, begging her to let him in. She had. And they now existed in a strange limbo of minimal communication other than what occurred between their bodies.

But she had insisted on paying off his credit card, so now he supposed he owed her.

The bizarre reverse Dr. Jeckyl-Miss Hyde thing she’d done unnerved him. But she kept him physically sated, using any excuse to jump his bones, suck his cock, anything he wanted, anytime he wanted it. It kept him off-balance enough not to complain. But when alone, like he’d been for the last two hours, a burning sensation would fire his gut and flame its way into his chest and windpipe, leaving the nastiest taste in his mouth that nothing would dissipate.

He was pretty sure he’d been played, or something. Maybe she did love him, had missed him, felt legitimately sorry for screwing around, whatever. But somehow, the nicer she acted, the less he wanted to be around her.

It was utterly perverse. He must be some kind of glutton for punishment. But she’d insisted he take the rest of the summer to relax and think about his job priorities. She could afford whatever they needed. That particular stinging barb would bury deep into his masculinity, a wound she would soothe with her lips, tongue, fingers, and body. So he’d forget about it, until the next time she’d fling it at him.

“Hey!” he yelped when a ball nailed his ear.

“Earth to Francis.” Dominic held another ball under his arm. “I know you’re reunited with little Miss Wonderful but could ya focus on us for a bit? It’s time for us to school the two ugly ones.”

“Yeah, sorry.”

After a few minutes spent wondering when Dominic would own up to his secret, he decided that it resided squarely in the none-of-his-business territory. “Let’s do this.”

“You’re skins, losers.” Antony held his well-worn leather ball against his side. “Strip ‘em, ladies. Oh, sorry, Francis. Guess you hear that a lot?”

“Go to hell,” he muttered, tugging his shirt over his head at the same moment he recalled the previous night’s debauchery. A low whistle and a distinct chuckle rose from behind him.

“Wowzer,” Aiden said.

“What got a hold of you?” Dom asked.

“Well now, my brother, those are some fine gouges. You might need antibiotic ointment though. She’s probably contagious.”