This was crossing a line. An irreversible line.
He came in.
“I brought you something.” Before he changed his mind, he fished the jewelry box from his coat pocket. “To say thank you.”
“For what?” She eyed the long flat box like he’d pulled out a tarantula. “There aren’t any reporters here to capture this moment for all posterity. Sure you don’t want to wait and give that to me later?”
“No,” he growled. “I don’t want to wait. This is personal and I don’t want it on camera. I...”
Have no idea what I’m doing here.
Instead of floundering around like a moron, he snapped the lid open and showed her the eight-carat diamond necklace he’d painstakingly picked out at the jeweler earlier that day. Before he’d gotten the call from the commissioner’s office, finding something to commemorate the Mustangs’ eight-game winning streak—a club record—had been his top priority.
“What the hell, Logan.” Fire flashed from her gaze, which was not the reaction he’d been looking for. “You can’t give me something like that. It’s gorgeous.”
He couldn’t help the laugh that bubbled out. “You have a funny way of showing your appreciation.”
Cautiously, as if afraid it might bite her, she held out one finger and touched the teardrop stone. “It’s pink. Like the flower you gave me.”
Yeah, because the instant he’d seen it, he’d thought of her and how it would look against her beautiful skin. “Does that mean you like it?”
“It’s too much for a thank-you.” But she nodded. “I like it.”
“Shut up and let me put it on you then.”
She held up her hair and presented her back without further argument, thank God. He drew the fine chain around her neck to clasp it, then took advantage of the absence of hair to kiss her exposed flesh. She didn’t move away. One second against her skin became two, and that was the extent of his self-control.
He mouthed his way to her ear and yanked her backward into his embrace so he could thoroughly ravage her. She melted into his arms and he walked her toward her bedroom, a path he knew from the handful of times they’d ended up naked after games.
But this was the first time they weren’t high on the public displays of affection they’d indulged in. The first time he had no excuse to be here other than the obvious—he couldn’t stay away.
When he hit the edge of the bed, he lifted his mouth from her neck long enough to strip her and himself, then rolled her to the coverlet. He reached for the condoms she kept in her bedside drawer and then pleased them both by sucking at every one of her erogenous zones until she was wet and swollen enough to take him fully. And she did, with a little gasp that thrilled him.
That pink diamond sparkled in the low light from the neon outside her floor-to-ceiling view of downtown Dallas. He’d never given a woman jewelry before, and the sight of the chain around her neck when she had nothing else on her body except him put a glow in his chest that felt a hell of lot like something that shouldn’t be there. As he sank into Trinity again and again, building the fire until they were both moaning with it, the significance of what was happening here overwhelmed him.
This relationship was as real as it got. And he liked that.
He refused to take time to sort that out as she bowed up, thrusting her breasts high. This, he understood, and he took one of those rosy nipples between his teeth, rolling it almost savagely as he thrust faster, spiraling his hips the way he knew drove her insane, silently powering her to a climax that would trigger his. Because they knew each other’s bodies, how to please, how to gratify. Physically, they were a perfect match, but not in any other way.
So why was he so wrapped up in her?
They exploded together, and he bit his lip to keep the wash of emotions inside, where they belonged. Afterward, he spooned her into his body the way they both liked it, and she curled into his embrace.
“What’s the real reason you came over tonight?” she murmured.
His eyes shuttered automatically. Would she ever not be so good at reading him? He couldn’t do that with her. It wasn’t fair. But that didn’t give him any better ability to lie to her, either.
“Johnson is probably going to be suspended. I’m...” What was he? Disappointed? Frustrated? Furious? “Not sure what’s going to happen to the team as a result.”
“That’s crappy.” She squeezed his arm with her soft hand. “What did he do?”
“Performance-enhancing drugs, or so they say. They’re against the rules. I’m cooperating with the investigation, but I have to go to New York for some meetings.”