Nobody's Baby but Mine(25)
“It’s my fantasy. I came all the way to Indianapolis so I could feel ravaged. With my clothes on.”
“Ravaged, huh.”
She clutched the jacket tighter over her bare breasts. “With my clothes on.”
He thought for a moment. If only she could read his mind.
“You ever done it against a wall?” he asked.
The prospect excited her, and that was the last thing she wanted. This was about procreation, not lust. Besides, it might be harder to get pregnant that way. “I prefer the bed.”
“I guess the person doing the ravaging gets to decide that, doesn’t he?”
The next thing she knew, he had shoved her against the wall and pushed her skirt up far enough to catch the back of her thighs. He splayed them, lifted her off the floor, and stepped into the nakedness between.
The hard strength of his body should have frightened her, but it didn’t. Instead, she looped her arms around his shoulders and held on.
“Put your legs around me.” His voice was a low, husky command, and she instinctively obeyed.
She felt him free himself, and she expected him to enter her roughly, but he didn’t. Instead, he touched her with one gentle fingertip.
She buried her face in the side of his neck and sank her teeth into her bottom lip to keep from crying out. She concentrated on the intrusion instead of the pleasure, on the embarrassment of opening herself like this to a stranger’s touch. She had made herself his whore. That was all she meant to him, a slut to be used for a few moments of sexual pleasure and then discarded. She nurtured her humiliation so she wouldn’t experience desire.
His finger traced the entry to her body. She shuddered and focused on the strain in her splayed thighs, the uncomfortable pull of her muscles, anything except that silken stroking. But it was impossible. The sensations were too sweet, so she dug her fingernails into his back and bucked against him.
“Ravage me, damn it!”
He cursed, and the sound was so savage, she flinched. “What the hell’s wrong with you?”
“Just do it! Now!”
With a low growl, he caught her hips. “Damn you!”
She bit her lip as he thrust inside her, then gripped his shoulders tighter so she wouldn’t lose him. All she had to do was hang on.
The heat from his body burned through his shirt into her breasts. The wall bruised her spine, and he had spread her legs so far apart the muscles ached. She no longer had to worry about suppressing her pleasure. She wanted only for him to finish.
He thrust so deeply inside her that she winced. He would have made love to her if she had given him any sign at all, but she hadn’t wanted that. She had been determined to take no pleasure, and he’d granted her wish.
His shirt grew damp beneath her palms, and he used her so that he made her feel as if he were punishing them both. She barely held on to him through his orgasm. When it happened, she tried to will her body to absorb the essence of his, but her badly bruised soul wanted only to escape.
Seconds ticked by before he finally withdrew. He slowly stepped away from her and lowered her to the floor.
Her legs were so rubbery, she could barely stand. She refused to look at him. She couldn’t bear this thing she had done, not once, but twice.
“Rosebud . . .”
“I’m sorry.” She bent down to snatch up her purse and grabbed the doorknob. With her jacket clutched together in one hand and her thighs wet, she ran out into the hallway.
He called her name. That silly name she had taken from a beer sign. She couldn’t tolerate his coming after her and watching her fall apart, so she lifted her hand and waved without looking back. It was a jaunty wave, one that said, So long, sucker. Don’t call me. I’ll call you.
The door slammed behind her.
He’d gotten the message.
The following evening Cal sat in his accustomed place toward the back of the chartered plane that was returning the Stars to Chicago from Indianapolis. The lights were out in the cabin, and most of the players either slept or listened to music through headsets. Cal brooded.
His ankle ached from an injury he’d received in the fourth quarter. Afterward, Kevin had gone in to replace him, been sacked three times, fumbled twice, and still thrown the ball fifty-three yards for the winning touchdown.
His injuries were coming faster now: a shoulder separation at training camp, a deep thigh bruise last month, and now this. The team physician had diagnosed a high ankle sprain, which meant Cal wouldn’t be able to practice this week. He was thirty-six years old, and he tried not to remember that even Montana had retired at thirty-eight. He also wasn’t dwelling on the fact that he didn’t recover as quickly as he used to. In addition to his ankle injury, his knees throbbed, a couple of his ribs hurt, and his hip felt as if it had a hot poker shoved right through it. He knew he’d spend a good part of the night in his whirlpool.