Once Upon A Half-Time 1(65)

I’d never felt anything like her before. Nothing as soft. Nothing as hot. Nothing as…complete.

The aches in my body disappeared. The rage of the practice and the creeping fear that shadowed my every step, catch, and block on the field were gone. Melted into the promised seduction of her slick and clenching pussy.

I needed this. Her. All the time.

She would hide me from the world in a moment of utter exhilaration. Her body offered a rush so intense and wicked and mind-blowing that this fall was my last one. I’d never recover. Never find anything more exciting than her again.

Elle gripped my hand, holding onto me, bracing against me as I fucked her the way she deserved.

Hard. Without restraint. Filling her. Pumping inside her.

Proving that her body and touch and heat were enough to rip me apart and weld me together again. Hell, I’d let her keep a piece of me for her damn collection if she wanted.

No. She could have all of me. I’d give myself to her, just as I’d promised every day since the first moment we met.

Call it fate. Call it instinct. Call it a goddamned fairy-tale.

This woman belonged to me.

And every piercing thrust inside her wetting slit would forever promise that devotion.

I wouldn’t last, and neither could she. Not in the rush that was sneaking around, fucking in public, stealing into the shadows because we didn’t have the strength to wait until we hid within the privacy of our homes.

Elle couldn’t speak, but I read everything in her expression. Her lips parted, swollen from the frantic kisses. She angled herself so I could fuck her deeper than before.

Not harder, but to fill her, to complete her. Us.

Together.

She stared at me, her eyes intense, wide. It was like she saw me for the first time, that stolen glance across the combine when my heart had stopped and I tripped over my own feet to fly head-first into a blocking sled.

Finally, she could see all of me. Every part. The player. The friend. The lover. The man.

And the parts of me I hadn’t shown her yet.

But she’d have to know. She deserved to know.

Would she still want me after learning about my past?

She tried so hard to speak, but the words were lost in panted breaths. It didn’t matter. Her eyes pinched shut just as the shocking, shooting pleasure burst within me. It started as a delirious tingle before erupting into the white-hot searing agony that teetered between pleasure and pain.

Her pussy squeezed me. Milked me.

Every fucking drop.

Every damned jet.

I filled her with my desire, my energy, my last goddamned ounce of willpower.

And the quiver of her endless orgasm rewarded me in a moment of silent intimacy.

She jerked, breathing quick and hard and biting her lip as though she’d cry out, even without a voice.

Beautiful.

Perfect.

Elle sighed as I pulled from her. She took my hand, pulling me close, staring at me with such intensity and honesty and…

Fear?

Well, I felt it too. That amazement and uncertainty and raw passion.

I loved it.

But it wasn’t time for her to admit it. I’d made her a promise. I’d get those three words exactly when I’d swore she’d say them—not a moment before.

Even if she would prove me right.

I pressed my finger against her lips.

“Don’t say it.” I kissed her, savoring her surrendered shrug. “We still have one date to go.”





15





Elle





“So, Mrs. Reed…”

Freddie dropped his recording equipment in a heap on our office floor. He grinned at me, knowing full-well I didn’t have a voice to chastise him.

“You do realize there’s fifty-two other men on the team?”

I tilted my head.

He scooted behind me, pointing to my laptop. He scrolled through the hundreds of photos I had taken for the day.

“There’s one of Lachlan,” he said. “And there’s one of Lachlan. And another of Lachlan. And a fourth, fifth, sixth...” He stole my mouse. “And whadda know? Another of Lachlan. Lachlan. Lachlan…”

I pointed to the picture of the quarterbacks, centering on the play-maker in his red jersey.

“Oh, sure. That’s Jack. And right there behind him…” Freddie tapped the screen. “Lachlan.”

Damn it.

My groan was silent. That was getting annoying.

Day three of muteness, and the laryngitis had no intention of fading. But I wasn’t sick. I’d lost my voice after a very unfortunate hiccup that was not a hiccup. I’d learned a wise lesson that day. Never trust a bodily function while pregnant. My stomach was a swirl of nitroglycerin, and any little bump, quiver, shake, smell, taste, or internet video of the birthing process was like swallowing a lit fuse.

One unfortunately timed heave had occurred at the same time as a cough, and I’d accidentally doused my larynx with a healthy portion of everything unhealthy from my stomach.