Scoring the Billionaire(26)

Truth be told, I'd have been even more thrilled if we'd moved both of  our hands about eight or so inches to the left-to the inviting space  right between her legs.

As her throat worked to control her reaction to my last comment, I gave  her more, groaning roughly before stating, "That inch of skin is sexier  than anything I've ever seen." Easing my hand off of hers, I ran just  the tip of my pinkie finger from the outside of her thigh in, right  along the top of her boot. "God, Win, it makes me want to do things to  the skin I can't see."         

     



 

"Wes," she murmured softly, her breathing completely unsteady.

"Touch it, eat it … fuck it. I'm gonna make you feel so good."

The whole not-sleeping-together-because-it's-not-a-good-idea thing was a  distant, fleeting memory. When it came to Winnie Winslow, I had none of  my normal self-control-and I'd finally realized it wasn't worth the  wasted minutes I spent fighting it.

I could use that time to fight with her, tease her, touch her … taste her.

She was my new oral fixation, and it'd been entirely too long since my  last hit. I'd deal with the consequences of the end of it when they  came. And there would be emotional consequences-for both of us. Of that  much, I was sure.

"Is that what I looked like?" Thatch asked Kline, and the way he said it pulled my hazy attention from Winnie.

"Like you were high, drunk, stupid, and seconds away from lifting a leg?" Kline replied conversationally.

Thatch nodded. "Yeah."

"Then, yeah."

I wasn't sure I completely understood their conversation, but I knew it  was about me, so I rubbed on some middle-finger ChapStick and then  watched as my finger bird flew away in their direction. They just smiled  and chuckled to themselves like a couple of clucking goddamn hens.

"Oh, yay!" Cassie squealed as the waitress leaned over to set a full tray of neon shots in the center of the table.

"Fuck, Cass. What level of unconscious are you trying to make me achieve? Almost dead or completely there?"

"They're not just for you. They're for everyone."

"Um, no," Georgie denied immediately. "I'm ridiculous when I'm drunk."

Every single head at the table started shaking.

Kline laughed. "You drunk is probably one of the best things ever invented, Ben."

Every single head at the table changed direction and nodded enthusiastically.

"Come on," I urged her with a smirk. "You can't let me do this alone."

She wrinkled her nose. "You're my boss!"

"Oh, okay," I teased, raising my hands in mock surrender. "Drinking with the boss is bad, but sleeping with him is all good."

"I'm not sleeping with you!" she nearly yelled, and we all laughed as  Kline pulled her closer with an arm around her shoulders. Realization  dawned as she tipped her head back to look at his face.

Not this boss. That boss.

"Ah, fuck," she breathed in defeat.

Winnie laughed loudly, and I couldn't help but watch again. Her face was  open, amused, and relaxed, and I felt satisfaction from the knowledge  that she hadn't had this not too long ago, before taking the job with  the Mavericks. She'd been working eighty-hour weeks with no downtime  whatsoever and taking care of a young daughter on her own.

She'd been a doctor and a mom, but tonight, she was free to be just a woman.

An unbelievably sexy woman.

"Take the shots already!" Cassie complained.

"All right, all right," Georgie grumbled. "Calm your spawn, for fuck's  sake." She reached forward and handed us each a shot. I honestly didn't  even know what I was getting ready to swallow, but I was too ready to  get it over with to care. "Bottoms up, kids."

"To the baby," Winnie toasted cheekily, and I laughed. Only a Kelly baby  would have a toast before shots dedicated to it in utero.

"To the baby," we all recited dutifully, and then tipped our  rainbow-colored glasses back as one. The green, apple-flavored liquid  burned a little as it slid down my throat, but it went easily otherwise.

Winnie coughed and sputtered a little around her yellow one, choking  out, "Lemon," as I rubbed a hand across her back soothingly.

Just as I started to relax, the waitress returned with a second tray.

"What the fuck?" Kline asked Cassie.

She shrugged shamelessly. "Four more rounds coming, Big-dick. Saddle up."




"Smooth Criminal" played over the speakers of the pub's sound system as I  danced and pulled Winnie deeper into my arms. After five rounds of  shots, we were all feeling pretty relaxed, me more so than the rest.  Winnie hadn't been able to handle past number three, and thanks to tears  and a tantrum from a pregnant woman, I added her two to my five.         

     



 

Considering how drunk I was, math wasn't exactly my specialty at the  moment, but I knew that made way more alcohol than I'd consumed at one  time in over a decade.

"Winnie, are you okay? Are you okay? Are you okay, Winnie?" I sang,  slightly altering the song as I swayed our hips back and forth together.  She laughed and held on as I spun us around and made the room blur. I'd  been singing along to every song that came on, and I was probably  having more fun than I'd ever had before.

Her skirt seemed to be getting shorter by the second, a helpful trick of  my unbelievably turned-on imagination, and her hair fell around her  face in loose waves. Her lips were bare and her eyes were open, and I  only wished I'd been sober enough to understand what I was seeing inside  them.

As Paula Abdul started to warn of a coldhearted snake, I glanced to the  jukebox to see Kline and Thatch hovering near it in a nearly hysterical  fit of glee. But I was feeling too good, and Winnie was feeling even  better in my arms, so instead of retreating into my shell, I sang to  Winnie and told her to look into his eyes as I held hers with my own,  and then ordered her not to play the fool.

When I asked if she thought he thought about her while he was out, I  knew everything in my body said I thought about her all the goddamn  time.

"Win," I groaned into the skin of her neck, touching just the tip of my tongue to the salt of her dewy-from-dancing skin.

She pulled away just enough to look me right in the eye and promise everything I was too stupid to ask for.

"Come on, Paula," she said with a smile that made my knees feel weak. "We'll go to my place. It's a very short walk from here."

My head spun as I thought of all the things her house meant. Good things  like beds and sex and the smell of her fucking everywhere, and bad  things like having way less control than I was used to and innocent ears  and the distinct possibility that I was going to be spending more than a  small portion of my morning with my head close to a bowl of water no  head should ever be close to.

"We can't go back to your house!" I said loudly. I might not have  noticed had she not shushed me with a small giggle and light, unburdened  eyes, but that look wasn't something any sane male would miss-drunk or  not.

"Little Lexi will sniff me out in a second." Realization of how my  conversations with Winnie's daughter normally went sent me into near  panic. "I'll never be able to pass her tests drunk! I can barely pass  when I'm sober," I admitted.

Winnie looked like she was trying not to laugh, but even more than that,  she looked like she already was. Apparently, I'd become endlessly  amusing.

"She's not there," she assured me.

And, thanks to my sluggish, impaired state of my mind, I only wondered why I was disappointed for a second.





It was a little after one in the morning when I unlocked my front door  and gestured for Wes to follow me inside. After a long day of rugby and  drinking-and a full week of work before that-I should have been  exhausted.

The funny thing about football with a professional team was that it was  both a marathon and a sprint, and this was the first Saturday I'd had  off since I started. The rest of the schedule was pretty much the same,  but when it came to the weekend of a bye week, apparently, it was time  to let your hair down and relax. Because, come Monday, it would be time  to make a mad dash to the end. Especially since we had a Thanksgiving  game this Thursday.

I set my purse and keys on the table in the foyer and watched Wes walk  through the small entryway and toward the living room. His eyes roamed  my home, not judging or assessing, just taking in all of the details  that made up my space. I wasn't much of a decorator, furnishing with a  simple sectional sofa and pictures of Lex and me and my family. I'd  never had time to acquire a whole bunch of knickknacks. I hadn't worked  less than a sixty-hour week in my entire career.

Wes walked the line of my couch and over to the mantle, touching a sweet  picture of Lexi's face turned up into the sun with one tentative  finger.

"So, this is it," I said with a shrug, a little uncomfortable with his quiet observation.