“If a certain player can get my ticket again, I’d love to.” She tilted her head and her gaze bounced up and away again.
I didn’t want that. I wanted her gaze on me. Her thoughts on me. Her body screaming out for me as much as mine yearned for hers.
“That can be arranged, especially if you keep promising me after-game treats. Consolation or celebration, I’m up for them anytime.”
Her laugh came out as a tight stutter. “That could be interpreted as a little dirty.”
I’d hire a damn skywriter if that’s what it took.
“If it still needs interpretation, maybe I should be a bit clearer.” I ran my finger under her chin.
Her gaze lifted away from the box to meet mine. “Clearer?”
“I dropped my pads and wrapped my arm around her back, sinking one hand into her hair, letting my fingers wind around her silky, inky curls.
A small gasp shot from her lips and I couldn’t hold back my smile. I was filled with the feeling that made you forget everything else and want to bottle up that single moment of pure, unrelenting and unparalleled joy. “Much.” And I wasn’t taking any chances this time. Voices rang out against the concrete around us. Players, coaches, and everyone else in this gridiron circus flowed past us, past our little island in the middle of madness. But I couldn’t hold it back any longer; like a dam in a torrential rain storm, I was overwhelmed by her. And kissed the shit out of her. The electric fire of desire coursed through my veins and the only antidote was her touch.”
“Your lips make me forget about everything else. They make me forget about losing, about the hundred people in the hallway beside us, about anything not centered on this mouth. How’d you get so fucking sweet, Jules?”
Berkley Vaughn kissed me, Julia Kelland.”
“Not quite yet.” I grabbed onto the support pole beside me and swung around, letting one more dart hit him square in his chest.
He stared back at me, slack jawed, watching the orange and blue tipped Styrofoam fall to the ground. “You shot me.”
“You said it was every man for himself.”
“She was so gorgeous it hurt not to touch her.”
“Jules let a curse fly here and there and glanced around like the swear police would come lock her up.
Jules baked congrats cupcakes for my game.
Jules was here with me when she could be anywhere else.
Jules was a secret sexy goddess who had a pole in her bedroom.
I couldn’t hold back my smile. How had I ever not seen how brave she was? How indescribably beautiful?”
“I couldn’t stop myself. The perfect curve of her eyelashes. The small indents on either side of her nose from her glasses. The way her full lips parted as she breathed. I wound a strand of her hair around my finger. She was soft and warm nestled against me.”
“Her eyelids fluttered and I rested my head against the pillow, trying to pretend I hadn’t been committing every line of her face to memory.”
“She stared into my eyes with so much openness and joy it made me want to keep her in bed and show her every single way she was mine.”
“The warm, early-morning sun streaked through her slatted blinds, lighting up her hair and making the deep chestnut brown glow. The gentle swell of her curves was pressed against my body.
Everything about her made me want to never let her go. She was the kind of woman I’d dreamed of one day being at my side. Beautiful. So warm and caring,”
“Sounds like a date.” She laid on her side with her head propped up on her arm. Her hair was all over the place and her eyes looked even bigger without her glasses on. Eyelashes framed those beautiful chocolate eyes currently raking their way up and down my body.
“It sure does.” I kissed the tip of her nose.
This was a perfect moment, the kind they make slow motion in a movie so you get every excruciating detail of the action. Her beauty was heart-stopping. The kind where you know someone inside and out, and everything about them only takes what you already liked to the next level”
“Good. I’ll miss you.” He took my chin between his thumb and finger and laid a kiss on me. This was a gasping-for-breath, forget-your-name kind of kiss that only reminded me of his promise and exactly what we’d done two nights before. “And I’m counting down the days until I’m back here. Will you wear a skirt for me again?”
“I don’t care if it’s made out of toilet paper. I want to see those legs.”
I laughed against his lips.
With one more planted kiss, he let me go and jogged around to the front of his car.
“How she looked at me and saw so much of me I never let anyone else see. How with my arms wrapped around her, I felt safe, and the closest I’d ever come to having a home. She was the most beautiful thing in the world to me and it scared me more than losing the next game or not making the draft. Because I’d never had anything as beautiful as her in my life.”
“Jules covered my hand with hers. There was a tightness in my chest. One that wasn’t from pain or hurt, but from how hard it was to contain all the feelings she brought out in me. ”
He nuzzled the top of my head. “There’s nothing I forget when it comes to you.”
“watching Jules run around in an adorable blue and purple knit hat with a white pompom on top made me want to move to a winter wonderland. Her cheeks were bright red. The dark wisps of her hair stuck out from the bottom of her hat as she ran around with her arms out at her sides, getting covered with flakes like the most beautiful statue ever sculpted.
“Do you think we’ll get enough to make a snow man?” She opened her mouth, catching flakes on her tongue and laughed. The snow whipped at us from all angles. The flakes clung to her eyelashes under her glasses, and the sight left me breathless. Another piece of my heart mailed to her in that second in a signed, sealed, and delivered envelope. I could imagine her doing the same thing with two little kids at her side, a boy and a girl that both looked just like her.”
“If I’m ever snowed in anywhere, I want to be snowed in with you.”
“Not that she ever made me feel like I was a kid from the wrong side of the tracks, which made me want to give her the moon and stars. She deserved them. Every single one.”
