His brow furrowed. “You’re leaving again in less than forty-eight hours?”
“Unfortunately, yes.” I set my brush on the counter and turned to face him. “It was the only way to fit the shoot in.”
I sensed his frustration and moved toward him, wrapping my arms around his waist and placing a soft kiss on his chest. “Don’t worry, honey. I’ll make sure you have plenty of time to fuck my brains out before I leave again.”
I glanced up at him, and he quirked a brow. “Better you than me,” he murmured, almost to himself. “These days, I’m not sure I have all that many brain cells left to waste.”
Head down with my chin to my chest to protect against the chilly October wind, I moved swiftly from the hired town car to my plane and jogged up the stairs. Tonight, I was headed out to Phoenix for Sunday’s away game.
My personal flight attendant, Janine, stood waiting to greet me as I ducked through the door. “You’re the last one, Mr. Lancaster,” she told me with a smile.
“Well, nothing new there, huh?” I replied easily because it was true.
I knew it wasn’t fair to the people waiting for me, but I’d made quite the name for myself in the being-late department. There always seemed to be just one more person waiting to talk to me about some issue or some phone call to answer. A last-minute email asking for staff approval or a change to the menu at BAD. A fight between chef and sous-chef and what I wanted to do about it, and if I liked the blue or the red lights for the bar makeover.
There was always something that needed attention, and most of the time, I loved it. I loved to be busy and needed, and it made me feel good to put so much time and input into everything I did. But there really weren’t enough waking hours in the day, and because of that, I was always fifteen minutes late. Always.
Three sets of blue eyes hit me like a wave of water as I turned to the cabin and took a step forward.
All three women looked at me in their own way, but they all managed to say the same terrifying thing without actually speaking the words aloud: I’ve been designed to bring a man to his knees.
“Christ. I definitely didn’t think this through,” I muttered with a cheeky grin. “I should have flown commercial.”
Georgia was the first to move, jumping up to greet me with a friendly hug. She laughed through it and then pulled back to look me in the eyes. “Aw, come on, Wesley. Three big, bad girls scare you enough to brave the wilds of commercial air travel?”
“Yes,” Frankie Hart, my GM for the Mavericks, mumbled from the other side of the aisle, but he was smiling when all of our eyes shifted to him. “Just kidding.”
Cassie’s and Winnie’s contempt melted into contentment like chocolate on a hot day.
Georgia’s smile never wavered. She’d known Frankie longer, and she liked him and his good-natured humor enough to call him Uncle Frankie on occasion.
It freaked me out a little, but I think that was mostly because I’d never gotten to know him on anything more than a professional level.
And whose fault is that?
As Frankie put earbuds in his ears and opened his laptop to old game footage, Georgia dragged me over to sit with her and the women. I looked over my shoulder at Frankie and his laptop longingly. He was kind enough to spend only five seconds silently laughing at me.
Janine walked the aisle from the back of the plane to the front and asked all of us to fasten our seatbelts. I settled in and did as she asked, swiping the screen of my phone to unlock it and getting lost in the land of correspondence rather than becoming the fourth hen in the coop.
They filled the silence with mindless chatter about shoes and skirts and hair color and something godawful called Jamberry Nails, as we taxied out onto the runway and turned into position for takeoff. The engines roared as the pilot throttled forward, and I cracked my neck back and forth a couple of times to fight off a kink.
The fall air lifted us up and into the sky easily enough, and a piercing ray from the setting sun hit my eye like a laser.
Winnie didn’t say much, as though she was content to let the Georgia and Cassie duo do most of the talking. I glanced in her direction a couple of times, but I avoided eye contact carefully. It felt safer to follow the line of her silky legs as they disappeared under her skirt or count the number of times her stiletto-clad toe tapped the carpeted floor.
I wasn’t looking to get caught, no matter what I was looking at, so after giving myself the opportunity to make a full-body circuit twice, I turned my attention back to my phone.
Well. Except for my ears. They were still highly trained on the babbling conversation of three beautiful women.
“Who’s watching Lexi?” Cassie asked, and I couldn’t stop myself from peeking up from the email I was typing to glance at Winnie.
I knew she had a kid, but I tried not to think about it.
And yes, I’m well aware that makes me sound like an asshole. But remember how busy I said I am? Kids take all kinds of time and energy. Not in the bad way, they just deserve someone who can give them everything. Every effort, countless moments, and endless encouragement. I’m the guy who would show up fifteen minutes late to the recital—if at all.
I fucking knew the kid complicated going there, but my dick didn’t want to hear it. He wanted her—I wanted her—and ignoring the kid seemed like the only acceptable compromise, for the time being.
“My brother Remy,” she answered easily, and my half-assed attention immediately kicked into overdrive.
Remy. Her brother.
She’d pretty easily left out that little detail when I’d had my tantrum in her office. I’d tried pretty hard to lock it down, but I’d been instantly jealous at the sight of another guy’s name on her phone.
I’m insane. It’s not like she belongs to me.
“Does Remy watch her a lot?” Georgia asked, but my mind turned down the volume on her voice and started to run through its own commentary.
Jesus. I needed to remind myself of a few things here. Kids were fucking sticky and needy and always had a knack for interrupting all pleasurable activities with the need to shit, vomit, or exercise some other disgusting bodily function.
You don’t need a goddamn woman with a kid. No matter how fucking sexy she is.
Her white shirt looked crisp against her tan skin, and the dusky gray-blue of her eyes flicked to me on more than one occasion. Georgia and Cassie didn’t seem to notice, too busy cackling and laughing with one another, but I sure did.
My cock was half hard behind the fly of my pants.
Jam hands, I told myself. Remember that kids always have sticky goddamn jam hands.
“It’s usually Remy,” Winnie went on, and my ears perked back up at the rough rasp of her authoritative voice. “If not him, one of my other brothers is usually free.”
How many fucking brothers did she have?
“How many fucking brothers do you have?” Cassie asked, and I nearly seized up at the realization that crazy Cassie Phillips and I were traveling the same road of thinking.
Though, hers probably had considerably fewer visualizations of Winnie’s naked body on all the billboards.
Winnie’s laugh rang in my ears. “Four. Remy, Jude, Ty, and Flynn.”
“Fucking hell. One shy of a basketball team,” Cassie commented, and Georgia’s eyebrows pulled together as if she was mentally trying to figure out if Cassie was correct. I laughed at that.