“You’re killing me.” I laced my fingers over my head.
“I should have told you my name, but I knew if I did, you’d stop. And it felt so good. So, so, so good. And I just wanted to live in that moment where you wanted me because I’ve always wanted you. Always wondered what it would be like to spend a night with you. Always wondered what it would take for you to look at me like a woman instead of the seventeen-year-old kid whose jaw-dropped when Dad brought you home for dinner.”
The admission nearly broke me. I blew out a long, slow breath, but this wasn’t some candle to huff out. This was a fire, and she’d just fanned the flames.
“You were never a kid to me.” I’d been a twenty-two-year-old rookie who’d known better than to look at teenage girls. She’d been Coach’s daughter, someone to look after, to care for, but never to touch.
Then she turned twenty, and I’d looked, cursing myself the whole time.
Now she was twenty-one, and I’d touched, and couldn’t bring myself to regret it, but that didn’t mean I was going to dirty her up with hands that had no business on all that alabaster skin.
“Then don’t treat me like one.” She squared her shoulders but tugged on the star pendant of her necklace that hung just beneath the space in her collarbone. The star that had given her away at the gallery and did the same thing now. It was her nervous tell.
“It should be special. Your first time.” My hands fell to my sides. “It should be candles and roses and long, long hours that leave you limp and satisfied—”
“Then give me that.” Her gaze turned hot.
“—and it shouldn’t be because of an arrangement you make. It’s not a business transaction, Savannah.”
“I’ve heard the first time can hurt,” she said softly.
Just thinking about sliding deep inside her, feeling her tighten around my cock— I swallowed. “Not for everyone, but yeah. Especially if your partner doesn’t know what he’s doing.” Shit. Had I even known what I’d been doing in college? Would some non-experienced idiot fumble his way into her panties? Push her before she was ready? Take her without making it good for her? Without getting her off once, let alone twice or more?
“I somehow think you know what you’re doing.” Her eyes flashed with victory as if she could read my thoughts.
Hell yes, I did. I’d lick her to her first orgasm before I even thought about stretching her with my fingers. That would be for the second. The third? You have to stop.
“You wouldn’t hurt me,” she said, finally twisting open her water and taking a long drink. “You’re too good at taking care of me to hurt me. Not emotionally or physically if it can be helped. I’d be safe with you.” She put the water down on the windowsill like punctuation—like it had proved her point.
Fuck my life, she was right. “Savannah…”
“I’ll give you a few days to think it over.” She tucked her thumbs into the pockets of her very tiny shorts. The damn things were so small the pockets hung beneath the hem, exposing her incredible thighs. “I want it to be you, Hendrix. But make no mistake—this is a decision I’m making for me. I’m done carrying around my virginity like some designer purse for someone to steal like it’s a trophy. If you don’t want it to be you, that’s okay. I’ll just have to choose someone else.” She turned and walked out of the boathouse.
A few moments later, I heard her car drive away.
“Fuck!” I shouted to the heavens, to my own demons, to whomever was willing to listen.
I wanted it to be me, but that didn’t mean it could be.
“Holy shit, you almost took my head off with that one,” Weston cursed, winding up and throwing the football back at me.
“Sorry.” I caught it easily—that was my job, after all. A job he paid me millions a year to do with as much accuracy as possible.
“It’s okay, but if I wanted to die in my own backyard, I’d ask Nixon to throw with me,” He called across the twenty feet that separated us in his backyard.
“Nixon is in Brazil.” I tossed it back in a perfect spiral. “Besides, you’ve been throwing with me since high school. You’re just a creature of habit.”
“You know what I mean, jackass.” He grinned as he caught it this time, sporting a Raptor tee and athletic shorts instead of his normal business suit.
Usually, we used our once-a-week facetime to catch up. The fact that we’d been friends since high school wasn’t broadly advertised among the Raptors. Not because I was embarrassed, but because I didn’t want anyone thinking that’s how I’d gotten my contract. The fact that Weston’s dad had died our senior year of college, leaving him more money than God and an NFL team was a coincidence. Kind of.
But today, I was distracted. Itchy. Tense.
It had been two days since Savannah had shown up at the boathouse, offering her body on a silver platter with a polite little please. But there was nothing polite about the things I wanted to do to her—the things playing over and over in my mind.
“What’s your issue?” Weston tossed the ball.
“I’m fine.” I caught it.
“Say that to someone who doesn’t know you. You’ll have a better chance at playing them off with a little smirk.”
I threw it a little harder.
“Oof.” He grunted as he caught it, then tilted his head at me, doing that little appraisal he was known for. Weston’s dad had been a numbers guy—turned money into more money while he slept. Weston, however, had a unique ability to read people.
An ability I cursed as he crossed the grass.
“Spill it,” he said when he got close enough to stop shouting. Not that there was anyone around.
“There’s nothing.” My jaw ticked. Since signing with the Raptors, there were definite lines I couldn’t cross with Weston, and this was one of them. Giving in to Savannah jeopardized my position on the team. Even if we kept it quiet, there was always the chance of Coach finding out.
“You have the same look on your face that you did junior year when Daisy Rodriguez dumped you after the state finals.” He stuck the ball under his arm and lowered his sunglasses, staring at me over the frames.
“She’d moved on to the next sport,” I joked. “Besides, we handled that with punching bags and what? Cliff diving, right?”
Weston laughed. “Yeah, well, those hands are insured for a million dollars, and I’m pretty sure your contract keeps you from doing stupid shit with me these days.” The guy was an adrenaline junkie—that hadn’t changed.
“You can’t help me with this one anyway,” I answered with a shrug. “I can’t remember... you ever want something you couldn’t have?”
“Besides my father’s love and affection?” he joked.
I shook my head at his self-deprecating humor. “This is something that could go badly. So badly.”
“Oh, really?” His eyebrows lifted, always up for anything that spiked his blood pressure. “Would this something be a woman?”
“Maybe. You’re better off not knowing.”
“The possibilities are endless when you put it that way.” He slipped his phone from his pocket and answered a text. “Brynn just got here with some papers,” he said in explanation. “I’ve never known from you to back down from a challenge.”