“Twelve million?” I take my eyes of traffic to shoot her a disbelieving look. “You want me to go in there with an offer that’s half the asking price?”
“I do. They’re not going to agree to it, and we know—worst-case scenario—that you’re willing and able to pay full price. But maybe we’ll get lucky. They’ll come back with a counteroffer of seventeen million or something. Shaving seven million dollars off the asking price is nothing to sneeze at.”
“Obviously.” I’m a little too shell-shocked to say anything more. When I first requested to work with Emerson, Kerry gave me the impression that she was very inexperienced, completely unable to hold her own in the world of high-end real estate. Obviously Kerry was bullshitting me, or she doesn’t know Emerson nearly as well as she likes to think that she does. Because the woman plotting next to me seems to know exactly what she’s doing.
Which is just one more turn-on for me, one more thing about her that makes me hard. I’ve never understood guys who wanted a whimpering damsel in distress. In my opinion, strength and confidence are so much sexier.
We spend the rest of the drive making small talk. It drives me crazy as I want to delve deeper than the weather with her. I want to know more than who her favorite football team is, though I’m glad it’s the Lightning.
Which is why, when I pull into the parking lot of her very run-down apartment building, I say, “I’ve got this thing I’m supposed to go to tomorrow night.”
“Thing?” she repeats, looking baffled.
“Jesus, I’m usually smoother at this kind of thing.” I give an awkward laugh, rub my hand over the back of my neck.
“Are you? Is that before or after you douse a woman with a dirty puddle?”
“After. Definitely after.” We both laugh then, and she looks beautiful, so beautiful, even under the dim parking light. I want to kiss her, want to take her upstairs, stretch her out on her bed and make love to her the way I wanted to this afternoon—until she’s hot and sweaty and has come so many times she can barely lift her head. Then I want to do it all over again.
But my phone vibrates in my pocket, reminding me that I have commitments waiting for me at home. So I table my very detailed, very explicit fantasies and cut right to the chase. “So that thing I mentioned. It’s a charity ball for Children’s Hospital. The Lightning sponsor it every year. I was going to do a hit-and-run on it—”
“A hit-and-run?” she interrupts.
“You know, just stop in as part of the whole command performance thing. Sign some autographs, thank the other donors, write a check to the hospital…It’s what I usually do. But I was thinking, maybe you’d like to go with me?”
“Go with you?” she repeats, and for the first time she looks as stunned as I’ve felt since she snapped that hundred dollar bill out of my hand and turned me head over fucking heels. “To a party hosted by the entire San Diego Lightning organization?”
“You’re squeaking. And turning red. Why are you squeaking and turning red?”
“Because Lightning. Tanner Green. Cameron Smith. Shawn Wilson!” She says Shawn’s name like he’s a god or something. Which he pretty much is, especially when it comes to yards rushed. But still…“You are aware that I’m Hunter Browning, right? Top quarterback in the league? Superbowl MVP—”
“Two years running, Heisman trophy winner, record holder for pass completion, yadda yadda yadda. I know exactly who you are. Don’t get your panties in a twist.”
My eyebrows shoot up. “My panties are not twisted. In fact, I’m not even wearing panties, thank you very much.”
“Well, isn’t that a funny coincidence,” she says, eyes lowered and voice all sultry. “Neither am I.”
And just like that, the temperature in the car shoots up ten degrees. “I am aware of that,” I say, sliding the panties in question out of my front pocket and twirling them around on my finger. “I very much enjoyed taking them off you, in fact.”
“Look at that. Another coincidence.” She slides her hand up my thigh. “So did I. Very much.”
All the blood in my head rushes about three feet south. She notices—of course she does—and her hand slips higher, until she’s lightly stroking my rock-hard cock through the denim of my jeans.
My hips snap up involuntarily, searching for more friction. More pressure. Something. But she just laughs and keeps her touch light. Teasing me. Tormenting me, until all I can think about is making her come. Making her scream.
It’s that thought that has me reaching for her. I slide my chair back at the same time, so that when I pull her onto my lap it’s cramped but not impossible. I grab her thighs, one in each hand, and push them open until she’s straddling me, her bare pussy settling down right over the hard ridge of my cock.
There’s a part of me that wants nothing more than to unzip my jeans and slide right up and into her. But I want the first time I’m inside her to be about more than a quickie on my way home. So I settle for slipping a hand under her skirt and up her thigh.
She gasps as I slide a little deeper, my fingers stroking along her slit. She’s wet already, wet and hot and so damn inviting I want nothing more than to bend my head and lick all her sweetness up. But our quarters are too tight for that, so I settle on pressing two fingers inside of her even as I rest my thumb against her clit and start to stroke.
Emerson begins moving then, rocking her hips against my hand as she struggles to take me deeper. I give her what she wants, sliding my fingers as deep inside her as I can, then crook them a little so they hit the spot inside of her that lights her up like the Super Bowl.
She moans then, leans forward like she wants to kiss me. But I don’t let her take even that much control. Instead, I thrust a hand into all those wild curls of hers and grab on tight. Then I tug her head back, just enough that she feels the prick on her scalp. Just enough that she realizes how utterly and completely at my mercy she is.
There’s a part of me that wants to kiss her, that wants to shove my tongue into her mouth for no other reason than to get another of my body parts inside of her any way that I can. But if I do that, I lose the view and I’m so not ready for that to happen yet.
She looks so beautiful, so goddamn beautiful and vulnerable and mine when she’s splayed on my lap like this.
Skirt around her hips.
Blouse strained over her tight nipples and swollen breasts.
Lips moist and open and gasping for breath.
Head pulled back to reveal the vulnerable curve of her throat.
Back arched.
Hair a wildfire spilling over my hand, my arm, her shoulders.
Eyes wide and locked to mine.
So goddamn beautiful.
“Hunter,” she whispers, and it’s a plea. More, it’s a demand, one I have no intention of ignoring.
“I’ve got you, baby,” I say as I scissor my fingers inside of her. Her eyes go dark and fuzzy at the movement, her hips straining forward. And that’s when I feel it, her pussy tightening around my fingers as she gets closer and closer to the edge. It feels so good that my own dick throbs in time to the mini-contractions.
My voice is a growl as I order, “Let go, Emerson,” at the same time I tap my thumb sharply against her clit.
And she does, with a loud cry as her body flies over the edge. I work her through the orgasm, grinding the heel of my hand against her clit as I thrust my fingers inside of her again and again. She’s almost sobbing now, her breath coming in strangled fits and starts that cause her whole body to shake.
Then, just as she’s coming down, I do it again, slamming my fingers inside her as I pinch her clit between my thumb and pinkie finger. She does scream then, another orgasm slamming through her fast and hard.
She’s gorgeous like this, so fucking gorgeous, and if I could I’d spend the night like this, making her come again and again and again. But even as I think it, my phone vibrates in my pocket and I know I’ve got to get home.
She comes down slowly, and I hold her
through it all. Stroking her back, pressing kisses to her damp, flushed skin. Trying to show her that she matters to me—that this thing we’re starting, whatever it is—matters to me, even though I’ve got to leave her.
“Well, that’s not quite how I was expecting this night to end,” she says when her breathing finally evens out.
“That’s a shame, cuz I think every evening I spend with you should end with you looking like this.”
“Sleepy?” she jokes.
“Relaxed,” I correct. “Sexy. Beautiful.”
“You are quite the charming one, aren’t you?”
“I try.”
“Oh, you do a lot more than try, I think.” She slides off my lap slowly, though I try to hold on for just a little longer. She feels good in my arms, better than anyone has in a really long time.
But when she reaches for my zipper, I pull her hand away and softly kiss the palm.
“What—”
“I’ve got to get going. There’s something at home I need to take care of.”
“You don’t want me to…”
“Oh, I want you to. Believe me. But it’ll wait.” I lean forward, press one, two, three kisses to her mouth. Then I climb out of the car and walk around to open her door for her.
“Which way is your apartment?” I ask as I help her out of the car.
“You don’t need to—”
“Which way?” I inject steel into my voice this time, watching as her eyes widen just a little in the dim light.
For a second it looks like she’s going to argue with me, but in the end she just sighs. “I’m two floors up,” she says, pointing to a rickety-looking staircase on our right.
I nod and clench my teeth to keep from saying something she’ll take the wrong way. I don’t like that she lives here but I’m smart enough to know that if I tell her that she’ll slap me back so fast my head will spin.
So I keep quiet as I close the car door and usher her toward the stairs, my hand on her lower back. When we get to her door—the first one next to the stairs, damn it—I say, “About tomorrow night. We don’t have to stay long if you don’t want. I just thought—”
“Thought what?” She looks up at me through her lashes, amusement dancing wickedly in her eyes.
And I suck it up, tell her exactly what I was thinking when I issued the invitation. “That I’d really like to dance with you.”
She stares at me for long seconds, looking for all the world like that was the last thing she expected me to say. Then she shakes her head and says, “What the fuck?”
Which is about the last thing I expected her to say. “Excuse me?”
She shakes her head. “I promised myself that I wasn’t going to swoon.”
“I don’t even know what that means.”
She sighs. “It means, after you kissed me in your truck yesterday I told myself I wasn’t going to get all stupid and swoony.”
“I don’t think ‘swoony’ is a word.”
“The point is, I wasn’t going to fall for you.”
That’s not quite what I was hoping to hear. Still, she’s got such ridiculous affection in her eyes as she says it that I can’t help asking, “And now?”
“And now you’re taking me to a ball because you want to dance with me.” She reaches up then, takes my face in her hands. “I’m totally going to fall for you and it’s totally going to be a mess. And right now I don’t even care because I think the fall is going to be worth the landing, no matter how hard it is.”
It takes a minute for her words to sink in. When they do, I pull away to glare at her. “Well, that’s a shitty thing to say.”
She looks shocked, like she can’t believe I just called her on her bullshit. But come on. “Seriously? Who does that? Who announces she’s falling for a guy with one breath and then tells him with her next that she’s already preparing for the end? That’s completely uncool.”
I don’t know why I’m so outraged, but I am. Maybe it’s because of her obvious distrust of me. Maybe it’s because I’m as far into this thing as I can be right now, and she’s already got a foot out the door. Or maybe it’s because of how inevitable she makes the whole thing sound. I know inevitable. I’m living inevitable right now, trying to figure out how to say goodbye to a woman who is not just my twin sister but my best friend, and I resent the hell out of Emerson for acting like whatever relationship we develop is already as doomed as the one I have with the woman I have loved for my entire life.
“I was just trying to be realistic. You’re a world famous football player and I’m a nobody trying to make ends meet. I’m just saying we know how this ends.”
“So you know how this is going to end?” I cross my arms over my chest, prop my shoulder against the wall. “Why don’t you go ahead and fill me in, then?”
She rolls her eyes. “Look, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to offend you.”
She doesn’t sound sorry. She sounds like she thinks I’m being completely crazy. And maybe she’s right. Maybe I am. Then again, I’ve felt crazy ever since I first saw that see-through white shirt plastered to her beautiful breasts.
“I was just trying to reassure you that I don’t expect anything,” she continues. “I—”
“Maybe that’s the problem. Maybe you should expect something.”
“I…what?” Now she looks as confused as I feel. “We just met.”
“I know. But I think it’s pretty obvious that I like you. I know I was kind of a douche yesterday and I’m sorry about that, but you just said you were falling for me. And while I agree that neither of us knows where this thing between us is going, I think we can also agree that that means we don’t know where we’re going to end up. So why don’t you just cut out all the low expectations and eyes-wide-open crap and let’s see what happens. For real and not just in your worst-case-scenario imagination.” The words just spew out, tumbling out of my mouth one right after the other until I literally run out of breath.
It’s only when I pause to take a new breath that Emerson gets a word in edgewise. Or three words, to be more precise. And they aren’t at all what I’m expecting.
“You’re so weird.”
“Excuse me?” I say when I finally manage to close my mouth.
“I said you’re weird. And not at all like I expected the great Hunter Browning to be.”
“Are you freaking kidding me with this?”
“I’m not, no.”
“Wow. That’s nice. I pour my fricking heart out to you and you just—”
“Whoa, there, dude. First of all, if that was pouring your heart out to me, that’s a little pathetic. Not to mention weird, considering we haven’t even known each other forty-eight hours yet.”
I start to say something, and she slaps a hand over my mouth. “And second,” she says, all loud and bossy-like, “You’re in luck. Because I happen to like weird. A lot. So, yes, I’ll go to this charity ball thing with you tomorrow. And I’ll dance with you all night, if that’s what you want. And then I’ll let you bring me back here and, more than likely, will let you persuade me to do anything else you might be interested in. Okay?”
Actually, I’m not sure if it is okay. But I’m also smart enough to know when to quit while I’m ahead. If I’ve learned anything through the years, it’s that when playing the long game, there’s no use leaving it all on the field in the first quarter.
Chapter 16
My phone vibrates as I’m walking back to the car. I pick it up, see that Lucy has texted me again, asking when I’ll be home. I fire off a quick text to her, telling her I’m on my way. Then I jog the rest of the way to my car.
I’ve just pulled out of my parking space when I get another text. This one’s asking for ice cream, and I pull over to the curb so I can ask what kind she and Brent want me to bring home. I’m waiting for the answer when I happen to glance up and see Emerson walking across the parking lot.
She doesn’t see me—I’m in the shadowy part of the lot, about halfway to the st
reet—and I start to open my window, to call out to her. But she stops a few car lengths in front of me, right under one of the dim parking lot lights. And I watch, confused, as she opens the driver’s side door of a beat up–looking Corolla.
Confused, I watch as she slides into the driver’s seat. It doesn’t look like she’s planning on going anywhere—she keeps the door open and one foot on the asphalt parking lot—but that just confuses me more. Especially since she told me her car was in the shop.
It’s only as she tries to turn the car on—to no avail—that I realize what’s happening. It’s not that her car is in the shop. It’s that it’s broken down in the parking lot. And judging from the defeated slump of her shoulders as she climbs back out of the Corolla, it’s been that way for a while. The fact that she hasn’t had it towed tells me she can’t afford to fix it and that hits me where it hurts.
I know she’ll get a good commission from me buying the La Jolla house, but the sale won’t go through for at least thirty days. How is she going to get to work between now and then? And what would she have done if I hadn’t met her yesterday morning and demanded that Kerry let her work with me?
I can’t stand the idea of her living in this shithole, and I really can’t stand the idea of her waiting for a bus or asking someone for a ride in this neighborhood. God only knows what could happen to her.
Speaking of which…I watch as she makes her way back across the parking lot and up the stairs. And while I have the answer to the question I texted my niece earlier—rocky road—I don’t pull out of the parking lot until I see Emerson disappear into her apartment, shutting the door firmly behind her.
I spend my twenty-minute ride home worrying about her, trying to figure out what to do about her dilemma. I’d buy her a new car, no strings attached, if she’d let me. I’m pretty sure she won’t, otherwise she wouldn’t have lied to me about it. But what am I supposed to do? Just merrily go on my way, buying a twenty-four-million-dollar house, knowing that the woman I’m sleeping with can’t even get her car fixed?