Plays well with others, p.16
Plays Well With Others, page 16
We hunt through the stands, stopping first at the eggplants—because how can you not make an eggplant joke at a farmers’ market, and these purple veggies are big. But at the next stand, she finds a kohlrabi, a pale green bulb thing with leaves that look like they could commit murder. “Those leaves want to kill me,” I say to the camera.
“Don’t cross them, Carter,” she says.
Next, we find a neon green vegetable that looks like cauliflower. But also broccoli. I hold it up while she shoots. “Now, let’s be honest—is this broccoli’s cousin or cauliflower’s?”
“Or maybe it’s related to a sea urchin,” she says, then tells me it’s Romanesco broccoli. “And it tastes good.”
“I’ll take your word for it,” I say.
“Or you could let me cook it for you. Since that’s another great thing about farmers’ markets. They can be the starting point of a two-part date. Shop and eat,” she says, on a hopeful note.
But with a hint of innuendo too.
Which means it’s time to turn off the camera. “I do want to eat,” I say in a low voice, letting her connect the dots. That shouldn’t be hard to do.
Her lips part, and a greedy breath seems to ghost across them. Ah hell, I’m desperate to kiss her in public, too, but Date Night would have a field day if I did that. They’d say we’re a thing, and then people would get excited, like they did about Quinn and me, and then I’d have to say we’re not together.
Not for real.
Just for lessons.
And fuck that.
I don’t want to explain what we’re doing to anyone. It’s private, and I want the rest of this night to be private too.
Starting now.
“Want to get out of here?” I ask quietly, but a voice interrupts my thoughts.
A booming voice from a few feet away. “Dude. That loss sucked last night.”
I groan, but then slap on a smile. It was inevitable that we’d run into a fan.
I turn around. “Hey, man,” I say to a guy wearing a Renegades sweatshirt. Don’t know him but the sympathetic look on his face tells me he’s a hardcore fan.
“Good game, Hendrix. But that was a tough loss. Why did Cafferty overthrow?”
Immediately, I shake my head. I won’t let my QB take the blame. “My fault, not his. I should have been farther downfield.”
We talk about the game for another minute, but when the guy leaves with a next time you’ll win, my mood is right back on the game where I don’t want it at all. Since that also means it’s back on what I’m not telling Rachel.
Like I was with Cafferty, I’m quiet as we stop at a few more stalls. Rachel tries to make small talk, but I mostly grunt till she pulls me to a quiet corner, away from the market, out by the dock. “Hey, it’s girlfriend lessons time,” she says.
I blink, confused. “What do you mean?”
“I think you’re the one covering something up,” she says, gently. “And maybe as part of these girlfriend lessons, you could tell me what it is and see if I can help. Because I think I know what it is.”
I gulp, this close to busted. “Yeah?”
“You’re still bummed about the game,” she says, reading me perfectly, just like Cafferty did. Maybe I don’t have a good poker face.
I wince, feeling stupid. Feeling like a fucking rookie. “It’s nothing,” I mutter.
She sets a hand on my arm in a reassuring touch. “It’s your job. It’s your passion. It’s your love. It’s okay if you’re frustrated about the loss. It was a tough one.”
My jaw tics. It was. And I should not be worked up about it a day later. “It’s fine.”
“Carter,” she says, in a tone that makes it clear she doesn’t buy my denial. “I get it if you don’t want to talk about it. And I don’t want to make you talk. I’m just saying I understand bad days. Mine are different than yours. I don’t have people watching me on TV, but I’ve had them at work and you’ve helped me through mine.”
Ah, hell. She’s right. She opened up to me. I’m shutting her down, and I know why.
I sigh then serve up a slice of vulnerability. “I want you to see what it’s like to have an awesome boyfriend, not someone who’s in a funk over a loss,” I admit.
She presses her lips together and her eyes shine. Shit. I’m making her cry again.
“Rachel, I didn’t want to upset you.”
“I’m not upset,” she says, a little wobbly, but she’s also smiling? What the hell is going on?
“You’re not upset?”
She shakes her head, adamant. “I’m happy you’re telling me the truth. I want to know. I like it when you’re open with me.”
I should have let her in. I shouldn’t have tried to be Mister Happy all the time. I should have told her the truth, even if it’s boyfriend territory. “Sometimes I get moody when we lose,” I admit, then shrug, a little helplessly, a little vulnerable.
Or maybe a lot. That’s new for me too. Opening up like that about my feelings.
“That makes perfect sense. Sometimes I get moody when I have a bad day too,” she says, then looks around at the nearby crowds. “And when I have a bad day, I don’t want to be around everyone.” She tips her forehead to the exit. “So, do you want to get out of here and make dinner?”
It’s like a weight is lifted off me for real. A weight I’ve felt since last night when I shut her down. Since I shut me down. “I do.”
On the way out, I swing by a flower stall and buy her a bouquet of wildflowers. I hand them to her as we leave. “I love these,” she says, smelling them.
“I know.”
The look in her eyes says we both learned a little something from tonight’s lesson.
We go to my place and make dinner—the sea urchin thingy, some eggplants and mushrooms, and some rotisserie chicken I picked up earlier. As we cook, I tell her more of what I didn’t say earlier. “I didn’t think you’d want to know,” I admit.
“But I do want to know,” she says.
She doesn’t add as your friend.
I’m sure that’s what she means though. And I’m sure I’m okay with it. Truly. I have to be.
When we’re nearly done eating, my phone alarm beeps. Ask Rachel about Halloween party. I scan the screen.
Her eyes light up as she reads it. “A party?”
“You like to dress up?”
“I do,” she says.
“Good. But once we’re done eating, I’d like to undress you.”
She sets her napkin next to the plate with a flourish. “What a coincidence. I’m done.”
24
FACE TIME
Rachel
Three things I never thought I’d know.
1. Carter’s bed is bigger than mine, and I’m going to be spending a lot of time in it on my back in the next hour.
2. His brown eyes go from warm to molten when he touches me.
3. Make that sizzling, as he’s just discovered the last remnants of the mark he left on me last week.
We’re standing near the foot of his bed. My shirt is off, and he runs his fingers around the border of the bruise above my breasts, staring at it, mesmerized, seeming proud of it. “This is beautiful on you,” he murmurs in a voice that’s deep and full of longing. He can’t take his eyes off it.
“All week it felt like my secret,” I confess.
He dips his face to it, kisses it a little reverently. “I can give you more secrets,” he says, pulling back to regard the last traces of the mark on my flesh as he skims a hand over my white lace bralette. “But first, remember the other night when I said it’s fun to ask for what you want in bed?”
How could I forget? It’s one of the first lessons he taught me. Something I should have known at this point in my life. But something that wasn’t part of my education. “I do.”
With a satisfied smirk, he plucks at the fabric of his Henley. “Take my shirt off,” he rasps out as he gives the instruction. “I like it when you strip me.” There’s a hint of vulnerability in his voice right along with heat.
Those are two things that feel brand new and wonderful to me—heat and vulnerability in a man.
With trembling but excited fingers, I reach for the hem and slowly peel it off, savoring the reveal of his muscles and his skin as I go. When it’s off, he takes my hands and presses them against his chest then runs them down it, shuddering as I go.
I’m learning so much about him after dark. He’s really into my hands on his chest and his stomach. He likes when I touch his shoulders, his pecs, his abs. And I’m the cartographer who likes mapping his body.
“There’s something I like to do in bed,” he says a little dreamily as I explore him more.
“What is it?”
He stops my exploration, holding my hands in his for a second. “I need to talk. I need to tell you the things I want to do to you. I want to work you up with words.”
I knew that about him, but a pulse beats between my legs as he says it so plainly. “It’s working. Keep going,” I whisper.
“Good,” he says, as he unbuttons the top button on my jeans then teases at the zipper. “Because I want to spread you out on my bed and spend a good long time with my face buried between your thighs. That work for you?”
I love his lessons so much. “Yes,” I say, ever the eager student.
He tucks a finger under my chin, making me meet his gaze as he asks one more question: “Think you’d like that, sweetheart?”
He didn’t ask if I do like it. He knows my past hasn’t given me a lot of clues into my own likes and dislikes. But he wants to give me my fantasies. To make them real. And I want to discover what they are with him. So, taking a cue from him, I say invitingly, “Find out.”
Carter grabs my chin a little rough, digging his thumb along my jawline. Hard. Like the way he bit my chest the other night. “Then I’m going to strip you naked right now, and eat you up,” he says.
In a flurry my jeans are off, then my lacy bralette. He’s backing me up to the bed, his hunger evident in his eyes, in his breath, even in his nipples.
They’re hard.
Am I into his nipples? Is that a kink of mine? I think it might be.
But there’s no time to contemplate kinks when he skims off my panties, pushes a hand to my stomach, and shoves me onto the bed.
A little aggressively, and I like it.
I scoot up the bed and he follows, stalking me. He catches me by my ankles, with narrowed eyes. Then he slides those big hands up my legs to the inside of my knees and spreads me wide open.
For a few suspended seconds, he doesn’t move. Just gazes at my pussy as he groans. It’s a little uncomfortable, his eyes on me like this. His gaze, so intense, so unforgiving. So different. No one has ever stared at me like this. He breaks the stare and dips his face to my thigh, brushing a soft kiss before he lifts his head again to meet my gaze. “You wanted to know how a man takes care of his woman?”
“Yes.”
“I’m going to show you how this man takes care of you with his mouth.”
I have no more words. I’m nothing but a raw, vibrating nerve of desire.
But it’s been a while since a man went down on me and meant it. And I can’t quite fully relax when Carter kisses the inside of my thighs. I’m still tense, even as he murmurs against my skin. My mind races with questions.
What do I do with all this want inside me? What if I have too much desire? What if he doesn’t receive it? What if—
“Oh god,” I groan, unbidden, when he kisses my clit. The sound is chased by a gasp from the center of my soul.
I can feel him smiling wickedly against me. I feel his want completely now. And I relax into it.
In seconds, my hands are in his hair and he’s French kissing my pussy. He’s thorough, kissing and sucking, swirling and flicking. Lapping up all my wetness like it’s his sustenance.
He goes down on a woman like he plays football. He holds nothing back. He leaves it all on the bed as he worships me with his lips and mouth and tongue.
His scruff scrapes my thigh, and his hands spread me wide open, holding my legs so that I have to submit to his mouth.
To his desire too.
I grip his hair, watching him eat me till he’s groaning, gripping my ass hard, and…oh, god…he’s so aroused he’s humping the bed.
It’s such a filthy, beautiful sight, his need. I’m rocking against his face, letting go of all the what ifs, giving in completely.
But abruptly, he stops and springs up to stand.
Tension slams back into me. I close my legs. “What? Is everything okay?”
“I need you to do something,” he says as he shucks off his jeans in seconds, like he’s entering a contest for clothing removal.
“Tell me.” I sound desperate. I feel desperate to know we’re okay.
“Sit on my face,” he says.
Ohhh.
Oh, yes.
I pant out a yes as he pushes off his boxer briefs.
His dick is hard and throbbing. He gives it a tug. I nearly lose my mind. He prowls back onto the bed, grabs my hips, and jerks me on top of him. He’s not gentle. He’s rough and hungry. “Ride me, baby. Don’t hold back.”
I don’t know if this is a sex lesson or a Carter demand, but I’ll take either one. “I’ve never done it like this before,” I whisper.
His smile is filthy. Full of pride too. “Give me that first. Give it to me now.”
He smacks my ass hard, urging me closer to his mouth. For a second, I think about what I’m doing, and it’s a little absurd—humping a man’s face with my pussy.
But an order is an order.
I straddle him, and he yanks me down. I reach for the headboard, needing something to hold onto. As I rock against him, I look behind me, my gaze traveling the length of his hard body to his cock.
Thick, hungry, and leaking at the tip.
I ache, and I chase that ache on his face. Taking a page from his playbook, I don’t hold back either. I use him—his mouth and his scruff and his lips until I’m tossing my head back and shouting his name. My world turns black and beautiful as I detonate, sinking into a land of chaotic, erotic bliss.
One I’d like to spend a lot more time in with him.
Somehow, the night gets even better when he grips my hips and gently moves me off him. With a dark intensity in his eyes, he drags me under him, staring hotly down at me as he straddles my belly. He strokes his hungry cock. “Let me fuck your tits.”
There is only one answer. “Yes.”
He looks like I just gave him the keys to the kingdom as he moves over me, straddling my chest, then sliding that big dick between my boobs as I push them together, creating a warm tunnel for his greedy cock.
“Ever since that day, I’ve wanted to play with them, touch them. Fuck them. Love your tits. Just fucking love them.”
I don’t know why, but I wasn’t expecting that confession. I didn’t think the sight of half-naked me had done it for him. I love being wrong so much that I whisper, “Fuck me hard.”
“Yeah?” It’s a rough scrape of a question.
“Do it. Use me.”
“Oh, fuck, baby,” he says. Then he pumps faster, one hand on the headboard, the other in my hair. As I squeeze my breasts closer together, giving him more friction as he goes, I gaze up at him and he’s different…
In bed, he’s Carter unleashed. He’s raw and savage, and it’s such a thrill to experience this side of him.
I stick out my tongue, as an offering. His whole body shakes. He stops thrusting and he rubs his cock against my lips. “Lick the tip, baby,” he says, urging my mouth open more. “Tease me with your tongue.”
His desperation is an aphrodisiac and I can feel myself gushing again, even though I just came. I swirl my tongue around the head, then say, “Next time, I want to learn how to suck your dick. I want you to teach me how to take it all the way. Will you? Can you?”
He shudders, his eyes squeezing shut. “Fuck yes,” he mutters, and when he opens them he slides down me and drops his mouth to mine, lavishing a hungry kiss there. “I have to fuck you now.”
Have to. He has to.
“Yes. You do,” I say.
He grabs a condom from the nightstand, puts me on all fours, and lines up behind me.
If he’s Carter unleashed, I think I’m Rachel unleashed. Because I’m saying things I’ve never said. Things I’m discovering I love saying. Like…“Fuck me.”
“I’ll fuck you so good,” he says as he sinks into me.
I repeat it again and again as he thrusts. Like I’m addicted to saying it.
He seems addicted to hearing it.
He fucks me good and hard, and he slides a hand between my thighs, working me over till I’m this close to spinning out again. When I’m gasping, he bites my shoulder, sucking on my flesh and muttering against me a word that I want to tattoo into my dirty heart. “Mine.”
I cry out, a loud, animalistic sound as I shatter while all our noises fill the room. Grunts, slaps, then a final roar as he comes inside me.
A few minutes later, I’m boneless, floating on an orgasm cloud on his bed. I turn to the sweaty man by my side, who’s breathing hard too. I run a finger down his biceps. “I had no idea what you were like in bed,” I say, speaking out loud something that was only in my head before.
It’s a statement of the obvious. But I don’t want to keep it inside me.
“Well, yeah,” he says with a smile, then there’s that vulnerability again as he adds, “But you like knowing.”
My chest goes tingly. A little fluttery. “I feel like I have a good secret.”
He kisses the blooming bruise on my shoulder. “You’re learning my secrets too. Want another?”
I turn to my side. “Yes.”
