Block Shot (Hoops #2)(118)

I reach down to grip the rigid line of cock in his pants.

“Who said you’d have to stop?”

“But Zo—”

“Knows it was you,” I say, tipping up to kiss his neck. “He finished his chemo last week and will not stop me from helping him if I need to no matter what comes next.”

He swallows convulsively, shuts his eyes tightly.

“I don’t want your reputation ruined,” he says, concern sketched between his dark blond brows. “I know I said I didn’t care if you cheated, but I don’t want people thinking you’re anything other than the incredible woman you are. What you’ve done for Zo . . . I don’t deserve you.”

“But you’ll have me anyway, right?” I remind him of his own words

“I have no choice,” he says hoarsely. “I love you.”

That word. The one I just assigned to the desperate, persistent, stubborn passion lodged in my heart for him. Hearing it on his lips steals any resolve I have.

“And I love you, Jared Foster.” I speak the words against his mouth, breathe them into him so he’ll believe me. “Exactly as you are.”

Hearing the same acceptance from me that I see in him, hear from him, opens the cage door on the passion he’s checked, at my request, for the last three months.

“Exactly as I am, huh?” He dips to grab the hem of my dress and drags it up over my legs, the cool air electrically charged with every new inch of me he reveals. He thrusts sure fingers inside my thong. There’s no fumbling or searching. Jared could find my clit in a cave. I’m already wet and swollen. He drops his forehead to mine, his breath heavy and hot over my lips.

“Hallelujah,” he whispers. “This pussy has made a believer out of me.”

My quick laugh bounces off the bathroom walls.

“You can’t say that. It’s borderline blasphemous.”

“As long as we don’t cross the line, and I think I’ve had about enough of you telling me what I can and cannot say about a pussy that is mine.” He smiles down at me, the same wicked man he’s been since our days at Kerrington, but there’s a new contentment in his eyes.

“It is yours,” I agree, my smile fading. “I am, too.”

“Dammit,” he mutters into my hair, slides his mouth over my jaw, down my neck. “I don’t want anyone to catch us, for them to talk badly about you.”

“You let me worry about my reputation.” I chase his mouth until I catch it, kiss it. Own it the way he owns mine. We moan and growl into the kiss, with my hands tugging his shirt from the waistband of his pants. He digs his fingers into my upswept hair, and cool strands brush my bare skin as they fall. He hoists my skirt higher, and I hear a seam tear.

“Face the wall.” His voice is harsh. Insistent.

“Oh, God, hurry,” I turn, panting against the wall. I’m wet between my legs and my nipples are like quarters, hard and round under the tight dress.

The sound of his zipper is Pavlovian, and my pussy drips like he pulled a lever, a conditioned response to the sensual prompt. My hands flatten on the wall, ass angled for him, so ready for him, when my fantasy morphs into my worst nightmare, frame by frame.

“Banner!” The voice comes stridently. “?Dónde estás?”

This cannot be happening.

“Mama?” I bang my head on the bathroom wall.

“Your mom?” Jared hisses. He drops my dress and hastily zips his pants.

“Sí, Madre.” I’m blinking furiously, frantically righting my dress and running fingers through my half-up, half-down ’do.

“How do I look?” I whisper.

He grimaces, rubs a thumb over my cheek like he’s trying to remove a smear. “Like I already fucked you.”

“Banner!” Mama says. “I know you are in here. I can hear you!”

Dios.

“I’m coming, Mama.”

“So I heard,” she says, accusation lacing the words.

I open the door to face my mirror image, thirty years older, several inches shorter, and forty pounds plumper. Fire and condemnation blaze in the dark eyes that flick from me to Jared.

“Who are you?” she demands.

Jared shoots me a quick glance. “I’m—”

“Not Alonzo,” she snaps. “That’s who you are. Banner, your fiancé needs you.”

“Mama, you know we are not engaged,” I say wearily. “Is he okay?”

“Oh, now you are concerned?” Her voice is a whip biting into my flesh. “Dios mío! What have I done? Where did I go wrong to raise a puta, when Alonzo deserves a queen?”

The insult stings, but I don’t let it sink all the way to my heart. I know she will regret it later. I inherited my temper from her. I’m intimately acquainted with the remorse that comes with cooler blood.

“What did she call you?” Jared asks, anger pulling his features tight. “What did you call her?”

“She is my daughter. I call her what I like.”

“Not when I’m standing right here you won’t,” Jared fires back, undeterred and unaware that my mother is a brush fire in a fight and will burn you to the ground.

“Stop it, both of you.” I press a hand to my forehead. “Zo, Mama. Is he okay?”