Overkill(80)

Before she’d met him, she’d known what he looked like, of course. But she hadn’t been prepared for him to be quite this appealing. Every time she looked at him, she was struck anew by his appeal. Little wonder that people stopped and stared when he walked by. His chiseled visage and amber eyes, the mussed, burnished hair he seemed never to pay attention to, and his athletic physique were the attributes of someone favored, graced by a deity, genetically star-kissed, not those of a real-life, ordinary human being.

But what she really hadn’t been prepared for was the man inside the incredible packaging. She hadn’t thought she would like him at all, handsome or not. She’d figured him for a jerk, but, with the exception of their first couple of hostile meetings, he’d turned out to be gentlemanly. He was good company.

He could be arrogant, yes, but his record-holding statistics on the gridiron had earned him the right to be. He downplayed his fame, but whenever one of his admirers had the temerity to approach him, he always asked their name. He always repeated it as though committing it to memory. His warm smile said You’re that special fan I’ve always hoped to meet, and the individual went away believing it. Despite his disclaimers, he wasn’t all that opposed to being recognized, but primarily because it made the fan’s day, not his.

Above all her other misconceptions, she’d assumed that he’d washed his hands of Rebecca’s ill fate four years ago. Because he’d failed to attend Clarke’s trial and release hearing, she’d reasoned that he’d become uninterested in Rebecca’s current circumstances.

On that score, she had misjudged him. Mightily. That torment was Zach’s constant companion. It was as ever-present as his palm print. It accompanied him like a shadow. It mastered him, governing every decision and deed.

Which made her heart ache for him.

She would think about all that later, though. For now, she wanted to be selfish with this slice of time and take in the view. Her eyes tracked the yummy trail that had sold tens of thousands of posters to women who didn’t give a flip about football. She tested the satiny strip with her fingertip, which caused his breath to catch, although his eyes remained closed.

“About time you woke up,” she said.

“Wasn’t asleep.”

“Yes you were.”

“Un-huh.”

“You were snoring.”

“I was breathing.”

Laughing, she bent over him and ran her tongue along the yummy trail until the sleek hair turned to rough. She nuzzled the thick column and licked at the saltiness on the smooth tip.

His eyes sprang open. “I’m awake.”

Indeed he was. Very.





Exerting minimum effort, he lifted her over to straddle him, then angled himself up, held her face between his hands, and kissed her hotly and at length.

When done, she slumped against his chest, saying breathlessly, “You’re forgiven for conking out on me.”

“I was dreaming.”

“Really?”

“Um-huh.”

“About?”

“This really amazing, otherworldly fuck.”

She laughed and sighed against his mouth, “We had the same dream.”

“It ain’t over yet.” Giving her his best devilish grin, he fiddled with the hem of her sweater, then slipped his hands beneath it and ran them up her bare thighs to where they met. He feathered his fingertips over the damp flesh and soft hair. “I like this outfit.”

She rocked against his questing fingers. “Do you?”

“A lot. I was going to ask you to lose the sweater, but…” Hands still underneath it, he reached around and unhooked her bra. “I’m kinda liking it.” Moving his hands to her front, he pushed them into the bra cups and gently squeezed her breasts, teased her nipples. Lifting sweater and bra out of the way, he rubbed his lips against them, dabbed them with his tongue. “It makes me feel like I’m getting away with something dirty.” He sucked a nipple into his mouth.

She clutched handfuls of his hair. “You are getting away with something. But don’t stop.”

He placed his hands high on her thighs again, fitting them into the shallow channels at the top, and used his thumbs to draw lazy spirals against the heart of her sensitivity. The caresses caused her whole body to quicken and her breath to puff against his face, until she threw her head back and keened his name.

He lifted her and guided himself inside in time to experience her orgasm, this one more sustained than the previous one, and it milked from him a wrenching climax.

They clung to each other until the aftershocks had finally subsided, then he lay back, bringing her down with him. They disengaged, replete but still throbbing, and neither was willing to leave the other entirely. Her sex created a snug cove for his as she stretched out along his torso and rested her cheek on his pec.

For a long time, neither moved nor said anything. He welcomed the quiet. He wanted to savor this, because since that first day when she’d told him off and then sashayed back to her mean-looking SUV, he’d fantasized a moment like this with her. Not just for the sex.

Although… goddamn.

But for this closeness with a woman. One who counted.

He’d never attached a name to that something that had been absent from his life. Even at the pinnacle of his fame, amid all the ado, and glamour, and headiness of it, he’d felt an emptiness he couldn’t identify. He’d missed his parents, then and now, and he always would. But this hollowness was apart from that.