Hook Shot (Hoops #3)(92)

With his thumbs flicking my nipples to stiff peaks, I reach between us to find my clit. My head falls back, and my pussy clenches like a fist around his cock.

“That’s it,” he whispers.

I’m on the verge of tears. The pleasure is so thick, so much richer than anything I’ve known. He slips a finger between my legs, gathering the wetness and then reaching behind me.

“I’m going to put my finger in your ass,” he rasps. “Is that okay with you?”

Just the thought . . .

“Yes, please,” I gasp.

He does it. His thumb, slick with my juices, slides inside my tight hole, and it’s too much. His hand tweaking my nipple. My finger rubbing my clit. His thumb in my ass. His dick a swollen, rigid column inside me. My hips undertake a jerky, frantic rhythm, riding him like I’m being chased. My mouth opens on a silent scream.

“Fuck” he says, pounding up into me, unrelenting.

We ride it out together, the tempest that sweeps us along. I collapse onto his chest with him still inside me, a sweaty, spent, content mess. He drags his open palms over my back, caressing me, touching me, feeling me. I loop my arms around him and bury my face in his neck. He jerks away, takes my chin, and searches my face.

“You’re crying,” he says, his frown comprised of concern and self-castigation. “Baby, I am so sorry. Dammit, I wanted it to be perfect. I should have—”

“It was,” I cut in, only now aware of my tears, but it’s not what he thinks. There’s no emptiness. I’m full. There’s no bleakness. I feel joy.

“Kenan, it was perfect.”

His shoulders drop. His eyes close on a sharp exhale before he looks at me.

“I thought I hurt you,” he says, pushing his nose into my neck, cupping my head, plunging his fingers into the untamed nest of hair.

“No, you didn’t hurt me,” I promise, kissing his throat, his shoulder, his face—any part of him I can reach. “You healed me.”

I know it was the support group. It was taking a break from sex—dismantling my emotional detachment. It was Marsha and the counsel she gave me every step of the way. It was all those things that brought me to this place, to this point when I was ready to receive the man I’ve come to love.

But it was Kenan, too. His patience. His kindness. His trust. He fed me my first taste of true intimacy between a man and a woman, not just for the last few minutes, but for the last few months. It was first with our hearts, with our souls, with our minds, in the words we exchanged and the notes he sent and the time we shared. This came slowly for us, at the pace of melting ice. What we just did in this bed was a sacrament—an outward sign of a promise we’ve negotiated, drafted, pledged since our very first kiss. It was spiritual, this act, and the implication of it hums between us like a sacred tune.

He sits up, still inside me, the muscles in his stomach flexing beneath the taut, bronze skin. He repositions me on his lap, shifting my bottom on his powerful thighs. My warrior wearing no armor. Guard gone. Vulnerable to me. The look in his eyes is like nothing I’ve seen before. It’s a balm over every rejection—a shelter from every storm that’s ever chased me. A defender from the demons haunting me.

He swallows deeply, staring at me in silence for long seconds and brushing away my tears with his thumbs. And when he speaks, the words he says are as perfect as every moment has been since our bodies joined. The words are from the Song of Solomon, but the truth of them, it’s his. It’s mine, too.

“I have found the one whom my soul loves,” he quotes.

More tears rain over my cheeks; a release years overdue. I weep for every time I’ve felt unloved, unwanted, unnecessary, and imperfect. It’s all there in the look he settles on me. To him, I’m more than enough. I’m all that he wants.

“Kenan,” I hiccup through tears and bracket his high cheekbones with trembling hands, pressing our foreheads together. “I said I didn’t belong to you.”

He nods, his expression braced against the violence of his own emotion, his eyes raking possessively over my face.

“I was wrong.” I shake my head against his. “So wrong.”

I pull back to look into his eyes and give him the passage I’ve hoarded in my heart and never thought I would say to a man.

“My beloved is mine and I am his,” I quote the song over a salty trail of tears, brokenly, truthfully. “Kenan, I’m yours.”

He swells and hardens inside me at the passionate words I pour over him like oil anointing the head of a king. His hands drift down my back and settle on my hips, gripping in confident possession.

“And I,” he says, his words kissing my lips even before he does, “I am yours.”





33





Kenan





“For a man who never wanted to go to New York,” August says, dribbling two balls, one with his left hand and one with his right, “you suuuuuuure seem to be missing it. Moping around practice like somebody stole your bike.”

I toss him a look of half-irritation, but focus on my own drill. I’ve only been at training camp for a week, and I miss Lotus even more than I thought I would. We’ve been apart for a week before, but adding sex to our relationship took it to another level. She stayed at my place until I had to return to San Diego and report to camp. There was a rhythm to us that I got used to.