These Thorn Kisses (St. Mary’s Rebels 3)

And God, at one point he does a flip in the air, his long hair fluttering around his face, his magnificent body going sideways, his strong leg striking the ball, and I lose my breath.

I lose it and I stand here, all shivering and in awe.

And maybe he can hear my thoughts, the frantic beats of my heart — I wouldn’t be surprised because they’re so loud; they’re like firecrackers in my body — because he turns, his chest panting, his lips parted and dragging puffs of breaths.

“Bronwyn,” he says, raking a hand through his hair and pushing it off his forehead.

I grab the railing tightly. “Hi.”

He abandons the ball and his one-man soccer game and begins to stride toward me. “You okay? Why are you up?”

Instead of answering him, I watch him like a perv.

I watch his hair that despite being pushed back is hanging on his forehead. I watch his massive, glorious chest, his tapering torso. Those lightly swinging arms as he walks, those thighs.

When he reaches the bottom step of the back porch, I move to stand on the top step. “You’re amazing.”

He frowns, his eyes moving up and down my body. “Bronwyn, what the fuck are you doing? It’s cold. Get back inside.”

“You’re out here too.”

His frown only grows and before I know it, he’s bent down, snagged his arms around my bare thighs and my waist, and picked me up off the porch. He’s hauled me up in his arms and my thighs — in pain or not — wrap around his waist.

Wrapping my arms around his neck, I ask breathily, “Now what are you doing?”

“Taking you back inside,” he replies, his one hand splayed on my spine and the other on the back of my head. “Where it’s not cold.”

I’m not even sure how he’s doing that, walking me back inside when he’s not even watching where he’s going.

When he’s watching me.

But I don’t care as long as I’m in his arms. So tugging the ends of his sweat-damp hair, I ask, “Did you hear what I said? You’re amazing.”

“I heard you.”

I tug at his hair again. “So it’s a compliment.”

We’re inside the house now and, still carrying me, he shuts the door behind him with his foot and deposits me against the hallway wall. I assume that he’ll put me down and I don’t want him to so I go to pull him closer.

But he’s there already.

He pushes closer on his own, plants himself between my thighs before planting his hands on my thighs too.

Way up on them.

Where his name is written, among other places.

Actually he’s not content to simply touch it. He pushes up the hem of his sweater, which was somewhere around my mid-thigh until he exposes his name.

He exposes the thorns and roses that I’ve made for him.

And in the process, exposes the rose between my legs too.

When he’s done opening me up like that, exposing all the parts of me that he wants to feast his eyes on, he looks up. “Compliment.”

I squirm between his hard, sweaty body and the wall as I say, “Yes.”

“Like interesting hair, you mean.”

“Uh-huh.” I nod, my channel pulsing. “Do you think…”

“Do I think what?”

“Do you think I could ever” — I stare into his eyes — “come watch you play?”

His fingers flex on my thighs. “No.”

I frown, playing with the ends of his hair. “Why not?”

Clenching his jaw for a second, he replies, “Because I don’t play anymore. Remember?”

“But you coach,” I tell him. “I’m sure you play with them sometimes.”

“I don’t.”

“What, why not?”

Another clench. “Because I don’t want to.”

I study his features, trying to figure out if he’s telling the truth. I’m not sure if he is. Given how I just saw him playing in the middle of the night. “Maybe you should. Because I think you love it.” Tugging on his hair again, I add, “Enough to play it by yourself. In the middle of the night.”

“I like playing it by myself. In the middle of the night.”

I narrow my eyes at him. “Is it the same thing as your ‘I don’t need anyone because I’ve never needed anyone and I’m happy alone’?”

Because that’s what he said back at the bar when I hugged him for the first time.

“How’s the pain?”

Of course.

That’s what he does when I ask deep questions, distract me.

But I’m not giving up. “There is no pain. So you play every night?”

He throws me a look. “There is no pain.”

“Nope.” I shake my head and tug on his hair again. “So? Do you?”

His eyes go back and forth between mine, his fingers digging into the soft flesh of my upper thighs. “Yes. And stop lying about the pain.”

“I’m not lying,” I say. “So if you play every night, why can’t you play with your team and all the guys you coach?”