Long Shot (Hoops 1)

I sneak a look at Torrie and Shelia. They roll their painting pins over the wall, but they’re watching us.

“It’ll only take a few minutes.” I cover her hand to stop the rolling motion, and she looks at me with a frown. “Please.”

Her eyes dart from Shelia and Torrie to Sylvia in the corner before she sighs and places the paint roller in the pan at her feet. Wordlessly, she heads toward the door, not checking to see if I’m behind her. Of course, I am.

In the hall, she leans against the wall and folds her arms, still not looking at me. “What do you need to talk abo—”

Her words disintegrate when I grab her hand and pull her behind me down the hall and around the corner.

“What are you doing?” Her voice climbs an octave, and she tries to wriggle free. “I can’t do this. I need to get back in there.”

We reach a utility closet. Fortunately, the knob turns easily, and the door swings open. I gently shove her inside and follow, turning on the light. I lean my back against the door and fold my arms across my chest. We aren’t leaving until I get some answers. Not the cryptic ones she’s been giving me, but the straight kind that tell me what the hell is actually going on.

“I need to get back, August.” She reaches around me for the knob, but I shift so my back covers it. Her irritated eyes latch onto mine. “This isn’t funny. You have to let me out.”

“No, you have to talk to me. You’ve been avoiding me ever since that goon showed up yesterday.” I take her arm, extended toward the knob, and pull her into me. The whisper of our bodies together, that simple contact, even through our clothes, is a match lit in gasoline-soaked air. It’s a sweet singe—a rapid-burning brush fire spreading across my whole body, consuming everything in its path—my reservations, my good sense, and my patience.

“You feel that, Iris.” I bend to float my words over her ear, rustling the fine strands of hair escaping around her neck. “Please tell me you feel this, too. Tell me I’m not fooling myself that we’ll be good together.”

A sigh mists her pouty lips. Lashes, thick and midnight-dark, hide her eyes from me. Defeat marks the slumped line of her shoulders.

“You’re not fooling yourself,” she admits, her voice shaking.

“I know I’m not.” My hand slides over her arm, and her skin prickles with goosebumps. I stroke her palm with my fingertips, and she inhales sharply. Her lips tremble. Slowly, I twist the ring, working it off her finger and slipping it into the front pocket of her overalls.

“What are you doing?” She breathes the question, her eyelids heavy over the cloudy passion hazing her eyes.

I frame her face, tracing the striking framework of high, sculpted cheekbones.

“I’ll be damned if you’ll be wearing his ring the first time I kiss you.”

I stroke her lips with my thumbs until her mouth falls open on a needy gasp. I dip so our mouths are mere inches apart, our ragged breaths twining in the tight space. My fingers spear into her hair, my palm cupping the base of her skull.

“I should have done this the night we met,” I whisper into her mouth, my head spinning from breathing her air. “It should have been me, Iris.”

>

Her eyes squeeze shut and a tear slides over her cheek. “I know.” She bites her lip and nods. “It should’ve been you.”

I outline the bow of her lip with my tongue, and we share our first moan. My hand slides under the overalls, caressing her back through the fitted cotton T-shirt. Tracing the curve of her hip and sliding down to touch the small of her back, I press her into me. She must feel my dick, swollen against her. I can’t hide it. I’ve wanted her too long and too badly.

I capture the fullness of her bottom lip between mine and suck hard and greedily. God, she’s so sweet. My dreams, fantasies, everything I imagined is ashes beside the sweetness of this mouth, the taut, rounded curves of this body. She tilts her head and returns the favor, suckling my bottom lip.

“Fuck, Iris.” I bend my knees, both hands sliding down to her ass. “I haven’t been able to look anywhere else all day. Only at you.”

Her hands map the muscles in my arms and chest, her eyes closed as if she’s reading my body by Braille. She tips up on her toes, her fingers burrowing into my hair. With my arms under her butt, I lift her off the floor, closing the gap between our heights, and nibble around her mouth.

“Open for me,” I rasp over her lips. I won’t take anything from her. Every kiss, every touch, has to be freely given so I know she’s with me and she wants this. I need to know that even with Caleb’s ring nestled in her pocket, she wants me.

She leans in, her mouth open and seeking and eager, but I hold back a little, slowing it down, savoring our first kiss. I lick gently into her mouth, skating my tongue across her teeth, lashing the sweet, slick walls of her jaw.

“August, oh God.” Her arms circle my neck and she wraps her legs around my waist. “Dammit, kiss me.”

And I lose it. Every scrap of restraint it’s taken for me to stand by and watch her with him evaporates. This kiss is now years past due, and I’m desperate for it. So desperate I turn her against the closet wall and dive into her mouth, a dying man on his last gasp. My hands filter through the silky mass of loosened hair spilling around her shoulders. Our tongues wrap and wrestle, tangled in the wet heat of our mouths. I’m sucking her tongue and licking the roof of her mouth, my teeth biting, my lips begging.

“Oh, God. Oh, God,” she whispers over and over, a prayer between kisses. “Don’t stop. August, don’t stop.”

I run my nose back and forth along her neck, and then my lips ghost the satiny skin. With broad strokes of my tongue and greedy pulls of my mouth, I make love to the delicate tendon in her throat until she whimpers. My lips wander over the fragile slash of her collarbone. I fumble with the buttons on her overalls. Every button I undo, undoes me. The front flap falls, and her nipples show through the tight T-shirt, straining and budded. I step back, and her legs drop from my waist. She stands and, mindful of my leg, I sink to my knees in front of her. My palms flatten at her back, drawing her closer, drawing her down to me. She looks at me, her mouth open, panting her anticipation. I suckle one tight nipple through her T-shirt, through her bra, never releasing our stare. The intimacy of our eyes locked together while I roll her nipple over my tongue is almost unbearable. It hardens my dick, and penetrates my bones, and arrests my heart.