Long Shot (Hoops 1)

He studies me and squeezes the back of his neck. “Keeping it one hundred here, Iris. You said you needed to take this slow, and I don’t want to make you feel … I don’t know. Pressured.” His broad palm cups my chin, and he caresses my lips with his fingers. “I want this so badly.” He shakes his head. “But I’ve waited a really long time for you, and my out-of-control libido isn’t fucking that up.”

He starts to pull away, but I place my hand over his on my face.

“What if I like your out-of-control libido?” One step forward narrows the space between us.

“Iris, don’t …” He bites his bottom lip and knuckles my cheekbone. “I’m gonna go.”

When I thought of this moment, the moment when I’d have sex again, I thought there would be trepidation. Terror. That the memory of what Caleb did to me that last night, and all the nights before, would shadow my intimacy with someone else.

But it’s not the pain of that night on my mind. I’m not remembering his hostile takeover of my body at all. I’m navigating these seas for the first time—waves of want I’ve never ridden. My body is a stranger to me, an imposter wearing my skin, but disguised in new urges.

“Would you like to see me, August?” I rub the silk ties of the belt between my fingers.

“What?” Shock and hunger vie on his face. “What do you mean?”

Instead of talking, since that seems to be getting me nowhere, I slowly untie the belt and let the silk glide over my shoulders and puddle at my feet.

His sharply indrawn breath and the ravenous way his eyes eat at me lick fire under my skin. I reach up to the hair knotted on my head, releasing it so it cascades in heavy coils around my shoulders and down my back.

Power surges through me. The power to render such a huge, beautiful man speechless with the gravity of my robe falling to the ground. With his first sight of me, naked and ready and strong. I have the power to determine when I share myself and when I will withhold.

Your body is yours. Yours to keep and yours to share.

“I want to be with you, August.” I step so close my nipples brush against his T-shirt. He hasn’t moved—hasn’t touched me or said a word. His Adam’s apple bobs in his throat with a deep swallow. “I choose you.”

“Are you sure?” His voice scrapes, scratchy and barely audible. “Because once we start …”

“I don’t want to stop.” I walk past him, my body buzzing from the heat of his eyes on my back, my legs, and my ass. I head toward the bedroom, turning to see if he’ll follow. “I’m sure.”

I expected some other response. I didn’t think I’d have to persuade him. Maybe I miscalculated. I’m considering running back, grabbing my robe and yelling April Fool’s in October—anything to retract my offer. But then large, warm hands span my waist from behind, and the cotton of his sweatpants brushes my legs as he matches my steps. In my bedroom, I turn to face him, reaching around to lock my door. It brings my naked body into contact with his fully clothed one.

“Sarai stumbles into my bedroom sometimes,” I whisper, gulping at the sudden nerves assailing me.

Only minutes ago, I felt like a sensual, adventurous creature. Now, I’m starting to just feel exposed and relatively inexperienced compared to all the women he’s been with.

He doesn’t respond to my statement but leans down to capture my lips, swirling his tongue inside my mouth. Driving one hand into my hair, he sends his other hand to my waist and down to cup the globe of my ass.

“I’m struggling here, Iris,” he says against my lips, his breath picking up. “I want to give you time to change your mind, but with you like this …” He catalogues every nuance of my body, starting at my toes and working his way up until he meets my eyes.

“You’re the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.” There’s passion, desire in his eyes, but also rampant emotion. And I realize I’m not just sharing myself with him. He wants to share himself with me, too, and my mind eases. Any leftover doubts and residual fears fade.

I go down on my knees in front of him, slipping my hands into his sweatpants and working them down narrow hips and over powerful thighs. I lick my lips at the sight of his erection tenting his briefs.

“Babe, you don’t have to …” He draws his brows together. “What are you doing?”

I know he doesn’t mean that literally. He’s probably lost count of how many blow jobs he’s gotten over the course of his life. Hell, even just over the course of his career.

He won’t lose count of this one. This one, he’ll never forget. Not because I’m better than those other women, but because I want him more. There’s no way they had this with him, what started between us that night and has only grown since.

“What am I doing? Making you feel like a winner,” I say, trapping his eyes with mine and taking the tip into my mouth.

“Holy …” His breath stutters, and he slumps against my bedroom door. “Babe.”

I lick the rigid length of him, my tongue wrapping around warm steel. He plunges his hand into my hair, commanding my mouth to take him deeper. For a second, I freeze, thinking of all the times Caleb forced me to do this at gunpoint. How he liked to make me choke and drool—how he invented ways to debase me. Before fear can take root, I look up, and it’s still August. The look on his face is not sick pleasure, but awe.

“You make me feel so good,” he says huskily. “There’s never been anyone like you, Iris. There never will be.”

With every encouraging word, I take another inch. I roll his balls in my hands, emboldened by the sounds of his pleasure. Even when he becomes the aggressor, holding my head still, pumping between my lips, growling and tugging my head back, I don’t forget who’s fucking my mouth. I don’t lose track of this moment—of its scope. Its breadth. It’s one of the biggest moments of my life, and there’s only room for the two of us. There’s no room for anyone else. Not Caleb. Not even the naysayers who’ll accuse me of being a gold-digger who hops from player to player. No one else intrudes.