Hook Shot (Hoops 3)

“Oh, it works great,” I assure him.

I still hear him laughing even after the door closes behind him. I drop my head back to the lip of the tub. My dick definitely still works. With this long-distance relationship, it would come in handy if it didn’t. I’m sure there’s a masturbation joke in there somewhere, but I’m too tired and horny to work it out. At least I should get to see Lotus for a few hours when she’s done at the hospital. Speaking of which . . . where’s my damn phone?

“In the locker room,” I remind myself. She could be trying to call me now with an update on the baby. “I’ll grab it when I’m done.”

I’ve got another five minutes of recovery in here before I can go.

The door opens behind me again.

“Forget something, Deck?” I ask, eyes still closed, absorbing the healing effects of the glacial water even while it bites my skin.

When there’s no answer, I look over my shoulder to the training room door.

Lotus.

“Hi,” she says, her voice deep, welcome, husky. Exactly as I remember it, except last time it was hoarse from screaming after a marathon of fucking on my last day in New York.

I haven’t been back in Cali long, but it feels like months since I’ve seen her. Desire, need . . . fuck it. I’ll say it to myself though we haven’t said it explicitly yet to one another . . . love intensifies the longing and stretches out the time.

I have found the one whom my soul loves.

My beloved is mine, and I am his. I’m yours, Kenan.

I’ve replayed those moments and the sentiments we borrowed from King Solomon a hundred times in my head. Turning them over, analyzing them to see if there is any way she was not saying she loved me.

“Hi, yourself,” I finally reply, unable and unwilling to withhold my shit-eating grin any longer. “How’d you get back here?”

“Oh,” she says, leaning against the training room door. “August owed me a favor.”

“Yeah?” I ask, taking her in. The platinum hair is golden–brown again. I can’t keep up with her hairstyles and colors. A simple royal blue sundress ties at one shoulder, leaving the other exposed, and follows the curves of her body faithfully from breast to ankle.

“Yeah,” she continues, tilting her head to the side. “I practically delivered his son.”

A happy laugh barges past my lips. “Holy shit! So it is a boy?”

“Yup, secret’s out,” she says, joy lifting some of the fatigue from her eyes. “Michael Spencer West.”

“Nice. I got a stick I’ve been saving for Rook.”

“A stick?” One sleek brow lifts and she turns the lock, the sound echoing in the otherwise silent room. Even in the frigid water, my cock goes hard. “You mean a cigar?”

“Usually.” I don’t relinquish her heated stare. “But a stick could mean a lot of things now that I think about it.”

“Hmmmmm.” She frowns, takes the few steps that bring her to me beside the ice tub. “What else could a stick be?”

“Well, it could be . . .”

Words melt in my mouth when Lotus unties the knot at her shoulder and the dress falls to the ground. She’s completely nude, and with me sitting in the tub, I’m eye level with one tight, pierced nipple.

“You were saying?” she asks, brows brunched like she can’t imagine why I stopped talking. “Something about driving stick?”

At her modification, I release a strangled laugh. She leans her elbows on the tub, serving up two dark nipples I can’t resist a minute longer. Fuck flirting. I lean forward, taking the pierced one into my mouth, and watch her face. Her eyes drift closed and a shiver trembles through her body. She grips my head, pressing me harder into her ripe curves.

“I missed you, Button,” I mumble against the silky skin between her breasts before shifting my mouth to the other nipple.

“I’m picking up on that,” she says, her breath stilted. She pulls back and uses the step against the tub to climb up.

“Lotus, babe, no. It’s freezing in here,” I warn her.