Hoops Holiday (Hoops 2.50)

“Hmmm.” I pucker my eyebrows into a frown. “I’m running out of options.”

I step deeper into the vee of her thighs until the robe splits and falls away, baring the toned length of her legs.

“Maybe it’s here.” I run one exploring finger from her calf, over her knee and inside her thigh, just shy of her pussy.

“You are getting so close,” she says, eyes not leaving my face.

I slide a finger along either side of her clit, trapping it between the digits and then stroking it with my thumb.

“Shit,” she mutters, her hips moving in the rhythm my fingers set. “That’s it. Right there. Not a hangover. A fuckover.”

I chuckle and stop my fingers, move my hand away.

“Oh, I’m sorry. If you?

??re sore, maybe I shouldn’t—”

“You should,” she cuts in, returning my hand to her center. “Believe me you should.”

And while our breakfast gets cold, I do.

* * *

Stretched out naked on my pillows, Avery licks sticky vestiges of syrup from her fingers, an empty plate in her lap and a sheet haphazardly covering her.

“That was good,” she says, purring like a contented cat.

“Breakfast or . . .” I let my words trail off and I glance at the well-used bed where she writhed under me not too long ago.

“Both. Breakfast. Last night. This morning. All of it.” She bites into the grin that graces her kiss-swollen lips until it fades with the careful look she angles up at me. “Thank you for everything. It was perfect.”

We spent last night together, and half of today since breakfast became brunch the more we kissed and touched. And fucked.

Man, did we fuck.

And after just a day having her, it has been more intimate and more perfect than anything I experienced in years of marriage to Tara.

So the finality in Avery’s voice wears on my nerves.

“You sound really grateful.” I leave the bed, pulling on a pair of gray sweats from the floor and tying them at the waist. “What? You gonna send me a fruit basket or some shit?”

I meet her eyes head on, silently challenging her to tell me she regrets last night, this morning. That we won’t pursue more. That it . . . that we . . . won’t happen again.

“Deck” she starts softly, staring at her fingers toying with the sheets bunched at her waist. “We talked about this, about—”

“That was before,” I butt in. “Before everything happened. Before we made love and we talked and we . . .”

I claw frustrated fingers through my hair. “Dammit, Ave, that was before and you know it.”

“Nothing’s changed.” She scoots up to sit straighter against the headboard, gathering the sheet around her like forgotten armor. “I’m still as emotionally unavailable as I was at that party last night.”

“Liar.” The one word blasts into the chilling air separating us. “You were more available to me last night than any woman I’ve ever been with.”

“I’m not talking about sexually, Deck.”

“Neither the hell am I, Avery.”

We glare at one another, our breath coming quicker with our mutual frustration. It’s not totally unexpected, her withdrawal, but I thought I would have a little more time to convince her that we should try.