Beauty and the Baller

I’m going to be brave and go with us as we are and savor each moment we share. If it flays me alive and cuts me open in the end, then fine, I took a chance, and in the end that’s all a person can do to find happiness.

He kisses the top of my head. “How about a game?”

“Rules?”

“This time you tell me what to do,” he says.

“Okay. Put my thong on, Fancy Pants.” I lean over and grab it from the floor and dangle it in front of him.

“Hell to the no.”

“Cheater. My rules . . .”

He narrows his eyes at me, and I try to keep a straight face but end up laughing, pushing the earlier emotional moment aside. “I’m sorry, but your face . . .” I stop as he tosses me back on the bed and tickles me. I flail around underneath him as he captures my wrists and pins them above my head. His lower body rests on top of mine as we breathe heavily. My head arches up, and I take his mouth in a demanding kiss, and he groans, our lips meshing over and over.

“Jesus . . . you’re . . .” He stops and puts his face in my neck, taking deep breaths.

“What?” I ask.

“Everything a man could ever want. I need you right now. I need to be inside you.”

I press into his hips, and he moans, rotating against me. His length is hard and thick on my leg, his mushroom-shaped crown wet. “Take me like this,” I demand. “And look me in the eyes and tell me you need me.”

“I do, Princess,” he murmurs as he sinks into me slowly, his gaze locked with mine. “I need you, I need you . . .”

Chapter 23

NOVA

“How was your date with Skeeter?” I pass Sonia an e-cig, and she takes a long toke, vapor billowing in the closet.

She grimaces. “So it was going well. We came in separate cars, you know, just in case things went south. We sat down and ordered. He was eating his chicken wings, and I was munching on my salad. I was nervous. Quiet. I needed to pee but didn’t want to get up. The restaurant was packed. And he just keeps talking and talking, probably because I’m not. Then I gulp water and get choked. It went down the wrong pipe, and the coughs just kept coming and coming.

“My face turned red. My hands flailed. My glass spilled, and my salad tumbled to the floor. Lettuce and carrots and cheese on my pants. People stared. I mean, it got quiet as a church in the Roadhouse. I grabbed my throat; then Skeeter jumped out of his seat. I’m sputtering, and my stomach is jumping from all the coughing, and I think I just might hurl—or pee—then he tries to do the Heimlich on me, and I’m gasping, trying to tell him that it’s not food lodged in my throat, just fucking water! Finally, I get free and dart for the restroom, where I pee forever and get my breath back. I stayed in there for twenty minutes, hoping he’d just leave without me, but oh no, he comes looking for me, like, knocks on the door and then comes in, and there I am, crying on the toilet! And that’s how it bloody went!”

I burst out laughing.

“I know.” She shakes her head. “I can joke now, but it was the worst first date ever. I’m sure it’s our last. He hasn’t texted, and I refuse to reach out. That man will have to come to me.”

The door flies open, revealing a tall, handsome, auburn-haired carnivore.

“You’re vaping?!” Skeeter calls out. “I told you how terrible that is for you!”

“Shut the door!” Sonia says. “I lost my lungs at the Roadhouse anyway!”

He clicks it closed, then snatches the e-cig out of her hands, holding it over her head. “These things will kill you!”

She shoots to her feet, a flush rising on her cheeks. “Meat will kill you, you big wanker!”

Skeeter glares at her, throws the e-cigarette to the ground, and then takes her in his arms and lays one on her. She hesitates, her arms bouncing; then she moans as her hands curl up around his neck—

And that’s my cue.

I slip out of the closet and shut the door.

“Hello, darling,” I say as I enter the staff lounge and sit down next to Ronan. The darling has stuck, and truthfully, I dig it. I brush my lips over his cheek.

He gives me a smile. “How was class?”

“Good.” I unwrap my sandwich. “We’re doing art or music for the poetry unit. I’m doing it along with them.”

“Which one?” He puts his hand on my knee under the table, drawing circles there.

“‘The Road Not Taken’ by Robert Frost. I’m painting a forest with a forked road. I really love it.”