“They wouldn’t be you. And I work for everything, no matter how much I’m given.” He drops his mouth to my ear, brushing the sensitive shell with a hint of his lips. “I’d work my ass off for you. Because I’m not stupid enough to think a hundred men aren’t dying to take my place. In fact, it’s more like thousands.”
Despite the water I’m drinking, my mouth is suddenly dry. “I, um…I mean, that’s a really good answer.”
He looks me in the eye. “Not just an answer, Greta. The truth.”
“Just because I haven’t heard…anything, really. About your extracurricular activities off the court…doesn’t mean anything.”
“I ball and I go home.” Before I’m aware of his intentions, Eric wraps an arm around the small of my back, lifts me and settles me onto one of the plush, white leather chairs in front of the bar. “I want you to be there next time,” he rasps, stepping into the V of my legs, letting me feel his thickness against the inside of my thigh, his jaw flexing at the contact.
It’s a struggle to replenish my lungs. “You want me waiting at home like a dutiful toy?”
“No, angel. Waiting at home to get pleasured by your man.”
“Calling yourself my man is seriously jumping the gun.”
He gives me a slow devastating smile, a dimple popping up in his cheek and clenching everything south of my belly button. “By telling me I’m jumping the gun, you’re admitting there’s a chance.”
“No, I’m not,” I protest, breathlessly.
And I’m not.
Eric was right. I’ve been raised in this world. I’ve been allowed way too close to the drama that often surrounds players and their significant others. Way too close. Close enough to be traumatized—and determined to never let that kind of pain and betrayal happen to me. Messy, public divorces. Scandals. Bitter fights. “I don’t date basketball players, Bentley. Deal with it. And by the way, I doubt my father would appreciate your hand on my thigh like that, let alone us…going out.”
He looks down sharply, as if only realizing now that his big hand is sliding into the leg of my shorts, his thumb brushing up and back on the inside, sensitizing me head to toe. Despite being called out on it, though, he continues to touch me, petting the skin high up inside my shorts. Why am I not pushing him away? He’s taking serious liberties and yet, the worshipful way he’s stroking me feels so good. Feels like a promise. The flesh between my thighs is responding with slow, hot clenches that make me ache to cross my legs and squeeze.
“No matter what your last name turned out to be, I’d still be starving for you.”
“S-starving,” I stutter, watching his mouth come closer, hypnotized by the slicking of his tongue across his full lower lip. “That sounds serious.”
“It is serious, angel.” He feathers his mouth over mine. “You don’t date basketball players. Okay. How about kissing? Isn’t that safe enough?”
“Normally I would say yes.”
He chuckles, sending happy little bubbles blowing through my bloodstream. “One kiss, Greta. Then I’m going to ask you out again.” He searches my eyes in that serious, thoughtful way of his. “We’ll see if your mind has changed.”
“It won’t,” I whisper, sounding worried.
Worried for good reason, it turns out.
He launches a sensual attack against me, dragging me by the sides of my shorts to the edge of the seat and licking into my mouth. It’s so swift and blatant, I gasp, allowing him to sink deeper. To plant his sex directly on top of mine and lean, lean hard, creating plumes of light behind my eyes, eliciting the desire for more.
For friction.
But all he does is press and press that big shaft—right there—sliding his hands under my backside to knead, keep me steady, his chiseled mouth punishing mine like a wayward child, giving me strokes of his tongue, smooth nudges of his lips, our heads angling right, then left. Until I’m off the stool and being carried somewhere. Backwards several steps before my back hits a wall.
I make an impatient, strangled sound and wrap my legs around his hips, demanding more without words. With a groan, he obliges, crashing his mouth down over mine, our tongues winding together, his hips beginning to hump me against the wall. That first thrust sets off a warning flare in my mind and I break away, sucking oxygen into my lungs, frantically taking stock of my surroundings. We’re in a deserted back room, reserved for parties, maybe? How did he do this? How did he cause me to completely forget my rules?
To forget that I’ve never even been with a man before?
Because the way things are going, he’s about to have me—all of me—in this club. And if I don’t find a way to break the spell, that’s exactly what’s going to happen. “Stop,” I say huskily. “S-stop. I…”