Long Shot (Hoops 1)

“Yeah, but I’m the franchise player. When a team is paying as much as the Waves pay me, when they build their team around you, the expectations are higher.” He shrugs and grimaces. “This kind of scrutiny comes with the territory,” he says. “Thank God for Kenan. He’s so much more mature than the rest of us. He’s been doing this a long time and knows what it takes to win. He’s the real leader in our locker room.”

“I’m sorry about the losing streak.” I sift my fingers through the silky curls at my knee while he sits on the floor. He leans his head back into my touch, a deep breath lifting his shoulders and swelling his broad chest.

“That feels great,” he says huskily. “Don’t stop.”

It feels great to me, too—touching him, breathing in the scent unique to his hair and skin and whatever molecules combine to make August. I want all of them wrapped around me. I shift on the couch, feeling myself growing wet at the juncture of my thighs the longer I touch him.

I clear my throat hoping to say something that will make my horniness feel less awkward. “Your hair is getting so long.”

What am I even talking about right now? Should we discuss the weather, too?

He turns his head to peer up at me. “You said you like it longer, right?” he asks, almost uncertain, which August rarely is.

Now I really don’t know what we’re talking about.

“I said that?” My fingers tunnel through his thick hair, from his neck where it’s shorter and straight to the crown of his head where it lengthens into amber-streaked sable curls.

“Yeah. That week in Baltimore,” he reminds me, his voice soft.

My hands go still in his hair as his meaning sinks in.

“Are you saying …” I swallow and try again, unfolding my legs from under me and setting my feet on the floor. “You’re growing your hair out because I said I liked it longer? For me?”

He flips his body so that he’s facing the couch, still sitting on the floor, angling a grin up at me.

“Let me get this straight,” he says. “You were completely unimpressed when I turned down forty-five million dollars to live in the same city as you, but you’re kinda blown away that I’m growing my hair out?”

When he puts it like that, I feel like an idiot. We both laugh, our eyes tangled in affection and something more—something that neither of us acknowledges, but it fills the air around us.

“I wasn’t unimpressed,” I say, teasing him with a look. “But you do kinda blow me away.”

He watches me, taking in all my details, starting at the hair casually knotted on my head and the silky robe, then my bare feet. He grabs one foot and kisses the arch.

“August!” I snatch my foot back, laughing and trying to ignore the feeling simmering low in my belly. “Don’t kiss my foot.”

“I’ll kiss your foot if I want to.” He grabs my other foot and kisses the arch, this time lingering, then running his nose up my leg. It’s hard to swallow, and I’m struggling to breathe. With his eyes closed, he feathers kisses up my bare thigh. He lifts my leg just enough to gently suck at the flesh behind my knee.

“Ah, August.” Pleasure arrows through me, and I press my back into the sofa.

“You’re sensitive there,” he says, his voice husky. ?

?What about here?”

Open-mouthed kisses climb the inside of one thigh while his hands minister to my other leg, stroking, kneading my calf. I stare at his mouth drawing on a muscle in my thigh, an erotic suction that ripples shockwaves to my core. The sound of it, his lips and teeth and tongue working in tandem to mark me, leaves me a trembling mess.

August lifts his head, catching my dazed eyes with his. “Are you naked under this robe, Iris?” His voice is a hope and a prayer, and he makes me feel divine. Worshipped.

I nod, gulping down my anticipation, the nerves over what happens next.

August groans and drops his forehead to my thigh, still stinging and wet from his mouth. “You’re killing me, babe.”

“I was asleep when you texted, and—”

“You sleep naked?” His palms skid along the outside of my thighs through the silk, heating me up even more. “Shit, Iris.”

He draws the panels of the robe together over my legs, concealing me from view, and drops a chaste kiss on my thigh before standing up. “I should go.” He looks around. “What’d I do with my keys?”

“Why are you …?” I stand, too. Barefoot, I rise no higher than the middle of his chest. “You’re leaving?”