CHAPTER ELEVEN
PAIGE
“Woman,” he growled and charged at me. Beaux had flung a blanket and cooler over his shoulder when we started walking but as he charged me, the blanket flew off his shoulder and the cooler slapped his thigh.
I screamed and started running but I was no match for him. Three steps and I was flung up in the air and one of Beaux’s arms was behind my back, the other under my knees.
“Can’t tease me like that and not expect retribution.” He spun around and headed back to the blanket. “Grab the blanket.”
I tried to wiggle out of his hold but he gripped me tighter, lifting my legs high. I scrambled and grabbed his shoulder.
“Can’t grab the blanket while you’re tearing through my shirt.”
“I can’t get the blanket when you’re holding me.”
His eyes glimmered. “I lift weights more than three times heavier than you. Let go of my shoulder before you tear my tendons with your nails and get the blanket.”
He swung me like he was going to toss me and I lost my grip.
“Beaux!” I screamed as I tried to reach the ground but he lifted me higher in the air. I was dangling, upside down, my knees hooked only by his forearm. “Put me down!”
“Get the blanket before I drop you.”
He was laughing. The force of his laugh vibrated through my legs up to my center. And I stopped squealing and tried to look at him. He was so damn beautiful. Not a manly enough name for him but he wasn’t handsome, either.
He was a force of power and confidence all on his own.
I was swimming upside down, falling for this guy.
“You wouldn’t.”
His arm dropped and I screamed his name again. This time though, the blanket brushed against my fingertips and I clawed at it, gripping it in my fingers. Then I was up, his hand at my back and I was thrown over his shoulder, along with the blanket, covering me.
“Put me down.”
“No way.”
We were both laughing, his shoulders shaking from it. All the blood rushed to my face.
Awesome. I’d look like an eggplant when he put me on my feet.
“Put me down now or you’re not even getting a kiss from me, Beaux Hale, and I was planning on giving you a lot more than that.”
He pulled to a stop.
“What are you going to give me?”
All of me. I wisely, and barely, held the errant thought back. If I told Beaux I wanted him to do all the things to me he’d teased me about, I’d be naked and beneath him in five seconds flat. “You’ll just have to wait to find out.”
It was all the talk of sex. That’s what was making me act like some brazen little hussy, flirting and throwing myself at him.
But I was tired of holding back. I was tired of putting my life on hold, tired physically. I wanted to reach for something that was mine. I didn’t lie when I said I liked working at the garage. It was my second home and I wanted it to stay in business more than I wanted to be a reporter.
When I was with Beaux, I didn’t stress about anything. He gave me the freedom and escape from responsibilities while strengthening me for the next day at the same time.
Beaux Hale, quarterback of a Super Bowl winning team, summertime RV partier…all around nice guy.
Who would have thought?
I tossed the blanket over my head and braced my hands on his lower back, pushing myself up. “Can I walk?”
“No. I sort of like having your ass right next to my face.” He turned his head, and playfully bit the back of my thigh.
“Ouch.”
“It didn’t hurt, but if it did, I’ll kiss it and make it better.”
I couldn’t suppress my shiver. My whole body lit up at the idea. His words, the image of me, legs spread, his mouth at my thighs…my ass…more pleasurable places. I moaned, unable to stop myself at the thought of his mess of blond hair between my legs.
“Jesus, Paige.” He stopped and set me down. “That turn you on? I felt your whole body shake.”
“Maybe.” My hands slid to his shirt, fingertips dug into his pecs. Good grief. This man. His eyes were narrowed on me, a few sprinkled lights in the background hiding the color of his blues I knew were piercing based on the heat rolling off him.
His whole body had tightened, chest moved erratically up and down as he breathed harshly.
“I didn’t bring you here to screw you on a blanket, but you’re making it awfully difficult not to think about it.”
I pressed my chest toward him, slid my hand up, up, and up toward his neck, pulling him down to me. “Can plans change?”
I had never been this bold. Get me around Beaux and I wasn’t lost in the size of his wallet or his contract, but everything that he was showing himself to be.
He studied me intensely, blinking slowly and then shaking his head. “Not yet. I have other plans for you.”
Disappointment swirled inside me, making me tremble with untended to desire but I inhaled a deep breath and moved toward where he laid the blanket on the grass.
In front of us was a pond, the sounds of nature echoing and shimmering across the water and all around us. Frogs croaked, cicadas purred, and crickets chirped all in a rhythm of their own but beautiful in the stillness.
I wasn’t a huge nature person, but as Beaux settled next to me on the blanket and unloaded the cooler, I could have stayed there forever.
Visions of camping and bonfires and cold beer slid into my mind. We’d be on lounge chairs in the middle of nowhere, nothing to do but talk and laugh, maybe a few stolen kisses.
“Here,” he said, jolting me out of the fantasy. He handed me a glass of white wine in a plastic cup and poured one for himself. “Can I tell you what I am inexperienced with?”
I barely suppressed choking on my wine. “Sure.”
“It’s not, sex, Paige.” He smiled, white teeth sparkling in the setting darkness.
“I didn’t say it was,” I said innocently.
“I can practically hear your dirty thoughts. But what I was going to say earlier was dating.”
“Dating?”
He had one leg stretched out straight, the other bent, knee high and Converse shoe planted on the blanket. His arm holding his wineglass dangled in his large hand, arm settled on his knee. Looking out at the water, he pushed back his hair. “Yeah. I gotta be honest here. I have no clue what in the hell I’m doing. I haven’t had a date in who knows how long.”
My grip tightened on my glass. He didn’t date. He did, most likely, go around screwing random women, but why wouldn’t he? He was in his twenties, single, and a multi-millionaire who drew notice wherever he went.
“I’m not sure why you’re telling me this,” I mumbled and took a hefty swallow of my drink.
“Because I want to be honest with you. And because I like you. I don’t want you sitting here thinking I’ve fucked every chick who walked up to me, but I don’t want you thinking I do this shit all the time, either.”
The urge to ask why me burned on my tongue, but I washed it away with more wine. “Well, wow. I mean, I’m not sure I’m up for this kind of pressure.” I nudged his shoulder with mine and stayed close. He was warm. Smelled fantastic. And his hard, muscled body felt like a boulder. “I mean, what if I turn you off dating forever?”
He laughed. It was low and rumbly and before I knew it, he’d set down his glass of wine, reached for me and yanked me onto his lap.
“Hey,” he said, once he had me settled facing him.
“Hey, you.” I set down my glass of wine before I dropped it. Our faces were inches apart and I was sitting on his lap. Straddling him. His knees were bracing my back behind me. I was cocooned in all things Beaux.
I was falling for him. His honesty, his looks, his sincerity. Everything about this guy screamed too good to be true but I didn’t care.
If I was going to crash and burn, I wanted to enjoy the fall.
I slid my hands into his hair and clasped my hands together at the back of his neck. “Since we’re confessing things here, I have to say that I think your ass looks really good in your uniform, I’ve always wanted to run my hands through your hair when it’s sweaty after a game, and I’m a really big fan of yours, Beaux Hale.”
“Yeah?” His shoulders shook with laughter and his head tipped to the side. His hands at my hips slid down to my backside and he squeezed. “I think your ass is pretty fantastic too. Why didn’t you tell me you were a fan?”
I shrugged. “I didn’t want it to go to your head.”
Speaking of, one of his heads was becoming more pronounced the longer I sat on him. I’d felt it immediately, but the longer we were connected, the harder he became. I dug my fingers into the back of his neck to keep from rocking against him.
Good Lord, this guy was impressive. It’d been so long since I’d had sex, good sex at least, the kind that left your hips sore and you remembering every moment for days with a little secretive grin on your lips even strangers knew you’d been laid recently. I’d forgotten how good all of this felt.
The temptation. Desire. The anticipation of that moment when everything clicked together, when you connected with another person.
My pulse thundered and as we laughed, grinning like fools, I couldn’t wait anymore.
I had to have him.
“Beaux,” I whispered, my voice gone needy and thick.
“I confess I really want to kiss you,” he rumbled, shoving his face into my throat, “and I’m afraid I won’t be able to stop.”
“Then don’t. I’m with you, one hundred percent.”