-4-
JAY
Kayla’s waist was tiny. I could span both of my hands around it and probably get my fingertips to touch. I did have large hands, though. A definite advantage on the field.
We shuffled along in a circle, swaying to some love song that was usually too whiney to bear. Only, it wasn’t tonight. The song wasn’t nails on a chalkboard. Instead, it sounded sort of . . . sexy.
I wasn’t an idiot. The girl in my arms had a lot to do with it. I’d looked real smooth earlier when I’d almost dropped and broken her phone. Kayla’s effect on me was powerful.
Her asking me for my number had been awesome. I got hit on all the time, but the number those girls were interested in was the one on my jersey. When was the last time I’d been into a girl who didn’t know who I was? Sophomore year?
Kayla smelled nice, like coconut mixed with something sweet and citrusy. Her warm fingers on the back of my neck felt good. Shit, having my hands on her felt good, too, and her tight body pressed against mine was even better. She seemed nervous, though, because her shoulders were tense. I didn’t want it to be awkward for her, and I sure as hell didn’t want her to step away.
I took one of my hands off her waist, set it on my neck, and began to massage.
“What’s wrong?” she whispered.
I loaded my voice with a joking tone. “My neck has this awful crick in it from looking down at you.”
It took her a second to catch on, but she looked willing to play along. “You think I like staring at your cummerbund? It’s practically at eye-level for me.”
My hand returned to the small of her back, and she melted a little. Got close enough I could feel the deep breath she took as my fingers traced tiny patterns over her spine. I wanted to know what she’d taste like if I kissed her. If I bent down, covered her mouth with mine, and slid my tongue against hers.
Before this night was over, I was going to make that happen.
I craned my neck down so my lips weren’t too far from her ear. “What do you do for fun?”
“I’m really into . . .” She made a face of displeasure, and I’d swear she was looking right at the bride. Marcy and Dave had rotated close to us on the dance floor. There was that strange look again, only this time it was from both newlyweds. Why did they look at us like we were an abomination?
Kayla’s attention swung from Marcy to me. “Actually, I can’t talk about it.”
“Talk about what?”
“Sports,” Kayla said as Marcy cleared her throat, “. . . bras.”
What the hell? “You can’t talk about sports bras?”
“Sure can’t.” She gave a definitive nod.
“Well, that’s disappointing. I mean, I had so much I wanted to discuss with you about them.”
She feigned seriousness. “Sorry. It’s just too controversial of a subject.”
“I guess so.”
It was quiet, and slowly Marcy and Dave drifted away. Kayla seemed to relax, but her voice stayed low. “I made a promise to Marcy I wouldn’t talk about football tonight. Or any sports, really.”
I tensed at the mention of football, hoping she couldn’t feel it. “Why’s that?”
“Because Marcy claims I’m ‘obsessed.’ I would say I’m ‘enthusiastically interested,’ but I want to prove a point to her. She challenged me to go one night without bringing up the subject.” One of her hands slid down over my collarbone, coming to a stop on the center of my chest. Her expression was pleading. “So, we can’t talk about sports. It’s too risky. I’m already going through withdrawal and I’ll cave if you say anything. Even though I really want to ask if you were offense or defense when you played in high school.”
Whoa. My brain didn’t know where to focus first. A whole evening not talking about football? Yeah, I could handle that. My life was about to shift back into it fulltime. It’d be great to hang out with a girl who was interested in me as the guy, not the player.
“Okay, no worries,” I said. “I don’t find that idea . . . offensive.”
She smiled wide at my thinly disguised answer. “That’s not cheating, right?”
I grinned right back. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
As the song faded out, a thumping, up-tempo beat replaced it, and Kayla’s eyes lit up. She stepped back and began to move her hips to the rhythm, but I was less excited. I could deal with a slow dance, but fast dancing was a hard pass.
The deejay encouraged people onto the floor, and as they filled in around us, I put my hand on her shoulder and whisper-shouted in her ear. “You wanna take a walk with me?”
She slowed to a stop. I could see she wanted to dance, but her gaze turned to the back wall of the ballroom, which was mostly glass. The country club’s clubhouse had a great view of the eighteenth hole.
“The sun’s gonna set soon,” I added. “Let’s take a walk on the golf course before it gets dark. C’mon, grab your drink. You can spank the planks when we get back.”
“Spank the what?”
I wasn’t going to make it easy for her to turn down my offer. I left her standing on the dance floor and strode toward our table. Good. She was following me. We made our way out of the ballroom, through the main clubhouse space, and ducked out the back door.
“They couldn’t have asked for better weather,” Kayla said when we stood on the stone patio.
“Yeah.” I sensed she was looking at me, but my focus was finding the right trail to go down. There were three golf cart paths, and the one on the left wound into the woods.
Left it is.
I tried not to walk too fast, but keeping up didn’t seem to be a problem for her. Her dress swished quietly as we strolled down the narrow, paved path. It was humid, but not awful, and the sun was so low in the sky, it had disappeared behind the tree line.
We didn’t talk as we moved deeper into the forest. We took sips of our drinks and moved further away from the clubhouse. All the way until it felt like it was just us and the noisy bugs humming in the trees.
“I can’t believe Marcy and Dave are married,” she said. “They’re, like, adults.”
“No shit, right? Next time I hang out with Dave he’ll probably be driving a Volvo and complaining about taxes.” I laughed. “I get it, though. Marcy seems cool.”
“She is.” Kayla’s expression was warm. “She’s the first of my friends to get married, but she swears this is it. Her getting hitched is going to unleash the floodgates, and all of our boyfriends are going to start putting rings on it.”
I heard a needle dragging across a record, but she must have heard it, too. She wasn’t single?
Her face went blank. “I meant all of the boyfriends of my friends. I’m boyfriend-less, so I’m safe from the threat of jewelry.”
“Oh,” I said. “For a second there, I thought this was gonna be a busted play.”
She slowed. “Yeah? Is that what this is? You making a play for me?”
I pretended to be offended. “Was that not obvious?”
“I thought you just wanted some fresh air.” Her electric eyes said otherwise.
I switched my beer to my other hand so I could gently grasp her wrist. “No,” I said. “That’s not why I wanted to come outside.” It was clear she knew my motivations. I pulled her off the path and into the grass. We’d come down a slope and there was a retaining wall of decorative blocks to the side. It was now our destination.
Only, she jerked me to a stop. “Hold on. The grass is eating my shoes.”
She passed her drink to me so she could tug off her heels and clutch them in a hand. I took the last few steps to the wall and set both of our drinks down. The stack of stones wrapped around and disappeared into the dark of the trees.
She groaned playfully as she walked on her bare feet toward me. “Great. Now you’re even taller.”
“I don’t believe my height changed in the last thirty seconds.” I was used to girls being shorter than I was. The story of my life since eighth grade.
Kayla placed her heels beside her drink, and once her hands were empty, she didn’t seem to know what to do. Her gaze turned up to meet mine. We stood under the shade of a large oak tree, and the fading light did a number on me.
God, she was pretty.
“I’m going to kiss you.” It came out of nowhere from me, and I was pissed. What the hell happened to subtlety? Her dress, her face, and her personality made me a fucking idiot. Wasn’t I smoother than this?
Surprise jolted through her. “Are you asking permission, or warning me?”
“Maybe both.” I traced my fingertips over her cheekbone and slipped my hand back into her hair, tilting her face up to meet me as I leaned down.
She rose a few inches onto her tiptoes. Her lips were soft. She tasted faintly of her Coke, and I’d fucking swear I got drunk from the trace amount of rum left on her lips. A contact high in one second flat. She sighed as my other arm banded around her back, holding her up into our sweet, slow kiss.
It wasn’t hot in the shade, but I began to sweat. It was plenty hot when my mouth was on hers. Her lips parted, welcoming me.
My tongue was all, “Don’t mind if I do.” I dipped it into her mouth, sliding it against hers, and I was rewarded with a moan. The sexiest goddamn moan I’d ever heard.
I kept one palm cupping the side of her face as I shrugged out of my tuxedo jacket, one shoulder then the other, without stopping the kiss. Because, why the hell would I want to stop? Her greedy tongue stroked mine, and my dick jerked in my pants.
Like I needed a reminder of its existence.
I flung the jacket on the wall, and as soon as my hands were free, I lifted her up in my arms. It was like I’d squeezed the noise of surprise out of her, and it was cute. One step was all it took before I had her seated on the wall on top of my coat, not wanting her dress to get dirty. I’d give her every excuse to stay here in my arms, where I could keep kissing her.
I hadn’t come to the wedding looking to meet anyone or hook up, and if I had, I definitely didn’t have time for it to lead anywhere. But when did my life ever stick to the plan? Plays fell apart all the time.
I knew how to roll with the punches.