WE ENDED UP at an improv comedy show for our date—which might have been an offbeat choice for some, but it turned out to be the perfect fit for the pair of us.
Blake and I, despite our occasional difficulties in the communication department, shared a sense of humor. Slapstick? Sure. Inappropriate? Of course. Bawdy? Just show us where to sign up.
I laughed so hard my sides felt like they’d split in two, and at one point I snorted while taking a sip of water and nearly needed to go to the hospital to get sorted out. Blake laughed even harder than I did because of how hard it was for me to get my coughing fit to settle down. By the time the show came to an end and we were walking back out to his car, we were both holding our bellies from the ab workout.
Or maybe I was the only one feeling the effects on my abs. Something told me his were in impeccable shape.
Well, not something, exactly. My fingers told me that.
Because I’d had my hands on them once…briefly. Too briefly.
I’d always wondered what it would feel like to touch a set of abs like his. Now I knew, and I wanted to know more—and that scared me.
The wind picked up on our brief walk outside, almost blowing my jacket away. Shivering, I reached for the zippered ends and quickly zipped it up all the way to my chin, wishing I’d thought to grab a scarf on our way out the door.
“Cold?” Blake asked, raising a brow in question.
I chuckled, then wished I hadn’t because my abs weren’t ready for more laughing. “Usually. I’m still not used to being cold all the time.”
Blake reached for my hand, almost casually, as we walked to the nearby parking garage. His strong fingers linked with mine. They were so warm, and I could only imagine the rest of him was equally warm. The thought of leaning into him again, pressing my body against his, was a seductive tease.
“That’s new?” he asked. “Being cold?”
“When I was heavier,” I said, because I was determined to be real and honest with him, even though it scared me, “I was always hot. Everyone around me could be bundled up and shivering, and I’d be wishing I could strip down to nothing because I was sweating. But literally the moment I woke up from my surgery, I was cold. I begged for heated blankets in the hospital. They piled about five of them on me and I was still shivering, and it hasn’t changed since. I’ve had to invest in a lot of electric blankets and have them scattered through the whole house.”
“What surgery?” he asked.
I hesitated, but then I remembered that I’d already told him how fat I used to be. No point in trying to hide from reality. “I had gastric bypass a couple of years ago. Weight-loss surgery,” I added, in case he didn’t know what that meant. And then I braced myself for the lecture or disgust or whatever he felt the need to send my way.
“That’s how you lost the weight?”
“Yeah. I literally used to weigh twice what I do now. I was enormous. I wouldn’t have been able to fit in those seats in the comedy club tonight. I’d have been spilling over the sides. And then I would have been uncomfortable because I’d be taking up your space, and I’d worry about what you were thinking.” It was a never-ending vicious cycle.
“And you get cold a lot now?” he asked.
I shivered just at the sound of the word. Then I shrugged, laughing.
Blake grinned and winked at me, tightening his grip on my hand and sending more warmth shooting up my arm. It spread all through my body. I was almost positive there was more involved in his ability to warm me up than simply the small bit of physical contact.
It was funny how so many people liked to judge others over things they didn’t understand. I’d been told that having weight-loss surgery was cheating more times than I could count, that I should have just gone on a diet and learned to employ self-control like the rest of the world.
And then there were the others—some of my family, in particular—who’d tried to convince me that I’d made a huge mistake, one that I could never reverse, and I’d regret it soon and for the rest of my life. Never mind that I was healthy now, and I would have been on my way to an early grave otherwise.
If I’d had plastic surgery to get breast implants or liposuction, or anything else of the sort, no one would have said a word—even though those kinds of surgery were purely for a physical transformation and had no impact on a person’s health. But make a life-changing decision to improve your health, and suddenly everyone in your life knows better than you do and is determined to point out what a poor decision you’d made.
At least that was how it often felt to me. Particularly when I refused to eat Mama’s tamales and flour tortillas and my abuelita’s tres leches cake, instead bringing my own foods with me for family gatherings.
But Blake didn’t seem to be judging me for it.
He was curious, sure. Most people who found out I used to wear a size-thirty dress and a 50-H bra tended to be curious. It went with the territory. But usually, people looked at me a certain way once they knew I’d decided to have surgery.
He wasn’t.
When we reached his car, he waited for me to get in the passenger seat before closing my door. As soon as he went around to the other side, he started the engine and then reached for the center console to press a button.
“Butt warmer,” he said, winking. “Give it about thirty seconds, and you’ll be nice and toasty.”
That was an extravagance I’d never allowed myself. Yeah, I earned more as a special education teacher than a lot of my colleagues did, but I didn’t have extra money lying around for fancy features in a car. Everything about my vehicle was utilitarian.
By the time he pulled out into traffic, the seat had warmed up so much that I wasn’t shivering any longer. Maybe the next time I upgraded, this would be a feature I should splurge for, despite the cost.
“That’s my new favorite thing,” I said with a contented sigh, settling back against the seat.
“What? Going out with me?” He waggled a brow suggestively, which only made me roll my eyes and him laugh. “Comedy night? Laughing until your sides hurt?”
I laughed, shaking my head. “Butt warmers.”
“I turn mine on when I’m driving in for every practice and game. Even in the warmer months. Helps loosen up my glutes and thighs. It’s good before a massage, too. Helps them get in deeper and break up all the knots.”
“You get knots in your butt?”
“You can get knots in any muscle you use. Don’t you get them?” He turned down a street I didn’t recognize instead of getting onto the expressway.
I got the distinct impression that he was taking the long way back to my place. And to be honest, I didn’t particularly mind. It meant getting to spend more time talking with him…and despite my reservations, I was enjoying myself.
“I don’t know,” I hedged. “How do you know if you have knots in your muscles?”
“When your massage therapist finds one, you’ll know. Hurts like a motherfucker when they press on them, but then it’s so much better afterwards, once they’ve loosened things up for you. But maybe you don’t have a very good therapist.”
“I don’t get massages, so I wouldn’t know if my therapist is any good or not.”
“Why don’t you get massages?” He sounded shocked almost to the point of being scandalized.
“Can’t afford them. And I’m not overly keen on the idea of having someone I don’t know touching me and all my loose skin.” As soon as I’d mentioned that part, I wished I could take the words back.
He came to a stop at a red light and turned his head to stare at me. Hard. So hard I wanted to shrivel up and disappear into my seat. “When’s the last time someone touched you?” he asked.
I rolled my eyes. “About five minutes ago when you reached for my hand.”
“Doesn’t count.”
“A couple of days ago when you mauled me on my front porch.”
“You know what I mean,” he grumbled, in the most adorable way.
I did know what he meant. And I wasn’t in the mood to go there. I shrugged and said, “It’s been a while.”
“How much of a while? Months? More than a year?”
Not the sort of conversation I wanted to be having with him or anyone just now. I stared out the window on my side.
His hand came down over mine. Warm. Strong. A seductive tease of things that both called to me and terrified me.
“How long?” he demanded, quietly but insistently.
“I don’t want to talk about this.”
“Bea.”
“What?”
“You’re avoiding the question.”
“If you want to know how long it’s been since I’ve had sex with a man, then the answer is never. I’ve never had sex. Not with a man. Not with a woman. Not with a goat. Not on a train or in the dark or on a plane. Never.”
“How old are you?” he asked, putting his foot to the gas pedal again since the light had turned green.
“Thirty,” I bit off. “And if you make one single crack about me being a thirty-year-old virgin—”
“I’m not making jokes about it,” he cut in. “I’m not making jokes about you.”
Not yet. I couldn’t seem to stop the dark thoughts from invading my mind.
“Is it a religious thing? Or you just don’t want to have sex before marriage or something?”
“It’s a men-don’t-look-twice-at-the-fat-chick-because-she’s-invisible-to-them thing.”
“Well, since we’ve already established that you’re not a fat chick anymore, that no longer applies. If it ever did to begin with. Might have just been in your head.” He stopped at another light.
“It wasn’t just in my head.”
“Maybe it was. Like you said, you didn’t want to be seen. Maybe you were doing your best to be invisible, and you did too good a job of it.”
He could be right about that.
I enjoyed being invisible. I felt safe when I was invisible.
But that safety was just a mirage. I knew it now. Maybe, by isolating and insulating myself like this, I wasn’t going to get hurt by loving someone who didn’t love me back, but I still ended up getting hurt. I got hurt because I never allowed anyone to love me. I wouldn’t let them close enough to hurt me, which meant I didn’t let them close enough to care, either…which meant I ended up getting hurt very badly, even though it was the very thing I was doing my damnedest to avoid.
“Either way,” Blake said, seemingly oblivious to the war going on inside my head, “I can promise you, men look twice now. Or at least this man does.” The heat in his expression did a serious number on me.
A series of tingles shot through my belly and up my spine. I was glad when this traffic light turned green so he had to focus on the road again.
Within a few minutes, he was pulling into my driveway…and I was experiencing another war inside my head. I wanted to dart out of his car and race into my house and lock the door while he was still on the other side of it, but I also wanted to stay right where I was for a little longer—and it wasn’t just the lure of the butt warmers.
The truth was, I liked the sensation of his hand resting on mine, his powerful arm brushing up against me. I liked the way his cologne tickled my nostrils. I liked the chills he elicited in my body and the way they turned to an all-encompassing heat a moment later, kind of like Icy Hot for my insides.
I liked an awful lot about him, and I didn’t know what to do with that.
“Can I walk you inside?” he asked, and it might have been a casual, maybe even chivalrous, question if I hadn’t just told him I’d never slept with a man before. But my admission seemed to change everything about our dynamic.
Or maybe it was only changing things in my head.
My pulse was so loud it was deafening. I nodded and unfastened my seat belt. By the time my fumbling fingers had managed that task, Blake had shut off his engine, gotten out, and come around to open my car door for me. He even offered his hand to assist me out of his car, as if he knew how wobbly my legs must be.
“Hey,” he said, and he tipped my chin up with his free hand until I lifted my eyes and looked up at him.
“Hmm?”
“I just want to take you inside tonight. I mean, maybe I want more, but that’s all I intend to do. It’s all I expect.”
“And maybe a good-night kiss?” I suggested. Heat flooded my cheeks, making me glad it was dark outside so my embarrassment wasn’t obvious.
“I’d never turn down a good-night kiss.”
“Good.”
“Or any kiss from you.”
“You’d better not.”
I didn’t know where the boldness had come from. But I liked it. I liked this new side of me a lot, and I hoped I could keep it up.
If I could, Dani would be proud.
Well, she’d be proud if she could get over the fact that Blake Kozlow was the one bringing it out in me. But that was neither here nor there, because she wasn’t involved.
This was just me and Blake.
I fumbled around in my purse, digging for my keys and dropping them on the ground once I’d finally wrapped my fingers around them.
Blake bent to retrieve them, and instead of handing them back to me, he tugged me toward my front door and unlocked it so I wouldn’t have to.
I brushed past him on my way inside, every nerve ending in my body on high alert, my thoughts whirling at breakneck speed. The slight skim of my arm against his chest as I slipped by him made goose bumps pop up all over my body. I shivered, but not from cold.
He closed the door and hung my keychain on the hook where I kept my keys.
Then, before my nerves could get the best of me and I could scurry away, he took my hand in one of his, linking our fingers together, and backed me up against the wall. He did the same with my other hand.
I looked up and met his eyes.
But I wished I hadn’t.
Because the heat in his gaze had me locked in place, and I doubted I’d ever be able to move a muscle again.
BEA WAS SUCH a contradiction in so many ways. She was bubbly, fiery, and fierce most of the time. But in the next breath, she could become as timid and unsure of herself as anyone I’d ever come across.
I wanted to see that fire come out in her more often. It killed me to see her retreating into her shell, trying to be invisible. There was probably a hell of a lot of truth in what she’d said about people not seeing her when she’d been heavier—but most likely it was because she’d done everything possible to avoid being seen.
But I definitely saw her now.
She’d been helping me with my ADHD and repairing my relationship with the fans and the team…but maybe there was something I could help her with, too.
There were still a few inches between us, other than where our hands met. My fingers were twined with hers, our palms pressed together, but that was the only contact between our bodies. But I could feel her nerves, and maybe a hint of her longing, and even a tiny bit of fear.
I didn’t get the sense that she was scared of me, per se. It seemed to have more to do with the unknown. Maybe she feared the way she felt at the moment—about me or about what she’d told me or about what we were about to do. Whatever it was, I didn’t want her to be nervous or anxious right now.
I wanted her turned on. I wanted her to be as hot and bothered as I was.
But to accomplish that without potentially sending her running like a skittish rabbit or hissing at me like a cornered alley cat, I’d need to take my time.
Going slow might just kill me, but boo fucking hoo, too bad for me.
“This is okay?” I asked, just to be sure.
And even though her eyes were wide enough they could be saucers, she nodded, keeping them locked to mine.
I lowered my head, angling it to the side so I could nibble on her jaw and neck.
She sucked in a sharp breath before releasing it, and her pulse pounded against my tongue when I licked her there. Hell, her response was turning me on like I never could have imagined. Most of the women I’d been with were experienced. They knew what they wanted and they weren’t afraid to ask for it. For that matter, a lot of them just plain demanded it.
But for Bea, this was all new. I couldn’t afford to forget that. If I fucked this up, not only would she never let me near her again, but she might not ever let any man have a chance.
That was a lot of pressure, and I tended to go one of two ways with pressure: either I exceeded all expectations or I fucked up royally. There was no in-between.
But I didn’t want any old guy touching her. Only me. No clue where the hell that thought had come from, but it was there, and I didn’t think it’d be going away any time soon.
I wanted Bea Castillo more than I’d ever wanted a woman before, and I wanted her all to myself.
“I need to touch you, Bea,” I said, trailing my tongue over the hollow in her neck as I made my way back up to her mouth. “I want to put my hands on you. Can I?”
“Yes,” came out as a strangled sound.
I’d barely let go of her hands and started to move them toward her waist when she grabbed hold of my wrists with a grip that surprised me in its strength.
“What?” I asked, trying to figure out how I’d already fucked up.
She took a couple of deep breaths, her eyes wide and wild. “Over my clothes,” she insisted. “Only over them.”
“Okay. Whatever you say, Bea. Over your clothes.” I felt the need to repeat her words—not for me, but so she’d know I completely understood and agreed.
She nodded, her eyes closed tight.
Fuck, she was still so scared and unsure of it all. Unsure of me. I hoped she wasn’t scared of me, but just scared of the unknown.
I started by brushing only the tips of my fingers along her jaw and then down her neck, planting soft kisses over her cheeks and nose until I felt her shudder. “This okay so far?” I murmured between whisper-soft pecks and tiny tastes with my tongue.
“Mm hmm.”
The pulse in her throat throbbed against my thumb. It was going wild, the realization of which was enough to make me crazy with need. My dick was pure steel behind my zipper. Throbbing. Painful. Desperate. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d wanted a woman as much as I wanted her.
This was going to be torture. Pure, utter torture. But hopefully torture that would pay off—eventually.
“If you don’t like something or you want me to stop, you just say the word,” I said, and I felt her nod as I dipped my head in to suckle the lobe of one ear. “I’ll stop. Or I’ll change to what you want. You just say the word, okay?”
“Mm hmm.” The sound was barely a vibration beneath my lips.
I licked her where the vibrations had just been.
She sucked in a sharp breath, which pushed her breasts toward my chest. I bit back a groan of longing because I was dying to get my hands on those tits. And my mouth.
Patience, I reminded myself. If I could be patient enough, it would be rewarded—eventually. Maybe. Hopefully.
Tentative hands splayed over my chest. I let out a growl of approval that got swallowed by her lips as she unexpectedly grabbed hold of my collar and tugged me closer.
An inch at a time, I moved my exploration along her neck, over her collarbone, down until I could fill one hand with her breast. It was soft and full, and her tit pebbled like a rock against my palm when I gently squeezed. She nipped my lower lip in surprise, which prompted me to squeeze a bit harder.
“Oh my God,” she murmured against my mouth.
“More?” I asked.
She nodded, so I moved my other hand to her free breast and deepened the kiss, taking long, slow drags of her tongue as I rolled her nipples between my thumbs and forefingers.
Bea ground her hips against me, and my dick almost whimpered from the combination of ecstasy and torture.
I wanted to strip off all her clothes and screw her against the wall. I wanted to sink inside her and lose myself. I wanted to drive into her until she was shaking and limp and calling my name. I wanted it so much I was practically desperate from it.
But instead, I took what she was willing to give, and I gave her as much as she was willing to accept, and I told myself to be happy with it.
Soft, surprised sounds kept coming from the back of her throat, which only turned me on more. Her body was on fire, just as much as mine. I had no doubt she was slick with need.
She was ready.
Scratch that—her body was ready. Her mind hadn’t caught up yet.
So after long minutes of kissing her like there might be no tomorrow, I forced myself to separate from her. Her lips were pink and swollen from my kisses, her eyes almost black with longing and fully glazed with lust.
“I should go home,” I rasped, planting another chaste kiss on her forehead.
“You should.” She nodded, her hands still clasping my collar and holding me close.
“Yeah. I should.”
But neither of us made any move to release the other. We were both still gulping air, our hearts pounding.
I forced myself to relax and pressed my forehead against hers, my hands resting on her ribs so I could casually brush my thumbs along the undersides of her breasts. “I want to do this again, Bea.”
“A date?”
“All of it.”
“All of…?”
“A date. Driving you home. Laughing with you. Making out until we’re both horny as hell and desperate for more and we can’t catch our breaths. Everything.”
“Everything?” she repeated, still winded. Or maybe it was what I’d said that had stolen her breath this time.
“Yeah. Everything. I want it all with you.”
It was an admission that should have terrified me. But instead, it did the opposite. For the first time in as long as I could remember, I felt an immense lightness spread through my entire body, a warmth that had nothing to do with the lust still raging through my blood.
I wanted this woman more than I wanted my next breath. And I was willing to do whatever it took to make her want me just as badly.
Never woulda seen this one coming.