I’d done my damnedest to take the little bugger’s mind off his aunt and cousin by playing with him all night, and it tired the shit out of me more than the damn ballgame I had played earlier. No young boy deserved to go through that sort of trauma at such a young age. His only damn guardian had suffered a shot to the head from an errant bullet.

I mean, talk about shitty luck. It was all too normal these days to get caught in a gang’s crossfire, though. On my way home, I’d called the hospital for an update on Tate’s aunt. She was in ICU now, but it wasn’t looking good. From what I got out of Tate, his cousin was staying with Keri’s boyfriend, but I wasn’t sure where. Up until today, I hadn’t really tried to find out too much. I knew enough about each of the boys on the Little League team I coached, but getting too entrenched in their lives would get messy. I’d known that when I’d started coaching, and so I kept it strictly about baseball and having fun. I was realizing that the lines had blurred now, and that while I did care about those boys, Andrea was right that I could do more than just be a casual observer of the plights in the South Side. I didn’t know how to make their lives better, but I knew Andrea would have some ideas. I was finding that I didn’t think messy and complicated always had to be a bad thing.

For the past half hour, I’d been sitting on the little guy’s bed in the guestroom I’d cleared out and was reading him a story with a flashlight. He was tucked into my left side, staring down into the book as I read. I couldn’t believe the kid didn’t even know how to read. When Andrea had told me after dinner while we’d put on a movie for Tate, it’d made me angry and sad. My own education growing up had been poor and quite spotty, but I’d known how to read. I was never a straight-A student, but I’d done decently, even in college. Now that I was opening my eyes and really seeing things, I did feel a responsibility to do something. I’d cared before, but not enough.

I looked over at the door every once in a while, surprised Andrea wasn’t Instagramming the shit out of this moment.

But she wasn’t. I could hear her down the hall in the kitchen while some dishes clanked away.

I smiled as I finished reading the chapter and called it quits.

“Coach, you can’t stop there! I need to know if Harry finds his parents!”

“Sorry, buddy! You’ll have to wait until tomorrow to find out. For tonight, just imagine what he’s doing in your dreams.”

“Okay, Coach. Goodnight.”

“Goodnight, Tate.”

I was halfway out the door when I heard Tate pipe up.

“Hey Coach. No one’s gettin’ in here, right?”

I froze. “Getting in here?”

“Yeah. Like ain’t no one gonna bust in here at night?”

Jesus Christ. I went back into the room and sat down next to him for a moment.

“Listen, buddy. The doors are locked. We have a lot of security here. But if not, I got a big bat. And you know what I do with a big bat?”

Shit, maybe I shouldn’t be encouraging violence, but it just came out like that.

“Push guys into the dirt?”

Okay, I really needed to expedite that media overhaul.

“Pushing people into the dirt is only something you do to very, very bad people.” Like Grant Newman.

“Okay Coach, thanks. I’ll sleep good tonight.”

I tucked him in and shut the door. I had a little bell that I’d attached to his doorknob so that I’d know if he was going bump in the night.

Not only would it give me peace of mind in the extremely unlikely case that someone snuck into my apartment, but I also had to know if he left his room for other, selfish reasons.

Andrea had me in heat from the moment I walked through the door. I hated to admit the dumb fucking thought process my mind was following, but there was something that turned me on about watching her being all mom-like, making pizza and taking care of Tate. It was incredible coming home to the sounds of laughter and the smell of a home-cooked meal instead of silence and takeout. I’d never had that, but I had always wondered what being part of a family would be like.

I couldn’t figure out why I loved watching her and Tate together, but I did. It awakened something deep and primal within me. I considered this as I crept into the kitchen from behind her, watching her hum as she filled the dishwasher. She looked so damn luscious from behind. She’d changed into tight white jeans and this little black tank top thingy. The tight jeans accentuated her curvy ass and legs in a way that made me feral. She hummed the melody to that Journey song everybody knew:

Just a small-town girl,

Living in a lonely world,

She took the midnight train going anywhere.

Just a city boy,

Born and raised in South Detroit…

Off in her own humming world, she didn’t notice me behind her. I took advantage of that to watch her. Her hair was up in a ponytail with some brunette strands dangling down. Everything about her drew me in. To me, she seemed to be a free spirit who’d had a conservative upbringing. I moved a few steps closer and swooped in from behind, scooping my arms around her. She was so surprised she began to scream, but I covered her mouth with my hand.

“Well, I’m not from South Detroit, but I am from the South Side of Chicago. Besides, isn’t South Detroit in the river? Jesus, honey! You’ll wake the kid.” I smiled at my own tongue-and-cheek joke.

I wasn’t sure if she’d appreciate it, because she was taking huge, gasping breaths and looking wide-eyed at me. She brought her hand to mine and removed it from her mouth.

“Damn, Jake, you scared me. I thought you might be someone…more dangerous.”

I grinned. “Oh? And who around here is more dangerous than me?”

She arched her spine back, into me.

“Jake, you can’t. Tate. We’ll wake him.” She spoke the words but tilted her head back and stared at me with those beautiful blue fuck-me eyes. The flesh of her ass and thighs pushing into me added fuel to the hard-on that was rapidly solidifying in my jeans. She pretended she was being innocent as I felt her apply more pressure to my cock by wiggling her ass into me. You dirty girl.

“Your words and your ass are saying two very different things, honey. You better get your story straight.”

There was a clank of silverware hitting the steel sink as she lowered what was in her hand.

“Jake,” she whispered, rotating her upper torso around to face me. We kissed.

“Yeah?”

“I think you’re amazing. Incredible. I wish other people got to see this side of you…”

She wrapped her arm around my left bicep. I might have been wrong, but I thought I saw her tearing up.

In that moment, I could admit that I was an asshole sometimes. I would probably always be one to some degree, no matter what, and I didn’t care if only Andrea saw this part of me. I looked deep into her eyes, a window to her soul. I wrapped my hand around her head and smashed her lips with mine like I owned every inch of her.

And she let me. I spun her body around and pressed her into the kitchen island. We devoured each other relentlessly, like high-schoolers kissing in the minutes before class. My hands explored every part of her that I could reach.

There was something about feeling Andrea’s flesh through her shirt that excited me. Maybe it was the anticipation of what was to come.

Her.

I lifted her body onto the island and set her down. Her chest was heaving, her breasts growing and falling with every breath. Her eyes were half shut, and it looked as though she were an opium addict getting her fix.

For a few minutes, I concentrated on kissing the upper half of her body. Anywhere her skin was exposed, I attacked her with my mouth.

“Jake,” she said. “Hold on.”

I eased up on my full frontal attack on her for a moment. I thought it was impossible that this encounter could get much hotter, but I was dead wrong.

“Switch places with me,” she said. No, commanded. It came out like more of a command.

“As you wish,” I growled, helping her down from the granite kitchen countertop.

Before I could jump up to sit on the island, she tugged at my jeans.

“First, we’re going to need to get these pesky things out of the way.”

She didn’t have to tell me twice. In an instant I had pulled down my pants and hopped onto the countertop, butt-ass naked. I leaned back on my palms and took in Andrea’s beauty.

She moved her hands slowly up my thighs, and all the blood in my system that wasn’t already in my cock rushed there. She smiled sweetly, her brown hair falling over her shoulders, the ends brushing my legs. Finally, she gripped my cock at the base and gracefully moved her hand up and down.

“Fuck, you’re hot,” I blurted out.

“Likewise,” she said with a smile, her eyes flashing back at me.

She kissed and licked the sides of my cock, and I moaned every time she touched me. Finally, without warning, she wrapped her lips around me, lingering for a moment around the tip before she plunged down to the base.

I rolled my head back in pleasure, then brought my eyes back down to hers. Mouth around my cock, she looked me dead in the eye.

Goddamn, there wasn’t a better thing in this world than a good girl with her naughty lips wrapped around you as you stare into each other’s eyes.

She began to bob her head up and down, her hair getting in the way. I reached down and made a makeshift ponytail with my fist while she slurped me up.

God she was good.

And there was something so hot about the sounds she made, that instinctively, my hips began to gyrate in rhythm with her motion as she pumped up and down on the length of my cock.

She had me on the edge and it had been—what? Minutes?

“Andrea.” I spoke in a low, throaty growl.

“Yes?” she answered, pausing and taking a breath.

I sat up, back on my palms. She straightened, standing again. I slipped my hand down her abdomen, right under her jeans and her panties, between her legs.

“Fuck, you’re wet already.” I grinned. “Sucking my dick makes you wet.”

“Yes,” she whispered. She grinned, her hands still resting on either of my thighs.

“Take off your pants and grab my wallet from my jeans,” I commanded.

She started taking off her pants but gave me a funny look. “What do you need your wallet for?”

“A condom, honey.” I smiled as I brought her into me for one more kiss. My hard dick slapped up against her stomach as she leaned over me.

“Jake, maybe this isn’t the perfect time to have this conversation, but I trust you.”

I raised my eyebrows at her. “You…trust me?”

“Yes! I know it’s crazy. I know you’re…God, this isn’t the right time for this conversation. But I’m on the pill and I trust you. So forget about the condoms. If you want.”

I hadn’t had condomless sex since—shit, I didn’t even remember.

But there was no one in the world I trusted more than this girl.

“Forget the wallet,” I said. She smiled at me, now totally naked. My dick hadn’t lost an inch of hardness in the time we’d been talking. I didn’t think it could get harder, but the thought of feeling Andrea’s wet pussy without a layer of latex made me hurt, I was so hard.

She climbed up onto the counter and straddled me.

“Never ceases to amaze me that I fit all of this inside me,” she said.

“How about your mouth?” I arched an eyebrow at her.

Whatever humor was in the air quickly dissipated when she brought her pussy down on the length of my cock, inch by inch. I grabbed hold of her hips as she eased on.

We started slow at first, but after a relatively short time, she was bouncing all the way up and down the length of my cock.

This is fucking heaven.

She leaned back and dug her palms down as she gyrated her hips like a goddess. My goddess.

It was like her pussy was made perfectly for my cock. I lost control and started bucking like a wild man. She moaned, and I could hear her on the brink of screaming. I wrapped my arms around her back and brought her upper half down to mine, her tits smashing into my chest. Suddenly, our faces were inches from each other, and I could hear her breathing, moaning. She let out a nasal mmmm of pleasure, grinding against me faster and harder. I gripped her hard and gave her ass cheeks a couple of light slaps.

“Fuck baby, I want you to come. God, you’re hot. Come all over my big, thick dick.”

That sent her over the edge, and I could feel her tensing up between her legs, wrapping her pussy lips harder around my cock. I had to cover her lips with my own to keep her from screaming so loudly she might have woken up the whole block.

She showed signs of coming down, and got up from her knees. Then she turned her attention back to me, nibbling on my ear before whispering, “I want you to come inside this pussy.”

Fuck if that doesn’t send a man over the edge.

Knowing that she wanted this as badly as I did turned me into a beast. She pulled off me for a moment, spun her body around, and squatted down on my cock. Her wet pussy gripped all around me until she had taken it all. She tossed her hair and looked over her shoulder at me with a look that made me struggle not to come right fucking there.

“Baby, I’m gonna come. Where do you want me to…?”

The flesh of her ass against me as she bounced up and down was sending me over the edge. And then she said the hottest words any girl had ever said to me:

“Come inside me, baby.”

She gripped me, and I came so damn hard I thought I might have met God.

Nope, just my goddess.

“Did you like it?” she asked when we were done, both of us lying on the kitchen counter.

“I think we should go again.”

“You want to do this round in the bedroom?”

“Nah.”

“You don’t want to go again?” she quipped, concerned.

“I don’t feel like waiting the ten seconds to get there.”

I wrapped her up in my arms.