Delilah

My heart drummed frantic beats in my ears as his words echoed on repeat. What was he thinking? What was I thinking?

As if my surroundings were suddenly coming into focus for the first time, I glanced around at the players tossing balls on the field, a few others swinging bats as they warmed up their muscles.

“Cash…” I shook my head, suddenly feeling a wave of fear wash through me. I knew where this led, no point in taking it any further. A groupie tomorrow, another one the next day, my heart left bleeding out in the dirt. No way was that life for me.

“Oh, no you don’t. I know that look on your face.” Cash stood, placing a delicate kiss on my knuckles before backing away. “I’m leaving before you say something I’m gonna regret hearing. We both know that whatever you say today isn’t going to make a damn bit of difference tomorrow when we see each other.” He hummed against my ear and sent shockwaves through my body. “Have a great day, Ms. Grey.”

I swallowed, pushing a hand through my hair. My mind reeled as he walked away. He’d stopped me before I could even get a word out. He knew me so well already, knew that my irrational fears would get the better of me and my defense mechanisms would do their best to send him packing. But that hadn’t happened. He’d cut me off, and somewhere deep down inside, I liked it. He’d stopped my stupid emotional trigger in its tracks and left me thinking maybe what we had was different from anything I’d ever known. I only had to give it a chance.

I sighed, throwing my bag over my shoulder. I needed a hot shower to shake Cash’s talented tongue and those incredibly long fingers from my mind. I sped down the long hallway, turning the corner just as I ran into a wall of a body.

A body that reeked of whiskey.

“Hey, why the rush?” Rodriguez’s hands came around my shoulders. He was clearly unsteady on his feet.

“What are you thinking? I’m disappointed in you, Rodriguez. You’re not gonna get your stats up if you’re more concerned with partying. Go home and get some rest.” I pulled away from him, taking a step back and right into Cash’s broad chest.

“What’s up, Rod?”

“Just seein’ where your girl is off to. I don’t think she likes me very much.” Rodriguez glanced from Cash to me.

“I think she’s right. You need to go sleep this one off. I’ll stop by later for pizza and we can talk about the game.” Cash clapped his teammate on the shoulder.

“Nah, man. Don’t need your help.” Rodriguez shrugged Cash off.

“Like hell you don’t. If you don’t sober up, Coach is going to bench you the rest of the season and force you into rehab, man. You know that.”

“Fuck off.”

“He’s right. You’re off your game; the numbers show it,” I offered, not wanting to push too much but knowing Rodriguez had too much talent to drink it away. Just like someone else I knew.

“Here, let me get you home.” Cash clasped a hand around Rodriguez’s shoulder, shot me one last long look, and led him down the long hallway.

The depth of Cash’s compassion astounded me. I’d never met anyone like him, much less a ball player. They were usually so self-involved they couldn’t see beyond their own ego, but Cash put everyone first. Even me.

I sighed, watching them leave, glad that Rodriguez had a friend like Cash to help him when he was down. We could all use someone like that in our lives.

Later that night, long after the game and the little run-in with Rodriguez, I turned the corner in the hotel, thinking I should do some packing if I had any chance of making the early flight in the morning, and I heard a voice murmuring low.

I frowned, stalling when I turned the corner to find Cash leaning against the wall near my room, speaking into his phone. I hadn’t seen him since our tryst in the bleachers this morning, but now he looked upset. Really upset. His brow was furrowed, and a deep frown marred his normally relaxed face.

I almost turned to leave, trying to avoid betraying his privacy, then thought better, frowning as I moved closer, my hotel key already out and ready to swipe.

Cash’s eyes rolled up my body as soon as I was close, his darkened irises landing on mine and swimming with something painful. His look swept the breath from my lungs, and I knew instantly I couldn’t leave him, because whatever that phone call was about, it wasn’t good.

Cash murmured something else before promising to do what he could, then hanging up the phone.

“Are you okay?”

Cash froze, no words falling from his lips before I dropped my bag on the floor, not even sure what I was doing beyond comforting him the only way I knew how. I wrapped my arms around his shoulders, and his arms encircled me, and we held each other. He held me so tightly for long minutes, I thought he might crush the air from my lungs, but it was the best hug I’d ever received.

Warmth rolled in waves from him to me, and before I knew what was happening, Cash’s hands were crawling up my skin, his lips tracing mine, and his tongue pressed at the seam of my mouth. I opened, and our tongues tangled intimately, my brain blurring with images of earlier images of him, images of us, together.

Without words he lifted me into his arms, taking my keycard in one hand and swiping it at the door before it buzzed and we crashed into my hotel room. He dropped me on my feet, and without thinking, with all the pent-up energy from the orgasm earlier and the memory of his hands and his lips on me, I pulled my top over my head and stood in the middle of the floor in my pants and a bra.

Cash’s eyes narrowed, and he pulled his own shirt over his head, then pushed his hands through my hair, and we both fell down onto the fluffy bed. “I need us tonight.”

“Yes, yes,” I gasped against his lips, my hands tugging his hair, the scent of him surrounding me and sending my mind hazy with lust. Cash’s lips kissed across my collarbone, then he drew his tongue over the flesh of my breasts, pushing the straps down my arms. With frantic movements, he shoved my pants and panties down my legs, grazing his fingertips across my bare pussy before nestling his hips between my thighs. The hot, thick ridge of his cock pressed against my clit and sent me arching up on the bed, desperate for more of him now.

I didn’t know what we were doing, I didn’t know what I was thinking, because this was certainly not the place I expected to be tonight, but I was sick and tired of denying whatever this was between us. In the far reaches of my mind, I thought maybe this would satisfy the itch. Maybe we could do this tonight, then wake up tomorrow satisfied, the banter and sexual tension no longer pulsing uncontrollably between us.

“You make me crazy, Delilah.” He hooked a hand behind my head and brought his lips to mine, kissing me until I was breathless, bruising my lips until only the memory of him remained. Cash pulled the waistband of his workout pants down his thighs, and suddenly his cock was right there, pressed against me, sliding along the slit of my pussy, sending me into another world with frenzied need.

“I don’t want a single thing separating me from you.” Cash’s words made my stomach flutter. I’d never felt so wanted on such a primal level. His hands clutched at my hips as he lined his cock up with my entrance, his eyes searing into me, dark with lust and barely contained need. “You drive me fucking insane, but I can’t stop thinking about you.” In the next breath he was pushing into me, my body stretching around him as he caressed every inch of skin he could reach.

“I...” I sighed, struggling for words. “I've never been with anyone Cash... Only you.” Shallow breaths punctuated my words as every slow centimeter of him filled me. I arched, digging my nails into his back as his lips melded with mine. I was his, the touch of his lips and the press of his fingers on my body confirmed it. The pinch and burn of his cock stretching my insides, his body breaching mine for the first time, everything about him left me breathless and craving more.

He kissed me in measured strokes as his dick delved deeper inside my body. “We're each other's first, and each other's last.”

Cash was made for me, our bodies meeting and reacting like chemicals, the reaction too explosive to ignore, burning up the space between us and creating something new and irrevocably bonded.

There would be no going back for us.

Cash’s hips sped up, his rhythm matching mine as we tangled on the sheets, sweat and sex scenting the air while his hands crawled over my body, owning every inch of me as if he was leaving a brand on my skin. “Christ, you don't know what it does to me to know I've the only man that's been here.”

My heart thrummed in my chest at his words. I knew them to be true, this night would make us more desperate for each other.

“I want you now,” I moaned as his hands clutched my hips and he drove me to the edge.

“I want every day with you, Delilah. We’re nowhere near done yet.” He pulled me from the bed, lifting me in his arms and pushing me up against the cool glass of the French doors that led to a balcony.

Hitching my legs over his hips, he slid his cock deep into my body, every cell screaming for more, harder, faster, now. “I’m going to fuck you until you can’t think straight, Delilah. I’m going to fuck you until you can’t form a word with that pretty, sassy mouth of yours.”

I pushed my hands through his hair, then attached my lips to his, loving every combustible moment of his skin against mine.

“I can take care of you, Delilah.” He accented my name with a ragged thrust. “I can give you everything.”

Tears burned behind my eyelids as I clutched at the threads of his hair, one of his hands sliding down between us and swirling at my clit. “I want your cum all over my dick.”

I gnashed my teeth as his thumb sped up and the sensations overtook my body.

“Cum, gorgeous.”

My muscles tensed as release crashed through me. My toes curled and my breaths heaved as waves of pleasure seared every nerve.

“You and me, Delilah, we’re forever.” Cash’s lips caught mine as he plunged his tongue between them and fucked me as his body shuddered and slowed, his release emptying into me in powerful waves. He wrapped his arms around my body, his head falling on my shoulder as he sucked in the flesh at the curve of my neck. “You taste like heaven.”

I was unable to form words, my body overwhelmed by his touch, my mind raging with his all-consuming attention. Everything he did and said was right. He was perfect.

But no one was perfect.

Something had to mess this up. I didn’t believe in fairy tales, and Cash Greenwood was not my Prince Charming, no matter how much he tried to be.

“You’re thinking again, Grey,” Cash murmured against the shell of my ear, sending a shiver through me.

“It’s a curse.” I smiled ruefully, then placed a quick kiss on his chin.

“You’re my curse.” The slow drag of Cash’s cock as he pulled out of me sent leftover sensations pulsing through me. “But it just so happens I love being wrapped up in you.”

“You’re a charmer, Cash Greenwood.” I rolled my eyes.

“Only for you, Delilah. Only for you.”