Chapter Nineteen
Cade
In the week between Christmas and New Year’s Eve, I only see Serena once. I find myself missing her when I’m not with her, and the little pang in my heart makes me think that I’ve been missing out on something in my life for a very long time. I want to take her out on New Year’s Eve for a night she’ll never forget, but finding something that feels right proves harder than I expected.
I end up deciding to take Serena to a New Year's Eve party that the Condors are having for a night of dancing and revelry. Even though I’m not on the team anymore, I’m still invited to the Condors’ big party they throw each year as an alumnus of the team. Even though I’ve been retired for a few years now, I am still one of the faces of the organization, and I enjoy doing community outreach with the team still.
I know it will be someplace that I can take Serena without fear of paparazzi or other club goers snapping our picture and sending it to XYZ, the most popular gossip site around that has plastered countless pictures of me and Josephine or whatever flavor of the week passed through my life. I know we have been lucky that no one has snapped any pictures of Serena and me since we started seeing each other, and I’d like to keep it that way for as long as I can.
The last several weeks with Serena have been so beyond words. I feel like we have really connected on a level I’ve never connected with another woman before, and it is simply amazing. I realize now that the ease of our relationship is something I crave, especially after the back and forth rollercoaster Josephine and I were on for all those years. This feels like an actual adult relationship, and I couldn’t be happier. It’s also incredible to me that we still haven’t had sex and that I’m one hundred percent okay with that. When Tyler told me I should wait and we should take our time, I thought he was a little nuts. Truth is, though, it was the best advice I’ve ever received.
I pick Serena up at her place, and she greets me at the door with a smile, letting me inside. She excuses herself to grab her shoes, explaining as she goes that Alan is spending the night at Ashley’s.
I watch her walk. Her little black dress ends just above the knee and is straight with a slit on the left side. The dress is off her shoulders and the sleeves end in a ruffle just past her elbows. It is simple and understated, elegant, but she looks sexy as hell and I feel my dick tighten just looking at her. Especially when she pushes her hair back, exposing all that sweet delicate skin of her neck and collarbone.
When Serena returns to the room wearing a pair of glittery silver heels and the bracelet I gave her for Christmas, I tell myself that I need to send Ashley a thank you present for tonight.
It doesn’t take us too long to reach the hotel where the party is being held and I happily escort Serena inside, catching all the looks being shot in her direction and the looks the other men I know shoot me. I feel proud to have her on my arm and I know that there is no way I want to ever mess this up.
We mingle with the team's owner and the coaching staff for a few minutes before we sit down for dinner. I’m seated with a few other former teammates who make me look good, and I consider sending them all fruit baskets or something for all the talking up of me they’ve done. After dinner we dance for hours, and at midnight we share a kiss that curls my toes. If we were in a romantic movie, it would have been a foot pop kind of moment.
About an hour after midnight, Serena and I leave the party for my place. The car ride is quiet, but it’s a comfortable silence that I always thought would drive me crazy. Turns out, I just needed the right person in my life to share the silence with.
I let us inside my house and Serena kicks off her heels at the door before making her way to the living room. Her killer little black dress is at the same time understated and sexy, and I am happy to watch her walk away, the light in the house catching the silver bracelet on her wrist. I follow, after taking off my own shoes, to find her on the end of the couch, feet curled underneath her with a smile on her face.
“Thank you for tonight,” she tells me. “I haven’t been out for New Year’s in so long, and I had such a wonderful time.”
“I’m glad you enjoyed yourself. I was worried it’d be too much football talk.”
“Oh no, it wasn’t,” she assures me. “I was more worried the other women wouldn't be nice to be honest, but everyone was lovely and so nice. Now I can’t wait to meet Tyler and Tamara.”
“I can’t wait for you to meet them, either,” I grin. Even though it’s comfortable in the house, I reach for a remote that turns on the fireplace. “Is this okay?”
“Of course.”
I click a button and a fire roars to life. I scoot closer to her, and she settles in under my arm.
“Sometimes I miss having a white Christmas,” I admit to her.
“Do you promise not to laugh if I tell you something?”
I hold my pinky up to her. “Pinky promise.”
She hooks her pinky around mine. “I was convinced for half of my childhood that snow was just something they made up for TV.”
I can’t help the laughter that bubbles up, and she glares at me. “You pinky promised!”
“I’m sorry, babe. I can't help it.”
“I was just a kid, maybe five. I didn’t understand why it never snowed here, and my dad told me it was just a special effect on TV. I think I was in middle school before I learned about the weather and found out it was a real thing.”
“I loved the snow when I was young, but around the time I hit high school, I started dreaming about going to college somewhere it never snowed, which is part of the reason I chose California. I wanted to live someplace where it was warm because it was so cold so much of the year in Chicago. I miss it sometimes but for the most part, I’m pretty happy about not living in a winter wonderland anymore.”
“I bet Alan would love the snow,” she muses thoughtfully.
“Maybe we can go to Chicago sometime. To be honest, I wouldn’t mind getting snowed in somewhere with you.”
She snuggles in a little closer. “That doesn't sound so bad. Snowed in, just the two of us and a roaring fire.”
“And if we couldn't build a fire, we can just snuggle like this for warmth. Naked, of course, for the body heat.
She shivers at my words and looks up at me. “I don’t think I’d mind that even if we weren’t snowed in,” she whispers.
My heart stops for a second as the blood rushes to my head. I’m pretty sure that was an invitation, but even still, I lean down tentatively and brush my lips against hers. She responds back immediately, pressing into me, rubbing her little body against mine as we continue to kiss. I pick her up and settle her across my lap, her thighs straddling mine. She moves so her core presses against my dick, begging to be let out of the confines of the dress pants I’m wearing. Her fingers move swiftly to unbutton the shirt I am wearing, and then her hands are running up and down my chest. I reach behind her and unzip her dress, my hands roaming the skin of her back.
A moan escapes her as she rubs against my erection, and I dip my fingers between her legs, feeling the dampness on the front of her panties. “You’re so wet for me,” I murmur into her ear. I brush my fingers against the lacy fabric, and she moves against them with another moan.
“Cade...” Her eyes flutter shut and then open to look at me. “I’m... I’m on the pill. I mean...you don’t need a condom, if you don’t want to...” She trails off awkwardly
I chuckle. “Noted,” I tell her, grabbing her chin between my fingers. I steer her mouth to mine and kiss her, but she pulls back and looks at me nervously.
“I just mean I’m clean. I haven’t been with anyone in over a year so...” she trails off again.
I groan. “Babe, you’re gonna be so tight.” She blushes and looks away. “Hey,” I say, tilting her face back to mine. “I trust you. You don’t have to tell me that stuff.” She wraps her legs around me when I stand. “I’m going to take you to my bedroom and worship you, like I told you that you deserve to be. And don’t you dare stop making any of the noises you were just making, got it?”
She nods, and I kiss her. It’s heaven to kiss her, our mouths moving as one. I could kiss her for hours and not get bored, I decide. I start to walk, and she presses into me, wrapping her arms around my neck tighter and kissing her way along my neck to my collarbone. I stutter out a breath when she nips me there, and I press her back into the wall.
I push the sleeves of her dress down her arms to expose her breasts to me. I have one leg wedged between hers, and she’s grinding her pussy against my straining thigh. I bend my head to lavish her tits with some attention, return the little nip, and she gasps before moaning my name. I love every sound she makes, and my memory is flooded with our one night years ago. I want to know if it is everything I remember.
I readjust my grip on her and step backwards; she presses her breasts to my chest, her nipples rubbing against me as we move. I take the stairs as quickly as I can, desperate to get my hands and mouth on every possible inch of her.
I stop just outside my bedroom and look at her. “Are you sure?”
“I’ve never been more sure of anything, Cade.”