Chapter Twenty-Three
JAX
I was in a shit mood.
Brought on by an even shittier situation.
And unable to focus on anything except for the fact that I hadn’t received a text from Harley since I basically fled my own apartment.
My throws were off in practice today.
My concentration was on a spitfire who tasted like bubblegum and had the sexiest husky laugh I’d ever heard.
I showered, grabbed my shit, and got in my car.
Rain pounded in rapid succession against the windshield, like it was just as angry, just as tormented as I felt. With a curse, I started the car and drove.
And somehow found myself at her apartment.
Dripping with rain.
In front of her door.
My feet took up at least half of the welcome mat, and there was a little sign that said “Blessings” hanging in the center of the door.
I hung my head and raised my hand, only to have the door swing open. A short elderly lady with bright white hair stared me down, her dark-brown eyes pensive, her lips pursed into a thin line.
I gulped.
“You.” Her voice was hoarse, as though she’d smoked a pack a day for thirty years.
I licked my lips. “Is Harley—”
“Here.” Harley’s grandmother shoved a box into my hands. There were at least two jerseys inside, and a football.
“What’s thi—”
“Black Sharpie’s on the table. I’m going out for some air.”
“O-kay.” I drew out the word and walked past her in search for the mysterious black Sharpie. That had to be the oddest reception I’d ever had from a fan.
“I have grandkids.” She sniffed, grabbed a light jacket and some keys, and then added, “Harley’s on her way home.”
The door slammed behind her.
“Well then.” I sighed, rubbing my hands on my jeans before popping the cap off the Sharpie and getting started. I signed my name, my signature taking up at least half of the shoulder of each jersey, then made a mental note to get Harley’s grandma more gear—especially when I noted the décor.
Bellevue Bucks wallpaper.
Harley hadn’t been kidding about her grandmother being a fan.
A Bucks coffee cup was placed next to a crossword puzzle. The steam from hot coffee still billowed over the rim, like she’d been planning on settling in for a nice afternoon, but instead I’d knocked on her door and . . . what? She decided she needed a walk in the rain?
The sound of keys had me jumping to my feet in an effort to look like I actually belonged at Harley’s dinner table. Shit, I never wanted to hide so badly in my entire life.
What the hell was I even doing there?
I just—I wanted to check on her, to apologize in person. To smell her? The hell! I was losing my damn mind.
The door swung open.
Harley placed her bag on the nearby chair and then looked up. Her mouth dropped open, and then she was walking toward me.
I braced myself for impact.
Waited for the slap.
Even closed my eyes.
But when nothing happened, I had no choice but to open them, to face the girl I’d slept with and abandoned. Who did that? Who slept with a girl they actually liked and then bailed the next day?
I did.
Jackass Jax did have a nice ring to it.
“You.” She poked my chest with her finger. God, she was like a taller version of her grandma.
“Me,” I answered.
“Why are you here?”
“Because you wouldn’t talk to me.”
“And that automatically means I want to see you? Invite you into my home? Make you soup?”
“There’s soup?” My stomach growled on command. I was a sucker for homemade food, with all the traveling the team did. Not my fault.
“No.” She crossed her arms. “I mean, well, there’s always soup, it’s our thing, don’t ask.”
My mouth watered.
I wasn’t sure if it was because of her proximity, the way her wet hair clung to her cheeks, or the fact that I’d forgotten to eat after practice.
“I’m sorry.” Could I sound any more robotic? And stupid? “For leaving you, for . . .” I ran my hands through my wet hair. “For just . . .” I rubbed my forehead. “For all of it.”
“All of it?” she whispered.
“The bad parts.” I took a step closer to her. Our bodies were touching, chest to chest. Breathing was taking more of an effort than it should. “Not the good ones.”
“Who said there were good ones?” A challenging brow shot up from her forehead.
I smirked. “Really?”
“Really.”
“You must have a shit memory, Harley.”
“Or maybe it just wasn’t that memorable.”
I crushed my mouth to hers on instinct, wrapped my hands around her ass because I couldn’t help myself, then hoisted her onto her grandmother’s ancient dinner table and laid her down by the jerseys because I literally had no self-control when she was that close to me.
Harley’s eyes closed as I kissed down her neck and ripped at her wet clothing, rubbing my hands everywhere I could, touching every sweet part of her before she shoved me away, before she told me that it was over, that I had fucked up.
“You’re an asshole,” she muttered against my mouth before biting down on my bottom lip so hard I winced in pain. “A giant asshole.”
“I know.”
“You left me alone.” She kissed me harder then bit. Then the crazy woman grabbed the front of my pants and slid her hand inside, gripping me so tight my dick nearly went into a coma from blood loss. “Had sex with me and left me!”
“Shit.” How the hell was I getting turned on by her psychotic touch? The woman was going to kill me! Make me sexless! And yet, I moved against her hand, my lips parted, I leaned into her. “I’m sorry, so damn sorry.”
“And you’re an asshole.”
“The biggest asshole in the world,” I agreed as her touch lightened, I jerked against her, and nearly went blind.
“Okay,” she said softly.
I locked eyes with her. “Okay.”
She released me, rubbed her hands together, and shrugged. “So you want some soup?”
What?
She threw me a grin over her shoulder. “Is that a no?”
I was having trouble stringing any sort of sentence together that didn’t have to do with us getting naked on the kitchen table.
“Um . . .” I blew out a pent-up breath of frustration. “Sure, yeah, soup, soup sounds good.”
Harley burst out laughing. “I was shitting you. You passed, by the way.”
“How so?” I narrowed my eyes.
“Well, you were trying to be a gentleman when all you wanted to do was get naked in Grandma’s living room. By the way, bad call, she has cameras.”
I did a little circle.
“It’s almost too easy.” Harley kept laughing. “Come on.”
She held out her hand.
I took it.
I shouldn’t have.
She made me want things I had no business wanting.
All damn day I’d been thinking about her—not football, not my dad but her.
With a wink, she pulled me into a bedroom, shut the door behind her, then pulled her shirt over her head and tossed it onto the carpet. “Now that we’re done talking . . .”
I didn’t let her finish. I devoured her next few words, one hand tangled in her hair, the other working her jeans down her ass while she unbuttoned mine. Laughter bubbled up between us as we stumbled toward her bed.
I pulled her on top of me and sighed. “I missed you.”
She stilled. “I missed you too.”
It was all I needed to hear.
Before my mouth was on hers again.
Before I lost my sanity again.
“I’m on the pill.” She moaned. “Just . . . thought, since last time and—”
“Yeah,” I finished for her. “Not to totally ruin this moment, but is Grandma supposed to be arriving any time soon?”
“No, I don’t think—”
The sound of a door opening stunned me into silence.
I was seconds from feeling Harley around me, inches from where I wanted to be.
“Harley girl?” Grandma called. “You in your room?”
She slammed a hand against my mouth. “Yeah, Grandma, just, um, playing a board game.” She rolled her eyes as I licked her fingers.
She shivered while I tossed her onto her back, pinning her down with my body as I hesitated at her entrance.
“What game?”
I pressed into her and murmured, “Yeah, Harley, what game?”
Her eyes narrowed, “It’s, uh, Chutes and, um, Ladders?”
“Am I the chute or the ladder?” I whispered.
A whimper escaped between her lips before Grandma called back, “Forgot my phone, you kids have fun.”
Harley let out a frustrated groan.
“Better put a cover on that ladder, dear!”
Harley covered her face with her hands. “Thanks, Grandma.”
“And when I say cover, I mean condom!”
“Got it, bye!”
I wasn’t sure who was more horrified, me or Harley. But all it took was the slamming of the front door for the mood to go back to the way it was before the untimely interruption: desperate, needy.
“Huh.” I grinned. “And here all this time I thought I was more of the chute.”
She smacked me in the shoulder then pulled down on my neck, until our mouths met in another fiery kiss. “Your move first.”
One long thrust and my world was suddenly righted again.