She’s not asking for commitment or promises or a fairy tale.

And I want her.

I want her.

So I crash my mouth against hers, lift her by the backs of her thighs until she’s wrapping her legs around my waist, turn us against the side of the nearest building, and I kiss her.

I’m possessed.

That’s the only explanation.

Or possibly her lush lips and the way she tastes like sea salt and rum, the way she’s wrapped around my body like a shield from all the bad to ever exist, the way she’s teasing my ears and scalp and neck with those magical fingers, heating the world around us with those soft noises coming from the back of her throat as she kisses me back—possibly, she’s every inch the kind of woman I like kissing and stroking and screwing around with.

It’s game time, and I’m on the mound. Ready to do what I do best.

Play ball.

Focus.

Achieve.

Win.

Slip my hands under her jacket, beneath her shirt, feel her silky skin quiver and her hips buck into my rock-hard boner while I stroke higher, looking for—

Lace.

She’s wearing a lace bra.

The texture against my fingers sets my skin on fire. I don’t know what it is about a woman in lace lingerie that does it for me, but fuck, I love the lace.

I scrape my thumbs over it, feel the hard nubs of her nipples beneath it, and I nearly come in my pants.

“Oh my god,” she gasps in my mouth, jerking her hips against me.

“We have to stop,” my mouth says.

It’s not me talking.

I don’t want to stop.

I want to yank her clothes off, lick her from head to toe, suck on her nipples, eat her pussy, drive into her, and make her scream until everyone in the whole entire damn county knows that Tillie Jean Rock has had the orgasm of her life.

And I’ve seen her masturbating.

I know what a Tillie Jean orgasm looks like.

I want to top it.

Her eyes are pinched and her lips are parted, sending puffs of crystallized pleasure into the air between us, and she’s riding my hard-on like it’s a life raft while I squeeze her breasts—god, that lace—and kiss her again.

I need to keep my mouth occupied before the demon possessing me says we need to stop again.

Fuck that demon.

That demon isn’t making Tillie Jean moan and whimper in sheer pleasure right now, is he?

And what’s more important than making a woman feel good?

Staying employed, that fucking demon whispers.

I kick him out of my brain and into outer space, then pinch Tillie Jean’s nipples through her lace bra—is it pink? Ivory? Red? Black? Fuck, I hope it’s black—and her legs tighten around me, her whole body going stiff while she moans into my mouth.

I want to come.

I want to come so fucking bad, and she’s squeezing me so hard, holding so still, I know she’s coming.

Tillie Jean rock is coming against my cock and I can’t feel it and I want to fucking feel it.

I want to feel her come around me. I want to know what it’s like to be inside her. I want to know how hard her pussy’s clenching. I want to know if she feels empty without my cock inside her.

I want to know if she wants to come home with me.

Sleep in my bed.

Shower with me.

Laugh at that absurd shower curtain I still haven’t taken down.

Flip pancakes in nothing but one of my shirts while I fry bacon next to her.

Blow me before I leave for the gym.

Let me eat her for dessert.

“Rawk! Eat her pussy! Rawk! Eat her pussy!”

She breaks away and smacks her head on the brick wall. “Oh, shit,” she whispers.

And then I hear it.

Voices.

Trevor. Sloane.

Cooper.

Tillie Jean and I make eye contact. Even in the dim light, I can tell her cheeks are flushed, and her breath is still coming in fast white puffs. “Stay,” she whispers. “Pace again. Whatever.”

She shimmies down the wall, straightens her coat, leaps up on a bench, and swings over the iron fence as a goat bleats behind me.

Swings over the iron fence.

What is she, Spiderman?

Holy nutballs. That was fucking hot.

And the woman who fell off her roof? The woman who slipped in laundry detergent a few hours ago?

Not a sign of her.

This woman could be an Olympic gymnast, and that ache in my junk gets so thick I might have to throw up. She’s—she’s—fuck, she’s sexy.

“Whazzup, Goatstradamus?” Cooper calls.

Pace.

Right.

Pace.

Fuck.

I can’t count. I can’t remember how. My dick is harder than steel and my balls are bluer than the Mediterranean Sea. I try to pace and my legs don’t work, because they forgot what they’re used for.

I gave Tillie Jean an orgasm and now my body doesn’t remember how to do anything else.

I’m a sex machine.

Nothing else matters.

“Whoa, Max. Dude. Whatcha doin’?”

Cooper pauses next to the open gate into the garden and grins at me.

“Meditating,” I blurt.

He nods. “Good job, my friend. Carry on.” He salutes me with a stein from The Grog and keeps walking.

“Isn’t your house the other way?” I call to him.

“Goin’ to see my seester,” he replies. “She owes me a rematch.”

Fuck. Shit. Tillie Jean’s not home. “You beat her, asshole. Let her lick her wounds in private and go to you for a rematch.”

He walks backwards until he’s back in view, tripping over the goat on his way. “That makes logistical reason.”

“Maaa!” Goatstradamus agrees.

“Rawk! Pussy-licker. Rawk!”

In my dreams, Long Beak Silver. In my hot, wet, horny dreams.

“To pussy!” Cooper cries.

“You’re seriously drunk, man.” Trevor stops beside him, giggles, and then trips over Goatstradamus too.

“You’re both drunk,” Sloane corrects.

She slides me a look, does a double-take, and then grins.

Grins big.

Like she knows.

Fuck.

“Hamburgers,” I sputter. “They need hamburgers.”

She’s still grinning. “Sure. C’mon, boys. My place. Hamburgers.”

“I want pizza,” Cooper declares.

“I want pho,” Trevor says.

“Pho you,” Cooper retorts, and they both crack up.

Sloane grins at me one more time, grabs each man by a collar, and steers them around, heading away from Tillie Jean’s house two blocks away—and mine too.

I sink to the bench in the park.

That was close.

And it can’t happen again.

No matter how much I want it to.

Guys like me don’t get the girl when she’s my teammate’s sister.

Guys like me don’t get the girl period.

End of story.

20

Tillie Jean

I’m pulling a late afternoon shift at Crusty Nut three days after the Spike incident—yes, the Spike laundry incident, not the bar incident or the kissing incident—when Max walks in alone in jeans, sneakers, and a zipped-up Fireballs windbreaker, which makes for a safe bet that he’s not doing well.