Most Valuable Playboy

I groan because it’s so goddamn good as she digs her fingers into my flesh. “Tell me about meeting the players’ wives.”

“They were fantastic,” she says, and as she recounts her time in the suite, I sink into the magnificent sensation of her hands on me, her thumbs driving into my muscles, her fingers kneading my flesh. The way she touches me sends sparks through my body as if an electric current sizzles under my skin, spreading into my every molecule.

While I’m on edge like this, everything in me buzzing toward her, I close my eyes and images flash. All the ways I want this night to go. How good it feels to have her hands on me. How dangerous it could be to get closer. Her brother. Our friendship. Whether she feels the same way. My contract. The pact. My focus.

But then I think about how I feel with her. How my heart bounced around in my chest when she watched me today. How warmth radiates through me when I see her texts. How her lips feel sliding across mine.

I remind myself that I take chances all day long. I play a risky, violent sport for a living. I can either stay safely in the moment of this impromptu massage, or I can run into the fray.

I choose risk and all the possibilities of reward.

I lift my hand to take hers, running my thumb along her wrist. Her breath hitches. Her hands still. She stops moving as I glide farther up, brushing my fingers from her wrist to her forearm. She trembles.

I don’t rush it. There’s no one stopping us. No line coming after me, trying to take me down. It’s only us, here in my home. No agents, no photographers, no Maxine. No one else.

I run my thumb back down over her palm to her fingers. I thread mine through hers and clasp. She squeezes back, her breath rushing against my neck. And it’s then that the moment unfurls into something else entirely.

To something unquestionable.

I cover her hand with mine, and in one strong move, I pull her around me and onto my lap.

Her eyes widen, shining with longing. They lock with mine.

“What are we doing?” she asks, her voice so goddamn breathless it’s like an extra dose of an aphrodisiac after I’ve already consumed the whole bottle.

I bring my face nearer, my forehead touching hers. “This.”

Then we kiss, and it’s the first kiss that belongs solely to us.

19

It feels like the first time.

It doesn’t belong to the stage, to Maxine, or to the media. It’s not a kiss for a phone camera. It’s not a kiss requested by my agent. No one is taking a selfie to prove this kiss exists.

This kiss is ours, and as my lips crush hers, she melts under me. We sink into this, lips, tongue, teeth. Heat, hands, arms.

I lean back into the soft couch cushions and bring her closer, kissing her the whole time. She loops her hands in my hair, sliding her fingers through the strands.

We kiss as if this is what we’ve wanted all along. A private kiss. My hands cup her cheeks, and I hold her face as my kisses do the talking.

It’s you.

You’re what I want.

Stay.

Part of me should be shocked that these thoughts trip through my brain. But then, I’m not surprised at all. My head’s always been in the game with her. My heart has tried to get in on the action from the start.

From the moment she kissed me on stage at the auction, it felt right. Now, as we kiss on my couch, tongues tangling and lips sliding, our kiss feels inevitable. I tug her closer, craving more of her taste. She presses against me, her chest to mine, her legs sliding around my thighs so she’s straddling me.

I curl my hands through her hair, loving the way the soft strands spill over my fingers. As I slide my tongue inside her lips, she whimpers. It’s so fucking arousing. I kiss her deeper. Her taste goes to my head, short-circuits my brain.

The sounds she makes are killing me—little murmurs, sighs, and needy gasps. I want to swallow them whole, give her everything she needs. Heat pulls deep in my groin.

With a rough hold on my hair, she yanks me closer and kisses me so hard the world sizzles into a white-hot blur. Then she bites down, her teeth scraping my lip, and I groan.

My Violet has a rough side. And I like her rough. She lets go of my hair, slides her hands up my chest, and curls them over my pecs through my button-down shirt. She presses hard, like a stop sign.

Her breath comes in harsh pants. “What are we doing?”

“Kissing like crazy.”

“I know,” she says on a sigh, her breath fluttering over my face. Her eyes are hazy, as if she’s drunk on this kiss. Drunk on me. But she needs something, too. Reassurance? Confirmation?

“What do you want, Vi?”

I watch her, tracking every move. She swallows, breathes out, and brings her hand to her hair. She brushes it from her cheek, looks down then back up. Her eyes pin me. “I need to know something.”

“Yes?”

“Do you want me?”

“Are you kidding me?” I scoff, grinding up against her. It’s unmistakable how much I want her.

“I know. But do you want me?”

“God, yes.” I brush the backs of my fingers across her soft cheek. “You have no idea. How can you think I don’t?”

“I just need to know it’s me, and not because I’m a warm body.”

“Give me more credit than that.”

She covers her face with her hand. “I didn’t mean it like that. I just want to know . . .”

I peel her hand off her face and make her look at me. “That I want you? That I want this gorgeous, funny, sharp, clever woman who keeps me on my toes and takes no shit from me?”

She smiles. “Yes.”

I press a soft kiss to her lips. “It’s you.”

She curls her hands over my shoulders, taking a deep breath. “I don’t want to get hurt.”

That feels like the heart of the matter. She’s afraid, and I hear it in her voice. “Are you afraid I’ll hurt you?”

She nods and bites her lip as if she’s holding something in. Her worry curls around my heart, charges through my body. Wanting her is simply a fact in my universe. It’s gravity. It’s the moon spinning around Earth. I’m barely thinking of our history, of all the ways our lives overlap. I’m only thinking of the next few minutes, and how good I can make her feel.

I lift her chin so she looks me in the eyes. “I won’t hurt you. I want to make you feel good.”

“You do make me feel good,” she says, clasping my cheeks in her soft hands. “That’s what’s freaking me out.”

I drop a kiss to her nose then dust my lips across hers in a promise. “Let me make you feel even better.”

She shivers as she ropes her arms around my neck. Her eyes glitter with lust. “What would you do?” Her voice is feather-soft, an invitation.

With her on my lap, looking at me as she plays with the ends of my hair, my entire body hums. I bury my face in her neck, blazing a trail of kisses that makes her squirm as I lick a path to her ear then back to her lips, whispering against them, “I want to kiss you . . . everywhere.”

That last word hums between us. It slips back and forth between our mouths. With my lips, I press everywhere into hers, and she kisses it back to me.

“Everywhere,” she repeats, her mouth sliding over mine. Her voice is raspy; the word sounds as if she’s been hypnotized by it. It sounds like a prayer.

“Will you let me?” I ask, my fingers straying down her body to the hem of her shirt.

She sits up straight. “What about you? Your vow of chastity?”