Not willing to part with her mouth just yet, I pull her lips back to mine by the back of her head. We kiss until my windows are foggy, and I’m struggling to figure out why I didn’t participate in backseat make-out sessions more frequently during my college days.
Oh, that’s right.Lillian didn’t like me messing up her hair when we were in public. Come to think of it, she didn’t like me messing with it at all. Unless there were sharks circling the carcass she was planning to milk for all it was worth, she didn’t hand over a simple peck without whining.
Talk about giving a guy a complex. I was so convinced I sucked at sex, I used the six months following our breakup to do in-depth studies of the female anatomy. I’m not proud to admit I fucked my way through half the population of my hometown when I returned there after our separation, and even with having numerous verbal affirmations, much less a handful of publicized ones the media had a field day with, I still let Lillian’s lack of interest play with my thoughts.
Such as now, when I’m withdrawing from Willow way sooner than I’d like. “Not yet. Need more,” Willow speaks over my lips before reattaching them to hers. “Got to get enough to last me three weeks.”
Like my mood could sour any more, she reminds me of my three-week away game schedule this month.
I still as shock stuns me.What the fuck is this woman doing to me?I love football. I eat, breathe, and sleep football, but now I’m whining like a bitch because it’s taking me away from a woman I met only weeks ago.
Someone pass me a bag of concrete because I need to harden the fuck up.
The little whimper Willow makes when I pry her back by her shoulders has me regretting every decision I’ve ever made. Who needs a career that lines your pocket with millions of dollars when you can make a woman whimper like that?
I’d reattach our mouths and see how many times I could make her moan if we weren’t being eyeballed like freaks. My Aston stands out in the parking lot of Willow’s college, but only because she lives in a dorm instead of one of those fancy sororities Lillian begrudgingly lived in.
Pissed at my third thought of Lillian in one day, I soothe the volatile waters. “Do you have any plans the Saturday night I return?”
“The twenty-third?”
When I nod, the disappointment spreading across Willow’s face grows. “I have the kids’ recital. I can’t skip it; they’d be devastated—”
I muffle her excuse with my finger. “I wouldn’t expect you to give that up, much less ask you to.” Only a douchebag wouldn’t understand she loves the children in her class as much as she loves dancing. “Can I swing by and pick you up after the recital?”
“Will you bethatdesperate you can’t wait until Sunday?” Her ear-to-ear smile kills the mirth in her tone. Before I can make a fool out of myself, she adds on, “Pick me up at ten. I’ll text you the address.”
After a final peck to my lips, she slumps back into her side of my car, throws open my door, then slides out. She completes three long strides down the sidewalk before I call her name. When she spins around to face me, I ask, “Can I get the show now? I’m not sure I’ll make the Mickey’s parking lot in enough time.”
With a smile that reveals she knows exactly what I’m referring to, she sexily saunters to within an inch of my car. I expect her to give me some sass, or at the very least, flip me the bird. She does neither of those things. She proves why she is as playful as the glint in her eyes and as wild as the kinks in her hair.
To the beat in her head, she balls her hands into tiny fists, raises them to her chest, sticks out her delectable ass, then bump and grinds down the pavement like she’s in the middle of a nightclub. She shimmies and shakes until she reaches the front of her dorm, and she’s gained an audience of admirers.
She’s not the least bit embarrassed. She’s loving the attention as much as I’m loving the confidence beaming out of her. She is in her element, beautiful smile and all.
After a curtsy to her wolf-whistling fans, and an air kiss blown my way, Willow slips into the safety of her dorm, leaving me breathless and with the biggest hard-on I’ve ever had.
That, what you just witnessed right there, is why I asked Dalton to keep her away from me the night we met. I could see the wild spark in her eyes, the one that warned she’d drag me away from my dreams kicking and screaming. Not because I was giving in, but because she’d move the goal posts to a place I swore I’d never strive for again.
She has me seeking the unattainable.
She makes me want to open up my heart to the possibility of loving again.
I can only hope she doesn’t crush me when I do.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Willow
Chelsea’s big blue eyes peer at me in awe when I pull back the tissue paper on the box I placed in front of her. They’re welling with as much moisture as mine, equally sad and excited.
“These were your shoes?”
“Uh-huh. They were the last pair of ballet slippers my mom purchased for me before she passed.”
Chelsea blinks excessively during my last sentence, fighting to keep her tears at bay. I understand her plight. My mom passed away years ago, yet I still struggle every day to remember she is gone.
“Why did you bring them? I thought you taught hip hop?”
