“Please tell me you don’t.” Hendrix levels Dom with a serious glare.
“You know I’m not actually an idiot, right?” Dom fires back hurt flashes in his eyes.
“Just checking, man. I don’t want to see you trash your career with one bad decision.” Sincerity coats his words.
Poppy and Hendrix are the first to leave. She has a meeting with an author about recording the audiobook for their Christmas novella, but I get the feeling they were ready for some alone time. They came back from Chicago looking extra in love.
“Dom, we should get out of here and give these two some space. I am sure Lilah wants to get him back to bed,” Dean says with a straight face, but he’s got that look in his eyes like he knows exactly what he did.
Normally someone else making Delilah blush the way she is right now with pink creeping across her delicate cheekbone would make me want to punch them. I’m supposed to be the one making her cheeks turn that rosy shade, but I can’t even be mad at Dean. She’s smiling after days of her looking at me with worry. I’ll take it however I can get it.
“I like that plan. What do you say? Join me in bed for a nap?” I pull her to me as we walk Dom and Dean out. It only makes the pink on her cheek crawl down her neck and disappear under that oversized t-shirt she pulled from my closet this morning.
“Take it easy on him. We want our captain back on the field,” Dean says from the door as he slips on his shoes.
“The locker room is chaos without you there to keep us in line,” Dom adds as Dean pulls the door open.
“You mean keepingyouin line?” Delilah retorts as Dom slips through the door after his friend with a shrug.
“I am who I am,” he shouts back as the door shuts, leaving the two of us alone in the kitchen. When I look down at her, she’s staring up at me with her lips parted.
“What’s going on in your gorgeous head?” I ask, stepping into her more so that she’s flush against me.
“Seeing you around the guys like this—how much you mean to them— it got me thinking about the day you found out you were made captain.” Her smile is stretching her face now. It was a good day. She teamed up with Lincoln to surprise me after practice with a giant sticky bun. Across it she had scrawled “Captains Get the Biggest Buns.”
“That was a great day. I got the sticky buns of my dreams delivered by the girl of my dreams,” I say.
“I wasn’t the girl of your dreams back then, just your friend.” Her voice is low as she looks up at me through her lashes.
“You’ve always been the girl of my dreams, Hermosa.” She licks her lips and gives me that same shy smile I saw in the hospital when she didn’t think I was looking. She feels it, she’s just not ready to say the words out loud, and that’s okay, I can keep waiting.
Delilah clears her throat. “The sticky buns of your dreams? Is this something you dream of regularly?” Her arms come around my waist.
“It’s part of the regular rotation.You, hitting home runs,you, catching fly balls,you, and sticky buns.” I lean in close, dropping my mouth to her ear. “ And lately there’s been dreams about my other favorite dessert and the sweet sounds that come out of your mouth when I eat that pretty pussy.” Her next breath comes out as a gasp and when I kiss her cheeks, they’re warm and I know without looking they’ll be glowing.
I eat that shit right up. It was me that made her blush this time. And I get to crawl in bed with her, even if it’s just to take my mandatory nap. Because she’s mine finally, and I’m never going to let go.
Chapter 33
Sneaky SPANISH
Present
I’m so fucking bored. All athletes deal with injuries at least once in their careers and it always sucks, but this is worse. All my other injuries have allowed me some level of activity. Not this one. The worst part is Delilah is taking it seriously. Since we returned from St. Louis last week, I haven’t gotten anything more than a brief kiss from her.
I’m losing my goddamn mind. She’s sleeping in my bed, looking sexy as fuck in my shirt every night and she won’t let me touch her. The morning after the game in St. Louis, when the nurse came to discharge me and was going over care instructions and restrictions, she asked specifically about sex.
The nurse, who must have been close to retirement, just cocked an eyebrow at me before telling me that she hoped sex fell under strenuous activity. Then added insult to injury by pointing out that if it didn’t, there was no way I was keeping a girl like Delilah.
When the nurse left, Delilah damn near fell out of her chair laughing. I couldn’t even fault her because she gave my girl a much needed break from all the worry.
Once I was discharged, we spent two more days at the hotel so I could rest before flying home. In the overreaction of the century, I was forced to wear an eye mask and earplugs for the flight even though Dean sent his grandpa’s plane and pilot to get me home.
And here I thought the first time I got her on a private plane that I could convince her to join the mile-high club. Not a freaking chance. Six days later and she’s still ducking me.
My follow-up appointment is tomorrow and you better believe it’s going to be my first question.
“Hey, I’m home—er back.” Delilah shouts as she closes the door behind her. I hate that, she corrected herself, but the fact that she called it home makes my heart hammer in my chest.
