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“But we’re…” She looked around again. The sales associate who had been hovering, ready to jump on a possible commission had disappeared into the back and there were no other customers.
“What are you afraid of?” I asked, crossing my ankles and making a show of relaxing.
She let out a petulant huff. “I’m not afraid of anything, Tatum. But we’re in public! I can’t do that!”
“Come here,” I said, opening up my arms. “Lay with me for three seconds and if it kills you, then you can tell me you were right and rub it into my face.”
She all but stamped her foot before begrudgingly easing her hip onto the bed. I wrapped my arm around her middle and pulled her into my side as if it were a completely benign activity for the two of us.
Wren let out a low groan and relaxed. “This is…” She gave a satisfied hum. “Okay. This thing is a cloud pretending to be a mattress. And I’m all about it.”
“Told you,” I murmured into her hair.
She rested her cheek on my chest and closed her eyes. I let my hand skim down to ass, appreciating her curves. Wren was, objectively, a beautiful woman. No doubt about it. She looked like a million bucks, but my favorite look on her was when her eyes were closed and she was completely, utterly relaxed. The image of her coming undone as she straddled my hips, riding my cock would be burned into my memory forever.
I wanted to see it one last time before I had to put the fantasy of Wren in a neat box until the season was over.
“I can’t get you out of my head, Little Bird.” I tangled my fingers in her blonde tresses, messing up the low bun she had slicked her hair into.
She let out a quiet—almost sad—sigh. “I’ve given you all that I can.”
“I don’t know that I agree with that.”
A shadow appeared above us. We opened our eyes in tandem and saw the sales associate hovering.
“This one,” I said definitively. “We’ll take it.”
After Wren took over and arranged the delivery of my new mattress to the penthouse, I drove us down to the waterfront for an early dinner. Wren’s long skirt billowed in the breeze, offering a front row seat to those legs I dreamed of.
I took her hand in mine as we walked along the Providence River. Families milled around, joggers sprinted, and rowing teams sluiced through the water. It was picturesque. Simple.
Since being traded to the Reds and moving to Providence, the paparazzi had all but left me alone. Training camp was in full swing, which meant reporters knew where to find me if they wanted photos and a comment. I hadn’t noticed any lingering cameras outside my building, and the locals generally left me alone. Before leaving Seattle, I had started going out in nondescript clothing at random times. I wasn’t opposed to a quick photo here or an autograph there, but being mobbed by cleat chasers at clubs was losing its appeal the older I got.
I had told Gideon that I didn’t like dating during the season, and that was the truth. My schedule was too packed to fit someone else in it. Girlfriends didn’t like playing second fiddle to a game. Unlike Gideon, who proposed to his college girl after the draft, I broke up with mine. It wasn’t that I wanted to sow my wild oats or live the high life without attachment. I just wanted to be able to focus. My life was all about maintaining a carefully curated balance.
But the minute Wren walked into that bistro, I’d been knocked on my ass and pushed into a freefall.
Garlic and butter wafted through the air as we neared a row of food trucks. I gave Wren’s hand a squeeze. “You wanna splurge on a lobster roll or should we hunt down some lean protein and complex carbs for dinner?”
Wren looked longingly at the truck that was shelling out mile-high lobster rolls. She rested her temple on my bicep as she contemplated her options. Finally, with a sigh, she said, “I’m gonna ask you a question, and how you answer is gonna determine whether or not we’re compatible.”
I rested my chin atop her head, all ears.
“Hot with butter or cold with mayo?”
We sat on a bench by the river, enjoying some casual people watching as we ate our lobster rolls in companionable silence. Butter toasted bun with chunks of lobster lightly tossed in mayo. A dribble of butter trickled down her chin as she took a bite. Moving on instinct, I trapped her chin in my hand and wiped the droplet with my thumb. Instead of wiping it on a napkin, I locked eyes with Wren, brought my thumb to my mouth and sucked it off.
She didn’t shrink away or act like a wallflower. Wren inhaled the rest of her roll, dabbed her lips with a napkin, and tossed her trash in the bin beside our bench. She returned to her spot on the bench but sat a little closer this time. I draped my arm around her, toying with her mussed bun that peeked out from beneath her hat.
“So, are you going to finally tell me what you do or are you going to leave me to speculate wildly?” she asked.
“Maybe I’m a little curious as to what your speculations are.”
She chewed on her lip for a moment. I could see the wheels turning in her mind. If she hadn’t Googled me yet, I had found a unicorn. There were 1,696 professional football players in the league. Statistically, someone had a better chance of becoming a Navy SEAL than getting put on the roster for a pro football team. I was damn proud to have made it to the pros, but I had learned long ago that work was work. I wanted to keep what I did on the field separate from my life off the field as much as possible. The only exception was Tuesday with the boys.
“You obviously do well for yourself since you retained my services,” she said. It wasn’t a judgment. It was simply a fact. Numbers were what they were. “You travel a lot, and work odd hours, so I’m going with some kind of consultant.”
I laughed. “Not a consultant.”
