“Sorry, sorry,” he muttered against her cheek. “I had to … your hair … fuck, Charlie.”
Tangled and tousled, it clung to her cheeks and lips when his hands skimmed forward over her cheekbones, thumbs dragging against her skin until they met at her mouth. She looked into his eyes, opened her lips, and nipped at the fleshy pad of his thumb while she gripped the waistband of his shorts and pulled him forward.
His gaze went molten. “Do that again,” he said.
“What? This?” she asked, yanking this time.
He was staring at her shoulders and upper arms. “You have the most incredible body,” he growled.
She’d lost some muscle weight since retiring from pro ball, but regular dates with the weight room kept her lean and fit. He only had a couple of inches on her, but he had both the athlete’s and the warrior’s trick of making himself seem bigger than he was, a solid wall of heat and muscle at her front, the glass shower wall at her back. She let go of his waistband and skimmed her thumbs over the thin skin of his torso, feeling the muscles jump in response to her touch. He didn’t lean into her, probably respecting the glass, instead opting to brace his elbows on either side of her head and put his mouth to her ear.
Water spattered steadily against the tile. Steam billowed over the top of the glass wall, condensing on her hair, Jamie’s shoulders, but still she could hear every caught breath, every soft, stifled grunt he made as she explored the edges of him, where his muscles came together then curved apart, hard collarbones giving way to the softer column of his throat, then his hard, square jaw, then the softness of his lips, already kissed into plush heat. She looked into his eyes, then slid her forefingers into his mouth to stroke his tongue.
Nothing stifled his groan this time. He bit down gently, trapping her fingers, then licked the soft flesh, holding her with his gaze like he had her on a hook. Tugging her fingers free, she trailed them down his chin, down, down, to snag in his elastic waistband and pull his basketball shorts and boxers over his straining cock and send them to the floor.
“Hold on a second,” she said suddenly.
He caught her wrist. “Where are you going?”
His eyes were all pupil, his body as male as a body could get, hard planes and erect cock lifting toward his abdomen. She felt an answering throb inside her, a deeply primitive female response, the testosterone and command seeping into the air like the steam from the shower. “We need condoms,” she said, then added, “I’ll be right back.”
He nodded jerkily, then let her go. Bent over her nightstand, she peered over her shoulder and found him watching her from the bathroom door, arms by his sides, hands loosely curled. He was poised, she thought, poised to catch her. A strip of condoms in hand, she walked back to the bathroom and slapped them into his palm. Her back to him, she toed out of her sneakers, tugged her sports bra over her head, and felt his hands work into her running tights and strip them down her legs.
Some odd part of her brain wondered if candlelight and roses and a sexy slip wouldn’t be more appropriate, but her body overrode her brain. They weren’t about romance. They were about the physical fight on the court finally reaching its inevitable conclusion. He gripped her hips and used shoulders and torso to jostle her into the shower. The heat made it hard to breathe, or so she thought, until he dialed back the temperature to something more bearable and she still couldn’t draw a full breath.
Then he backed her into the tiled wall, slapped the condom into the recessed niche, and kissed her. Water streamed from the showerhead above them on her right over the side of his face, faintly salty until the sweat rinsed away, leaving on the slick, heated glide of his lips and tongue as he licked into her mouth.
“What is it with you and the walls?” she gasped when his mouth trailed over her cheekbone to her ear.
He smoothed her hair back from her face. “You’re not getting away this time,” he growled, then bit down none too gently on her earlobe. The pain sparked along her nerves, transmuting into pleasure when his hand cupped her breast, pinching her nipple between thumb and forefinger. Her brain, cross-wired by a lifetime of playing through pain, connected it all to the gut-deep delight and triggered a throb deep inside her. She gasped, shuddered, and arched into him, a writhing move he responded to by shoving his hips into hers, pinning her to the wall.
The sound she made, utterly involuntary, must have been close to a yelp, because he pulled back to look at her. “Too much?”
She licked her lips as much to feel their swollen kissed texture as to taste him. His gaze, drawn to the movement like a predator to prey, darkened helplessly, sending another powerful jolt through her. She slid down the wall, parting her knees as she did, and took his cock in her mouth.