Fangirl Down (Big Shots, #1)

“I . . . I mean, that sounds amazing,” she started, visibly caught off guard by his offer. And why wouldn’t she be? He’d just taken the postcoital leap from sex to spending nongolf time together. He’d prodded the relationship bear. At least she looked mildly interested in saying yes to coming to Miami. Right? “But I just . . . I really have to get repairs started on the shop—”

“Of course, you do,” Wells rushed to respond. “That’s . . . yeah. Obviously. The shop.” Wells slid out of Josephine with a wince and pulled up his pants. He might have taken a moment to enjoy looking at the mess he’d left on her inner thighs, but he was in this odd place of feeling possessive, bonded with her, exposed. Was this how women felt after sex? Emotionally skinned alive and needing some kind of label stamped on the whole situation that said permanent?

Fuck, it was terrible.

Wells backed into the small bathroom and found a hand towel, returning to clean her up, compelled by some almighty force to kiss her shoulders as he did so.

All right, she didn’t want to come to Miami. Maybe he could go to her? Help fix up the Golden Tee? But what if she wanted distance from him in between tournaments? Considering he was a mega asshole 90 percent of the time, that would be completely reasonable.

Why did the thought of Josephine wanting distance make him feel queasy?

He’d just test the waters to find out where they stood. “Today is Sunday. We’ll need to leave for the Dominican Republic on Wednesday. That doesn’t give you much time to sort out repairs on the shop.” He let out a breath he’d been holding. “Maybe you need some help—”

“The Dominican Republic?”

Josephine had gone pale.

Wells’s brows drew together. “That’s the location of the next tournament.”

“Oh my God.” She pressed a hand to her forehead, slumping back against the lockers. “Wells, I’m such a ding-dong.”

“I promise you, that’s not true.”

“I don’t have a passport.” She opened her mouth, closed it. “My parents were always afraid to take me out of the country in case we lost my supplies or had an emergency . . . I just . . . it never even occurred to me we’d have to leave the States.” She crossed her arms over her tits, like maybe she was cold, so he found her bra and shirt, handing them to her, watching in fascination as she worked tiny, little clasps and straps, eventually pulling the garment on over her head. “I totally understand if you want to find a different caddie—”

His insides nearly became his outsides. “What?”

“Just for the next tournament.”

Why did his pulse feel like it was going to pound straight through his skin? “It’s you and me, Josephine. Or nothing. Period.”

“But you won’t be able to play in the next tournament,” she pointed out. “There’s no way to get a passport in three days.”

“Then I’ll withdraw, and we’ll skip it.” He thought for a moment, which was very hard to do when she’d just proposed that he find another caddie. “California is on the schedule after the Dominican Republic. We’ll pick up there.”

“But Wells.”

“This conversation is over, Josephine.”

She glared up at him, stubbornness on full display, and he couldn’t stop himself from bringing their foreheads together, rolling right, then left. Licking gently into her mouth and kissing her, increasing the rhythm in degrees until their lips were moving at an eager tempo, her hands fisting in the front of his shirt in a way that proved she was affected as much as Wells, thank God. “A week and a half should give you time to make decent headway on the shop,” he said gruffly, their lips damp and rubbing together. “I’m only sorry you’re going to miss me so much.”

She laughed softly. Shook her head at him.

What the hell did that mean?

Was it laughable that she could miss him?

Probably.

Definitely.

Maybe he needed a week and a half to get his heart in check. Because he’d most definitely fallen harder than a motherfucker for this woman, and he had no idea if she wanted anything with him beyond a professional relationship . . . that occasionally involved life-altering, rating-scale-shattering sex.

How was he going to last a week and a half without knowing where they stood?

God, she’s beautiful. Those eyes. Her voice. Everything about her.

Nope.

A week and a half wasn’t happening. Life would be hell without some clarity. So he was getting some. Tonight.

“Is your flight in the morning?”

“Yes,” she responded. “Early.”

“Mine, too. Have a drink with me, tonight? We deserve to celebrate.”

His invitation seemed to relieve her, lines softening around her mouth. Was that promising? “Yes. I’d . . . like that,” she said, beaming up at him.

That’s when he knew.

Holy shit, he was going to ask this woman—his caddie—to be his girlfriend.





Chapter Twenty-Three




Getting ready for drinks felt like a bigger deal than usual.

Josephine should have probably stopped zoning out, staring into the bathroom mirror, Beautyblender forgotten in her hand as minutes ticked by unnoticed. But memories kept occupying her mind. Sexy memories. Wells’s tongue teasing her nipples, his hands unapologetically rough on her backside, the way sex with Wells was a surprisingly hot blend of disrespect and veneration.

“Might as well admit it,” Josephine said to her reflection. “You want more. Badly.”

In the past, she’d been treated like a fragile object in bed. Men who didn’t take the time to understand her diabetes asked broad questions before they went to bed together like, are you going to be okay?

Um, yes. She was going to be fine. Blood sugar corrections were just a way of life. Fixing lows and highs. That was her normal. They never acknowledged that she could do everything a person with a working pancreas could do, they simply held back with her, worried her glucose monitor might rip off or she’d need sugar halfway through.

But not Wells. And not because he didn’t care. In fact, she suspected he cared a great deal. She’d caught him checking her number on his app twice today. During a professional round of golf being broadcast live on television, money and respect hanging in the balance, he’d been thinking of her. Yes, Wells cared about her health. A lot.

He also seemed to recognize that her strength was more powerful than her condition.

Josephine swallowed, turning slightly to check her monitor where it always sat, attached to the back of one of her arms. If the darn thing didn’t rip off during sex with Wells, it could probably survive anything, because wow. Wa-how.

She’d been nursing a growing crush on the man.

Their encounter in the private bag room had shot that crush into a whole new category.

Was she officially falling for Wells Whitaker? The real man and not the persona she’d been following for the last five years?

“Oh boy,” she whispered. “I think I might be.”

Her stomach flipped over with the anticipation of seeing him in the bar, which was crazy, since she’d been in his company all day long. But there it was. She wasn’t looking forward to a whole week and a half without him, either. The shop desperately needed her attention, though. She couldn’t shirk her responsibilities, as much as she’d wanted to accept Wells’s invitation to Miami.

She looked down at her phone and winced at the time. If she was late for drinks, Wells would never let her hear the end of it. Allowing herself to enjoy the fizz of something exciting in her stomach—and it had nothing to do with the room-service club sandwich she’d scarfed down an hour earlier—she finished her makeup and put on the blue dress she’d worn to the welcome party at the beginning of the tournament, slipping her feet into heels and leaving the room.

In the interest of privacy, Wells was bringing her someplace off the resort grounds. Though she didn’t know where they were going, she’d been instructed to meet him at the lobby bar and he would take care of the rest. Josephine took the elevator down and exited on the main floor, relieved to see that the crowd had thinned considerably, thanks to the conclusion of the tournament. She walked at a fast clip, certain Wells was already sitting at the bar, probably practicing a lecture about punctuality. But she didn’t get very far before someone familiar stepped into her path just inside the alcove entrance, hindering her progress.