Page 24 of Curveball (Tennessee Terrors #9)

Palmer

My body is on fire, arousal flushing my skin a brilliant hue and heating me all the way through to my pulsing core.

Max’s fingertips are magical, gliding and roaming, and with his back to the deck area and the width of his shoulders blocking anyone’s view, they sneak beneath the edges of my swim suit and touch bare skin.

I haven’t felt rough male hands on me in too many years, and his are extraordinary.

His face is near my hip and I reach out to cup his fuzzy jaw, stretching my thumb to trace his top lip, then his bottom.

Without warning, he opens his mouth and draws it in, trapping it within the gentle pressure of his teeth and circling its tip with his tongue.

My gaze is bound to his, the bright blue irises a reflection of the glittering pool.

The suction of his mouth increases, his tongue lapping the pad of my thumb at the same time his forefinger dives under the band of my bikini bra and makes contact with my erect nipple. The onslaught of sensation darts straight to my core.

“Hey, Mom,” Dylan yells out. “You should get out of the sun or we’re going to need to slather you all over with aloe lotion.”

All core darting activity ceases immediately.

“Ah, fuck,” Max groans out loud, and my thumb slips from between the warm, wet pressure of his lips.

I peer across the length of the pool to find my son still lounging on a chaise under an umbrella, rapidly thumb-typing on his phone.

“All right, thanks,” I respond to him in my hoarse I was so close voice that I would never in a million years expect to use with my son.

Max pulls his finger from under my top and the loss is acute, but then his hand slides over the sun-warmed skin of my abdomen on the way to clutching the edge of my mat, and my flesh stings. He drops his forehead onto his hand and lets out a wry chuckle.

“The last time I got cock blocked, I was in college.”

I have to laugh. Mine’s a pathetic sound, though. One that matches the wretched ache in my lower body.

“Is it too late to put him up for adoption?”

“Sorry, babe. I think we’re stuck with him.”

He places a kiss on the inside of my thigh, as far up as he can stretch.

“Next time, this is where I start.”

“Sounds like a perfectly reasonable plan. Do I have a say in where you finish?”

He grins, and it’s playful and devilish all in one wide, dimply smile.

“You always have a say in where I finish.”

Then, he presses his fingers to the skin of my shoulder and then between my breasts.

“Ouch!” I let out a sharp sigh. “Why is he right?”

Like a lifeguard rescuing a swimmer, Max pulls me and my mat to the shallow end, where I slide off without a splash.

My hair is braided down my back and damp, possibly from pool waves splashing up on me when he was playing ball with the kids.

He climbs out first and hands me a towel that I wrap around my hips.

He leaves his board shorts on to dry in the sun.

“Do you want a fresh drink?” He points to the can in my hand.

I look down at it and nod. “Thanks. This was warm before the whole”—I drop my voice to a whisper and bob my eyebrows—“tongue thing.”

He barks out a laugh and takes my nearly empty can to the outdoor kitchen, then brings a fresh one to me in the shade beside Adele.

Then, he gets to setting up lunch.

It’s getting to be mid-afternoon, the sun still high in the sky. “Anybody ready for food?” he yells out to our crew in general. “Burgers are ready.”

“I’m hella starving, Daddy!” Nat reports from under the straw beach hat shading her eyes, whining like she should be the poster child for neglected children around the world rather than the player leading in RBIs for her school’s championship softball team.

Dylan looks up from his phone. “I could eat.”

I laugh. “When could he not eat? I could afford a vacation to Hawaii if I didn’t have to feed him for a week.”

My comment sends Adele into storyteller mode, relating tales of Natalie and her hearty appetite—which I admit, I’m not surprised about. She’s not like those girls at school who’re concerned with sticking to celery sticks and low-fat yogurt. She wouldn’t be afraid to eat a burger.

Max calls Natalie over and she helps carry the meal to the outdoor dining table near the grill—the bowl of homemade potato salad that I threw together early this morning, another bowl of bag salad because, as Max announced, “That’s how I roll when it’s my turn to cook,” and a heaping pile of chicken breasts and hamburger patties with all the trimmings laid out on an oversized tray.

Dylan takes three.

“Really, Dylan?” I ask in slight mortification, but Max laughs it off.

“I used to eat like that, too; must have been about his age.” He shifts his focus to Dylan and says, “Eat up, boy. Food’s a lot more fun when you don’t have to calculate macros all the damn time.”

He serves himself one of the three chicken breasts he grilled, and drops it on a large pile of salad.

Dylan nods and gives him a considering look before dropping his fork of salad and exchanging one of his hamburger patties for a piece of chicken.

Max approaches the table to take a seat, but stops at my side to say into my ear, “Hate to break it to you, Palmer Girl, but you’re not getting to Hawaii anytime soon.”

I twist my lips in a grimace because yeah, I already figured that out.

It doesn’t take long before the leftover food is stowed away and Max and I are propped in chaises beside each other, scrolling our phones and sending each other funny memes.

Adele left after lunch to watch her show .

Natalie teased her that she was leaving to take a nap.

It’s a good day for it. The sun is warm, my belly is happy, and the cushion on this lounge chair is so cozy.

I could easily drop my phone to my lap and doze off.

Instead, I look over to Max and whatever video he’s chuckling at, and then peer around the deck area. “Where’d the kids go?”

He points a finger toward the house. “They left a while ago. I believe they’re quietly plotting to take over the baseball universe, one fictional stadium at a time.”

“In other words, you broke down and got Natalie that new baseball video game.”

“I might have. Mighty Max Marshmallow strikes again,” he drawls with zero shame, and then tilts his head and considers me with something like mischievous respect. “It’s pretty cool that you understand my reference without me having to spell it out.”

I spread my hands wide. “Son. Friends. Teammates. Dedicated family room so I don’t have to listen to the electronic cacophony . . . or them.”

“Here, the game room’s in the basement.” He climbs out of his chair. “I should go check on them. Not because I don’t trust them, you know, but . . .”

Two teens who’ve been out of sight for a while. Nothing to go bad there.

“Yep. I think I’ll come with you.” I get up and follow along. “In case you need a wingman.”

We are assaulted by the loud sounds of their animated trash talk long before we arrive and discover, as we anticipate—or at the very least, hope —they’re fully engaged in the game.

Dylan is sprawled on a deep leather couch, shoes kicked off, hat backwards, focused on the immense flat screen on the wall and abusing his controller.

“Not done with our game yet.” he says predictably without looking up, and he doesn’t wait for whatever I am going to say before he’s back to whatever’s going on in the game.

Nat peers at me over her shoulder. “You can’t leave yet. I’m about to beat the shit out of him.”

Max’s brow soars and she backtracks fast.

“Um, we’re still playing and I’m about to grab the W.”

Dylan shouts out an insistent, “Cap!” and Nat barks out a laugh in response.

“Delulu, dude. You are so going down.”

And the adolescents just lost me in their next gen vernacular.

Max backs slowly from the room and he leads me back upstairs—where I understand the language.

“We should go home,” I say. I’m suddenly more nervous about being alone here with Max than I am with our two teenagers that we can no longer hear. “I mean, we shouldn’t take up your whole day.”

He captures my hand in his and moves in close, and my resistance withers. He drops his forehead against mine and looks at me closely.

“I want you to stay, if you will. And look, the kids aren’t done with their game yet. We can go back outside.” He gives me sad puppy dog eyes and waits for me to give in. I roll my eyes and nod. He’s not the only marshmallow.

With a shit eating grin, he pivots us toward the back atrium door. I scramble for a lone, elusive vestige of bravado and turn down the volume to my conscience—she’s really no fun anyway.

“Is that where it’s private?”

He tilts his head as if deciphering my words, and stammers out, “I suppose. I mean, nobody else is out there right—” He stops walking and his gaze darts to my raised-brow expression. “Ooh.” He drags out the syllable and the rise and fall of that single word tells me he knows exactly what I want.

I want a do-over.

His hand tightens around mine, and I give him a squeeze. He immediately spins us in the other direction, toward the staircase off the foyer. The one leading up stairs.

“How remiss of me. We never did finish our tour of the house, did we?”

“No, I don’t believe we did,” I say, playing along as he hurries me up the steps to the second floor.

“Absolutely not.” From the upper landing, he waves his hand toward a long paneled hallway to the left. “Over there are some guest rooms, a couple of bathrooms, nothing interesting.” He yanks me down a hallway in another direction.

“So, what’s down that way?” I pull back and point to yet another wing that’s almost out of sight as we pass door after door. He turns back with his brow pinched, as if he has to think about it.

“Oh. That’s Natalie,” he says like it’s no big deal.

Well, fuck .

“I want to be Natalie.”

Max chuckles, deep and warm, and I get a little shiver down my spine. “What if I promise something even better behind door number three?”