Page 33 of Dream Chaser (The New York Knights Players Club #4)

Then his mouth crashes into mine—hungry, hard, and almost angry with need.

It doesn’t matter that we just had each other less than eighteen hours ago.

It doesn’t matter that we are in the middle of Blue Valley Publishing and not a bed.

Nothing matters when I feel like he’s devouring me .

Not in pieces, but whole and all at once.

His hands are on my waist with a roughness that sends fireworks up my spine. I grab fistfuls of his shirt, yanking him closer, needing him closer.

“Tell me to stop,” Griffon growls into my mouth, every syllable vibrating against my lips. His hands ghost up under my shirt, callused and careful, and the heat of his palms makes my skin ache.

I don’t tell him to stop. I don’t tell him anything, not with words.

Instead, I kiss him again, open-mouthed and desperate, and let my teeth graze his lower lip until he hisses and shudders.

He responds by lifting me up and setting me on the edge of an old wooden desk.

My legs wrap around his hips automatically, like every nerve ending in my body has been rewired to need him pressed up against me, hard and solid. It’s been like this since jump.

He slides his fingers under the hem of my shirt and skates up over my ribs, slow and reverent, but the look in his eyes is anything but gentle.

“God, you feel like mine here,” he mutters, voice ragged as he kisses down my neck, sucking into the hollow above my collarbone.

“Like my cock should always smell like you.”

I can barely breathe. My head tips back, exposing my neck to his mouth, letting him taste, and mark, and claim every inch.

I am so far gone that when he nibbles below my ear, a whimper escapes me, involuntary and obscene.

He chuckles, low and rough, and then his hands are at my waistband, tugging me forward.

My hands work at his belt, clumsy with urgency, nails scraping across the buckle before finally getting it undone. He sucks in a sharp breath as I palm him through his jeans, and I feel the tremor in his composure. He’s losing it, too, for me.

“You’re gonna break me,” he breathes, voice so hoarse it’s almost a growl.

“Not tonight,” I say, teeth against his jaw. A second later, my sleep shorts and underwear are shoved aside, and he pauses just long enough to drag his thumb across my clit in a perfect circle.

I gasp, eyes rolling back for a second, and the sound that comes out of me is something I never let another person hear before.

Griffon’s mouth quirks, triumphant, and then he lines himself up, the blunt hot pressure making me whimper again.

“I want you like this, Izzy,” he rasps. “Fast, hard, and loud.”

“Quiet,” I whisper, already half-laughing, half-moaning. “We could wake the girls.”

He doesn’t answer. Or maybe he does. But all I hear is the sound of him sheathing himself and pushing inside me in one slow, relentless thrust, and at this moment, I don’t care if the entire village wakes up.

The world narrows to the heat of him, the sharp, aching fullness, the way he moves.

My fingers tear at his T-shirt, nails digging into the hard muscles of his back, and he groans into my neck, biting down just hard enough to leave a mark.

The desk rattles. Somewhere behind us, a crash to the floor, but neither of us flinches.

My thighs tremble around his hips, every thrust winding me tighter and tighter.

Griffon’s rhythm is unyielding, animalistic, but every now and then, he pauses just to kiss me, slow and deep, before going right back to wrecking me.

His hand finds its way between us again, and this time, when he circles my clit, my body arches off the desk like I’ve been electrocuted. I hear myself swear, hear him laugh a little, and then his free hand captures my chin, tilting my mouth to his, swallowing every noise I make.

“Say it,” he demands, forehead pressed to mine, sweat slicking his hair to his skin.

“Griffon,” I choke out, voice shattered.

“Again.”

“Griffon,” I gasp, and that is all it takes—my whole body goes rigid, the white-hot wave of my release crashing through me so hard I think I might black out.

He follows a heartbeat later, shuddering against me, fingers bruising my hips as he holds me in place, groaning my name with reverence.

We collapse in a heap, still tangled, and sticky, and shaking, breathless. I feel his lips at my temple, soft and almost apologetic, and for a long moment, we just stay like that.

I’ve never been held like Griffon Skinner holds me. That’s one thing I never dared to dream.

I watch him drive away, his taillights disappearing into the darkness, and my heart aches.

It literally hurts like it never has before—ever.

He said he was going to try to stay away for a month, but he wasn’t sure he could make it a week.

He told me I better get my ass on the pill because he wanted to feel me bare.

I may have mentioned, after hearing him spout off the actual name of body lice medication, that may never happen.

I’m only halfway up the stairs when I really wanna sit down and rest. Seriously, I hike; I’ve climbed a mountain to tick a box, and I never need to rest. But thirty minutes with him and … yeah, I’m exhausted.

At the top of the stairs, I go into stealth mode and quietly open the door and step in. Before I even close the door behind me, I hear snickering.

“No, absolutely not. You are figments of my imagination. No, scratch that—you are freaking nightmares,” I say as I lift my chin, square my shoulders, and walk toward the stairs to my third-floor bedroom. “When I wake up, not one freaking word.”

I make it to all the way to the door of my bedroom before the squealing and sound of feet padding up the stairs begins.

I dive into bed and cover myself. Yes, I, Izzy Ross, frickin’ hide.

I don’t even get one second of peace. Not one.

Lexi bursts into the room first, practically vibrating. “Ha! I knew it! I knew it in Philly when I saw you staring at him like he was a five-course meal with a dessert menu full of orgasms!”

“Bitch, no!” Mags yells, storming in right behind her.

“I knew it way before that. I saw the way he looked at her that night we snuck into the practice facility. Dude was like, who’s that girl with the clipboard?

And then I realized it was her frickin’ Notes app and not a clipboard, and I still knew! ”

“Oh my God,” I groan from under the covers. “I’m actually dead. This is the afterlife. That explains the angels of humiliation mocking me from above.”

Mags pulls the comforter back. “You’re glowing. You have post-dick glow. Don’t even lie.”

“Lexi,” I moan. “Please rein her in.”

“Oh no,” Lexi says gleefully, climbing onto the bed like a bloodhound on a scent. “You don’t get to deflect this one. You snuck out. You sneaky, beautiful, slutty little flower. You bloomed tonight, didn’t you?”

“I hate both of you,” I mumble.

“You love us,” Mags says, practically bouncing. “Your ass is hot off the press, you just came back from a night of illegal pressroom fornication with Griffon frickin’ Skinner, and you thought you could sneak back in here without us noticing? Did you think you were subtle?”

“I was stealthy,” I mutter.

“You’re walking like you just dismounted a mechanical bull and his name was Satisfaction ,” Lexi snorts.

“Okay!” I throw my hands in the air. “You wanna know everything? Fine. He showed up, said all the right things, made me melt into a puddle of absolute ‘yes daddy,’ and then we defiled the most sacred institution in Blue Valley— the press desk. Are you happy now?”

Lexi blinks. “A little turned on, not gonna lie.”

“I am so telling a,” Mags taunts.

“I will delete your entire social media presence. Don’t test me.”

“I’ll just rebuild it better.” Mags shrugs. “And add a whole fan page for your new football player kink.”

Lexi nods solemnly. “He’s not even my type, and I’d still ride him into the sunset like a rescue pony.”

“I swear on all things holy, if either of you says one more word,” I hiss, pointing a finger at them, “I will start that group chat with your frenemies and exes and let the chaos reign.”

Both of them go super quiet.

I smile sweetly. “Exactly.”

A beat.

Then Mags whispers to Lexi, “Totally worth it.”

Lexi grins. “Every second.”

I collapse back against the pillows with a dramatic groan. “Lord, grant me the strength to survive my girls with no chill and mouths like TMZ.”

“You wouldn’t want us any other way,” Lexi says, flopping beside me.

I push up on my elbows. “It was a hook-up—period. It does not leave this room. I don’t want people playing matchmaker, and you know?—”

“Say less. They deserve this after ditching girls’ night.” Mags flops down beside me.

I mean, sure, that works.

I hold up my pinky, and they both hook theirs around mine.

Mags whispers, “But if it ends up more, everyone’s gonna know I knew first.”