Page 12

Chapter 12

Dinner and … Dessert

Damien

“I’m not saying you only won ’cause the Delilah Monroe flashed you, but I’m saying you’d have gotten your asses kicked if she hadn’t,” Dawson says … again.

“A win’s a win.” I chuckle.

“Don’t worry,” AJ Tereira, his roomie and centerfield for the Jags, says from the back seat. “We have two more games.” Then he whispers, “And a fucking trophy saying we’re the champs.”

“Last year,” I whisper back, but loud enough so he and Dawson here it.

“Fuck, man, fuck.” Dawson hits the wheel.

I laugh. “You two realize how many games you’re going to lose throughout your careers?”

“One, right, Donovan?” AJ asks like there is no answer but one.

“Fucking right one.” Dawson turns to me. “Kicking your asses the rest of the series.”

“Bring it,” I say, fighting back a smile.

Dawson throws his SUV in park, and we get out.

“Pop the hatch; I’ll grab the grub.” I pause. “Oh wait, you fuckers can carry. I’m not the loser tonight.”

“Good game, man,” Rudy Galleon, their right fielder, says, hitting his key fob and locking his vehicle.

“You like pecan pie, man?” I ask.

“Who doesn’t?” he asks

“Come on; let’s get you fed.” I smirk back at Dawson, and he flips me off.

When I walk in, my eyes meet Delilah’s, and she smiles so damn big as she walks to me.

“Congrats on the win, Donovan.”

I meet her, and we hug. None of it feels fake.

Dawson kicks the front door open with the heel of his boot, hands full of takeout bags. “We feed her this good, she may not realize you got lucky tonight.”

“You’re not feeding her , dumbass,” I mutter as I reluctantly step away. “You’re feeding your bruised ego.”

“Do they ever stop?” AJ groans, dumping the bags on the kitchen table like they weigh more than his bat.

“Never.” Mom laughs from the kitchen, already removing the pie from the oven.

“Y’all better not be slamming doors in a house you don’t own,” Dad says without even looking away from his paper.

“Sorry,” Dawson and AJ say in perfect unison.

Delilah smirks. I wink.

Mom calls out, “Come on; let’s get to eating. You boys need your rest—two more games in the series.”

“Some of us more than others,” I poke the bear.

Harlan giggles.

Dawson mouths, “ Suck it ,” and grabs his junk.

“Mom, remind Dawson there are ladies in the house,” I call behind him as he heads toward her.

“Dawson, what did you do?” she gasps.

“Nothing yet, just think he needs … a reminder.” I give him a tight grin. “You know how he is.”

“You already beat your brother. No sense in rubbing salt in his wound,” Mom scolds me … of course.

“My bad.” I arch a brow at him then look behind me as the girls snicker.

“Get in here, make a plate, and get to the table before the pie gets cold.”

We all file in and do just that.

I pull out Delilah’s chair beside Harlan and sit beside her.

I’m not even hungry anymore—I’m starving . But Mom’s standing at the head of the table with her hands clasped like we’re about to enter the gates of heaven, and nobody dares lift a fork until grace is said, except Dawson.

The room is silent when she just points her perfectly manicured finger at him. “Dawson Lee,” she says, all sugar and steel, “you say grace.”

He freezes mid-scooping the mashed potatoes. “Me? Why?”

She raises one eyebrow and does that slow head tilt—Southern mom for don’t test me, son . “Because maybe the good Lord can help pull you outta the slump you’ve been mopin’ through.”

I nearly choke on my sweet tea.

Dawson turns to her like she’s betrayed him. “Ma, we lost one game.”

“And you’re acting like you got benched for the season.” She waves her napkin at him. “Now hush and pray before your food gets cold.”

Across the table, AJ bites his lip to keep from laughing, and Rudy leans back like he’s witnessing something sacred.

Dawson lets out a long-suffering sigh, drops his head just dramatically enough to be theatrical, and laces his fingers like a man resigned to fate. “Dear Lord,” he begins, voice syrupy and passive-aggressive in equal measure, “Thank you for this food and Mama’s pie, which, honestly, are the only things keeping me going right now.” He pauses for effect. “Thank you for our health, our bats, and for some folks having short-term memory when it comes to one bad call.”

My shoulders shake.

“I ask that you give strength to the weak, vision to the blind—umpires, specifically—and maybe a sprinkle of humility to a certain first baseman whose name starts with D and rhymes with pain-in-my-ass. ”

AJ snorts, the girls are both shaking as they try to hold it together, and I can’t hold it in—I’m full-on wheezing.

Dawson smirks as he says, “In Jesus’ name, Amen.”

Mom smacks his shoulder with the dish towel, but even she’s smiling as she does it. “Boy, the Lord hears you even when you’re bein’ a smartass.”

“Figured He could use a laugh,” Dawson mutters.

I grab the mashed potatoes, still grinning. “You better hope He’s also handing out wins, ’cause y’all are gonna need divine intervention to pull out of this slump.”

“Eat your damn chicken, Donovan,” Dawson says, but his mouth twitches like he’s fighting back a laugh, too.

Delilah whispers as she dabs actual tears from laughing so damn hard, a sound that I wanna hear again and again. “S lump. She said it like it was an actual diagnosis.”

Grinning, I whisper back, “I can still hear that little crack in Dawson’s voice when he said my name.”

Harlan, who I now know has supersonic hearing, adds, “Bless his heart.”

We eat, and when I say we, I mean Delilah and Harlan eat and not pick. Swear to the good Lord I nearly popped wood when she sucked the damn meat off the chicken bone. But when I noticed Dawson saw it, too, I thought a hell of a lot less about my dick.

I point my fork at him. “I’ll save the ass-kicking for the field.”

“You two need stop. It’s Easter.” Mom pouts.

“She have a glass of wine while y’all were waiting?” I ask Delilah.

She holds up two fingers.

“Fuck.” I chuckle. “She gets buzzed at communion on grape juice.”

I get a swift kick under the table and look at Dad.

“Leave my woman alone.”

Dawson takes a forkful of his pie and looks at Delilah. “I’m not saying flashing Donovan is the reason we lost, but?—”

“You are saying that,” I cut in, reaching for the pie knife.

“Whatever,” he grumbles.

Delilah leans forward. “And I’ll do it again.”

“You would.” He fake glares at her.

Smiling, I look past her and at Harlan, who looks … relieved.

These two have been through enough.

I look away before I get caught as AJ smiles through a giant bite of pie.

“We got two more games, anyway. And a trophy with our name on it.”

“From last year,” I remind him … again.

AJ wipes his fingers on a napkin, ignoring me. “One loss; that’s it.”

“Fucking right.” Dawson nods. “One. After tonight, we’re on a streak and breaking theirs.”

“Bring it.” I grin, sliding my first perfect slice of pecan pie onto a plate.

Rudy leans in, catching a whiff, and I see his plate’s empty.

“You want another piece, man?” I ask.

“Damn right, I do.”

***

I left not long after the girls piled into the Uber to pick up Rae. Figured I’d squeeze in a lift and burn off some of Mom’s pecan pie.

Got a text while I was on the treadmill.

Delilah: Rae requests your presence briefly when you get back in.

Me: What about Delilah?

I want to kick myself in the ass for sending it when I see her dots jump around until finally …

Delilah: She’ll be there, too … eating peeps … talking about herself in the third person.

***

Stepping off the elevator with sweat still drying and a towel around my neck, I hear laughter pouring down the hall, high-pitched shrieking, something that sounds like Rae narrating her own movie in third person, then Delilah cackles so hard she starts coughing.

I’m not even sweating the text shit now.

“— And then I walk into the hotel room,” Rae is saying, voice theatrical as ever, “and what do I see on the bed? An Easter basket. Like, an actual Easter basket. With tissue paper. Easter candy, but most importantly, Reese’s eggs, a kick-ass bracelet, fucking Spam, and a stuffed bunny named Gary. ”

Harlan laughs. “First, we were here, and second, you named the pink bunny Gary?”

“He’s got sunglasses and emotional range, thank you very much.”

They have the door cracked open, and I knock twice, mostly to spare them from the embarrassment.

The noise cuts off, and then …

“ Donovan’s here! ” Rae gasps. “Pretend we weren’t talking about his emotional depth!”

The door swings open, and Rae throws her arms wide like she’s hosting a game show. “You absolute menace,” she says, grinning. “You left an Easter basket on my hotel bed?”

I blink, seeing them all in matching bunny print PJs, and clear my throat. “Technically, I bribed the front desk to drop it off at the door, but?—”

“Oh my God,” she cuts me off. “It had jellybeans. And thoughtful shit, like a Gary I didn’t even know I always needed. Baseball Dude, you are unwell.”

Delilah leans into view from behind her, holding a water bottle and barely holding it together. “All of that”—she makes a circular motion with her hand—“was Rae for thank you.”

“It was heartfelt. It deserved more!” Rae scolds Delilah then looks back at me. “Gary is traveling everywhere with us now. He’s the emotional support bunny we didn’t know we needed.”

I cross my arms, fighting a smile. “Glad he’s found his calling.”

“Seriously,” she says, a little softer, “that was really freaking sweet.”

I shrug. “You had a long trip.”

“You’re just mad I’m gonna talk about it for the rest of your life.”

“Already regretting it.”

“You love it.” Delilah beams so wide it makes something shift in my chest, just for a second. Emotions … fuck me.

Then she adds, “Anyway, we’re doing emotional karaoke in twenty. You’re coming back?”

“Absolutely not.”

“That’s not a no,” she sing-songs as I turn back toward my door and make my way to my suite.

I close it behind me just as another wave of laughter erupts across the hall.

I catch myself smiling in the shower—fucking smiling—instead of beating off to Delilah Monroe flashing me. In my mind, there are way less clothes.

Heading to the door to peek out and make sure they’ve secured the door and don’t have it propped open, I see Delilah pacing back and forth. Finally, she steps to my door and knocks.

I don’t waste my time. I open the damn thing.

She looks me up and down, and only then do I remember I just got out of the shower and am wearing nothing but a towel.

She plants her hand on my chest and pushes me backward. “That’s a lot. Like, a fuck ton of trouble no one needs to be seeing.”

I bite back a smile as she steps back, eyes … closed.

She clears her throat then does a little shimmy before opening them.

“You asked about flaws, and since I don’t have a Gary, or a freaking amazing basket of thoughtful …” She grips the shirt above her chest. “Seriously, that, your family, your damn ass in baseball pants … it made an already epic day … epic-er.”

I suck in my lips to hold back a smile.

“So you get flaws.”

“I get what?”

“Shh, let me just … Shh.”

She turns around and shakes her hands out. Then she rolls her shoulders, clears her throat, and turns around, unbuttoning the top button of the bunny shirt.

“One.” She turns her shoulder slowly, tugging down the shirt until a scar shows. Thin. Silver-white. Just under her collarbone. “Eight years old,” she says. “Fell off Mom’s front porch trying to catch lightning bugs. It hurt like hell, but I caught the bug and didn’t squish it.”

My throat locks up. Because it’s pretty. Because it’s hers.

“Two.” She steps in closer—impossibly close—tucking loose hair behind her ear and tilting her jaw just enough for me to catch a glimpse of a tiny mole, right beneath her jawline, near her neck. “I hate this,” she whispers. “Always tried to cover it with makeup when I was younger.”

I stare at it, at her, knowing full damn well I’d put my mouth there first.

“Three.” She kicks off one slipper like she’s not killing me by standing barefoot in front of me with pretty feet, and I see it, a messy tattoo on her ankle. A music note, maybe? “Rae gave me this stick-n-poke at like … two a.m. after I said I’d never sing again. Looks like shit, but it means I’ll always have music.”

My fucking throat is tight, thick … goddamn.

“Four.” She pulls up the hem of her top slow, slow, slower, just enough to show a line of faint stretch marks curving over her hip. “Grew fast senior year,” she says softly. “Didn’t know my body was allowed to change without asking permission.”

Jesus Christ. I don’t even try to hide the sound I make. Because that? That’s the most beautiful damn thing I’ve ever seen.

“Five.” And then she steps in so close our knees brush. Eyes all heavy-lidded, mischievous, she peels back the waistband of her bottoms just enough to deliver the kill shot. A tiny, ridiculous tattoo of a smiley face. It’s crooked. It’s ugly. It’s right above her hip and sexy as fuck.

“For the record,” she says, voice husky now, dangerous now, “this is, hands down, the worst thing about me.”

I laugh, this raw, rough thing that breaks out of me like it’s been waiting. “Sweetheart,” I say in a voice low and wrecked, “you’re out of your damn mind if you think any of that’s gonna help me stop thinking about you. Because flaws? Flaws are human. Flaws are real. But you? Delilah, you’re fucking lethal.”

And I’m already a goner.

She’s grinning, smug and so goddamn beautiful I can’t see straight, when I reach for her.

One second, we’re standing there. The next? My mouth’s on hers like I’ve been starving, and I fucking am.

It’s not sweet. It’s not soft. It’s all teeth, and heat, and what feels like months—a lifetime, not a fucking week—since I’ve wanted her.

She gasps against me—surprised, maybe—but then her hands, her nails, are digging into my sides, yanking me closer like she’s been waiting just as long.

A fucking beautiful mess, her back hits the wall. I cage her in with one hand, the other already on her waist, under her shirt, mapping bare skin, memorizing her curves.

“Delilah,” I growl against her lips.

She breathes my name into mine, and I don’t even remember crossing the threshold to the bedroom.

The next I know, I’m kicking the door shut behind us, and she’s in my arms, legs around my waist, breath against my neck, laughing in that wrecked kind of way that makes my knees damn-near buckle.

Clothes? Gone. Thrown. Torn maybe. Don’t know. Don’t care.

Her shirt’s somewhere near the TV. My towels on the lamp. She’s biting my shoulder, tugging at my hair mumbling something about, “You’re ridiculous, Donovan,” like I’m not fully aware.

We don’t make it to the bed. Not at first. Wall. Table. Door. My hands on her everywhere.

Her mouth, her sounds, the way she says “please” like it’s both a question and a command … I’m done.

When we finally hit the mattress, tangled in sheets, and breaths, and each other …

When she arches into me like she’s meant to fit …

When she says my name like it belongs to her now …

Everything fades to black.

But I swear, somewhere in that blur of skin, heat, and heartbeats too loud to be ignored, she kisses me, one that acknowledges it’s not pretend anymore. And I kiss her back like it never was.

Her lips are sweet honey and milk chocolate, with a subtle hint of mint that stays on my tongue, refreshing. She brushed her teeth before coming over. She wants this and me.

I want more.

As I move down to her neck, she releases sounds that are like a siren’s song, one I want to hear … feel. With my mouth, I trace a path along her collarbone, down, down, down, to the swell of her breasts, which are even more perfect than my wildest fantasies. With one hand, I gently tweak her nipple while my mouth takes the other, sucking and lightly biting, revering its perfection.

She cries out in response, her body arching into my touch, seeking more of the pleasure that we’re feeling in this moment.

My lips travel across her flawless skin, drawing a soft, deliberate path. I taste the light sheen of sweat that rises from her body, making her glisten like a rhinestone.

Greedy for more of it, I move back up and linger at the juncture of her neck and shoulder, staying on that pulse, the rapid beat that matches my own. Moving lower again, I can barely hold back the groan that vibrates in my chest. I shift even lower, my mouth tracing the curve of her breasts, making my head spin.

She squirms beneath me, breathy moans escaping her lips, spurring me onward to make her fall in love with that tattoo at her hip.

My hand makes a slow journey down, fingers skimming the curve of her bone. Each movement is calculated, purposeful, to drive her fucking wild. But first, I pause to take her in, this beautiful real fucking woman beneath me, and the sound she makes—the need, the desire, the feelings she doesn’t hide—it almost undoes me.

I glide my hand across her belly, feeling the fluttering anticipation beneath each fingertip. They move lower, with all the heat-seeking precision of missiles honing in on their intended target. Her body arches, pleading, and I can’t fight back the possessive growl that slips from my throat. Hell, I don’t even want to.

She’s close—so close, so impossibly close—and it’s almost too much … except, it’s not.

There, where warmth and moisture come together, there is a tight, urgent pull to make her come. It feels like being at bat, bases loaded, and fucking fireworks exploding in the night sky, as I hit the exact spot.

Her cry is a wild, abandoned thing, a fucking melody I want to play on repeat forever. I’m lost in her, enveloped by the reality of her and the way she makes me feel reckless and found all at once. Being with her like this is everything I imagined, everything I dreamed, and so much goddamn more.

“I need a fucking taste,” I growl, teeth rasping across her tattoo, her hip bone, the softness of her skin beneath.

She squirms, and writhes, and arches, and I can barely hold back my own shudders. I want to savor this—savor her. She smells goddamn incredible, like lust and need, desire and her, and I’m fighting like hell not to give in too soon.

Each touch feels combustible, like it might set us on fire and burn the whole world down around us. I open my mouth, sucking on her thigh, so soft and sweet, and I’m nowhere near done driving us both insane before I take her over that final edge.

I drag my mouth lower, teasing the softest parts of her, wrecking us both in the best possible way. Her skin is fever-hot, and it makes my head spin. I don’t even care that my own need is white-hot and burning through my gut, painful … beautiful.

She squirms with every touch, every breath, and God, I could almost come just from that alone.

I move against her, loving the anticipation too much to rush it. I breathe her in, slow, agonizing, my mouth hovering, waiting, eager …

That first taste? It ruins me. It’s all I can do not to lose my head completely. Sweet like nothing that should exist, a flavor so potent it makes my whole body shudder. It’s a taste I never want to forget, one I’ll crave forever, and I’m greedy for more of it, more of her.

She gasps, almost making me lose my shit, grasping my hair with fingers, tugging me closer to where she wants me. Where I want to be.

Her skin is like butter beneath my touch, and the way she lets me devour her—so willing, so eager—it’s everything I never knew I needed. Each taste, each sound, each heartbeat is ours, and nothing else is between us. The world outside this room doesn’t exist. Only us.

I lick, and lap, and taste her weeping cunt, fisting my own cock, squeezing hard to keep from losing it, from coming apart. Her sweet heat coats my tongue, flooding me with her taste, with the feel of her, and I’m wrecked.

Every hitch of her breath, every desperate sound from her lips, it hammers away at my need until I’m clawing at my own control, barely holding on as she grows wild beneath me. Hips jerking, body twisting, like every single nerve is lit up at once.

She’s pushing me to the edge with her. I fight it, fight the madness, not willing to give in too soon. Not until I finish her, until she breaks apart. Until she comes. Not before.

And then …. she does.

She comes, panting breaths driving me insane. Her thighs grip my head, tight and trembling. Her fingers twist harder in my hair, yanking me closer again to the place where she shatters and makes herself whole again, a wild, beautiful destruction. She grinds against me, and I can feel the quake of her orgasm. It floods me. It drowns me. I’m lost in the hot rush of her.

Her legs go stiff, muscles lock up, and then she starts fucking shaking. Her orgasm wrecks me almost as much as it wrecks her.

Panting, chest heaving, her hair a messy spread of golden chaos around her beautiful face. I love that I did that to her. I want to do it again, over and over.

She sucks in a deep breath, lips parted like she can’t quite figure out how to breathe, let alone how to make sense of anything at all.

“That was …” She releases her hold on my hair and lets it fall limp to her side, still trying to process. “I mean, what was that?” Her words are a dazed echo, disbelief, and desire, and need all tangled together.

“That was me breaking you apart,” I say, voice more of a growl than anything else. “Now let me fuck you back together.”

She smiles and closes her eyes, stretching her back, and I straight up give myself an attaboy because I’m a goddamn miracle of self-control as I crawl up the length of her beautiful body, loving the way her skin is still slick with sweat. Her scent is everywhere, sweet and heady, filling my lungs and sending me into a spiral of need.

“Clean?” She asks.

“Monthly checks, all good, you?”

“And on the pill.”

My hand is wrapped around my cock, already so hard it’s almost painful. I stroke it once, twice, running it up and down her slit until everything in me is tight, and coiled, and ready to snap. I watch her face, the way her eyes flutter open, her lips parting as I take my time.

The slick friction nearly destroys me. I groan as I feed her me, inch by slow, agonizing inch, rolling my hips, stretching her as she tenses beneath me.

When she starts shifting her body, meeting my thrusts with sharp and hungry urgency, it’s all I can do not to hold her still, but fuck that.

Her thighs wrap around me like a vise, pulling me closer, faster, tighter. Her lips find mine, hot and searching. She moans against my mouth, and God, it’s fucking sexy.

I fist my hands in her hair, move them along her arms and her thighs like I’m trying to capture every last part of her. I roll my hips and match her pace as she gives herself over to me and takes me for herself. Her kisses grow frantic, and I know she’s close—I know we both are. And when she makes a small, desperate sound, it sends us both spiraling.

Nails digging into my back, it’s impossible to hold on any longer. I shatter with her, losing control, losing everything. Swallowed up by the heat and the madness of it, drained, and consumed, and wrecked, it’s like drowning, and breathing, and breaking apart all at once. And then it all blurs and blends. I’m lost and found. Time stops, and there’s nothing but the white-hot rush and her.

Panting, we lay there, wet, sticky, lips touching, eyes searching, hands caressing.

And that’s when the phone rings, jarring us from post-orgasm haze.

I roll over, but bring her with me, one hand on her hot little ass, the other reaching for the phone.

I hold it to me ear and answer, “Hello.”

“Hello, sir. This is the front desk. We’re calling to confirm your romance package upgrade includes rose petals, body oil, and a playlist titled ‘Moanin’ with Ms. Monroe.’ ”

I hang up.

Delilah blinks. “Was that …?”

“Yes.”

Then phone rings again. She’s already laughing as she grabs it.

“Room service here. Your extra-large, heart-shaped pizza with extra love is en route. Should we toss in whipped cream or just hand-deliver the bottle?”

She hangs up and rolls off me, leaving my dick cold and lonely.

The phone rings a third time.

I answer it with a growl, no words.

“Noise complaint department, sir. Guests are reporting rhythmic thudding , and Taylor Swift’s ‘Enchanted’ being performed a cappella. Are you currently hosting a concert or conducting a spiritual awakening?”

“I will decapitate Gary,” I say flatly into the receiver and hear a gasp before slamming the phone back on the receiver.

Delilah bites her knuckle, still laughing, and then whispers, “You do have a pretty rhythmic thud.”

I toss a pillow at her.

The phone rings again .

“You answer it this time,” I say, already walking toward the door.

“Why?” she asks, holding back another laugh, and then I hear her little feet padding behind me.

“Because I’m about to go end them. Pray for Gary.”

“You can’t kill Gary.” She laughs.

I reach for the door, and she slides between me and Gary’s demise.

“Give me one good reason.”

She cups her boobs. “I’ll give you two.”

I force the laugh she deserves and drop my forehead to hers. “That’s fucked up.”

“You know what’s more fucked up?” she asks.

“Hmm?”

“I just for real fucked my fake boyfriend.”

I smile.

“And my legs for real feel like Jell-O.”

“Come back to bed, and I’ll make them completely numb.”

“And how will I stand tomorrow when I sing?” she asks then yawns.

I growl as I step back. “Then for real get dressed before I change my mind.”

“About what?” she asks, streaking through the suite.

“Letting Gary live another night.”