Page 6

CHAPTER SIX

ASHLEY

I was having a blast! The Seahawks were some of the nicest guys I’d ever met in my life, and what they were doing for the kids today was amazing.

After we’d arrived and Craig had kissed Meg senseless, she’d shown us to where the other members were waiting for us with a cart full of stuff to hand out.

Apparently, last week, Meg had sent them a majority of the kid’s sizes, and then they’d added an extra ten in each size for siblings and adult sizes for the parents. There were also notebooks, pens, teddy bears, miniature football helmets, footballs… it was awesome.

What made it amazing for me, though, was how much it meant to the kids and their parents. They deserved it!

An eleven-year-old called Liberty had caught my attention. She was losing her fight with leukemia quickly and reminded me of the friend I’d lost. She was the most beautiful girl I’d ever seen, and the injustice of a child who had their whole lives ahead of them dying from the disease was overwhelming. When the guys came in to join us, they all sat down and spoke to her like they’d known her their whole lives.

After they put their pile of goodies at the end of her bed, Kip asked her what she wanted most in life. Her answer was, “For my parents to not be sad when I go. I want them to enjoy life and remember me, but not to cry because I’ll always be there with them.”

Then she’d asked the players if they’d wear a glitter arm band with every color possible on it for her during a game to raise awareness of the disease. I’d offered to make the bands for her, so I was going to bring some in for her to hand out in a couple of days.

Not one of us had been able to hold back the tears, and those men had agreed without even needing to think about it.

“Do you think we could hold a fundraiser?” I asked them quietly as we left Liberty’s room. “Like, what if we sold the bands at games and the funds went to supporting young leukemia patients and their families?”

“We do that for some other things,” Craig mused, and then leaned against the wall to write an email on his phone to the team’s manager and their PR representative. “I’ll forward the email onto the rest of the team and ask them to put their names on it when they send it in to them, too. The more pressure we apply, the more successful it’ll be.”

A small hand gripped mine tightly, and when I turned around, Meg was staring at me with tears in her eyes. “Thank you.”

Shrugging, I looked around and saw the men looking at me with respect. “I’m always available to make bands and items that can be sold to raise money for the kids. Just shout and it’s done.”

Three sets of arms wrapped around me creating a really awkward huddle in the hallway of the hospital, with me in the center sitting in my wheelchair, trying to find a gap in the arms to breathe. I’d almost succeeded when the rest of the guys decided to join in and squeeze us all as hard as they could.

Given the height I was at in my chair, this made it slightly awkward. Which of course I pointed out to them all.

“Are you sure they’re okay with us using this wheelchair outside the hospital?” I asked nervously as Kip pushed me behind the group of footballers making their way through the throng of people walking around us.

I’d asked him this question at least five times, but I just wanted to make sure I wasn’t going to be arrested for theft of a hospital vehicle or device or whatever it was called. He could get away with his name, but I couldn’t even run from the police if I wanted to right now.

“Yes,” he snickered as he jerked it around a little kid who was throwing a tantrum. “You were there when we signed it out and agreed to have it back by six.”

Then we stopped in front of the last place I’d have expected him to go to, but the one that I wanted to go to the most—Seattle Aquarium. We’d driven behind the others after we left the hospital, and not being that familiar with the area, I’d assumed we’d go to Starbucks or Pike Place Market. But this…

“Oh, my God,” I squealed, clapping my hands excitedly. “I’ve always wanted to come here.”

Stopping behind the others who were getting tickets, he replied smugly, “I know, Hayden told me.”

“When we heard where he was taking you, we all decided to come,” Craig said over his shoulder. “Training’s on hold this week because of the flu taking out a few of us.”

“Including Coach,” one of the others called Stan added with a grin. “Bet he’s loving that.”

“Right?” Craig nodded. “Anyway, we’re bored and want to bug Kip, so consider us your new besties.”

Bursting out laughing, I waited eagerly for us to move forward into the Aquarium. I loved going to places like this.

When I was a kid, it’d been my dream to become a marine researcher and do deep dives in the Mariana Trench. I’d watched James Cameron dive down to the Titanic and had decided there and then that it’s what I’d do. Obviously I’d messed that dream up seeing as how I didn’t end up doing that with my life, so aquariums were the next best thing for me.

“What time are you diving with the sharks?” Craig asked Kip seriously. “I still say it’s a bad idea what with the open wounds on her feet, but…”

I swear for a second I was so excited at the prospect that I almost jumped out of the chair, but when he brought up my feet, all I could think was a bloody scene out of Jaws or something.

“Stop messing with her, man,” Kip growled, putting his hand on my shoulder. “I didn’t organize that today, but if you want to do it in future— alone —then I’ll make it happen.”

Just as I was about to reply, a man dressed in the Aquarium’s uniform walked past with a balloon shark that he was navigating with a remote control.

“Sweet Poseidon’s trident,” I breathed, watching as it floated around like it was swimming through the air. “I want one of those!”

“I think they also do clownfish versions,” Craig, one of the players, said as I looked around us for the gift shop.

“The shark version is cooler,” Craig muttered, pointing at the sign that had what I was looking for on it. “Although, you could get both and make them chase each other.”

That was the best idea ever!

“We’ll get you your shark and clownfish on the way out,” Kip chuckled. “Where to first?”

And that’s when six professional footballers started arguing while they pointed at the map on the wall. It got bigger when a group of twenty six-year-old’s who were there for a birthday party joined in, unaware of who they were fighting with. It was also how we ended up going around the Aquarium with them while they encouraged the guys to tap on the glass and shout, “Here, fishy-fishy!”

Throughout it all, Kip didn’t leave my side once or return the flirting glances that women walking by threw his way. He posed for photos, signed autographs, and was friendly, but that’s where it ended.

But if anything could change my mind about footballers, it was when they took the kids to the gift shop and gave them all a twenty-dollar gift card each.

We also all got the air swimming sharks after deciding they beat the clownfish.

And it was the best day and date of my life.

I was nervous which wasn’t unusual for me, but why I was nervous was.

There had been a lot of touching between me and Kip today—some of it accidental, a lot of it not—and he’d driven us home one handed, seeing as how the other one was holding mine.

The constant touching was driving me insane . Not a bad type of insane, but a good one that wanted even more, but I couldn’t figure out how to go about making it happen. It was considered bad to just jump on a guy, right?

“What do you want for dinner?” Kip asked as he walked back into the living room from the kitchen.

Able had needed to go potty, but when I’d reached for the crutches to open the door for him, Kip had jumped up to do it and told me to “keep your injured hiney on that couch.” Able being the little attention whore that he was, had lost his shit and demanded to be carried to the door—something Kip hadn’t even blinked at doing. Some women think a man holding a baby was swoon worthy, but a pro-footballer carrying a little blind dog had totally done it for me.

I was about to answer, when he sat down next to me, causing the cushion to sink and my side to fall into his. It was torture, pure hellish torture!

Taking a deep breath and deciding I needed to get a grip, I turned my head toward him to say whatever food I could think of, just as he turned his at the same time.

Somehow our lips just kind of locked together and then we both burst into movement. He lifted his hand, gently grabbing my hair and making me gasp, and his tongue began softly licking into my mouth. His moves were slow and careful, but hot as hell.

With a moan, I pushed up onto my right knee and lifted my left leg over his thighs so that I was now straddling his lap. It was fair to say at this point that if I could find a way to crawl inside him, I would have.

Wrapping his arm around my waist, he pulled me closer to him, while his other hand supported the back of my neck, angling me so he could kiss me more deeply, but it wasn’t enough.

I’d never felt this desperate need with someone before, but with Kip everything was different.

Without even thinking, I ground down into him, and the feeling of his hardness pressing against my core made my breath stutter slightly. It must have felt equally as good for him because he tipped me to the side so that I was lying on the couch, and moved to lay down on top of me without breaking the kiss once.

The new position gave me the opportunity to explore him, so I took full advantage of it, skimming my hand up under his t-shirt. I could feel the hard muscles moving under the silky soft skin of his back with each pass, and when I skimmed my hand a little lower, I got a handful of his muscular butt cheek.

At the back of my mind, I considered what he’d feel when he got a hold of mine—i.e., no muscle in it whatsoever, and with a few dimples that I’d rather didn’t exist at all—but before I could pull back to warn him, he closed his hand around my left breast. His thumb pressed down on the side of it, and then it slowly moved up and over my nipple, dragging the lace of my bra with it and making sparks fly in areas I’d never had sparks before.

Pulling my mouth a small distance away from his, I gasped, “Do that again.”

With his eyes watching my reaction, he did as I asked, but this time he did it more firmly, making me arch my back inadvertently, and then pinched it between his thumb and forefinger.

Not stopping what he was doing, he moved the hand not working my nipple down my side, and then brought it back up, dragging the hem of my tank top with it until it was gathered under my neck.

“If we don’t stop now, this is going to go a lot further. Do you want that?” he rasped, his eyes slowly lowering to my bra covered breasts.

“I want it more than I’ve always wanted to be a mermaid,” I admitted, and seeing as how I’d told him in great detail how much I wanted to be one while we were at the Aquarium—my exact words being ‘more than I wanted to breathe oxygen’—he knew I was serious.

Looking back up at me, he nodded once, and then lowered his mouth to my nipple, not moving my bra away first, and sucked deeply, maintaining eye contact throughout.

My initial reaction was to throw my head back and groan, but there was something incredibly intimate about looking in his eyes and watching his pupils dilate while he did it, his cheeks hollowing with the force of the suction, so I didn’t even blink.

Moving over to the neglected one, he repeated the move while he finally pulled the lace of my bra down until it was under my other breast, baring the hard tip to the air, and then pinching it slightly between his thumb and forefinger. Unable to stop myself, my head finally fell back, and a loud moan came out of me.

I’d pushed my hand under his jeans and the waistband of his underwear while he was doing this, and now had a handful of the muscular butt cheek I’d discovered earlier. It felt even better without the barrier, so good in fact that I couldn’t stop my legs from wrapping around his waist and then using my hold to grind up into him.

He suddenly sat up, bringing me with him, and in the next breath my bra was gone, and my tank top was being pulled over my head. As soon as he had it clear of my hair, he reached over his own head and pulled his t-shirt up in one smooth move and threw it on the floor beside us.

The next minute involved a flurry of limbs as we undressed each other, but then I had his bare chest pressed against my own as he lowered me back down.

The only time he’d shown any hesitation was when he’d pulled my leggings over my feet, while he made sure they didn’t pull at the injuries on them.

Now, he was a man on a mission, and I was the lucky mission.

Cupping both breasts in his hands, he grunted as he gauged how they fit into his palms. “It’s like they were made perfectly for them.”

Looking down, I watched as he lightly pinched my nipples between his fingers as he hefted their weight in the cups his hands were making.

The contrast between the pale skin of my breast and the tanned skin of his hands was beautiful. What felt beautiful, too, was the slightly rough skin on his palms from playing football as it rubbed on my sensitive flesh.

Dragging my hands down his sides, I felt all of the ridges and bumps of his muscles and did a mental comparison between us.

Because I wasn’t that tall, I’d always had to watch my weight, but I wasn’t obsessive about it so I had curves. He was a foot taller than me and had honed his physique through grueling exercise and sport. I could feel somewhat self-conscious because of the differences, but instead it turned me on. He wanted me the way I was when he looked the way he did. That was a huge compliment, especially when Cam had always wanted me to look better.

“I feel like I don’t have your attention on me,” Kip mumbled, kissing his way down my stomach. “I’ll have to do something to make that happen.”

Then, without warning, his mouth was on me, gently skimming his tongue between my folds and then circling it around my clit.

His hands tightened as I tried to shift my hips to get closer to his mouth, and I gasped out desperately, “You’ve got my attention.”

Sucking agonizingly gently on the bundle of nerves, he muttered, “I don’t think I do, but I will.”

I braced myself for a harder pull, but instead he moved back down, this time to my entrance, and dipped his tongue inside me. Nerves I didn’t even knew existed lit up, and again when I tried to arch into his mouth he stopped me, this time by pulling his head slightly away from me.

“No,” I cried, looking down at him to show him how serious I was. “I promise, I’m paying attention.”

Not answering—at least not with words—he lowered back down and firmly swiped his tongue upward, and when he got to my clit he sucked it hard. My hands moved from where they’d been gripping the cushions of the couch to his hair as I cried out, this time with pleasure.

With his focus now on making me come, he gently pushed a thick finger inside me, using his right hand to hold me in place now. At the same time, he lightly bit down on my clit, and then began to flutter over it with his tongue.

I could feel the release building inside me with each touch on the hard nub, but when he added another finger and began to rub at a spot inside me and then sucked harder than ever, I shattered. Pure and simple, my body exploded, and I cried out as I gripped his hair tighter and threw my head back. It was like nothing I’d ever experienced before as I felt my channel spasm around his fingers.

He didn’t let up once as I rode the wave, and then began to gentle his actions as I came back down again.

“How…” I started, but my voice was scratchy, and I had to stop to clear my throat. “How did you do that?”

“I have no idea. I’ve never seen anything like that in my life, but I’m about to do it again,” he promised as he reached down to pick his jeans up off the floor, and then pulled his wallet out of the back pocket.

As I watched, he extracted a condom from it, ripped the foil package between his teeth, and then knelt on the couch and began to roll it down his length. That’s when I saw how big he was.

“Um, I don’t think you’re going to fit.”

“We’ll fit,” he promised, chuckling.

“We could try the ‘lick it and stick it’ approach,” I suggested dubiously, only a tiny part of my brain actually worried about it when I should have probably been running away.

Leaning over me, he braced himself on his left arm while he used his right hand to sweep the tip of his condom covered cock through my center, slickening himself even more with me.

“If we need to, we can try that, but if your mouth gets anywhere near me right now, we won’t get to do what we’re about to. In fact, let’s not discuss your mouth and my penis at all right now.”

Nodding, I pulled my legs up so that my thighs were almost touching my stomach and breathed out when I felt his tip lodge against my entrance. “I trust you.”

Those three words were something huge to me. His profession, my past, how we’d met… they all had an impact on my ability to trust him, but somehow I did, and it was all because of him.

His eyes flared at the words, and slowly he began to push inside me. “I’ll never give you a reason not to.”

The words were unnecessary because I knew he wouldn’t, but I loved that he’d said them.

After that, we both focused on his slow entry inside me. I knew that the restraint was costing him, but Kip wouldn’t ever hurt me, so he was taking that burden.

Finally, after long moments of slow thrusts and withdrawals, I had his full length, and the fullness I felt was out of this world.

Wiggling slightly to ease the pressure, I moved my legs to wrap them around his hips, inadvertently pulling him slightly deeper inside me. We’d already been pressed up tight to each other, but what I’d done didn’t leave any space at all.

“Holy shit,” he rasped, his head falling down onto my shoulder. “It’s… you feel like a hot, tight fist squeezing the life out of me.”

“You feel like a freaking log,” I joked, pressing my lips against the side of his neck gently and then groaning when he chuckled, making his cock jerk inside me. When he lifted his head back up, I whispered, “You can move now.”

Bracing himself on his arms either side of my head, he kept eye contact as he slowly withdrew and then pushed back inside me.

Even through the rubber I could feel every vein as he moved, but it was the tip rubbing along that secret spot from before that got me.

Seeing that I was about to come again, he lowered his head and took my mouth in a kiss that stole my breath. Coinciding his thrusts with each flick of his tongue, he caught my groan in his mouth as I fell over the edge.

Every muscle inside me tightened, heightening my orgasm as he pushed through the tight clasp around his shaft.

“Holy shit,” he groaned, his thrusts speeding up, the force behind them increasing as much as the couch cushion would let him.

With my cognitive functions coming back online, I tightened around him again, triggering his own orgasm and causing the steady thrusts from before to lose their tempo.

On the fourth glide into me, he growled, and I felt him pulse into the condom as his muscles clenched tightly with the release.

Finally, he stopped moving and his head fell down onto the cushion beside where mine was as he tried to catch his breath.

Instead of the awkward feeling I normally had, all I could think was how amazing he felt inside me and how sad I was that he’d have to pull out soon. So, I said the only thing that conveyed that.

“Let’s do that again.”