Page 19

Javier

“I don’t need lingerie, Javier,” Tobie whispers from behind the lingerie store’s dressing room door.

The only reason Tobie agreed to this shopping trip to La Perla was by deception. I told her I wanted to take her shopping but was vague about what we would be shopping for. By the time I was escorting her into the store, it was too late for her to back out.

I close the magazine a sales assistant offered me and place it on the glass table in front of me. “We’re not here to get you lingerie. At least, not only. You need something else.”

“What?”

“Confidence. You were easily the hottest girl at the party, yet you spent it hiding in a corner. We need to do something about that.”

“No, I wasn’t,” she denies.

“You were. Why do you think all the guys were staring? And why do you think your ex was so pissed you were with us?”

She’s silent.

If I were positive there wasn’t a window in there, I’d assume she was climbing out of it.

Back in the arena, I thought she was shy, and maybe she is. But after what Reid told Caleb and me about what her ex had said, a part of me wonders if the shyness isn’t just shyness but insecurity because of other things her ex might have said to her.

“Are you ready to stop hiding in there?”

“No.” Her voice is small. “I mean, this is fine. Expensive but fine.”

She’s still talking when I get to my feet. I glance over to ensure the sales assistant is busy at the front counter and slip into Tobie’s dressing room.

And slam to a sudden halt when I come face to face with soft, creamy breasts spilling from the top of a dusty pink demi bra that barely covers her nipples. I have to look away before I give in to temptation.

Her eyes dart to mine in the mirror. She stumbles back, yanks her shirt from the chair, and covers her chest. She’s bright red, her blush spreading over her cheeks and the top of her freckled shoulders. “You can’t be in here. I’m?—”

“Beautiful,” I softly interrupt, wanting to kiss each freckle. “And I just want you to see yourself the way I do.”

Her chin lifts slightly. “You don’t mean that.”

Her shoulder-length, wavy brown hair is loose, and the way she’s shielding her gorgeous, luscious body from me is making me think of rumpled sheets, sweaty morning sex, and I’m already far too hard to be thinking of that.

“And that is the problem we’re here to solve.” I focus my attention on her face before I do something in this room that’s better saved for a bedroom.

“What?”

I drop into a crouch.

She squishes herself into the corner, eyes like saucers. “What are you doing?”

I point my chin at the seat behind her. “Sit for a second. We need to talk.”

She doesn’t move. “While I’m half-naked?”

“Yes.”

If I give her an out, she’ll take it, and I think she needs me to be a little firmer with her than Reid would be. Caleb would growl at her, and she doesn’t need that. She’s jumpy enough.

She doesn’t want to see something that should be obvious, so I have to make it very clear to her.

After another long moment, she perches on the edge of the seat, and I clasp my hands together. I want to push her thighs apart, drag her toward me, and see how she tastes, but that’s not what I came in here to do.

Unless it’s what Tobie wants.

“We all want you,” I quietly tell her.

She stares at me.

Her mouth opens. Then it closes.

“Reid hasn’t tried to hide it, has he?” I ask.

She shakes her head.

“Caleb is staying away for now, but the clues are there.”

“What clues?” Her voice is quiet.

“The way he nearly choked out a guy when we couldn’t find your dorm room the night you left the arena.”

Her eyes widen. “He did that?”

I nod. “He did.”

She swallows. “My friend Max said…” Her voice trails off, and her cheeks turn pink. “Well, she thought there might be a little interest.”

Reid told me about Maxine Ryan.

Of all the friends Tobie had to have, it had to be Max. The best thing we can do for her is keep our distance. Tobie might not like hockey, but Max has good reason to want nothing to do with hockey players after what one put her through.

“Why would you want me?” she asks.

I smile slightly at her. “Can I have your hand?”

I hold my palm out for her.

“To do what?” she whispers, breathing fast, those gorgeous tits a temptation.

I suddenly want to know what her hand would feel like wrapped around my cock. Is that what she’s thinking? Does she want to touch me? Her breathing would not be that thready if she weren’t thinking of something she didn’t want me to know.

“I’d just like to hold your hand,” I tell her.

For now.

Slowly, she places her hand in mine. It’s warm, soft, and small in a way that makes me feel bigger, somehow.

“The sales assistant is going to have a problem with me being in here so long,” she says, swallowing hard. “And about you being in here with me.”

“I couldn’t give a shit about the sales assistant. How does it feel to wear something like that?” My eyes dart to her chest and the shirt she’s still using to cover herself.

“Like it might be too small,” she offers.

I smile at her. “It’s meant to tantalize. It’s also meant to make you feel sexy. How does it feel knowing three men want you?”

She looks away.

I lean toward her, tilting her head back to face me, but leave my fingers on her cheek and chin, far closer to the skin on show than I should. “Does it make you feel good?”

She swallows. “This is just pretend,” she whispers.

I absolutely should not be doing this in here. “Just pretend would be us holding hands in public only. Maybe laughing loudly at your jokes and having you laugh loudly back. But only in public.”

Her eyes are full of so many secrets, and I want her to tell me all of them. “What happens in private?”

I hold her gaze as I skim my fingers down the long line of her beautiful throat, grazing the swell of her right breast, and trying to ignore my cock pulsing at the soft, breathy moan she bites off before I can hear more of it.

“More.” I trail my fingers back up her body when I want to dip them under her panties. “You are sweet, Tobie Myers, and I need to know how you taste.”

She stares at me, breathing unsteadily. “W-what part of me?”

Holding her gaze, I skim my fingers down over her breast, coming to a stop at the band of her panties. “Which part would you let me?”

She shakes her head. “You don’t… you don’t mean it.”

I lean closer. My gaze drops to her barely covered breasts, inches from my mouth. “Oh, I mean it.”

“I shouldn’t let you.” Her eyes dart to the dressing room door.

I blow warm air over her and watch her right nipple pebble in response. “But you want me to. Don’t you?”

She hesitates, and I wonder what that jackass of a boyfriend ever did for her.

“One taste, Gatinha ,” I whisper, tempting her.

“W-what does that mean?” she whispers back.

“What you are. Beautiful. Little kitten.”

Her blush deepens. “I’m not either of those things.”

“I disagree.” And I wait.

Her nod, when it comes, is tiny, her cheeks red, embarrassed.

That’s all the permission I need.

I keep my eyes on her face, needing to see her expression as I lick and suck her through the thin lacy bra.

“Javier,” she moans.

I shuffle forward, stroke my hands up her rounded thighs, drawing her softer body against my harder one, wanting to put her on the floor and see what other parts of her taste as sweet as these perfect tits.

But this is for her. For her to know how easily she can bring a man to his knees.

She doesn’t need makeup or a short dress.

Just her. That’s enough.

Her hands tug on my hair as I lift my mouth from wet lace, smiling at her soft sound of complaint before I move on to the neglected breast.

She’s writhing on the seat, and I feel her sex against my chest. It’s hot. Is she going to come from my mouth on her tits?

Her breathing is growing ragged as I cup and massage an ass I need to see out of this thong, preferably when she’s sitting on me, riding me, from the back, the front…

Fuck, I just need her on me.

Her thighs are spreading and I’m picking her up, ready to put her on this floor, shove aside the thong when…

Knock. Knock.

“Is everything okay in there?”

Tobie nearly falls as she scrambles to get up, wobbling.

I catch her as I rise to my feet, gripping her hips and steadying her.

She doesn’t look at me. She’s pointing her red face at the wall. Every inch of her skin is a warm rose.

This close, there’s no way she can’t feel how badly I need her. And this close, I can’t help but feel how perfectly her body fits against me.

“We’ll take everything she tried on. Everything except what she’s wearing now,” I call out.

There’s a surprised silence. “I can bag everything up.”

Reaching around Tobie, I pluck the hangers from a small hook. She freezes when I open the door and pass the sales assistant the lingerie that Tobie tried on, including the empty hangers of the lingerie she’s still wearing.

Even after the sales assistant has left, Tobie still won’t look at me.

I grip her chin and lift it. “How did it feel, Tobie?”

“How did what feel?”

“What you do to me?”

Her eyes stray to my mouth. “It felt good.”

She wants me to kiss her, and I will. But not here. And not the sort of kiss I want to give her yet.

I back up and try not to feel pleased at the disappointment in her gaze. “I have something for you. Do you have time to come to my room to get it?”

“Your room?”

“Yes.”