First Step Forward Read online

  I do know that I hate it. My mind starts to reel through the last few minutes, searching for the words that I shouldn’t have said and trying to figure out how to fix it. Before I can, she disappears, claiming something about her hair getting frizzy. Leaving me behind—and one pushy decision away from stalking in there after her.

  Ten minutes later, her hair dryer finally shuts off. I’ve flopped onto the couch, pulled off my boots, and started to consider how best to recline my six-foot-three frame without the assistance of a contortionist.

  She slips into the room and leans against a far wall.

  “I’m exhausted.” She rolls her shoulders to loosen them. “Sleep?”

  “Absolutely.” I arrange the decades-old throw pillows together, trying to assemble a pile that might best mimic a real bed pillow.

  Whitney snorts. “Oh, come on. You are not sleeping on that couch.”

  “It’s fine. I’m good here.”

  She waves her hand toward me, in a beckoning gesture. I shake my head and grip my hands into fists that I set on my thighs. I give her a firm look, which she ignores. Her next move is to give an impish little tilt of her head in the direction of the bedroom.

  “Whitney,” I say, slowly and quietly, obvious warning in my voice.

  Turning on her heel, she saunters off, a languid amble that matches the tone of her response. “Cooper.”

  She doesn’t have to say anything else because—let’s be fucking real here—we both know I’m going in there.

   9

  (Cooper)

  In Whitney’s bedroom, the space feels claustrophobic. Between my keyed-up state and the actual small dimensions of the room, a nervy energy permeates the air.

  A dark, hulking, ornately carved bureau is pushed against one wall and a matching dressing table is along the opposite wall, both of them crowding the space. A queen bed sits in the middle and it’s the only thing that doesn’t look ten decades old; it’s just a box spring and mattress set on a flimsy metal frame, covered by a light blue comforter—the kind of setup your parents send you off to college with, cheap and basic. Let’s hope that the stark contrast between this economy bed and the rest of the furniture means we aren’t sleeping on the dead old lady’s bed.

  Whitney is sitting cross-legged in the middle of the bed, facing me, her hands clasped loosely as she toys with her fingers. The sight of her there, looking just the smallest bit nervous but still self-assured, adds to the sensation that the walls are slowly collapsing the room in on us. Closer and closer, until we inevitably land on top of each other.

  I make it to the edge of the bed and stop. She draws back the comforter on one side of the bed, a wordless encouragement for me to take that spot. I take a deep breath.

  “I can’t sleep in my clothes.”

  “OK.”

  “I won’t be able to sleep.”

  “OK.” Whitney stretches her arms out behind her and leans back, lazily. “Naked? Is that what you’re driving at?”

  When her expression becomes a playful mix of goading and hopeful, my entire body turns toward high alert.

  “Not naked. Just boxers.”

  She nods and continues to sit there, waiting for the show, it seems. My heart lurches into my throat because I suddenly feel like it’s my first day on the job as a male stripper and I’ve just realized I’m going to suck at this job. Even if I spend every Sunday on national television, this display, in front of this woman, is entirely nerve-racking. If we were going at it, stripping and tugging and wrestling each other’s clothes off, I’d be in my comfort zone. But Whitney’s scrutiny, the odd self-consciousness it brings on, is new to me.

  She wets her lips with a dart and sweep of her tongue. Instinct takes over, and I yank the button on my jeans open, pull the zipper down, and manage to tug my socks off at the same time that I shuck the jeans. I latch on to the back of my shirt, grasping the neckline to pull it off.

  Then it’s just me, standing here in my dark gray boxer briefs, waiting for what’s next. All I can think about is this line from a movie my high school girlfriend insisted we watch on repeat.

  I’m also just a girl, standing in front of a boy, asking him to love her.

  Fucking Hugh Grant movies. They’re like the earworms of romantic comedies. I’m stuck in place, half-hard, and all I can think is: I’m just a boy, standing in front of a girl, asking her to do something, anything, to make his cock stop hurting.

  Seriously. Fuck off, Hugh Grant.

  I suck in a deep breath and hold it for a moment. Whitney lazes her head to one side as she runs her gaze over me.

  “Huh.” Her brow furrows, perplexed.

  That’s not the reaction I usually get when I strip down. I mean, let’s be honest, I work out for a living. I consume thirty-five hundred quality, clean, lean calories a day and have eight percent body fat. I’ve made the pages of the ESPN The Magazine’s Body Issue three times. I’m definitely not a couch potato and Whitney sounding disappointed isn’t the response I was hoping for.

  She rights her head and rises up on her knees, then starts toward me, shuffling forward until she’s at the edge of the bed and resting back on her heels.

  One of her hands starts to trace a meandering pattern across my abs, using just the pads of her fingers. My cock reacts, going thick and heavy, until I’m fully erect so quickly it’s embarrassing. She has to have noticed, unless she somehow happens to be hopelessly farsighted—but I’m guessing there’s not much luck of that. Probably looked like some lame nature documentary, those time-lapse sequences of flowers and caterpillars growing to full size in five seconds.

  Her fingers dip low enough to tick the top edge of my boxers and if she isn’t careful, she’s going to end up sweeping across the tip of my dick, because I’m nearly escaping the upper band. She stops tracing and looks up, then taps a spot in the center of my stomach with her index finger.

  “I was convinced that when you took your shirt off, I’d find a little blue thundercloud with raindrops,” she taps again, “right here.”

  I let out a grunt. “What the hell are you talking about?”

  “Like Grumpy Bear. The grouchy Care Bear.” She sighs and presses her open hand to my stomach. “I guess these abs will have to do.”

  My pelvis tips forward, almost unconsciously, because I want her to start using her fingers again.

  “I’m not always grouchy.”

  Probably doesn’t help my argument that my tone is closer to a snarl than necessary. Her hand barely moves, heating the spot where she’s letting her palm rest.

  She laughs softly. “Of course not. Sometimes you’re a little ray of sunshine, I bet.”

  I push my hips out again and ball my hands into fists at my sides. She begins grazing each individual ab, using both hands and all her fingers now, snaking a lazy trail to what currently feels like the center of the entire fricking universe.

  “Tell me one thing that makes you happy, Cooper. Turns you inside out from liking it so much. Always makes you smile like a little kid. And you can’t say football—that’s too eas—”

  I grab her hands, because she just mentioned football and she’s a hairsbreadth away from my cock and I have to stop her before she closes the gap. Should have slept in my goddam truck. I knew this would happen, that the two of us in this house together would lead to wandering hands—but the restless, greedy parts of my mind wanted it too much to let rational reasoning win out.

  But on Friday, I have to show up at team headquarters and prove to Hunt that I’m ready. I need a decent night’s sleep and a safe drive home tomorrow. Anything that might derail those objectives is off the table. Right now, no matter how much I want her, the big picture of my career takes priority.

  Whitney takes a long breath in and I realize that her body has gone rigid, so edgy that I can feel the tension radiating from her hands. She’s nervous or scared, I can’t tell which, but if I don’t explain myself, I’m bound to make it worse.

  “I have a concuss
ion,” I blurt out, a hell of a lot louder than the acoustics of this tiny room require.

  Her hands flex in mine for a moment, then go so limp that I have to tighten my grip to keep ahold of her.

  “Excuse me?”

  She moves to pull away and I let her go, even when I hate the way she creeps back just enough that it’s clear she wants more space between us and all I want is less of it. I push out a short, gusting breath.

  “A guy named Stinger knocked me on my ass in Sunday’s game and I ended up with a concussion from it. That call I got earlier was my team trainer, checking in. He told me to get out of town and take it easy because if I don’t get some rest and prove that my stupid brain is healed, I’ll have to sit out the next game.”

  Whitney’s body slumps and her mouth drops open like she’s not sure what to say. I have to add one more piece of information, just in case she thinks taking it “easy”’ is my way of setting up a slow round of sex, all lovemaking style with a light jazz soundtrack to suit, a little Kenny G to set the right mood.

  “So, I can’t—I can’t do anything … vigorous.”

  That sounded stupid. Vigorous. Straightforward probably would have been a better approach.

  Look, you can clearly see that my dick is so hard I could fell one of your apple trees with it. I want you. But I think that you and I aren’t going to be very good at keeping it mellow and gentle. We’re bound to break some furniture, bruise each other in some amazing ways, and turn my concussion into a full-blown aneurysm. Can’t risk it. Please put some pants on. I’ll just go sleep in the root cellar.

  “I can’t fucking believe you.” Whitney drops the weakest, most pathetic punch ever, to my stomach.

  “What don’t you understand about ‘I have a concussion’? Then you go and punch me?”

  “Exactly. You should have said something about that—oh, I don’t know—eight flipping hours ago! Instead, you spend all this time giving me a bunch of hot, smoldering looks while manspreading your way around my house, and I’m thinking there’s going to be some wocka-wocka action between us. But the whole time you knew nothing could happen.” She lands another gnat-like swing. “Which makes you a tease, Cooper Lowry.”

  She gives a side-glance at nothing in particular, merely a moment for her to regroup, it seems, because she starts in again.

  “And I let you carry in a bunch of heavy boxes when you shouldn’t be doing anything vigorous. We walked around in the cold for an hour, a teenage boy was this close to injuring you with a wily handsaw, you didn’t eat anything but an apple until an hour ago, and I don’t think I saw you drink any water today. Now you’re probably dehydrated, and that’s just peachy for a head injury. You’re a bullheaded, stupid pain in the ass.”

  She has to take a deep breath to recover. I wait for her to calm down, lest I risk another pitiful punch from her.

  “You done?”

  “No. Who is this ‘Stinger’ person? I’m pretty sure I hate him. I’ll give him a concussion.”

  Her expression is the best combination of pissed off, indignant, sad, and worried. Even if I’m still hard and doing this might make it worse, I just want to lie on top of her and see if I can get her entire body wrapped up in mine, close enough to hold her in a full-body bear grip. Because hating on Stinger is her gut-check reaction to my revelation, not caring if I can’t play, not worrying that the pro ball player standing in front of her is on the receding edge of his career. I’m not a meal ticket or a bankroll; I’m not my contract or my jersey. She just thinks I’m a pain in the ass. God, she’s fucking fantastic.

  “I’m not a big fan of him, either. But I love that you’re getting all wound up to defend my honor. Good thing the big bruise he left on my back is almost gone.”

  She scrunches up her face and leaps off the bed to inspect my back. A gasp is followed by a snarl, when she finds the remaining evidence of where Stinger’s knee nearly burst my appendix. Then her hands are on my ass, but not in a particularly good way, because she’s primarily just shoving on me. I lurch forward a bit, taken off guard for a second, but find my balance enough to shoot a look over my shoulder.

  “If you aren’t in that bed, under the covers with your eyes closed, in the next five seconds, Cooper, I’m going to put you there.”

  I let out a huge laugh. “I’d love to see you try.”

  “Five, four, three …” She stops when I pull back the top sheet and slip under the covers. Hands on her hips, she gives a short nod. “Good boy.”

  That shit would normally find her flat on her back, me on top and wrestling her hands above her head so I can prove that I’m no boy. I settle for reaching out and grabbing a fistful of her pj top and giving it a yank. She half-stumbles onto the mattress and lands in an awkward straddle over me.

  Her face is right next to mine and I can tell that her top is shoved up enough to leave her uncovered in the best places. I put both of my hands to work, one snaked up through her hair to rest at her neck, the other sliding across her hip until I’ve got my fingers tucked under the top edge of her panties.

  Whitney’s eyes flare and she starts to make a noise that sounds like she’s about to protest us doing anything vigorous. But we can do this right, we’re both adults and capable of setting limits, so I give a little squeeze of my hand at her neck to quiet whatever she was about to say.

  “I want to kiss you, Whitney. Because if I don’t at least do that, I’m going to lie here awake all night. But we can’t let it get out of control. Like I said, nothing vigorous.”

  “Good luck with that,” she whispers.

  I grin, then pull her in, as tenderly as I possibly can. Her lips part, the best invitation there is, but she’s also moving her hips in anticipation of more, so I have to wrap my arm around her waist. Because those hips of hers pushing down to meet my unsatisfied cock is a short road to letting this get out of hand. Our mouths meet, and she’s nothing but softness and heat against me, opened up just enough to let my tongue tease her across her lower lip. I give in to a low grunt and sink in.

  She’s moaning softly and every taste between us is wet enough to keep our mouths moving across each other’s without turning sloppy, her hair is falling down around both our heads, and that scent of coconut is everywhere. Whitney puts the brakes on first, curving her body up like a cat so that our lips are barely touching. Then she lands a faint, tiny little peck on my cheek, a move that apparently means we’re done here.

  She rolls off me without a word, shuffles under the covers, and leans over to switch off the table lamp. I curl onto my side and reach for her, one of my hands to her hip. She shimmies her body back and nestles into the space that suddenly feels crafted with her contours in mind. An ass that fits perfectly against my dick, legs so petite I could easily throw one of my own over hers and keep her anchored down.

  She pulls my hand into hers, tucks them both under the sweet softness of her breasts. Immediately, I know that I’ll sleep easily tonight, restful and almost satisfied.

  “Fireworks.”

  Whitney turns a bit in my grasp. “What?”

  “You asked what makes me happy, something that makes me smile.” I burrow my face into her hair for a second and breathe in. “I’m a total sucker for fireworks displays. The big ones, like Fourth of July.”

  She lets out a tiny sigh. “That’s such a good answer.”

  When my eyes open, it’s evident that I slept longer than I should have. Sunlight is pouring in through the window above Whitney’s bed and landing squarely on our tangled-up bodies. I’m on my back and she’s half on top of me, her head resting on my chest and one arm thrown across my torso. We must have been like this for a while, because the places where our bare skin meets up are starting to feel a little sticky from the heat.

  I reach down with one arm and pad around on the carpet for my jeans, doing my best not to jostle Whitney too much, and fish around for my phone in one of the back pockets.

  Nine o’clock. This is good and bad. Good, becaus
e that means I slept for a solid ten hours last night. Bad, because a little quick math reveals that with a five-hour drive ahead of me, I won’t make it home until mid-afternoon. And that’s if all the I-70 traffic gods are working in my favor, an unlikely scenario given that it’s early ski season and the interstate will likely be a clogged nightmare of SUVs, tourists, and morons.

  The phone drops out of my hand and thuds on top of my jeans. I look up at the ceiling and try to muster the energy, the motivation, to move. Whitney wiggles a little, a drowsy stretch that means she’s on the verge of waking up but could just as easily fall back into a deep sleep, and all I want to do is stay put. Her hand starts to rub across my chest, dipping low and coming to a stop when her fingertips crest the edge of my boxers.

  That becomes my cue. Ten hours of sleep still isn’t enough to risk anything more here. I gently try to move her arm off me, but she takes over and sweeps downward to pull away. Unfortunately, this draws her hand directly over where physiology makes it clear I’m a guy and it’s morning. I actually have to grit my teeth at the painfully good, completely cruel, sensation.

  She turns away, curls up, and does the cutest little fidgeting thing with her head into the pillow, until she seems to settle into sleep again. I pull on my clothes and walk quietly out to the living room. A glance out the front window reveals a light dusting of snow on the ground and frost covering my truck windows, which means I should go out there and start it up. Even when the only thing I want to do is crawl back in bed, curl up next to Hawaiian Tropic, and sleep another ten hours.

  When I head back inside, I have to give the front door a shove to get it open. Whitney is standing in the middle of the living room, looking beautifully sleep-tousled but uneasy.

  “Promise me you weren’t planning to leave without saying goodbye.”

  I screw up my face, pushing the door shut behind me. “I just needed to start my truck. It’s a diesel and the temps dropped last night, so it has to warm up.”