Page 36 of Gossip Game

He nodded, his chin nearly connecting with hers. “I don’t need you in the stadium cheering for me in order to play well, you hear me?”

“You don’t.” She gave her head another slight shake before jerking her chin up. “And who says I came to the game tonight because of you?”

Her sassy tone snapped what remained of Noah’s self-control. Without conscious thought, his fingers were tunneling through her luscious hair, angling her head just so before he crushed her mouth with his. Charlotte responded with a seductive sigh. The sound drove him even wilder. Teeth and tongues collided as he plundered her mouth.

Charlotte should have objected to the rough way he was handling her. Any woman should. His mother would be appalled.

Instead, she let him have his way, formfitting her body against his. His junk grew unbearably tight at the contact. She managed to work free the hand trapped beneath their bodies, trailing it up his chest to cradle his jaw. He wanted to beg her to take her hand in the other direction, but he didn’t dare tear his mouth away. It appeased him slightly when her other hand slipped beneath his sweatshirt, where she traced soothing circles along the skin of his back.

If it was her intent to calm him down, she was going about it the wrong way. Her simple touch ignited all the nerve endings in his body. She moaned when he eased his thigh between hers. He echoed the sound when his fingers snaked beneath her cropped sweater, coming in contact with the soft skin of her belly. The circles on his back became more agitated as her nails took over.

He was in the midst of hiking up one of her legs around his waist when the door burst open.

“There you are,” Brody exclaimed as he bounded into the room.

“Christ, Brody! Don’t you know how to knock?” Noah snapped, trying to shield Charlotte from view.

“Hey, dude. I didn’t expect you to be hiding in the training room playing Seven Minutes in Heaven.” Brody shot Charlotte one of his toothpaste ad grins. “I knew there was something going on between you two.”

Noah resisted the urge to throttle his most reliable receiver. “Was there something you needed?”

The tight end grew serious. “Your phone has been buzzing nonstop. I wasn’t trying to be nosy. It buzzed itself right off the shelf of your locker.” He handed the phone to Noah. “You’ve missed ten calls from your dad.”

A chill ran up his spine. His dad knew the post-game routine. He wouldn’t call unless it was important. He slid his finger to the voicemail button and listened.

“Everything okay?” Brody asked a moment later.

“No.” Noah swiped to his favorites screen. “My grandmother is in the hospital.”

“Meemaw?” There was a hint of panic in Charlotte’s voice. As if she and his formidable grandmother were fast friends or something.

“The one and only.” He punched at his father’s contact.

He answered before the phone even rang. “Son.”

“Dad.” Noah dragged his fingers through his hair. “How is she?”

“She’s stable,” his father answered. “They’re still running tests. The doctors want to keep her overnight.”

“What happened?”

“We were watching the game when she became lightheaded and nearly passed out.”

“I did no such thing,” Meemaw shouted in the background.

His father swore. “She’s so bullheaded, she won’t let them give her anything to help her rest.”

“That stuff will make me too groggy for Silver Sneakers tomorrow. I can’t have that Marcy Kuttner beating my mall-walking time.”

There was never a doubt where Noah got his competitiveness from.

“You aren’t going to Silver Sneakers tomorrow,” his father said, showing more patience with his mother than usual. “Not until we know what caused this episode.”

“I’m a soon-to-be eighty-five-year-old woman. That’s what caused this episode, as you call it. Now let me talk to my grandson.”

His father’s sigh was a weary one. “Tell her to behave, Noah.”

“Nice game,” Meemaw said when she got her hands on the phone. She sounded tired, but that was to be expected. It was closing in on midnight. “I see your princess came back from London.”

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