Page 16 of The Right Player
I swallowed, but before I had the chance to feel guilty about my own dishonesty, Belle took her first bite of salad.
And then her face puckered like she’d bit into a lemon.
“Mmm,” she said, smiling, but it didn’t take a genius to see how it was forced.
I took my own bite, grimacing along with her. “Shit,” I said. “I think I put too much vinegar in the dressing.”
“No, it’s good,” Belle said, taking another bite.
I laughed when her face wrinkled so hard it made her shiver.
“Here, give me that,” I said, reaching for her bowl. “I have crab cakes for an appetizer. Let’s skip the salad.”
“I really like it!”
She tried defending her bowl, but I stole it from her grasp, already up and halfway to the kitchen when I said, “It’s okay. I guess I should have warned you… I’m not the best cook.” I dumped our bowls into the sink to tend to later. “But these crab cakes? They’re going to blow you away.”
Spoiler alert: the crab cakes did not blow her away.
I’d added too much flour to the mixture, which made them tough and dry. Then, I’d nearly burnt the ribs, cooking them past the fall-off-the-bone point I’d been aiming for, and landing us somewhere in the zone of just barely edible.
I knew cooking dinner was a risk, and that risk had not paid off.
To her credit, Belle laughed through it all — including when I realized I hadn’t bought any steak knives to help with the ribs situation. So, instead, we tore them off the bone with our teeth, getting sauce all over our faces, which somehow made Belle even more enticing than she already was.
Not only was she gorgeous, and funny, and driven, but she was also chill and down-to-earth. She rolled with the punches and made light of it all.
I drank up every word she said like it was the most expensive bottle of wine I’d ever tasted. She told me about her travels all over the world, how that was how she found inspiration — seeing new places, talking to strangers, visiting restaurants and open houses in other states and countries. That shifted us to talking about my place, and we walked around with wine in hand, me completely enamored as she spilled out the vision she had for each room.
She was brilliant.
And I was a smitten fool already.
What I loved most was when the conversation shifted to me, football didn’t come up once. We talked about Broadway, about movies, about music, about what it was like growing up in Hawai’i. We even talked a little about how I liked to dabble in woodworking — which gave Belle inspiration for how I could help with the condo design — and for the first time in my entire life, the conversation didn’t center around when I first fell in love with football, how long I’d been playing, what my career goals were, or what my plan was if I got hurt.
And it wasn’t that I didn’t want to talk about all of that with Belle. I did, someday.
But for now, I just wanted to be me.
The night slipped by easily as we talked, and the candles burned down, working with the glow from the city lights to showcase every edge and curve of Belle’s face.
“What do these mean,” she asked when we’d made our way back into the kitchen. Her fingers traced the black ink on my right arm, the light scratch of her nails sending chills down my spine.
I rolled my sleeve up a little farther to reveal more of my tattoos. “That’s a very long story with a very complicated answer.”
Her fingers traced up and over each marking. “Give me the abbreviated version.”
“Ever heard of Kakau?”
Her arched brow was my answer.
I chuckled. “It’s the traditional art of tattooing in Hawai’i. Polynesian tattoos are sacred. It’s all done by hand, not with a gun, and every symbol has meaning.” I shrugged. “It’s an honor where I’m from, to tell your story on your flesh, to bear the pain that comes with telling that story.”
Belle smiled in awe, tracing over the lines that made up the ocean, the tail of the lizard that wrapped up my biceps. When her eyes met mine, they were heated, her finger sliding under the sleeve of my button-up. “Can I see the rest?”
My next swallow was like trying to gulp down a mouthful of peanut butter, and Belle didn’t wait for me to respond before her fingers were working at the buttons of my shirt. She popped the first one, stepping into me, the scent of her invading every sense. When she unfastened the second button, her fingers brushed my chest, and my heart tripled its pace, my cock responding to the touch like a well-trained dog.
Her mouth was on a track for mine, and God, I’d never been so close to throwing every rule out the window as I was in that moment. All it would take was one slight pressure increase where I held her for her to know I was all in. One squeeze, one breath, one little move and I could have my lips on hers, her ass in my hands, her legs wrapped around my waist. My dick throbbed at the possibility.
