Page 23 of Bull Rush

“This seems wise to you?” He looks down at my bare feet on the gravel.

“Wiser than trying to walk on it in these.” I hold up my heels in front of his face, and he takes them before I can snatch them back. “Hey!” I lunge toward him, and it takes exactly one step for me to find fault with my idea. “Ouch!” I pull up and run my fingers over my pinkie toe that I’ve already managed to smash against a particularly sharp rock.

“That’s what I thought.” He shakes his head, and then, without asking permission, he hauls me up into his arms.

“What are you doing? Put me down,” I gripe, smacking mypurse against his shoulder with less force than a fly smashing into a skyscraper. But I don’t need to be touching the man. It’s too risky.

“Putting you to bed, grouchy,” he grumbles, kicking the truck door shut behind us and starting to make his way across the lot.

“I don’t need to be carried!” Given the way he winces, I’m guessing I said that a lot louder than I needed to.

“I don’t want to listen to you moan and cry your way across the lot at two a.m., and I doubt your guests do either.” He explains his motivations like I’m a child.

“Shit. The guests.”

“The guests.” He nods.

He has one small point, but I need to make my own—something that ensures he doesn’t end up lingering too close once we get in the house. One more stretch of cotton across his chest and I might be a goner.

“Just to be clear.” I use my best drunk-girl whisper. “This isn’t winning you any points, Mr. Hero. The whole world might love you, but I don’t.”

NINE

Ramsey

Whether she intendsthem to or not, the words cut, but I do my best not to falter. Forcing a smile as I shift her weight in my arms. A whiff of her apple perfume drifts over me, and my stomach clenches. That fragrance elicits an instant response from my whole body, because as much as I try to force myself to forget, it remembers exactly what it’s like to have it all over my sheets and skin.

“Are you wincing? I’m not that heavy. Don’t act like I’m heavy. You lift weights three times my weight,” she complains, snapping me out of my daydream.

“I’m not wincing, just trying to keep you steady on my good arm. You don’t want to get dropped, do you?” I cover for myself.

“No. Shit. I’m sorry. I forgot about your bad arm. You shouldn’t have picked me up, you know.”

“You asked me to pick you up.”

“I mean physically pick me up.” She huffs androlls her eyes. “You know what I mean. You always know what I mean and pretend like you don’t. I think you do it just to fuck with me.”

“Sometimes.” I smile. “How do you know about my arm? It happened two years ago.”

“I’ve seen you play.”

“You watched?” I’m surprised. She told me during our divorce if she ever saw another football in her life it’d be too soon.

“Sometimes. Hard to miss when my whole family lives and breathes Rampage football. You play them occasionally, right?”

“Right.” I study her face as her nose scrunches up like she’s thinking about something else she hates. “I could have gotten you all tickets, you know. Just had to ask.”

“I can imagine how that conversation would have gone. Also, apparently, I could have been sitting up in the wives’ box the whole time,” she snarks as I set her down to unlock the back door.

“You would have asked, and I would have looked into it and sent you the tickets and some field passes. Simple.”

“And what would field passes have cost me? A blowjob? Maybe a quickie in the locker room?” More snark piles on as I get the door open, and she stumbles through it. I follow after her silently because I’m fairly certain anything I say in response can and will be held against me, but I’m half afraid she’s going to faceplant on the floor if she’s not careful. “Why are you following me?” She stops short when she gets to the door of her room. “You think you’re coming in? You have a hell of a lot more groveling to do. You can’t just fix a few things around the place and think I’m going to get on my back for you.”

“I prefer you riding me anyway.” I can’t help the slow grin when her eyes light at the response.

She lets out a low grumble but turns and doesn’t slam thedoor in my face. Surprising us both, I think, considering the way her lashes flutter as she notices my proximity to the bed.

“You’re still not getting in this bed. So what are you doing?” She tosses her purse onto her dresser and crosses her arms over her chest.

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