Page 73 of Her Football Star Ex

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Vincent

What’s takingher so long?I wondered as I sat on the couch, waiting for Emerson to come back downstairs.

She’d gone up to change out of her dress at least ten minutes ago. Had she forgotten I was down here and decided to go to bed?

I was about to go upstairs to make sure she was okay when I heard a door open upstairs.

“Hey, Vincent,” her voice called from the top of the stairs.

“Yeah?” I got to my feet and walked to the bottom of the staircase. And when I saw her at the top, she was still wearing the same tight-fitting pink dress from earlier. The one that had made it impossible not to stare at her when we were at the church earlier this evening.

Had I misheard her? Had she not really gone to her room to change?

But when our eyes met, she was ashen-faced.

“So, um…” She wrung her hands together. “I promise I’m not trying to seduce you or anything, but my zipper is stuck and I was wondering if you could help me out.”

She wasn’t trying to seduce me…

I gulped.

It was probably a good thing she prefaced her request with that because my insides instantly went jittery at the prospect of helping her.

Sure, I had helped her zip and unzip her dresses a thousand times when we’d been married, but for some reason, the thought of helping her with it today seemed so forbidden.

It took me a while to form a coherent sentence, but after what hopefully wasn’t too obvious of a pause, I said, “S-sure. I can help.”

And when I climbed the stairs I had to grip the handrail extra hard to keep my footing.

When I reached her, she led me into the bedroom we used to share. It had changed a lot since I’d last been in there. New teal curtains. New all-white bedding. New artwork on the walls. But it was still all very nice and clean like she’d always kept it, and it smelled faintly of her perfume.

“I think the fabric might be bunched around the zipper or something.” She turned her back to me, sweeping her hair away from her neck so I could see the top of the zipper. “I tried to get it down, but it’s such an awkward angle that I can’t really get it on my own.”

“Okay,” I said, feeling even more jittery. “Let’s see what I can do.”

I moved close and tentatively took the zipper in my right hand. I tried tugging it down, just to see if it was simply the angle she’d been working with that was causing the issue. But like she had said, it didn’t budge as if stuck on something.

So I stepped even closer, leaning my head down to get a better look. But then I caught a whiff of her shampoo. And she smelled amazing. Like happiness, and hope, and everything I wanted.

But because I needed to keep my head about me, I pushed away the feelings of attraction and focused on how the zipper was on the underside. It had caught on the woven pink fabric.

“You were right,” I said, my voice froggy. “I just need to…” I trailed off as I pulled on the fabric and worked the zipper.

A few heartbeats later, it released.

“There,” I said, pulling the zipper down until it rested at her lower waist, revealing a long triangle of skin on her back. “That should do the trick.”

The sight of her skin with her lacy black bra underneath made my stomach muscles tighten and flip.

Daaaang. What was this girl doing to me?

Did she think I had superhuman restraint?

And before I could stop myself, I was trailing my fingers along that bare skin.

It was so soft. So smooth and warm.

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