And then his tongue danced around mine, and oh, I was getting too fucking horny to be out in public. I swore it was preternatural how effectively Nick was at turning me on right now—it was like he knew everything about me and how to get my engine going. I was wet, and if I wasn’t careful, damnit, I was going to do more than kiss him.
And still, the kiss went on—it was easily the longest first kiss I had ever had, and I didn’t want it to fucking end! My fingers were now curling around his suit and shirt, grabbing at whatever I could. One hand of mine went down to his thigh, dangerously close to his groin.
It was just barely enough to get me to stop. But boy, if that happened again…
“Oh my God, Nick…” I said breathlessly. I still wanted to pounce on him right here in the booth. “You have got me all sorts of aroused. You’re dangerous.”
Nick just snickered, like he knew exactly what he was doing.
“That’s the fun of it, is it not?”
Yes, yes, it most certainly was.
I’d misjudged Nick a bit. I’d slightly underestimated this primal side of him, the side willing to be aggressive in going for what he wanted.
And then, instead of waiting for me to answer, he again pulled me back into the kiss.
It was like I was a middle schooler underneath the bleachers all over again. I didn’t care that waitresses might have passed by or bar patrons might have seen us from afar. Someone could have recorded us…
OK, maybe not that far, but the thought went by quickly, and the arousal was too much. I didn’t just want Nick now. I needed him. Before the night could end, I had to have all of Nick. He consumed me that much.
This time, it was Nick that pulled back, I think shocked at the ferocity with which I had grabbed at him.
“Damn, Izzy,” he said. He repeated himself about three times before I grabbed his face and pulled him in for a hard, but relatively quick, kiss. “Forgive me for being so bold, but why don’t we just go someplace a little bit quieter?”
As if to make the point, the cocktail waitress came by and took Nick’s empty glass. I hadn’t even noticed that he had finished his drink until now; perhaps he’d needed some liquid courage. But that wasn’t what I thought about; instead, I thought about how it would have looked if we were in the booth, touching and feeling each other up, and we had the waitress coming by and…
No, I didn’t give a shit about that.
I just wanted all these layers of clothes off of Nick. I wanted to see what routine workouts and healthy eating that made Nick a major league all-star produced.
“Forgive me for being so excited, but I think I’ll say yes.”
Nick did not even wait for the waitress to come back. He just threw down a hundred-dollar bill, grabbed me by the hand, and led me to the front door. The audacity of his overpaying, aggressive handholding, and certainty of taking me home had me soaking wet and steaming hot. God, what if—
“Mr. Ferrari!”
Nick looked left, and I followed the sound of his voice. Several clicks came as my eyes focused on the source—someone holding a large camera.
“Hey! Do you mind?” Nick roared.
I’d never seen him so angry. But there would be no chance at retribution—the guy with the camera ran off. Paparazzi.
“Fucking hell,” he moaned. “Sorry about that. But let’s—”
“Wait,” I said.
The surge of adrenaline had faded almost instantly. But what was coming to replace it was a gnawing sense of fear that was growing by the second.
If that was the pap, that meant, at best, seedy tabloids were going to run with the photo. At worst, a “mainstream” tabloid like TMZ was going to run with it. Thousands of people would see this photo, and for just about any other woman, that might have marked a humorous moment, a chance at fifteen minutes of fame.
For me…
It was my worst nightmare.
“You all right?”
“No…” I said, but I couldn’t elaborate. I didn’t have the words. I needed to escape, but… “I need to go home.”
“Izzy—”
“No, really, I can’t, I, I—”
“I’m going to spring training on Monday, and that’s in Arizona,” he said. “I’ll be gone for a month. I will call you and text you, but this is our one chance to spend the night together for a month. I would love to hold you.”
He pulled me in close and whispered into my ear.
“And I would love to make love to you.”
Had he pulled that line in any other context, I’d be naked before he even called the Uber on his phone.
But the stress was too great, and I was already thinking about what would happen when a certain someone from my past picked up on the fact that I was dating someone very public—someone whose home city could easily be ascertained with a quick Google search.
My life was, in fact, ruined. And that was not an exaggeration—if anything, it understated the swiftness with which things fell apart, and it depended entirely on that damn photographer.
“I can’t…”
“It’s that fucking photographer, isn’t it,” he growled. “Do you want me to do something about it? I can pay him off, make sure…”
Nick kept talking, but I wasn’t listening. I’d gone into a state of shock, really. Malcolm will learn about me.
He will find me.
And…
“I’m sorry, Nick,” I said. “I…call me.”
It was a lame attempt to salvage the night, but
