Separating from me for a second, he says on a breath, “Maura,” before attacking my mouth once more. His hardness presses against my leg.
Soon, he transfers his attention from my lips to my throat. I wrap my arms around his neck and twist my fingers in his hair, shivering at his breath against the sensitive skin along my chin. My eyes roll backward in my head, which lolls heavily against his hand.
“Oh…” I breathe, letting him push me onto my back. He lifts my sweater, exposing my torso, which he covers with kisses that send tiny shocks southward.
When I’m thinking I couldn’t stop him from doing anything, even if I wanted to (and I don’t want to), a loud yap pierces our panting, and Jet exhales against my belly when a flying white furball lands between his shoulder blades.
He turns his head to the side and laughs. “Torz! Down boy.”
The dog stubbornly disobeys his master and licks his upturned cheek.
Jet pushes himself upright, sending Torz skittering down his back, then scrambling across his legs. The dog plunks himself in his owner’s lap, panting and grinning at me, as if to say, “Take that, ’ho.”
I squint at the pooch. Why, you little cock-blocking son of a bitch…
With a grunt, Jet stands, evicting our distraction, and hobbles to the back door, which he opens a Torz-width. “Out, cur. Go scratch on Jacob’s door.”
The compact canine complies, taking off like a shot across the patio and into the yard. Jet closes the door but watches his little buddy until he makes it to the guest house. I sit up in time to see a guy open the door to the cottage and wave toward us. Jet raises his hand in reply, then faces me.
“I’m sorry.”
“Don’t apologize! It’s not your fault.”
“He’s used to having me all to himself.”
“Lucky dog.”
He narrows his eyes. “Hmm. Spoiled, definitely. But maybe Torzi knows best.”
I smile bravely, but my libido sobs.
There, there.
I’m hoping Jet will return to the couch and kiss me again, but he looks around the room and says, “What do you want to do for the rest of the day? I’d say we could go out, but sometimes being out in public can get unpleasant after big losses.”
I click my tongue. “People are such idiots.”
“They’re passionate about the game, that’s for sure. Once—”
His ringing phone interrupts a story I’m sure would anger—but not surprise—me. He pulls the device from his pocket and grimaces at the name on the display.
“My mom,” he says. “You don’t mind, do you?”
“No. Take it. Please.” I wave him away and move to stand, but he presses me in place with a warm hand on my leg as he lowers himself back down to the cushions.
“It’ll be short. She’s just checking in.”
While he holds up his end of the usual parent-to-adult-kid chit-chat, I wander the room, peering at the framed photos on the fireplace mantle, recognizing him in a group picture of similar-looking people who must be his siblings and parents. As far as the guys in his family go, he’s the smallest. “Yikes,” I whisper. His older sister isn’t exactly dainty, either. Judging by her size relative to Jet, she’s at least as tall, if not taller, than I am. They make ’em big in the Knox family. Eek.
As I’m working my way through framed photos of kids I assume to be his nieces and nephews, including a few red-faced newborns, he says, “Listen, Mom, I gotta go…. Yes, I’m fine. Thanks for calling and checking up on me…. Ha! Well, I’m sorry—I guess?—that I sound happier than you expected me to sound. Look at the bright side: now I can go to the Pro Bowl and enjoy myself…. Yes, but I’ll have to talk to you about it later, okay?… Okay. Love you, too. Bye.”
Hanging up, he pokes his tongue from the corner of his mouth. “Sorry about that.”
“I could have gone into a different room to give you some privacy.”
“Nah. She wanted to baby me. And talk me down from the ledge. But you know what? I’m not on the ledge. We made it to the playoffs; that’s further than I’ve ever been before. Next year, we’ll get further. I hope. With hard work. But I’m tired from all the hard work of this season and don’t want to think about that right now. I want to move on.”
I retake my seat next to him. “You should have taken the time to tell her all that. I could have waited.”
He shakes his head. “Probably should have let her call go to voicemail. Would have fit better with her idea of me sitting here in my underwear, pouting.”
I get a vivid flash of what that would look like and have to stifle the fierce resultant tummy fizz. Fortunately, he seems clueless about his words’ effect, and I nearly fall off the couch with his next seemingly out-of-the-blue question.
“Hey, how would you like to go to Hawaii?”
Fifteen
Getting Lei’d
My initial reaction to his question, since we’ve been talking about how to spend the rest of the day, is, “Now?”
He laughs and shakes his head. “No. Sorry. That probably seemed so random. Do you want to go to the Pro Bowl with me? As my guest.”
As if he’s a doctor tapping a tiny rubber mallet against my knee, my reflexes kick in, and I turn him down, because it’s a crazy suggestion. I still barely know him. I’m supposed to cash in half of my vacation time and jet to a romantic destination to have a once-in-a-lifetime sports experience that most fans would kill for?
Uh, yes. But no.
What if he ends up killing me? I’d be on one of those network TV news magazines, and they’d all shake their heads at the dumb Midwesterner who fell so fast and so
