Completing the Pass (15 page)

Ding.

“Damn it!” Josh glared at the traitorous elevator display cheerfully blinking his floor number.

“Whoops.” With a little laugh, Carri slid out of his hold and walked through the opening doors.

“Whoops,” he growled. Reaching down, he adjusted himself in his suit pants and took off with her.

***

Carri felt him behind her before he wrapped one arm around her to pull her tight against his front. His growing erection was unmistakable against her backside. She swallowed a shriek just as his lips touched below her ear.

“Don't think you're getting away from telling me your laundry list of things you're too embarrassed to say out loud. I'll drag it out of you.”

“Just try,” she said, annoyed she sounded breathless as his hand crept up and cupped her breast through her shirt. “No . . . no security cameras up here?”

“None that I've noticed.” He lied so smoothly. His lips were hot and damp against her throat. “Don't change the subject.”

“If you want to know, we need to—mmm. Okay, you can do that again,” she said, relenting when his lips sucked gently on her skin.

Instead, he started walking her toward his door. When they reached it, he fumbled a little with the keys. A door three apartments down opened, and Carri heard Josh's name being called out.

“You've got to be freaking kidding me,” he muttered, and kept working on the lock as if he hadn't heard it. But when he actually dropped the keys, Carri looked over his shoulder to see a large black man in a suit similar to Josh's walking toward them.

“Leeman, man. Where you going?” The man stopped and pounded a huge paw onto Josh's shoulder. “Party in my room, ten minutes. We've got some crisp refreshments coming up.” Then he noticed Carri and gave her a smooth smile. “You're welcome to bring your company. More the merrier.”

“Thanks, D'Ante,” he said, stepping just a little in front of Carri. “We're going to pass, though. Private celebration.”

“I see, I see.” With a wink, the man kept walking past, then pounded on another door five down from them. “Get your ass over there, Stuttard!” he bellowed before moving down to continue knocking on doors.

“We could have gone,” Carri said as Josh finally got the door open. “Or you could have gone and I would have headed home. I came uninvited. I don't want to intrude.”

“Yes, you do. You've always loved intruding.” Josh tossed his keys onto his kitchen table and flung the sports coat in the same general direction. The tie quickly followed. His eyes, however, never left hers. “That used to drive me insane when we were kids.”

“I know.” It's why she'd always done it.

“The habit is growing on me,” he added, grabbing her and yanking her against him for another kiss. His hands worked on the waistband of her capris, pulling and tugging until they pooled around her flip flops. Then he simply palmed her butt and hiked her up until she hitched her legs around his waist. He walked until he landed on the couch, with her straddled on top him.

“This doesn't look like the bed.” She wriggled, pressing her knees more firmly into the couch cushions and her panty-covered core against his erection. “And it doesn't feel like the bed.”

“Change of scenery.” He dipped one finger beneath the elastic of her underwear, and she nearly puddled into liquid need right there. “So, was this one of those things you couldn't say in the hallway?”

Carri fought for something snappy to say, some fast quip. But that was the problem with fast quips . . . if you had to fight for them, they lost their edge. So she just bit her lip and shook her head, grinding into his touch.

“Not dirty enough, huh? Full of surprises, my Carrington Gray.” He chuckled, then she kissed him and his chuckles died out against her tongue. He worked a second finger into her, using his thumb against her clit until she had a small orgasm.

Before her shock waves could even die off, he ripped at the seams of her panties and let them hang off one leg. “Josh!”

“I can't wait.” He unbuckled his pants, pushed them and his boxers down his legs and freed his cock. “Your fault,” he accused without anger. There was heat, though.

She began to sink down before his hands pulled her back with a curse. “What?”

“Condom. In the bedroom. Damn it,” he bit out. “This is why a change of scenery never works.”

“I'm on birth control,” she said before she could think.

He watched her a moment, eyes narrowed. “Do you trust me?”

“I trust you.” Her answer was instantaneous. She'd never trusted someone more than him. Regardless of their frenemy status as kids . . . she knew he'd never hurt her.

He took that at face value, and pulsed up and into her. Carri's head fell back between her shoulder blades as she wriggled and found the most comfortable spot, where he was so deep inside her it felt like there was no separation.

“God, Carrington.” His voice was a hiss, his hands like clamps as he squeezed her hips. “God. You have to move, or I'm going to die.”

The power . . . she was a heady thing. Looking down at him a little with a small smile, she squeezed her inner muscles around him.

He let out a more vile curse. “Carrington.”

“Oh, you big baby. Can't take a little”—she squeezed again—“teasing?”

His hands tightened their grip. “You're going to regret this later, you know. I'll make you pay.”

“Do your worst, Leeman. I'm not worried.” She circled her hips to the left then, and had the supreme satisfaction of watching his eyes glaze with pleasure. Oh, yeah. Now who was the puddle of need? When she circled the opposite way, his lips turned white as he pressed them together. “Oh, fine.”

She chose a rhythm that she hoped would draw it out, but he was already too far gone. A few thrusts, and he buried his face between her still-covered breasts and let out a hoarse cry—her name—as he came.

Carri checked her e-mails a few days later, happy to see a report from Jess. It was curt, to the point, but not unfriendly. Professional. It's all she needed at the moment. After reading through the report, she shot back a quick reply and then checked her text messages. Nada from Josh. Who, if she were being honest with herself, was the only person she was waiting to hear from.

On the road for preseason game two, she hated that she wouldn't get to see him for several days. And that . . . was a punch in the gut. That she actually craved Josh Leeman's company.

“Where you off to, Dad?” she asked as he stood from the kitchen table where he'd been working on a word search. She'd read in some article online that word searches and puzzles helped keep the mind sharp longer. He hated crosswords, and Sudoku made him angry. But word searches seemed to work.

“Bathroom,” he said gruffly. “Need to know if it's number one or two?”

She resisted the urge to groan. Another day of decent memory, but anger layered on top. “No, thanks, Dad. I'm good.”

He grunted, then shuffled off toward the master bathroom in his slippers. Some days, he didn't even bother getting dressed anymore. When she was a teen, even on weekends when he wouldn't leave the house, Carri remembered Herb getting dressed in casual clothes.

Just another piece of her father slowly slipping away. Fuck this disease.

Josh had been an unexpected—but welcome—rock when she'd needed someone to run to. And Maeve had been all too happy to rush home after work to give her a chance to take off and “go be young.” Maeve code for “Go hang out with Joshua.”

Her mother had been smiling far too often for Carri's comfort lately.

She went back to her phone, scrolling through social media for a few minutes before she realized her father had been gone longer than she'd thought. With a sigh, she pocketed the phone and started to wander back toward the bedroom. Stopping by the closed master bedroom door, she called out, “Dad? I'm thinking of popping some popcorn. Do you want any?”

No answer.

“Dad?”

“Uh . . .” His voice sounded a bit raspy to her, so she opened the master bedroom door so she could hear him better.

“Dad?” she asked again, standing a few feet away from the closed en suite door. “Popcorn?”

“I . . . uh . . . Maeve?”

Oh, God. She closed her eyes and battled for a moment on how to handle the situation when she saw a thin tendril of smoke slithered out under the bathroom's closed door.

“Dad.” Voice firm, she knocked. “Dad, are you smoking?”

“Smoking? What damn kind of nonsense question is that? I've never smoked a day in my life!”

So he'd forgotten that he used to smoke a pipe twenty years ago. With a deep breath, Carri knocked once more and said, “I'm coming in, Dad.”

“No, you are not!” he shot back, but she cracked open the door anyway.

The good news was, she immediately saw her father was fully clothed, not on the toilet, and not smoking.

The bad news was, the towels hanging over the tub
were
smoking . . . because they'd caught fire from the candles sitting directly below them. Orange-yellow flames licked up the long bath towels, turning the wall behind and above them a charred black.

“Ooooooh my God.” With a quick look around, she reached into the shower and grabbed the detachable showerhead, put on the water full blast, and aimed it at the bathtub. With a hiss and a lot more smoke, the fire quickly doused out. She shut the water off and let the showerhead dangle from the cord.

In the silence, each drip of water onto the tiles sounded like a gunshot.

“That . . . was not how that was supposed to go,” Herb finally stuttered out.

Ya think?
Carri bit back the frustrated, irritated thought and took a deep breath. Then another. “Dad, can you go get a few towels to mop this up?”

“I . . . I just . . .” Herb shook his head and his hands rubbed over his face. Those hands trembled more than a little. “I wanted to draw a bath for your mother,” he mumbled, and shuffled out to the hallway.

“God, Dad,” Carri whispered, broken.

***

Josh sat in his hotel room and debated calling his mother, as he usually did, after road games. Preseason games two and three had both been away, and they'd gone straight from Minnesota to Massachusetts, meaning he'd been gone for nearly a week. Maybe that made him a mama's boy, but he couldn't have cared less. The woman who worked her ass off to raise him deserved a five-minute phone call from her son once in a while.

But he found his fingers tapping in a different contact's name and hitting the Send button.

The phone rang, repeatedly, and he was about to hang up and just send her a text to say hello when she breathlessly answered, “'Lo?”

“Carri, hey.” Now that he had her on the phone, he had no clue what to say. “Uh, how are you?”

There was a grunt, and then the clatter of something in the background. “Sweaty.”

“Hmm.” His libido, already spiked from the adrenaline of winning the game, started to imagine all sorts of scenarios that would lead to a sweaty Carri. “Tell me more.”

“I'm repairing some drywall, gutter brain.” She sounded amused, but just barely.

“Drywall? Did you turn into a carpenter while I was gone?”

“Carpenters do wood. You make me sad, Leeman. And no, if you remember me telling you, I've always done minor home repairs. Saves on costs when you own as many properties as I do. Well, as many properties as I have mortgaged,” she corrected. “Hiring someone to do small jobs only eats at your profits.”

“Uh-huh.” He'd have to take her word for it. “So, what project are you working on now?” Then it hit him. She was talking about her rentals. In Utah. And work. Profits. “Did you leave?” The panic in his voice was unmistakable, and unavoidable. “Are you back in Utah?”

“No, I'm— Ugh!” Another thump, then nothing.

“Carri? Carri, Jesus Christ! What the hell?” He stood, pointlessly ready to dash off to nowhere because he was an entire country away.

“I'm fine,” she panted.

“Give a guy a heart attack,” he muttered, sinking back down onto the bed and rubbing at his chest. “What the hell happened?”

“Dropped some drywall.” After another grunt, she grumbled, “That's going to be a bitch to clean up.”

“Better the floor than you.” He took a deep breath and silently begged his heart to start beating rhythmically again. But the image of Carri, lying motionless beneath a pile of toppled bricks—no matter that she'd already told him she was working with drywall—wouldn't leave his mind. He'd come to realize that he was not all that rational when Carrington was concerned. “What's the project?”

“Mom and Dad's en suite.” More grunting, and her voice echoed a little. “There was a bit of an, uh, mishap with Dad.”

The reminder of her father's condition pushed out thoughts of Carri's improbable drywall death. “Is he okay? Is he in the hospital? I can get on the first flight out of here if you need me.”

Silence met his offer, then she sniffed. “You'd do that?”

“Of course I would.” Annoyed she would doubt him on this, he pounded his fist on the mattress. “Carri, you know I love your dad. Now tell me if I need to get out of here ASAP so I can call the team travel manager and have him work some magic.”

“No, it's not anything like that.” She sighed, and he thought he heard another sniffle in there, too. “He's fine. He's sitting in the living room watching videos of people falling down on my laptop and having a riot.” She groaned—at least he thought it was a groan. Maybe it was one of those power tools she swore she knew how to operate. “That was a rude thing to say. I just meant—”

“You're stressed. I know.” He hated that she had to watch her father deteriorate, and loved that she loved him enough to stay when it was clear she would rather leave. The leaving bit . . . that sucked for him on an entirely different level. “My mom could come over for a bit, if you—”

“No.” Voice sharp, she cut him off. “I'm not asking someone else to take my spot. It's not fair.”

Nothing was fair in the battle against dementia.

It was better left unsaid.

He wanted to pull her out of the funk. “What are you wearing?”

“Perv,” she said on a snort.

“Yeah, but tell me anyway.”

She paused, and he thought he heard something be set down. Then her voice was more clear, as if she'd taken the phone off speaker and was talking directly into the phone now. “My tool belt.”

“You've got a tool belt?” His mind started churning several very pleasing scenarios involving Carri, a tool belt, and a large bathroom with several surfaces to use for leverage. “What else?”

“Oh, well, I wear this bandana to keep my hair back. Keeps the dust out, too. Makes me look sort of edgy, though.”

His dick was definitely appreciating the sultry, dark tone her voice had taken on. “Yeah?”

“And when I get really, really hot during work,” she went on, lowering to a whisper, “sometimes, I just have to unbutton my shirt a little. Or a lot. Maybe let my pants take a hike. Bending and squatting in denim isn't a good idea, you know.”

She was messing with him, he was almost positive. But the erection in his lap didn't give a shit one way or another. “Keep going.”

“And sometimes . . .” Carri's voice trailed off.

“Sometimes?” he prompted.

“Sometimes, I like to take the drill bit and—”

A pounding at his hotel door drowned out anything she had been about to say. “Damn it!” he growled in frustration, flopping back on his bed to stare at the ceiling.

“What?” came Carri's confused voice.

“Not you,” he said, cursing whoever would be messing with him at this time of night. “Some jackwagon thinks it's funny to knock on my door when they know we're all supposed to be in our rooms by now.”

“Now?” He could just picture her looking around for a clock, since she never wore a watch. “But it's . . . early.”

“I'm two hours ahead of you, and curfew is never very late when we're on the road. Which is fine . . . until
someone decides to break it
!” he finished on a yell when the pounding continued.

“Go answer the door.”

“I will. But first . . . I miss you.”

There was a hitch in her breath, as clear as if he'd been sitting in front of her watching her mouth drop at the sentiment. He'd meant to take her off guard, to catch the gut reaction. Surprise, yeah. But this eerie silence, he hadn't bargained for.

“I . . . Thanks,” she finished, coughing a little. “Drywall dust is a bitch.”

Yeah. Sure. Drywall dust. “I'll be back in town tomorrow, late afternoon. Save me some time, will ya?”

“Sure thing,” she said, then hung up.

“Jesus Christ, answer your door or I'll have management open it for me,” growled the voice outside.

That was definitely not a player. He left his phone on the bed and hustled to the door, staring through the peephole before opening it. “Coach Barnes?”

“Took you long enough. You got a woman in here or something?” The coach took a few steps in, uninvited, and looked around.

“No, I don't. I was on the phone, and it's”—Josh checked his watch—“ninety minutes past curfew. I wasn't expecting anyone to come knocking.”

“Well, I did. Time to pull on the big britches, son.” Coach Barnes nodded at him. “Preseason is over as of tonight. Next comes the real stuff. You've got four days to get ready for the first game of the season.”

“So, Trey . . . He . . . I mean, it's not . . .”
Words, Leeman, words.
“Trey's not ready.”

“No, Owens isn't ready. But you better be. C'mon.” Hooking his hand through Josh's upper arm, the quarterback coach pulled. “Owens is in my room, watching game footage. He's crazy about game footage.”

Josh nodded absently. It was an undeniable fact that, if given the chance, Trey would probably watch nothing
but
game footage. It paid off, though, making him one of the best strategist QBs in the history of the game. He didn't often have to play harder, because he played smarter.

“Time to get some last-minute strategy done before we're in front of prying eyes.”

Josh's hand trembled a little as he closed the door . . . not with nerves, but excitement. And he wished, truly wished, Carri was there in the room with him to send him on his way with a kiss and a swift ego check.

***

Carri sat on the edge of the driveway to the abandoned house at the back of her parents' neighborhood, cross-legged, sketch pad in her lap, and pencil held loosely between her fingers. When her mother had come home and kicked her out of the house, she'd had nowhere else to go, at least nowhere she'd
wanted
to go. So she'd grabbed the pad and taken a walk. Somehow . . . she'd known she would end up here.

“This is just good for my job,” she muttered as she began sketching with loose, fluid strokes. Artist, she was not. But rendering a simple graphite pencil sketch of the house was within her skills. “It's just practice. Good for my mind, like when Dad does the word searches. Honing my skills as a developer.”

As she drew what was already there, she began to change or improve it. Without color, it was hard to tell in some areas, but she made notes in loopy scrawling, with arrows denoting a bush here, new siding there. In her mind's eye, the house went from dilapidated and forgotten into something warm, familiar, and safe. The perfect house for a young family. She could almost see the husband pulling up to park in front of the it for the first time, the wife clapping her hands in delight, the young baby in the backseat kicking his feet with the joy of a new adventure . . .