Dolce (Love at Center Court #2) (17 page)

“We should turn on the radio,” Colby said as I tried to pay him, shoving some cash his way. He waved me off. “On the house.”

“No radio,” I countered.

Colby shrugged. “Fine by me.”

Blane grabbed my hand and pulled me out to the front room where Tess and Shelby were waiting. Impatient, they pawed at my sweatshirt, trying to pull down the shoulder and get a glimpse of my tat.

At the sight of my sour face, Blane grinned. “Come on, Cate, you have to have some fun in life. Right?”

This from the guy who knew he was going to make millions next year. I, on the other hand, was going to have to look for a new job tomorrow. And a new major.

Blane’s phone beeped, and he pulled it from his pocket.

“Hey, what are you doing?” I asked.

He shoved his phone in my face. “We’re making headlines. Look.”

@Hafton101:

Rumor has it that @CuteCatieP is the winner of the Phish tickets?!?! Doesn’t she work for the station?

@HaftonSweetiePie:

I got one too @CuteCatieP, and mine is better.

A picture of a “The Stealer” tattoo was embedded with the tweet.

Oh God. I hope Stanwick isn’t on Twitter.

Catie

C
onvinced I’d been roofied, I found myself at a party at Alex White’s place two days later. I was wearing black leggings tucked into my boots and a deep burgundy off-the-shoulder long-sleeved tee with a chocolate-brown cami underneath. The shirt was baggy enough to hide a few of my extra curves but kept slipping off my shoulder, revealing my most recent lapse in judgment.

“Damn, girl . . . he wasn’t lying!” and “You did it!” and “Look at that fresh tat!” were the most overheard comments of the evening. I cursed my love of off-the-shoulder clothing, blaming New Jersey and Sarah Jessica Parker. It might be an oldie, but we grew up on a steady diet of the movie,
Girls Just Want to Have Fun
.

Music blared all around me. A DJ spun tunes, and a makeshift dance floor had been erected in the living space. The team was on a high; they’d won their second non-conference game by forty-two points.

Blane’s larger-than-life personality ruled the room.

“Cream puffs,” Mo called out. “Nothing but a bunch of babies.”

“Damn straight,” Blane yelled back. “Loser cream puffs!”

“Go, Green!” Alex chimed in as he headed toward me.

“So, you’re the little girl causing all the commotion,” he said, knocking his chin in my direction. His dreads were pulled back in a ponytail, and he was holding a bottle of beer that looked small in his huge hand.

“Be nice,” Blane growled. “I’m the one passing you the ball.”

“Shut the fuck up, Steele,” Alex shot back, “and let me say hello to DJ girl.”

“Hey, DJ girl is my nickname for her.”

Someone came up behind me and ground their pelvis against my hip. I jumped forward and nearly knocked the beer out of Alex’s grip. Twirling around, I found Ashton standing there, smiling as if he’d just won the lottery.

“Watch it, basketball boy,” I said, tossing his own barb back at him.

“Ooh, her claws come out.” Alex slapped Blane five, and they laughed like wild hyenas.

“Move out of my way,” Mo shouted over the chaos. He lifted me and spun me around. “Hello there, pretty lady.”

“No. Just no.” Blane shook his head at Mo.

Demetri, the most enormous of them all, growled his agreement. “Definitely no.”

“I hear you!” Mo held his hands up in the air and backed off. “Look, I’m behaving.”

I turned to look at Blane, and he mouthed
later.
I guessed he meant there was a story there.

“So these are the guys—Alex, D, Mo—and I hear you met Ashton,” Blane muttered, pointing at each as he said their name.

I recognized them all from my season of clandestine basketball watching. Now I was in the middle of their party, all of them gathered around my less-than-perfect body and chatting me up as if I were a good friend.

This was not my life.

“Now if y’all will move along.” Blane took my hand and led the way until we settled near the far side of the dance floor.

We’d never collected our Phish tickets, and I’d ignored every text from Sonny. I forced myself not to think of my internship or Stanwick. Apparently, I didn’t want little things like my job or my major to get in the way of my new groupie status. In the span of a mere forty-eight hours, I’d apparently lost all direction in my life.

“Take it easy, man,” Blane said to a freshman rookie, a tall, lanky black guy getting hammered on Crown Royal. “We have another game on Tuesday. I know you think you’re not playing, but you never know.”

When “The Freaks Come out at Night” rocked the speakers, Blane grabbed my hips and jostled me around playfully. Then he snatched my Diet Coke and tossed it in the garbage before dragging me out to the makeshift dance floor.

As he slowly ground against me, I squeezed my legs together, trying to dispel the tingles forming at the juncture of my thighs. Seriously, I was going to get pregnant from him this close to me, shaking his hips. When he lifted his arms, his shirt rose enough to expose the
V
formed by perfectly toned stomach muscles.

I ducked my head and stared at my boots, hiding my smile, and checked to make sure there were no wet spots on my pants—and not from peeing.

Blane lifted my chin with his finger, and I had to tilt my head all the way for my gaze to meet with his eyes. At best, the top of my head was even with his chest.

Let’s dance
, he mouthed.

“Now you ask? After you already pulled me out here?” I stood on my tiptoes so I could reach his ear.

He snatched me up close and lifted me even with his face.

“Put me down!”

“Admit you can dance. You’re part Cuban, right? So, show me some moves,” he said as he slid me down his body, back to the floor.

Looking up at him, I knew I had to keep my feet on the floor, my heart in check, and my head in the real world, not in this fantasy I was building. But I could do that in a few minutes.

For now, I pushed my hands into my hair and lifted it off my neck, trying to flip it seductively like I saw once on TV. Then I shook my ass and let it all go, closing my eyes and pretending I was standing on my bed, all by myself with no one watching.

The freaks do come out at night
.

After a few more songs, Blane led me back to his apartment. It was only a few doors down the hall, but it wasn’t close enough. My heart beat a rapid pace, and the very tips of my fingers and toes tingled. I was a lovesick schoolgirl when it came to the Stealer, and at the moment, I couldn’t bring myself to care.

He’d stolen me.

“It will be quiet in here,” he mumbled as he squeezed my hand.

That’s what I’m scared of.

I didn’t mention that, though.

When we entered the darkened hallway of his apartment, he flicked on the light near the kitchen. Soft light flooded the common area, and I made out an obscenely large television and a bunch of gaming consoles and controllers.

“Do you want something?”

I shook my head, my feet practically planted in the cheap linoleum.

“Come here.” He wrapped his arm around me and pulled me close. “You good? I don’t want you to second-guess this.” He ran his hand up and down my back, his palm so warm it almost singed my skin through my shirt and camisole.

“I’m okay.” The words floated from my lips on a whisper.

He leaned down and brushed his lips across mine, his hardness pressing into my abdomen. I opened my mouth to protest—my abs weren’t firm and I didn’t want him to notice—but I couldn’t get a word out. When my lips parted, Blane took that as an invitation for his tongue to enter my mouth. He swept along my lower lip and sought the roof of my mouth, enticing my tongue to come out and play.

The smallest moan started in my chest and rose all the way up to mingle with our kiss. Blane tightened the hand on my back in response, bringing me closer as his other hand pushed into my hair, gathering it and pulling it behind my neck.

“Oh God, Cate, I’ve been wanting to do that for a long fucking time.” He released his hold on my mouth to let his words out on a hurried breath.

He didn’t let go of my hair, and kept his gaze focused on mine as he spoke. Then he tilted my head back and grazed my neck with his teeth. My skin prickled under his touch, an intoxicating mixture of gentle and rough, and I ground myself against his leg, no longer caring about my too-soft abs. I wanted this man—somehow, some way, any way.

The way I’d felt hot and bothered during the porno was a faint memory, and nothing compared to this. At the moment, I felt sexy in my own right. Here I was, a sensuous woman with desires and needs and wants, turned on by a man.

“You make me so hot, Cate.” He took my hand and grazed it over his crotch. “Feel that? I’ve been like that since I saw you in that coffee shop. Fucking weeks aching for you.”

Gazing up at him, I whispered, “You don’t have to say anything swoony, or whatever you usually say with all the girls.”

“No, don’t ruin this moment with that bullshit. I like the way you challenge me, take me on. Don’t waste any breath on bullshit.”

I leaned back up on tiptoes and kissed Blane. It was the first time I’d initiated any kind of kiss. In all my life, I’d been reactive rather than proactive when it came to intimacy. My fiery temperament only came to life when I was verbally warring with someone.

With my hand lingering on his hip, I gave it permission to roam over his ass. He groaned when I squeezed.

“Take what you want,” he said into my mouth.

I climbed his leg and locked my hands around his neck, but the height difference didn’t give me enough leverage.

Leave it to Blane; he scooped me up. I instinctively wrapped my legs around his middle, and he set me on the counter behind me. With my butt on the very edge, Blane was able to fit between my legs, rubbing his crotch against mine to apply just the right amount of pressure to elicit another moan from me.

A wave of vertigo washed over me as his erection made contact with my leggings. His button fly rubbed against the spot—the one my own finger found from time to time. Except when I touched it skin to skin, I didn’t get anywhere close to the sensation I was reeling with right now, even through denim and cotton.

We were still kissing, Blane breathing out and me breathing in. He pulled away and sucked on my lower lip before moving to my neck and planting those little bites, like the other night on the court. My head lolled left and his mouth made contact with my right clavicle, devouring it with kisses and nips. With no thought from me, my hips surged forward and moved from side to side, grinding my clitoris into oblivion.

Whoever said sex is like riding a bike was wrong. I rode a bike, and when I got on, I always had to reacquaint myself with the whole process. But this, this precursor to what I hoped would be sex, this I’d never done. It made no difference; I knew what I was doing right away.

My pelvis surged forward and sought what it wanted.
Blane’s penis.
His very hard and what I presumed to be big dick.

“I want to spread you out on this counter, but let’s save that for another time,” Blake whispered into my ear.

He could have said, “I like peas and carrots,” for all it mattered. The mere sound of his voice automatically kicked up my libido.

Blane picked me up again and my legs went around his waist again, keeping the contact as he carried me straight to his bed. I didn’t even have time to protest.

Once he’d spread me out before him, Blane caressed me with his eyes. I’d never felt more exposed, and I was still fully dressed. Like some sort of tiger, he pounced next to me and pulled me against him, and our mouths met again. This time, I attacked his lips and tongue like a tigress, and growls came from my male counterpart. I slipped my hand inside his T-shirt to his shoulder and hoisted myself a little higher.

“Shhh, slow it down, Cate. I can’t go as far as I would like tonight.”

“Why?” I whimpered like Jenna Jameson in one of her original bad pornos.

“Haven’t you heard me? I like you. You do it for me.” His hair flopped into his face and he shoved it back behind his ear. He stayed leaning over me, propped on his elbow to hold his weight.

I turned and tried to hide.

“No hiding, Cate.”

He leaned over and gave me a closed-mouth kiss, taking his time, allowing his palm to trace its way up my skin. He broke free again and took off my shirt, and nerves shot through me. I tried to roll and twist, to cover myself. In my mind, I wanted sex—but with clothes on.

“Huh-uh, none of that either,” Blane said softly.

He reached back and pulled his shirt off and was back on me in a second. Skin to skin, he tugged on my ear with his teeth and ran his palm over my bra and sides, down to my waist and back.

“You’re beautiful,” he murmured, and I blushed. “Sorry about the calluses; occupational hazard for me.”

“Feels good,” I mumbled back.

“Let go of those negative thoughts I feel tumbling through you,” he said, lifting up and looking deep into my eyes. “Seriously, Cate, your heart is banging too hard and your pulse is racing with negativity. This isn’t stressful; it’s all good. Me, you, and no shirts.”