Dolce (Love at Center Court #2) (36 page)

I nodded and ran my finger under her chin, urging her closer over the center console. “As more,” I whispered, and then kissed her.

It was a closed-mouth kiss, slow and sensual, and on the side of the road in Bumfuck, Florida. My only worry was that she wouldn’t kiss me back.

But she did.

“I really missed you,” she murmured into my mouth.

“I’m here now,” I mumbled back. “Well, not here exactly, but nearby. We can discuss details later.”

Then I pulled her tighter for a deeper kiss. I nipped at her lower lip, and she opened for my tongue. Her breath came faster, and her soft moan zinged all the way to my cock.

Suddenly she pulled back. “Shit,” she said, pulling out her phone to check the time. “I’m late for work.”

“Can you take the night off? We still have more to discuss, like if you can live with me.”

“Blane, stop. Don’t push. I have to go to my job and figure this all out. You can’t swoop in and rescue me like I’m some damsel in distress.”

Our hands were still connected, and I ran my finger along her palm, tickling her.

“I have cheesecake,” I said, and that got me a big smile.

“Maybe. Let me see.”

Catie

I
wanted to go all robo-feminist, but the bottom line was that I was already forty-five minutes late for my shift. And Blane had cheesecake. I wondered if it would be rude of me to ask what flavor, but then again, I didn’t really care.

Blane Steele loved me
as more
. Within seconds, I’d been reduced to nothing more than a girl smitten with a guy.

But who cares?

It was another step outside the mold I’d created for myself. I did it once with Sarina, and look what that had done for me. All my career dreams were coming true, and now Blane . . .

I banged on my phone, typing a quick text to my manager to let him know I’d be late.

Ralph replied right away that it already was all over Twitter, and he assumed I was never coming back.

“Oh God.”

“What?” Blane asked, a deliciously evil grin on his face.

“Apparently, we’re all over Twitter.”

His grin broadened as he whipped out his phone and touched the app icon with the blue bird on it. When his feed came up, it was filled with pictures and video of the two of us squaring off, facing each other down in the school parking lot.

Blane started to read some of the tweets out loud.

@GoGoFloridaTeams:

Rumor has it @BallerSteele just picked up “his lady” at a local Florida school - looks like he had a reason to trade here #justsayin

@SonnyB_KnocknBoots:

My man, @BallerSteele: Remember, I made it all happen

@Hafton101:

STFU @SonnyB_KnocknBoots—you almost ruined the whole season. Do your thing, @BallerSteele #Haftonalumniruletheworld

“Can you believe him? Can he let it go?”

I peered over Blane’s shoulder and tried to grab the phone from him. “Lemme see,” I demanded.

@BallBaby100:

What’s up with @BallerSteele—he was supposed to be mine? #allthegoodonesaretaken

“I’ve had enough,” I said, grabbing the phone and tossing it in the cup holder.

“What are we going to do now? I was basically told not to come into work on the assumption that I don’t need a minimum-wage job anymore.”

“How about we go get some food and take it back to my place?” Blane brought me in for another quick kiss full of promise.

“Where’s your place?”

“Not far.”

“What about your mom? Did you buy a place big enough for the both of you?”

“No, I bought a condo for my mom in a sweet building that allows dogs and has a pool, but I made her promise that she would move on and make a life. Then I bought a house big enough for the two of us. You and me, I mean.”

I punched his arm, trying to play it off. He couldn’t be serious. “Don’t be ridiculous; I can’t do that. I’m hungry, so let’s go.”

I couldn’t live with Blane.

Or can I?

Blane pulled out into traffic and I rummaged through my bag for my sunglasses. Not because of the brightness, but him. I was getting all puppy-love weepy, dealing with some emotion I’d never felt before sweeping through me. It fucking left me teary-eyed and emotionally spent.

“We can call out for pizza?” Blane suggested, glancing my way.

I nodded. “Sounds good. Or we could skip right to dessert,” I suggested, letting my inner hussy come out to play.

He smirked. “Nah. No rushing. I’m here; you’re here. I’m not going anywhere, and you don’t have any more secret projects. Right?”

“Of course not.”

“Great, then no rushing needed. I plan to take my time with my dessert, savoring each lick.”

I squeezed my knees together, desperately trying to stop the reaction his words evoked that was sure to ruin my panties.
Savor each lick
.

“That’s right, Cate. I hope you don’t have plans for tomorrow because I do, and it involves all your favorites. Cheesecake, scones, muffins, and me.” He turned and winked at me before quickly refocusing on the road.

Between my muddled thinking and my vagina throbbing like a marching band in the homecoming parade, I couldn’t even pay attention to where we were heading. All of a sudden, we were speeding down a palm-tree-lined highway with blue skies overhead. I shivered, and Blane turned the air off. It wasn’t because of that, but I didn’t say anything.

We got off at an exit, and I tried to focus as Blane made a few turns. Eventually he slowed and turned into an enormous golf course community. We drove past houses that got larger and larger, until toward the end of the course, we turned right into a gated housing community. Monstrous mansions sat far apart from each other, and lush green grass—the ultimate luxury in the Florida heat—separated each property.

The few cars we saw on the neighborhood roads were mostly Cadillacs and Mercedes; since the houses all had three- or four-car garages, the driveways were empty. I smiled at the sight of a couple of kids speeding down the sidewalk in those little mini versions of Escalades. Through breaks between the houses, I caught glimpses of the course. A few golfers zipped along in electric carts, braving the heat as they headed to the green.

Blane gave me a curious glance. “Like it?”

I nodded, mostly because I was speechless. “When did you do this?”

“Put in a bid a couple of weeks ago when talk of the trade began, and closed a few days ago.”

I turned to face him, raising an eyebrow. “Cocky much?”

“Hopeful.” Of course he had a comeback.

Finally, he turned into a driveway. The house was the last one on the road, bordered on the right with a man-made lagoon, complete with a fountain, and separated by heavy landscaping from his neighbor on the left.

Blane gunned it down the drive and threw the car in
PARK
in front of a three-car garage.

“The place is new, bought the last unit available,” he explained as he unlocked the car doors.

I hopped out of my side and took in Blane standing next to me in the driveway, looking at his house.

“So, what do you think?” he asked.

Then it dawned on me. This was a guy who grew up in a trailer park; his dad drove a truck for a living, and his mother worked as a waitress. He’d never owned a house, and this was his first one. I figured it could have been a ramshackle fixer-upper, and he would still want to know what I thought.

“It’s spectacular. Almost like a dream.”

And it was.

It wasn’t one of those single-story stucco villas common in Florida. Instead, it was a two-story all-brick home, and the grounds around it were landscaped to show off the house.

“See that?” Blane pointed to the house’s facade. “The front reminded me of the barn in Ohio.”

It did.

I didn’t have any words.

“See the way the wooden slats crisscross on the door? It’s just like the big barn door where I took you.”

I swallowed, my emotions getting stuck in my windpipe. “That’s not why you bought this?”

“Yep.” He took my hand and walked me toward the front door.

“You can’t do that, buy a house because it looks like the barn.”

“Well, I did. Never had a house before, Cate, and I wanted this one. It made me think of you, and then I found out it was all new, never been lived in by anyone else. It didn’t have any memories. It’s all ours.”

My eyes welled up with tears, and I groped at my face to be sure I was still wearing my sunglasses.

“I wanted a place where I could make a life with you.”

I couldn’t speak. There was nothing I could say, no words at all. No objections or arguments could be made against this, because what he just said touched the deepest, most inner part of my being.

And I wanted that too.
A life with him
.

Squeezing his hand, I brought Blane to a stop and stood on tiptoe so I could take his face between my hands.

“I don’t have an answer,” I said softly. “I just know that whatever you said makes my heart beat at a frantic pace, and I like it.”

“Thank fucking God,” Blane said on an exhale before he bent and kissed me.

It wasn’t a slow kiss, or a simple press of his lips against mine. No, it was hungry and passionate, involving tongue and moans.

I stood up higher on the balls of my feet, and he lifted me in the air so we didn’t have to stop. There was no one around to see us kissing passionately in the driveway, the humid Florida air swirling around our already hot bodies, the only sound the fountain in the yard next door.

“Come on.” He finally broke free and led me through the front door.

As he toured me through the house, he exclaimed over everything like it was Christmas morning. “How about this?” he said when he showed me the jaw-dropping view of the golf course from the floor-to-ceiling windows in his huge living room. “Look at that!” he said when we walked into the master bathroom with its Jacuzzi tub and shower large enough for four people.

And in the whole house, there was no furniture other than an enormous king-sized bed in the master bedroom.

Finally, we ended up in the kitchen, one any chef would drool over, where he picked me up and plopped me on the kitchen island. “I want you to live here with me.”

“Blane.” I tried to shove the rock-hard wall of his chest.

“Seriously.”

Overwhelmed, I ran my hand down his cheek and pushed his unruly hair behind his ear. “Can I think about it? This is a lot to take in.”

He nodded and leaned in for another kiss. We took our time exploring each other’s mouths, but were interrupted by the incessant ringing of Blane’s cell.

“What?” he barked into the phone after swiping his finger angrily over its screen. “Yeah, Mo, we did. Worked it all out, so can you let me go now, bro?”

As I gave him a dirty look for trying to rush, he held up a finger for me to wait, and his expression gentled at what Mo was saying.

“How’s the baby?” He listened intently. “Well, I’d say right about now, you’re lucky to be having those sleepless nights, my man.”

He nodded a few times, and then said, “Yeah, I will. Say hello to Angie, and text me a picture. Talk soon.”

Blane powered off the phone and tossed it on the counter. Standing between my thighs, his heat touching mine, he said, “That was Mo. Apparently we’re a Twitter sensation.”

“They had the baby?” I didn’t care about Twitter right now.

“A few days ago, a little boy. Named him Maurice Demetri. He was a little late and jaundiced, but he’s cool now.”

“Wow,” I muttered.

“We can go see them. Mo’s in New York near your family.”

“I want to see the baby, but there’s no one in my family I want to see except for my dad.”

“You want to talk about it?”

I shook my head. “No, I want some dessert.”

Blane smirked and stepped over to the fridge, where he pulled out a caramel cheesecake.

“With extra caramel,” he said. He opened the sauce container, and I quickly swiped my finger through it.

“Mmm.” I licked my finger, but didn’t get it all off because he swooped in and captured it in his mouth.

“Mmm is right.”

He gently nudged me to lie down on the cold, granite-topped island and tugged my shirt over my head. His mouth found my nipple instantly, sucking my breasts through my bra for moment before he unhooked it and dropped it to the floor. Then he dribbled caramel on my breasts, and climbed up on the island to straddle me. Bent over, he put his tongue to work, lapping over every sticky inch.

I was hot on the inside and chilled everywhere his touch abandoned me. Needing to feel his skin on mine, I grabbed fistfuls of his shirt. Now that I looked more closely, I could see it was an Orlando Magic T-shirt.
I should have known.

Blane didn’t wait for me to do the honors. He whipped it over his head and bent lower, touching chest to chest as he made love to my mouth.

“We need more room,” he said, and jumped down to lift me onto his hip, and carried the cake and me upstairs.

Setting the cake on the pillow, he placed me on the bed and shimmied my shoes and shorts off in seconds. I watched as he shoved his basketball shorts down, revealing dark green boxer briefs.