Love on the Highlight Reel (Connecticut Kings Book 2) (23 page)

I kept my arms tight around his neck as he finished with a growl. He took a few seconds to catch his breath, then moved his face to mine, devouring my mouth with a deep kiss that snatched away the last breath I had.

“You’re mine,” he said against my lips, then glanced up to meet my gaze. “Okay?”

I nodded immediately, surprised at how…
relieved
I felt at his declaration. I was thankful to have it not be up to me, to just…
go with it.

“Okay.”

Fifteen

“You’re so damned
stingy
, ugh!”

I grinned at the pout wrinkling Nicki’s pretty lips as she flipped the covers back to climb out of bed. She stomped across the room, into the bathroom of our suite, where she slammed the door closed behind her, and I shook my head, turning back to the screen of my cell phone.

For about the tenth time in the two weeks that had passed since the Royal Ball, I’d woken up with Nicki in our suite at the
Veil
hotel, which was a Drake property. Drake hotel properties were already known for luxury, quality, and extreme customer satisfaction, but
Veil
took it a step further – privacy.

You needed a keycard to enter any of the ground level entrances, and the main entrance, to the lobby, was only accessible through the private underground parking garage. The hotel, their employees, and their guests were bound by non-disclosure agreements. If you didn’t sign, you didn’t come in. If you ran your mouth, you were paying for it, and if you had too much money for that to scare you, there was no doubt in anybody’s mind that Lincoln and Braxton Drake would handle you otherwise.

People minded their own business at
Veil
, which made it perfect for me and Nicki.

Two Kings Return to Reign
was the name of the article dominating my attention this morning, instead of Nicki. I’d woken up to hundreds of tags and notifications, expecting some bullshit, but was pleasantly surprised by Maggie York’s piece, highlighting the shared history between me and Trent on the field, and our current “plundering of NFL kingdom”, as she put it.

I didn’t want to jinx anything by getting too cocky about it, but I was – to put it lightly – fucking
hype
about TB’s return to the field, and the way it had been going. It wasn’t even like we’d had blow-out scores. We’d worked hard as hell for every win we’d earned since he came back, and honestly… that made me value them even more.
Nothing worth having comes without a struggle.
TB dropped that little nugget to me a while back, and it stuck with me, reminding me that the shit that came easy was usually temporary or not worth a damn.

Huh.

That was part of how I knew this thing with Nicki
had
to be the real deal. The girl was driving me nuts, and… I loved it.

I read a few more comments on the article – grinning at the positive, cussing out the authors of the negative ones in my head – then climbed out of bed myself, going to find her.

I heard the shower running before I even stepped into the bathroom. Nicki had been dreading this day for two weeks, because she had so much to do. Meetings with higher-ups, including her father, meetings with players about their progress and potential with the team, contract signings. Overall just a busy ass day, and she was already stressed about it.

When I walked in, she was perched on the stone tiled seat built into the shower wall, legs open. Even with the steam, I could see her clearly through the glass, with the stream from the shower attachment directed right at her sweet spot.

“Yo, what are you doing?” I called out, chuckling as I pulled the shower door open.

She groaned as she opened her eyes, to glare at me. “Doing what you
won’t
this morning.”

“You know I—”

“Can’t before practice, blah blah,” she finished for me, rolling her eyes.

I shook my head, taking the sprayer from her hand and hooking it back on the wall. “What’s with the attitude, huh?” She tried to look away from me as I hauled her into my arms, pulling her soaked body against me as I moved us out of the water. “Spit it out.”

Finally, she brought those pretty brown eyes to meet mine, then gave in, wrapping her arms around my waist. “I’m stressed. And horny. And you aren’t cooperating.”

“My bad,” I murmured into her neck, making her groan. “But you know I can’t before practice if I’m gonna be worth a damn out there. Tonight though…”

“I know, I know.” She took a deep breath. “That’s why I was handling it myself.”

“And who, exactly, told you that you could “handle”
my
pussy yourself? Huh?”

She narrowed her eyes at me, pulling her face into a scowl. “Ugh.”

“What’s the
ugh
for?” I laughed.

“
Because
!
”
She kept up the scowl as long as she could, but it only took a few seconds for her face to break into a smile. “If you were…
anybody
else, I’d be cursing you out right now, berating you about how you can’t tell me what I can and can’t do with
my
pussy.”

I put a finger under her chin, using my thumb to stroke her cheek. “But?”

“I have
no
desire to say that to you, and it’s pissing me off.”

I grinned. “You don’t want to say it because you know who it belongs to,” I teased, slipping a hand between her thighs, and then up to her slick, wet folds. She immediately parted her legs, letting me in, and I pushed a finger into her. “Look how wet you are, nothing to do with a damn shower.
She
knows.”

“I can’t stand you,” Nicki whispered against my mouth as I brought my lips down to hers.

I eased her back against the wall. “You can’t get enough.”

She groaned as I pumped her with my fingers, then moved us closer to the spray from the shower. Suddenly, she shrieked and jumped away from me, frantically feeling the silk scarf carefully tied on her head. “I have a hair appointment this morning before my first meeting. I can’t get it wet before a touchup,” she scolded.

“My bad,” I said, pushing her into the wall again, and returning my hand between her legs. “I’ll chill, since you really do need that touchup. Can’t have your first two inches looking like the motherland while the rest looks like Mizani.”

Nicki let out a laugh that quickly turned into a sigh as my thumb pressed to her clit. “You remember me saying that to you,” she mumbled, then bit her lip in pleasure.

“Every eight to ten weeks,” I answered, as she dug her nails into my shoulders, hanging on as she moved closer to orgasm. “I remember… damn near everything about you.”

Her lips fell open, panting. She stared up at me for several moments, squirming against my touch, then brought a hand up to my face. “Jordan…”

“I’m amazing, I know,” I grinned, then dropped my mouth to hers. “Now, hush. Let me have a moment with my pussy before we have to go.”

Twenty minutes later, I was reclined in the back seat as Kendrick got me to practice. I’d handled Nicki’s horniness issue, but she seemed
more
stressed when I left her at the hotel, still scrambling to get ready for her day. I didn’t like that shit – not even a little – but I knew better than to say too much about it. While I would have been content to have her put in her resignation and just chill, I knew Nicki wasn’t about that. And
Cole
? Would be ready to throw hands at the suggestion.

She was a tough girl though, so I knew she’d be fine. Instead of worrying about her, when I couldn’t help anyway, I focused on mentally preparing myself for practice. There weren’t many games left in the season, and if we had any chance of making the playoffs, let alone the SuperBowl, we had to keep winning.

We were almost at the practice facility when my phone rang, and an international number popped up on my screen. I couldn’t help myself – I grinned like a big ass kid as I slid my thumb across the screen to answer it.

“Hey beautiful,” I said, still smiling.

“Hay is for horses, Jordan,” came the warm voice from the other end of the line. “But hello yourself, handsome. How is my baby doing?”

“I’m aiight. What about you? It’s been a little while.”

Too
long, but I wasn’t going to say it. Mahalia – Halle – Logan wouldn’t care about my scolding anyway. She did what she wanted.

“I know, my love. I’ve just gotten back from Tanzania, and your mother is quite exhausted.”

I bunched my eyebrows. “Tanzania? What the f—what were you doing in Tanzania?”

“Kilimanjaro, of course,” she said, as if that were just an obvious answer. “Twenty-thousand feet.”

“Kili—as in
the mountain
?”

“Well, what else would I be talking about? It was very exhilarating. You’ll have to come with me, when your season is over. We’ll hike it together!”

“Mama, you’re sixty years old! What are
you
doing hiking twenty-thousand feet?”

“Well, being alive, of course. And excuse you – I’m fifty-eight.
And
… relax. Kilimanjaro was nothing compared to Everest.”

“Everest?! Where all those people died in that damn movie?! Are you trying to kill me woman?!” The sound of my mother’s usually soothing voice, bursting into giggles, did nothing to calm my sudden stress. “No wonder we haven’t heard from you in damn near two months. You’re out hiking the globe.”

“Well, that
is
the plan,” she said, when her giggles finally calmed down. David and I would like to fit in one more peak this year, before Christmas.”

I rolled my eyes. I should have known her little boyfriend, David – she pronounced it
Dah-veed
, since he was foreign I guess, but I called his black ass
Dave-id –
, had something to do with this. “Tell David I’m busting his head open if something happens to you.”

“David, Jordan says he’s going to hurt you if something happens to me,” she said, sounding a little faint, as if she’d taken her mouth away from the phone. “He says it’s a deal,” she declared, sounding normal again, and I tried not to smile. I gave old boy a hard time, but the fact was that he loved my mother, and I couldn’t do anything but respect
that
.

“As long as he knows,” I shot back, then glanced out the window to see we were pulling into the Kings facility parking lot. “Where are you now?”

“At David’s home in Nairobi, revitalizing. But I didn’t call to talk about me. I want to hear about
you
, my love, and Jessmyn. She didn’t answer when I called.”

“She’s probably sleeping. She had a big show last night.”

“What?!” my mother gasped. “I missed a show of hers?! Why didn’t she tell me?”

“Chill, mama. It was a last-minute opportunity, and you’ve been out of pocket. Trust me, Jess isn’t tripping about it. She’ll be excited to tell you though.”

The long sigh she released made me feel badly for her, but I was telling the truth about Jess being cool about it. We both understood our mother, and why she chose the lifestyle she did. As long as she was happy, we were good.

“Well, what about you? Anything notable,
other
than the fight you were in? David showed me a lovely article about you this morning.”

I chuckled. For a few seconds, I considered telling her about the development between me and Nicki, who she’d adored, but I opted against it. As happy as I was, it was still too new to tell my mother, who would be ready to plan an international wedding.