One More Shot (Hometown Players #1) (23 page)

“Whatever,” he says, and turns to walk away. I take a step to follow but then he stops and turns back to face me, his blue eyes hard. “But since you’re here I’ll let you know I don’t want your house.”

He turns and storms toward the exit. Before his teammates can follow him, I push past them. He may be done with me, but I am
not
done with him. I’m not running away this time.

J
ordan, wait!”

I hear her plea, but I ignore it and keep walking. She calls my name again and I just kind of lift my hand. I’m not sure if I’m waving good-bye or just blowing her off with a general gesture. I’m too angry to figure it out, but either way I’m not stopping.

I’m near the end of the hall, a few feet from the door that leads to the parking garage. I hear her feet pounding on the floor behind me and then feel her hand close around my forearm just above my wrist, tugging hard. If I wasn’t slight woozy from the painkillers, she wouldn’t have been able to move me. But in this state, she spins me around rather easily.

“Why don’t you want the house?” she demands, not letting go of my arm.

“It was a stupid idea,” I say harshly.

I pull my arm away from her and shove my hand deep into the pocket of my slacks. She’s so petite, yet right now her indignation makes her seem imposing. There’s a fire in her green eyes and her perfectly symmetrical, full lips are pouting just a little bit, like she’s holding back a frown.

“The flowers were stupid too,” I add. I run a frustrated hand through my hair, I’m sure sending it askew.

“I loved the flowers,” she says, her eyes wide and pleading. “I told you that. Didn’t you get my text?”

“Yeah. You think I’m adorable.” I let out a short, hard burst of air through my nose and smirk petulantly. “I didn’t do it to be adorable, Jessie. Puppies are adorable. Fuck adorable.”

I hear footsteps shuffling and glance past her to see Seb, Chance, Dix and Tori have inched their way down the hall too. My eyes land on Chance, who is still smiling smugly. I can’t hit him. I want to, but I can’t.

“Chance again, Jessie?” I’m fighting to keep my voice from sounding as heartbroken as I feel. “What are you doing with him? You fucking hate me, but you forgive him? Seriously?”

“Chance?” She glances back over her shoulder then turns to me with stern green eyes. “I don’t give a crap about Chance. I haven’t given a crap about him since I was eighteen. I never had to forgive him, Jordan, because I just stopped caring about him instead.”

“Nice!” I hear Seb chuff as he, Dix and Tori all start to laugh.

“Fuck you, Sebastian,” Chance mutters. He storms past us toward the exit, not even looking at us as he goes.

“You can have her, Garrison,” he hollers as he reaches the reception area. “I can do better.”

I turn and take a step, but Jessie grabs my arm again and squeezes, stopping me. The door opens then closes behind Chance. My eyes fall back on Jessie. She doesn’t look the least bit hurt by Chance’s words. In fact, she doesn’t even act like she heard them. Her eyes are focused solely on me. They don’t move, they don’t waver, they don’t blink.

“If you don’t want my house, that’s fine,” she says in a soft voice that’s dipped in disappointment. “I can sell it to someone else.”

“It was never about the stupid house, Jessie! I didn’t want to buy the house because I care about the damn house,” I explain angrily, turning and walking to the wall. I want to punch it, but again, I can’t. Instead, instead I turn and lean my back against it. I put a hand to my forehead and take a deep, shaking breath.

My fingertips graze the stitches in my head, and it stings. “Do you know how hard it would be to live in that place if it was just me there?” I’m almost yelling, but I don’t really recognize my own voice. I thump the back of my head against the wall softly but repeatedly. My hands ball up and cover my eye sockets and I rub them roughly.

“Jordan, I don’t understand,” she says, sounding frustrated. “Is this because—”

“Do you know how many people I slept with since you ran away?” I ask hotly, and then go on before she can answer. “Because I don’t. But not being able to remember all of them was one hell of a wake-up call.”

She shakes her head and starts to form a protest. I know she doesn’t want to hear this, but I don’t care. She’s going to fucking hear it. This may not be the grand romantic gesture Luc had in mind, but it’s all I have now. My last move to play in this ridiculous dance we’ve been doing since she reappeared in my life.

“Do you know what I learned from the last six years? I learned that nothing can replace you. Nothing. I thought I was sleeping around because I wanted to avoid feeling something for someone, because you had destroyed me and I didn’t want to be that vulnerable ever again. But I was kidding myself.” I take a breath because my heart is pounding in my ears. Jessie is just staring at me, so I go on. “I was trying to find something to numb the pain. Because it never left. I never stopped missing you. I never stopped needing you. There was a constant ache in my chest for you. I tried to convince myself it was anger, but it was love. And no one could fix it. You’re the only one who can fix it.”

The hallway is deathly silent. Tori, Kelli, Dix and Seb look like statues. I’m not even sure they’re breathing. Jessie doesn’t look like she’s breathing either. “I wanted to buy your stupid house because I thought maybe, if you ever did take me back, it could be ours. I could make it into the happy home you deserved to have growing up. I wanted it for you, Jessie, not for me. For us. Because no matter what I did to try to move on and get over you, I haven’t been able to like you have.”

All of a sudden she’s pressing her lips to mine. I can’t seem to fully grasp what’s happening and when her tongue breaks my lips apart and slips into my mouth, my brain melts and I stop thinking. I just react. I kiss her back, rolling my tongue across hers. Her hands hold onto my face on either side as if she’s scared I might pull away. Fat chance. My hands land on her hips, pulling her closer, right up against me, before sliding to her ass to lock her in that position.

I think I hear cheering or whistling—or maybe both. After minutes—so many minutes, I’m light-headed, my lips feel swollen and my pants feel tight. She pulls back just far enough so our lips can no longer touch. Her body is still pressed to mine. Her hands are still on my cheeks. Mine are still on her ass.

I keep my eyes closed.

“I’m sorry,” she says. “Sorry I ever made you think I didn’t love you.”

Now I open my eyes. Her moss-green ones are brimming with tears, threatening to spill over, and it makes me ache.

I lift my hand and touch her cheek. Her hands slip from my face to my chest and rest there, palms flat against my hammering heart.

“I love you, Jordan,” she tells me, quiet but confidant. “I’ve always loved you, even when I didn’t want to love you. I know now, I always will love you.” She smiles even though her eyes are wet. “I didn’t run off to Arizona to hurt you. I did it because I was scared and I had trust issues. But if I could change my mind, if I could go back and do it over…I would have never left you, Jordy.”

I hear cheers and squeals of delight from our audience. But Jessie is crying and that’s all that really has my attention. I wipe a tear that trickles down her cheek with the pad of my thumb.

“I don’t want to make you cry,” I whisper tenderly. My lips brush the hair falling down by her ear. “I love you.”

I kiss her again. It’s soft, tender and light.

“I love you too.” Jessie says, kissing me back. She reaches up and her fingers lightly trace the stitches in my head. “I’ll love you even more when you start wearing a visor.”

I smile.

“Let me take you home,” she whispers, her hands tugging on the hem of my shirt.

“Yeah.”

I
t takes everything in me not to pull the car over and rip his clothes off.

It doesn’t help that he keeps touching me: his hand on my neck, his hand in my hair, his hand on my knee. His lips on my neck. It’s almost impossible to follow his directions, but I manage to get us to his house. When I finally pull into his driveway, Jordan gets out of the car almost before I put it in park.

I glance up at the beautiful, massive two-story wood-and-stone house that sits on a long narrow piece of rocky land with the water behind it. This place easily costs a million bucks. I think of the simple Craftsman house he grew up in and can’t help but compare it to this place. It’s hard to believe the same boy who grew up in that humble house is the same man who owns this piece of modern art.

He opens my door and all but pulls me out. He bends down and his lips meet mine. His tongue slides over my lips, pushing urgently into my mouth. My tongue eagerly greets him. He pushes me against the now-closed driver’s side door, and his whole body presses into mine. I’m so turned on I can barely stand it.

“God, I love this,” he whispers into my mouth.

I capture his bottom lip lightly between my teeth and pull back, letting it slide slowly from my grasp.

“Take me inside,” I beg him in a heated whisper. “Or we’re doing it right here in front of your neighbors.”

He laughs. It’s deep and throaty and sexy. He pulls my coat off my shoulders so it’s hanging from my elbows and moves his lips to my throat.

“I’m game if you are,” he murmurs against my skin, sending an electric current down my spine.

I smile and decide to call his bluff.

I tug at his shirt, untucking it from his dress pants. My hands roam under the hem of his shirt and I run my fingertips over the tight, taut skin of his lower abdomen. I rock onto my toes and take his earlobe between my teeth. He sighs. Instead of moving my hands upward, I move them down, slipping my fingers into the waistband of his pants. The feeling of his treasure trail against the back of my fingers makes me grin. He shudders as my knuckles roll over the front of his underwear and his hardening erection inside them.

“Jessie,” he breathes as I undo his belt.

His mouth covers mine again and his hands move down the front of my top, stopping to cup my breasts through the fabric. God, I wish we were naked. I lower his fly and slip my hand into his boxer briefs, sliding my fingers over and then around his thick shaft.

He makes an unintelligible sound. I thought he would back down and move things inside after we got this far. But my actions just seem to make him even more irrational. He grabs the back of my neck and kisses me breathless.

His free hand moves from my chest and, in one assertive tug, he opens the front of my jeans, effortlessly sliding his hand into them. He pushes roughly under the front of my lace thong and, before I can protest, he has two fingers inside me. Who am I kidding? I wasn’t going to protest.

“Jordan. Fuck,” I hiss into his mouth, my hand tightening around him and rubbing him in rhythm with his own strokes inside me.

He grunts and swears and pushes his hips into me. Our hands in each other’s pants smash together. We’re like crazy, horny teenagers.

“Inside” is all he says, and when he pulls his hands from between my legs I groan in complaint.

My hand falls free of his underwear and he grabs my arm and almost drags me up the winding front walk. As he unlocks the front door I stand behind him my arms wrapped around his waist, my head on his back. The door opens and he turns and pulls me inside, kicking it shut behind us. I drop my bag onto the wood floor and he almost rips my jacket from my body. He doesn’t stop there. In one fast, decisive action he pushes my shirt up over my head and off my body. His head drops and he kisses the curve of my breast above my bra as his hands move behind me to unhook it. Suddenly I’m naked from the waist up and his hot, wet mouth is licking and sucking at my nipples. I grab onto his hair and sigh with desire. He cups my ass and picks me off the ground and starts up the stairs, my legs around his waist, his mouth still enjoying my breasts.

Once we’re in his bedroom Jordan tosses me backward. I squeal as my back hits his king-size bed. It’s like landing on a cloud. He stands at the foot of the bed, undoing only half the buttons on his dress shirt before pulling it over his head and pushing his pants off his hips and stepping out of them. My eyes land on the cut of muscle above his hip and follow the curve downward.

I crawl to the edge of the mattress and perch up on my knees. I kiss his bare stomach just below his belly button. He sighs. His hands slide over my back. I pull his underwear down his long, muscular legs. His cock is directly in front of me, hard and thick. I kiss it softly. Jordan shivers. I curl a hand around his base and my lips around his tip, and then slowly take him completely into my mouth.

“Jesus fucking Christ, Jessie,” he moans in one long breath.

I close my eyes and enjoy the feel of him on my lips, the taste of him in my mouth. I roll my tongue all around him as I slide forward and back.

He’s grunting in fast succession, his hands tangled in my hair, holding on for dear life. I love this. I love owning him like this, making him helpless, stealing all his rational thoughts. I have wanted to do this to him for a very, very long time. And I hope to keep doing this to him for the rest of my life. I feel his body tense. I know he might come but I don’t stop. I move faster. His hands tighten in my hair and he pulls me off him.

Before I can object, he’s pushing me back on the bed and he’s climbing on top of me. His lips find mine briefly, his tongue sliding out to graze my lower lip before he moves to that spot—that sensitive, perfect spot under my ear where my jaw almost starts. His tongue runs over it teasingly. It makes me so fucking hot. He pulls away and I let out a soft groan of protest.

Jordan moves back on his knees and pulls my jeans off in one hard but deliberate tug that makes me flash back to Christmas. He looks down at my skimpy lace thong and runs his fingers over the fabric. His eyes are dark and lust-filled as I reach for him, trying to pull him back down on top of me. He seems way too far away. He resists and I frown.

“I want you closer.”

“And I want to look at you,” he whispers with a devious smile. “All of you. And I’m bigger, so I win.”

He starts to pull the thong down my legs. Before I can get self-conscious about him staring down at my completely exposed body, he slides two fingers into me. My eyelids crash down as my lower back arches off the bed.

“You’re so beautiful,” he whispers as his fingers start slipping in and out of me in a gentle yet urgent rhythm.

I force myself to open my eyes. He’s smiling down at me. He looks angelic. Perfect. And he’s mine, I realize as a wave of euphoria builds in my belly and my heart. Jordan Garrison is finally mine.

His thumb moves to my clit, rolling over it gently at first and then more forcefully. My back arches again and I let out a whimper and a pant.

“Jordan,” I pant. “Oh God…Jordan.”

My orgasm rocks me, sucking away my air, snapping my eyes closed, curling my toes. My eyes are still closed and my limbs are still numb as he scoops me off the bed and holds me to his chest. My wobbly legs land on either side of his bare thighs.

Jordan kisses my lips, my jaw, my neck. My eyes flutter open and I rest my hands on his shoulders. Our lips meet. The kiss is long and slow and luxurious. I pull back and glance downward as I lower myself onto his cock.