Best of Three (Counting on Love) (17 page)

He was never going to get enough of her taste. It was that simple.

Emma wrapped her arms around his neck, pressing close and returned his kiss with enthusiasm. Nate wasted no time running his hands up the sides of her thighs, under the skirt of her dress and up to her ass.

Only silky soft skin met his touch. Perfect. She’d followed all of his instructions.

He ripped his mouth from her. “Let’s go.”

“Where?” the question was breathless.

“Playground.” He took his hands from her and stepped back.

She started to slide to the ground, but then paused. “Playground? As in here in the park?”

“Yes.”

“I think what we’re going to be doing is illegal in public. And highly unethical at a playground.”

“Are you saying no?”

Disappointment hit him, but he kept his expression clear, not letting on how much her answer mattered.

She could say no. She
should
say no. It would be better for both of them to end this before it went any farther.

“I’m not saying no.” She slid to the ground and looked up at him. “I’m going to trust that you know exactly what you’re doing.”

Relief hit him hard and he worked to keep his face impassive. “Excellent answer,” he said, once he was sure he could speak without sounding hoarse.

He took her hand and they started for the playground about fifty yards away.

The play area was covered in sand and boasted an elaborate plastic and wood bridge-tunnel-slide system, a swing set and an area for digging and building in the sand. It was encircled by six plastic picnic tables. Another ten yards away was a sand volleyball court and beyond that was a paved square with two basketball hoops.

It was too late for children to be out but three women sat at a table on the opposite side of the play equipment from where Nate stopped, sipping from cardboard coffee cups and chatting. A game of sand volleyball was also going on with two guys and two girls on each side of the net and six guys ran around the basketball court.

Everyone else was involved in their own activities and barely spared them a glance. It was dusk, so they certainly weren’t sitting in broad sunlight and the table was at least thirty feet back from the court, so they were hardly front and center.

Still, this was very public.

If Nate wanted to push Emma’s boundaries and make her uncomfortable—maybe even uncomfortable enough to walk away—this was a great place.

Nate took a seat on the bench on the side of the table across from the volleyball game. “On my lap,” he told Emma. In order to hold her, he had to face away from the game, but Emma would be able to see all the other people clearly.

She sat sideways on his thighs, looping an arm around his neck.

“You can’t let on what’s happening,” he told her. “You have to control yourself or these people will notice. You have to act like we’re sitting here and talking. Nothing else.” Unable to help himself he ran his hand up and down her back. “No touching me. You don’t do anything I don’t tell you to do. Understand?”

There was a definite heat in her eyes. Along with a curiosity and an excitement that made him want to throw her down on the grass and to hell with everyone else.

Which was another reason doing this in public was a good idea. He couldn’t sleep with her. He already felt a pull to Emma unlike any he’d felt before, even the two women who had turned his life inside out. That made her very dangerous.

But he also couldn’t go one more minute without touching her.

“I understand,” she said, huskily.

“It’s up to you to be sure we’re not seen and yet you have to do everything I say.”

She nodded. “Okay.”

He ran his hand up her thigh, again under her skirt. In his truck things had been hot and amazing. But it was about to get a lot better. “Spread your legs.”

Emma moved her knees apart. He ran his hand up the inside of her leg, high enough to make her squirm but not high enough to get too hot. Yet.

“To answer your questions, in the men’s room at an airport and strawberry.”

He could tell it was taking her a moment to figure out what he was talking about. Her mouth curved as she recalled the questions she’d texted him. “A movie theater and strawberry for me too,” she said.

His hand stalled in its stroking. “You’ve gotten a blow job in a movie theater?” he kept his tone light but he knew she was talking about
giving
a blow job and he wanted to punch whoever she’d given it to.

He’d known Emma for a long time, had observed her, heard her talking with her sisters, heard her brother complaining about her and the guys she dated. Emma was the wild child of the Dixons. But all at once Nate was hit by a powerful wave of what could only be called jealousy.

“Given one,” she corrected. “If the question is the strangest place I’ve
gotten
oral sex, then I’d have to say—”

“I love your nipples.”

The interruption worked. She sucked in a quick breath. He didn’t want to hear about other guys touching and tasting her. He wanted to be all she thought about, all she wanted.

“Pull your dress down on the right.”

She licked her lips, her eyes glancing around the immediate area. She shifted slightly, her buttock grinding into his erection and he gritted his teeth. Her chest now closer to his and blocked from the other people in the vicinity, she reached up and slipped the strap off her right shoulder, then pulled the right side of her bodice down.

He drank in the sight, his fingers curling into her bare thigh. Emma’s breasts had to be the best he’d ever seen. Firm, the perfect size, pink nipples hard with arousal. It was strange that breasts could be that different woman to woman, but they were. And Emma’s were the best.

He ran a hand down to her butt and lifted slightly, bringing her breast closer to his mouth. His lips closed around her nipple and she gasped.

“Shh,” he cautioned, smiling against her. He ran his tongue over the stiff tip and felt her struggle to breathe normally as her fingers gripped his neck. He thought about the teasing texts she’d sent, the hot pink silk slowly disappearing from her body, and he sucked hard, making her groan, then swear.

“Dammit, Nate,” she whispered.

He swiped his tongue over her once more, then looked up. “Act natural.”

“You bet. Natural.” Her voice didn’t sound natural at all.

Nate hid his smile as he ran his hand up her thigh, nearing the juncture of her legs.

“Touch me or I’ll hurt you,” she said, digging her fingers into his neck slightly.

“I’ll touch you when I’m ready,” he told her, squeezing her thigh.

“Nate—”

“You’re used to getting your way, all the time, with everyone, aren’t you, Emma?”

She blew out a breath. “Yes. I’m good at it and I love it.”

“I’m going to be the exception to a few of your rules.” He wanted to stand out in her mind. A woman like Emma could have any guy she wanted. He wanted her to want
him
.

She pulled back to meet his gaze directly. “Maybe I want the same thing.”

“For me to be an exception to what you’re used to?”

“And to be an exception for you too.”

He studied her in the fading light, his thumb tracing back and forth over the soft skin on her inner thigh. She’d told him how she’d hated being lumped with her sisters and mistaken for them at times. “You don’t really worry about blending in with all of the other women, do you?” he asked. How could she think that? Even without her outrageous behavior, Emma had a glow about her that drew people—not only men—to her. She exuded fun and happiness and mischief.

“Of course.”

She ran her hand over the back of his neck into his hair and back to his collar. But Nate wondered if she was even aware of the action.

“How can you think that?” Nate asked. He was surrounded by beautiful, intelligent, funny women all the time. He worked with doctors and nurses and social workers and therapists who were all smart and compassionate and outgoing. But when he thought about who stood out and stirred his desire, it was always Emma who came to mind.

“I have three amazing, gorgeous sisters,” Emma said, her eyes on his chin instead of his eyes. “And of the four of us I’m not the strongest, I’m not the smartest, I’m not the most beautiful, I’m not the sweetest. I’m the…loudest. And the most unpredictable.”

And she’d become the loudest and most unpredictable to make her mark. Nate’s chest tightened. Emma was unlike any other woman he knew—including her sisters—and it wasn’t about her being daring or loud.

Not that he’d given it a lot of analysis before, but thinking that she was on his mind only because she had a naughty streak was…wrong. But it was hard to put into words what made him take notice.

“All of your sisters and about fifty other women were out at Trudy’s Thursday night,” Nate finally said, running his fingers up the bumps of her spine. Thursday was game night, or practice night in the off-season, for the Hawks and Trudy’s Tavern was the post-game hang-out. Emma and her sisters never missed a game. Or an after party. “You were wearing a black T-shirt with Hawks in gold rhinestones over your chest and jeans that made your ass look amazing and high heeled boots.” He lifted his hand to her hair and ran his fingers through the heavy strands. “I prefer your hair down, but that night you wore this sexy, twisted ponytail thing.” He met her wide-eyed stare. “I have no idea what any of the other women were wearing.”

She looked amazed, then puzzled, then she frowned. “You notice me because you’re attracted to me.”

“I’m attracted to you because I notice you,” he said, realizing the truth of it. “There were other beautiful women there, Emma. Women I’m physically attracted to if I think about it. But I pick you out in a crowd, every time, for some reason. Something draws me. And every time I watch you or listen to you, I want you more.”

The amazed look was back. She shook her head slowly. “Holy shit, Sullivan. You’re good.”

He grinned. “You have no idea.”

Her gaze dropped to his mouth. “I have
some
idea.” She looked back into his eyes. “But I think it was the jeans that did it to you on Thursday. I look fantastic in those jeans.”

He chuckled. He had to admit that her confidence made him crazy—and made him want to tie her to his bed for about a week.

“The jeans were awesome,” he agreed, “but…” Did he dare admit this to her? Or to himself?

If she was fishing for compliment, or proof that he wasn’t as in control of his reactions to her as he let on, she had him hook, line and sinker.

“But?” she asked.

“But it doesn’t explain why I got hard when I looked over at you sitting in the booth with your sisters and all you were doing was listening to something Isabelle was saying. You were completely quiet, squeezed into the booth on the other side of Olivia—no spotlight, no line of guys waiting to dance with you, no line of shot glasses in front of you at the bar as you won another twenty bucks off some guy who thought he could outdrink you. It was only you and your sisters and you had this soft little smile on your lips and you were stirring a straw around in a glass of ginger ale.”

The look on her face now was beyond amazed. It bordered on incredulous. “How—” She had to stop and clear her throat. “How do you know it was ginger ale?”

“I’ve been paying attention,” he told her, now fine with her knowing that. “You always drink ginger ale after you do tequila shots.” He ran his hand through her hair again, loving the feel of the soft strands shifting between his fingers. “Why is that?”

She tipped her head back slightly as his fingers caressed her skull. “The tequila upsets my stomach when I have a lot.”

“Maybe you should stop drinking before it gets to that point.”

She closed her eyes and moaned as he deepened the scalp massage. “I never back down from a challenge.”

Right. That was her M.O. Nate frowned. Was that all this was between them? He was pushing her and she was pushing right back?

“Besides, I needed the twenty bucks to pay Olivia back.”

He stopped rubbing and lifted her head back upright. She blinked her eyes open and he waited until she focused on him. “There’s no money riding on our challenge here. The one where you let me take charge of you for a week. You sure you’re motivated?”

“I’m very aware of which challenge you’re referring to,” she said, the sass back in her voice. “And there’s something better than money at stake here.”

“Oh?” The ability to add him to the notches in her bedpost? Nate was suddenly irritated. She didn’t want to blend into the crowd? Neither did he.

“Do you remember the first time we met?” she asked.

He frowned. “The reception after your brother and I made the Hawks.” Cody Madsen and Ryan Kaye had made the team that same season. They’d been the new guys on the team and had been friends ever since.

She nodded. “Conner introduced us.”

He remembered. “I asked if I could buy you a drink and you told me that I should try hitting on a girl who didn’t know that I was the one who missed the tackle that cost us the conference championship my senior year at Iowa.”