Full Coverage: Boys of Fall (7 page)

She set her cup on the coffee table and tucked herself into the corner of the couch facing him, her legs drawn up underneath her. She looked gorgeous. Her long dark hair was loose, her tanned legs below the hem of her skirt made his palms itch to touch, and her long slender fingers, adorned with a variety of silver rings, made him itched to
be
touched.

But it was her eyes that he kept studying. They were a whiskey brown and framed with long lashes, and they showed every single thing she was feeling. She was attracted to him. He now had no doubt, and he knew he could spend the night in her bed if he wanted to. But there was something that held him back.

New York. What it represented.

He wanted to make love to her in a thousand-dollar-a-night hotel suite overlooking Times Square with champagne in a bucket beside the bed and room service whenever they finally exhausted themselves and needed nourishment. He wanted to keep her naked except for the plush bathrobes in the room and an outrageously priced cocktail dress that would make her feel as beautiful and special as she was.

He wanted to be different. He didn’t want to be another Quinn guy she made brownies for and took upstairs to the bed with the quilt her grandmother had made for her. He didn’t want to be another guy who danced with her at Pitchers and licked salt off her neck before sucking tequila out of her belly button.

Except, he wanted to be that guy too.

He was different from the other guys she’d dated and gotten close to. And he relished that. His whole life, his mother had impressed upon him that being different was a good thing and that he should aspire to more than Quinn. But the truth was…he
was
different. Not because his mom told him so or pushed him to be, but because he was. He was wired differently. Now though, he knew it meant he could give Randi things the other guys never could. Because she deserved something different, something more, something special.

She’d dated Quinn boys, a few from other nearby towns. Small-town Texas boys who knew ranching and manual labor and other blue collar work. Their social lives consisted of Pitchers—and a hundred other hole-in-the-wall bars across the county. The closest they came to Broadway was the high school production of
Oklahoma!
and the closest they got to the literary classics was being forced to read
Great Expectations
in English class in high school. Something most of them got through with the help of the internet and guys like Nolan.

They were good guys. Loyal to family and friends, hardworking, patriotic and God-fearing. They made honest livings and had found their place in the world in the midst of the hills and plains of Texas. There was nothing wrong with any of that.

But Nolan had had options that a lot of them hadn’t, and he’d taken advantage of them. Now he wanted to give Randi options.

Randi was stuck here. She’d followed her interests into the mechanic shop and now owned the business. She didn’t seem unhappy or restless, but she also didn’t really know what else was out there. She hadn’t been given a lot of chances to see or know or want more.

He wanted to give those to her.

And he wanted to suck tequila out of her belly button.

She lifted her cup to her lips—another body part he’d been thinking about all night—and sipped. “How did the chapter go today?” she asked.

He leaned into the cushion behind him. “Good. I have the rough draft done.”

“Can I see it?” she asked eagerly.

Nolan grinned. He liked that she was excited about it. He reached for the bag he’d set by the sofa when he’d first come in. He pulled out the pages and handed them over.

She grinned at him and settled even farther into her corner, drawing her knees up so she could rest the papers on them, and started reading.

Nolan watched her. People read his work all the time. In fact, the more that read, the better for his job security. But this struck him as intimate in a way. They were words she’d helped him construct and it was about something that meant a lot to her. He wanted to do it justice and he wanted her to see herself in it.

It took her a while to read the entire chapter, and Nolan found himself perfectly content to watch her the whole time. He loved the way she nibbled on her bottom lip, the tiny wrinkle between her eyebrows that appeared and disappeared as she read, even the way she flipped the pages.

Finally she looked up. And just stared at him.

Nolan waited. After a few seconds, he shifted on the cushion. Then he frowned. “What?”

His editor at the paper barely edited him anymore. His book editor had certainly given some important input, but even then he hadn’t had to rework much. Nolan was very confident in his writing and ability to tell a story. But Miranda Doyle was making him sweat.

She didn’t say anything, but she stacked the papers together and leaned to put them on the coffee table next to her now-cold coffee.

Then she took a deep breath and crawled over the cushions to Nolan. She climbed into his lap, straddling him, took his face in her hands and kissed him.

She tasted like coffee and chocolate, which was right up there with tequila, and Nolan didn’t hesitate for a second before opening his mouth and stroking her tongue with his, wanting every bit of her flavor. His hands cupped her hips, his fingers spreading over the perfect curves of her ass.

They kissed for several long, delicious minutes before Randi pulled back.

Nolan blinked up at her, almost forgetting what had prompted the sensual assault. “What was that?”

“That chapter isn’t about the game,” she said.

“It is. I recounted it quarter by quarter.”

She shook her head. “But it’s not about the game. It’s about the people. You captured…everything about it. The buzz, the elation, the worry, the way we felt tied together, the hope and the…everything,” she finished. “Is that what the whole book is like?”

It was. It was a tribute to a man who had coached in Quinn for over thirty years. Who had taught hundreds of boys to play football. But it was about how much more Nicholas Carr was than that. It was about how, through football, he’d taught those boys to be men. And it had extended off the field and into the whole town. He’d taught parents to try harder, inspired teachers to challenge their students and themselves, the rest of the student body how to be part of something bigger than they were and how to stay true even when things weren’t going as expected.

“It’s about Coach,” Nolan told her. “You know he’s more than the game.”

Her eyes got a little watery at that. She nodded. “He is. But wow, Nolan, that’s—beautiful.” She gave him a soft smile and stroked her hand along his jaw. “No one else could have written that and done it justice.”

“It’s just one chapter,” he said, suddenly feeling a little choked up himself. Randi appreciated it. His words had touched her. That was almost as good as physically touching her. Almost. He ran his palms over the curves under his hands.

“Yeah, one chapter that you said you needed football help on,” she said, her tone growing accusatory. “You didn’t need help with any of that.”

“I did,” he told her honestly. “Didn’t you read the part about the head cheerleader’s heart pounding and her fingers tingling during the drive halfway through the fourth quarter?”

She nodded. “Yeah. That was—it’s like you were in my head.”

“You let me in there today.”

“We talked football. And about the game, but I don’t know how you knew how to describe exactly what it
felt
like.”

“It was in the way you talked about it. The words you used. The look on your face. And you told me your fingers were tingling.”

“You’re amazing at this,” she said. “Are your newspaper articles like that too?”

“Like what?”

“You interview people and tell their stories?”

He nodded. “That’s always what I’ve wanted to do. It’s one thing to report on the things happening, the events, the facts, but it brings people into the story to get the human perspective. If you can make them feel something, you can make them
do
something.”

“Do what?”

“Get involved. Make a difference. Stand up for something. Speak out against something. Help someone.” He could go on and on. Nolan reeled it in. It was hard to explain, but making people feel something, enough to want to do something with those feelings, was his calling. He knew it. And he was proud of it.

“What are your articles about?”

“People,” he said simply.

“Like who?”

“Single moms trying to make it, people who are working four jobs and still not making it, vets returning from the Middle East, people rescuing animals, people starting programs, people fighting for what’s right.”

Randi was looking at him like she’d never met him. But she seemed very comfortable straddling his lap with his erection pressing against her inner thigh and his hands possessively splayed on her butt.

“Why do you do those stories?” she asked.

“Because we all need to know those stories. Because if we’re living the same story, we need to know we’re not alone. If we’re not living that story, we need to know someone is.”

Randi didn’t say anything for a long moment. Then she licked her lips and said, “I’d really like for you to suck tequila out of my belly button.”

S
he was
horny because of a book. That was a new one.

And it wasn’t even a whole book. It was one chapter. But she had never wanted to take her clothes off for a guy more than she wanted to for Nolan Winters after reading his rough draft chapter of his new book.

She didn’t really read newspapers. She skimmed the
Quinn Quibbler
, but it only came out once a week, and she usually knew all the news in it days before it went to print. The shop subscribed to the
San Antonio Express-News
but she tended to flip straight to the sports section and was always called away before she got through it all, and she never thought to go back for other sections.

Maybe all newspaper articles were like what Nolan had just described. And if so, she’d been missing out on sleeping with journalists all this time. It was a huge turn-on. She didn’t know if it was the words, or the emotion in his tone as he told her about his stories, or what, but there was something about Nolan being able to make her feel things just with his written words that pushed buttons she hadn’t even known she had.

She was a physical person. She liked to touch things, get dirty, make things happen with her hands. She’d always been that way during sex too. She responded to some dirty talk, but it was always about touch, really.

Until now. She had a definite desire to have Nolan tell her what he wanted to do to and with her in words. Written down on paper. So she could read them over and over again.

But they’d have to get up to get a keyboard or a pen and paper. They didn’t need to get up for the tequila.

She reached for the lower shelf on her side table and grabbed the half bottle of Patron, the salt shaker and the plastic container of lime slices she’d stashed earlier. It was out of sight so as not to seem too overeager, but easily reached if needed.

“Prepared?” Nolan asked, sounding impressed and amused.

“Optimistic,” she told him with a grin.

She felt his fingers tighten on her hips and she definitely felt the evidence that he was turned on.

She set the shaker and limes on the cushion next to them and propped the bottle in the corner of the couch next to Nolan’s hip. She stripped her shirt off, leaving her in only a lacy crimson bra.

Nolan gave a low, very male groan. He lifted a hand and traced a finger over the top edge of the bra. Her breath caught at that simple first touch.

“This is so girly,” he said, watching his finger as it ran over the lace. It was clear that he meant that as high praise.

“I love girly stuff when I’m not at the shop,” she said.

“I’ve noticed.” He lifted his gaze to hers. “The dresses, your hair curled, the shoes.”

“You’ve noticed my shoes?” she asked.

“And your boots. You’re a gorgeous woman who makes me hard just breathing the same air you breathe. I find everything you wear hot. But yeah, I notice the heels and boots.”

“A shoe fetish?” she teased, trying not to let on that his words had wrapped around her heart and squeezed. His words got to her.

“A Miranda fetish,” he said, with all seriousness.

He
got to her.

Male attention wasn’t new. She liked it. She loved sex, and she knew that the guys who asked her out knew that. Quinn was a tiny town and the surrounding area was made up of similarly tiny ranching towns, and word got around. But the guys also knew that she wouldn’t hesitate to use her impressive right hook and that she could load and shoot a gun—and knew lots of places to hide a body and had plenty of friends who would give her an alibi. If she slept with someone, it was because she wanted to, and she didn’t do it all that much anymore.

It hit her right then, looking at Nolan and acknowledging that his
words
had been part of her getting hot, that she hadn’t been really turned on by a guy beyond his arms and ass in a long time. And arms and asses—her favorite parts, beyond the obvious—didn’t keep her attention beyond a few dates.

It was kind of sad how many dinners she’d rushed through to get to the bedroom because that was the only place the guys really did anything for her. But Nolan…she wanted to rush to get to the bedroom, but she also hoped he’d stay for breakfast and
talk
to her.

And to think that she wanted to talk to Nolan without worrying about making a fool of herself was a damned miracle.

She reached for the bottom of his shirt and slid the cotton up to expose hard abs and a chest that made her mouth water. She loved arms and shoulders and chests. She supposed it was the football linebacker thing that had always wound her up, but Nolan was making her heart pound just as much as any of the players ever had.

Nolan seemed reluctant to let go of her, but he stretched his arms overhead and let her strip his shirt off. She let it drop on top of hers next to the couch and he immediately brought his hands back to her hips.

He was solid. Not huge, but hard and toned, and Randi took her time smoothing her hands over his pecs and shoulders, down his sides and across his abs. The muscles bunched under her touch, and she lifted her gaze to see him watching her with a hot gaze, his jaw tight.

Not taking her eyes from his, she reached for a lime and lifted it to his lips. “Open up,” she said softly.

He did, and she put the lime between his teeth. His bit down gently, holding it in place.

Randi leaned in and put her nose and lips against his throat. She inhaled deeply of the scent of his soap and hot, turned-on man. Then she licked, drawing a wet path over his skin. A groan rumbled underneath her tongue, and she smiled as she sat back and shook salt over the area. Then she unscrewed the top of the tequila.

Nolan just watched, but she felt his reaction in his grip on her hips, in the hard cock under her, and the rapid rise and fall of his chest.

She tipped the bottle, letting a thin line of liquor dribble onto his collarbone and run down over his left pec. She watched the liquid as it wound its way over the bumps of his abs to the waistband of his jeans.

He was in jeans tonight. Hallelujah.

She bent her head and licked the salt from his neck, again relishing his low groan, then scooted back on his lap, going to her knees between his legs. Her hands rested on his thighs and she felt them bunch in reaction—or anticipation—as well.

The first touch of her tongue to his lower abs and his hand went to her head, his fingers bunching in her hair. She loved when guys did that.

Randi ran her tongue along the top of his waistband, loving how his fingers tightened. Then she traced the line of tequila back up his torso, slowly and thoroughly removing the tequila. She licked up the side of his neck, along the underside of his jaw, and then came to meet his mouth and the lime.

She bit into it, sucking the juice out.

Nolan released the wedge, and the next moment, Randi found herself flipped onto her back.

“My turn.”

He kissed her deeply, then pulled back to replace his lips with a lime. Randi held it between her teeth, her whole body hot, need coiling deep. But Nolan decided to improvise and he reached under her to unhook her bra. The deep red lace was quickly whisked away, leaving her bare from the waist up. Nolan seemed to drink in the sight of her, then he leaned in and licked her right nipple.

Randi gasped, but as quickly as the touch had been there, it was gone, and he was shaking salt over her hardened tip. Then he slid down her body. Her skirt was bunched around her waist, her matching red panties showing, but Nolan stopped at her belly button, tipping the bottle over her stomach. The clear liquid spilled over, sliding down her side to the cushion below. Her oversensitive skin felt every millimeter the tequila touched.

Nolan gave her a wicked smile. “Now what order is it again?” His eyes fastened on her nipple. “Oh, yeah.” He bent his head and licked the salt from the hard tip, but then he sucked gently, then harder as she cried out.

She arched closer, panting, her legs spread with his hard body between them. He slid down again and put his mouth against her stomach, sucking the tequila up and then following the trail where it had spilled down the side with his tongue. He licked his way back up, clearly not caring there was no tequila on the skin over her ribs or between her breasts, or on her left nipple.

By the time he slid up and took the lime from her teeth, Randi was on fire.

Nolan sucked the lime wedge, then tossed it over his shoulder, leaning in to take her mouth in a margarita-flavored kiss that definitely went straight to her head.

His hand cupped her breast, playing with the tip, rolling and tugging while she grew wetter and needier.

“Nolan,” she moaned, when he moved his mouth from hers to her nipple again. “Please.”

“Okay,” he told her agreeably. Before sliding his hands under her skirt and stripping her panties off of her.

She still had her shoes on—red heels that happened to match her underwear, which did, incidentally, match the tiny red flowers on her skirt. She started to try to pry the back strap down her heel with the toe of her other foot, but Nolan’s big hand stopped her.

“Leave them on.”

Right, he liked her in heels.

“Skirt?” she asked, lifting her hips so he could pull it down too.

His eyes weren’t exactly focused on her skirt, but they were paying attention to the general vicinity. “It stays too.”

The pretty floral skirt was a perfect example of the feminine way she liked to dress when she wasn’t at the shop. She always got a kick out of the guys who would treat her like a buddy at the shop, including swearing and talking about their latest lay, but then held doors and watched their mouths around her when she was in a dress.

Now that pretty skirt was bunched around her waist and everything below that was completely exposed to Nolan. Keeping her skirt and shoes on felt strangely naughty, and she wiggled against the cushion. “Nolan.”

“I know, Ladybug.”

Ladybug. Such a crazy nickname, but it made her grow even wetter. Or maybe it was the rough but affectionate tone in his voice when he said it. Either way, she was inching ever closer to an orgasm and he hadn’t even touched her pussy yet.

That didn’t last much longer.

“Hold this,” he told her, handing her another lime wedge.

She started to lift it to her mouth but he stopped her.

“Right there.” He moved her hand to rest on her left hipbone.

“What—”

She gasped as he licked a path along her inner thigh and shook salt over it. Then he tipped the tequila bottle over her mound. She felt the cool liquor trickle over her clit, adding to the wetness.

He lowered his head, licked up the salt, and then went to work getting every drop of tequila. And then some.

Randi’s fingers curled into his hair and the couch cushion beside her as she held on. He ate at her, licking and sucking, drawing her clit into his mouth with perfect pressure to shoot her right to the edge. But it wasn’t until he slid two fingers into her and said, “Sweetest pussy ever,” that she went careening into the hardest, most satisfying orgasm of her life.

Apparently he didn’t have to always
write
the words to get a reaction.

She drifted back to earth to find him grinning smugly as he plucked the lime wedge from her fingers and sucked on it.

The sucking caused the ripples of her orgasm to keep rippling and she tried to clench her thighs. But he was in the way.

“I’ve never loved tequila more,” he said, tossing the lime wedge back into the container.

“My favorite,” she said. “Absolutely.”

He kissed her again. Then pushed back. Kneeling on the cushion, he unzipped his pants before standing and shoving them and his underwear to the floor.

Randi took in the sight of Nolan’s hard cock. He was long and thick and firm, and she felt the ripples start again, need building just looking at him.

He held out his hand. “Ride me.”

“Yes,” she said on a breath, grabbing his hand and letting him pull her up as he sank back onto the cushions.

She threw her leg over him, straddling him like before. He held up a condom that he must have pulled from his pocket.

“Prepared?” she asked.

“Optimistic.” The wicked grin he gave her made her inner muscles clench.

Grinning, happier than she could remember being in a long time, she took the foil package and sheathed him, enjoying every inch of the hot steel under her hands. Before she could say anything or even get positioned, Nolan’s hands were back on her hips and he was lifting her up. A moment later he eased her down as he thrust up, filling her in one long stroke.

Randi tried to catch her breath, but her body insisted she start moving, oxygen or not. She lifted and lowered herself, feeling every single drag of her body on his.

“Fuck, Randi,” he said through gritted teeth.

She braced her hands on his chest and moved again, loving how his grip tightened on her and his chest rose with the huge breath he sucked in.

“Lift your skirt,” he told her.

She couldn’t leverage herself against his chest then, but she did as he asked, holding her skirt up. She didn’t need to worry. Nolan’s big hands continued to move her as if she weighed nothing.

“Damn, that’s hot,” he told her gruffly. “I love seeing my cock disappearing into your tight, sweet pussy. I’ll never get tired of watching that.”

Randi felt her inner muscles clamp down on him. Dirty talk was fine and she’d heard all the words, but she knew it was
Nolan
saying these things that made it hot and naughty and so good. Because it was more than words. She heard the way he felt in his tone and saw it in his face. This wasn’t just a fuck, or a cock-and-pussy moment. This meant something to him.

“You feel so good,” she managed, though her chest and throat were tight for some reason—exertion, possibly, but more likely emotions that she didn’t want to deal with right now.

“Heaven on Earth,” he told her. “Your body is fucking heaven on Earth.”

Dang, the guy did have a way with words.

She picked up the pace though she could have happily stayed right there forever, at that leisurely rhythm, Nolan stretching her and filling her and looking at her like she was everything he’d always wanted.