Going for Four: Counting on Love, Book 4 (19 page)

“It’s a vibrator, but he wears it. Then you get both things—him and the vibration.”

“That might work,” Emma said, studying Olivia as if they were trying to figure out how to do her hair or if her eye makeup was working. “We could go to Tease tonight.”

“What about foreplay?” Isabelle asked Emma. “She said it was hot and spontaneous. Maybe he didn’t spend enough time getting her ready.”

Emma turned to Isabelle. “That could be. It was unexpected for her. She wasn’t in the zone. Maybe
she
needs to be the seducer. Then she’ll be mentally in the right place.”

Isabelle set the laptop to the side. “It would also give her a sense of control. That might be important as a virgin. She hasn’t gotten to the place where it’s easy to let go.”

“That’s possible,” Emma said. “Or,” she said with a shrug, “maybe all of the other women who have been with Cody have been faking it.”

“Hey!” Olivia sat up straighter. She was used to her sisters talking around her or about her when she was sitting right there, but nobody talked negatively about Cody. “I’m sure all of the other women had screaming orgasms and were ready to beg him for more.”

All of her sisters looked at her at once. Emma was the first to snort, but soon Isabelle and Amanda were laughing too.

“Does it seem strange that you
want
Cody to have been pleasuring women throughout the greater metropolitan area?” Emma asked her.

Olivia thought about that. Then she grinned too. “Okay, maybe that’s weird.” But she’d heard the talk at Trudy’s. Women loved Cody. They wanted Cody. The ones who had been with him were quite happy about it and wanted more.

Amanda leaned forward and took her hand. “Can I ask you something?”

Olivia nodded.

“Did you tell him what you wanted? Did you show him how you like things or how to get things going?”

Olivia looked at her sister and thought about her questions. “Do guys not know that stuff?”

Amanda grinned. “All women are different, Liv. You have to help the guy out a little.”

Olivia covered her eyes with her hands and tipped her head back. “This is complicated.”

All her sisters laughed.

“But worth it,” Emma said.

Olivia dropped her hands. “You tell Nate what you want?”

Emma’s cheeks got pink. Olivia loved that. Nate and conversations about Nate were the only things she had ever seen cause Emma Dixon to blush.

“Come on, tell her,” Isabelle said, nudging Emma’s foot.

“Nate makes me tell him,” Emma told her. “He loves to hear it.”

Isabelle nodded. “Shane too. Especially with some of the pain issues I have, he encourages me to talk about all of that.”

“Ryan likes it too,” Amanda agreed. “I’m not saying he needs the help all the time, but he’s completely fine with me telling him what I want and if I need something different.”

Olivia felt her own cheeks heat. In her kitchen the other day, she’d asked him to play with her nipples. And he had. And she’d had an orgasm that day on his lap.

He’d played with her nipples last night too and it had helped move her closer…but not all the way. Still…

“Okay, I need to set up a seduction,” she decided. Everything her sisters had said made sense. She needed to get in the zone. “Once I make this work, it’ll get easier to be spontaneous. We need to figure each other out.”

“There’s our resident Suzy Sunshine,” Isabelle said, lifting her glass. “Glad to have you back.”

“There’s just one thing,” Olivia said.

They all focused on her. She looked at the three women she loved and trusted and who had love and sex lives that she wanted to emulate.

“I’m going to need some pointers. I’ve never seduced anyone before.”

Emma, Amanda and Isabelle grinned at one another.

“I think we can help you out with that,” Isabelle said.

“Cody’s not going to know what hit him,” Emma added.

Chapter Seven

Cody knew exactly who had hit him.

He got up from the ground slowly. Damn, that hurt. Lawrence Travis was a big guy and he was a great tackle. Not great enough to bring Cody down. Usually. But great against most opponents.

“How many times are you gonna let him take you down?” Ryan asked.

Cody didn’t answer. Probably every time he got the ball today. His head was not into practice.

“Let’s run it again,” Conner said, his frustration clear as the guys huddled up. Because of his injuries from the fire, they weren’t letting him do much and it was making him crazy. Cody’s inability to hang onto the ball wasn’t helping.

“Yeah, run it again!” Travis shouted before chuckling loudly. “Love that play.”

“Hey, Madsen, think you can keep your ass off the grass for a play or two?” Conner asked.

“I’m tryin’, man. It’s a bad day.”

He wasn’t really trying at all. He didn’t want to be at practice. Just like he hadn’t wanted to be at work all day.

Olivia had called in sick today, and his stomach had been in knots ever since he’d heard the message.

She wasn’t sick. He knew it.

She was avoiding him.

They’d finally had sex and now she was avoiding him. That was fan-fucking-tastic.

He’d stormed over to her house as soon as he’d had a break at work, but she hadn’t been home. Probably because she wasn’t sick and was avoiding him and knew him well enough to know that he’d be on her doorstep as soon as he heard she was sick.

He would have headed over to check on her even if she
had
been sick. But avoiding him wasn’t going to fly. For one, they were friends, and they were now lovers. As in, it was going to happen again, and it was going to keep happening.

For another, she didn’t have enough time off built up to keep calling in to work indefinitely.

And if she thought she was going to find a new job… Well, she wasn’t going to find a new job.

Once he’d realized she wasn’t home, he’d contemplated which of her sisters was letting her hide out at her place. Since all three were possible, he’d decided to go alphabetically and had been on his way to Amanda and Ryan’s place when he’d gotten a work call.

He’d been busy at a car accident all morning, and then he’d had to do a presentation at one of the elementary schools that afternoon.

Then practice.

“Fine.” Conner clearly didn’t think it was fine.

Conner was a fun-loving guy, laid-back for the most part. Unless it had to do with football or his sisters.

Cody sighed. He was messing with Conner on both counts—even if Conner didn’t know about Cody and Olivia yet.

But it was really Conner’s fault. Once he’d said Olivia was breakable and that it was up to Cody to find her the right guy, he’d known he would
never
be able to do that. Or let a computer do it. Because
he
was the right guy.

He’d messed up in the past—and would again. But no one would ever love Olivia like he did. No one could make him try to be a better man like she did. It wasn’t perfect and Conner wasn’t dead, but if she was breakable, then Cody was going to be the one protecting her.

The rest of practice went without a ball—or a tackle—coming to Cody. Thank god.

“Beers at Trudy’s on me,” Conner announced as they headed for the locker room.

Dammit. Cody bit back his protest. He wanted to find Olivia. He
would
find Olivia. He had to be sure she was all right, that last night had pushed them in the direction he thought it had, and that they could repeat last night tonight.

He was hungry for her. He’d slept horribly the night before, thinking and dreaming of her. Or maybe it had been the hotel bed. He’d stayed in the suite, in case she changed her mind. He’d awakened after only a couple of hours, groggy and grumpy.

She was supposed to have changed her mind. She could have slipped out of the slumber party after the other girls had fallen asleep. Or she could have told them, “Cody is naked in a suite at the Britton and I’ve got to go.”

They would have understood.

There was only one Dixon who wouldn’t. At all.

And he was offering to buy beer.

None of the Hawks said no to beer when Conner was buying. It didn’t happen very often, for one thing. When it did, it meant that he felt the team needed some off-field time together. Conner was the leader of the team, no doubt, and he had an uncanny feel for the team and its players. He knew when something wasn’t clicking, and he was always determined to get things back on track, no matter what.

Cody couldn’t say no to Trudy’s. It would be suspicious and it would piss Conner off. Especially since Cody had clearly not had his focus in practice.

But maybe Olivia would be there. He pulled his phone out as the guys headed to the showers. He quickly texted her about meeting at Trudy’s, then showered and dressed.

Forty-five minutes later, she hadn’t texted back and she wasn’t at Trudy’s.

But her sisters were.

He approached their regular booth, stopping slightly behind Emma, who was standing talking with Amanda and Isabelle, who were seated on the benches.

“She’s not coming,” Isabelle said. “I just talked to her.”

“But she’s okay?” Amanda asked.

“She said things are on track.”

There was only one “she” they could be talking about. The she Cody was very interested in.

“She went to Tease,” Emma said. “She texted me a picture.”

Now he
really
hoped they were talking about Olivia.

“Good,” Isabelle said. “She’s going to use it tonight?”

Emma nodded. “Yep. She said she’s having an orgasm tonight, and if Cody can’t make it happen, then she will.”

A rushing sound filled his ears. Then again, maybe they were talking about someone else. And another Cody.

“She’s putting too much emphasis on the orgasm thing,” Isabelle said. “She was a
virgin
. It will happen. I didn’t have an orgasm when I lost my virginity.”

“Me either,” Amanda added.

“I did,” Emma said. “But he was pretty experienced.” She must have noticed her sisters’ amazed looks. “What? I slept with Wade Morris five times and neither of us were virgins and I never had one.”

“Really?” Isabelle asked. “With Wade? He’s so…” She trailed off suggestively.

“I know,” Emma said. “But nope. Not that it wasn’t fun. I told Liv that too. Just to have fun.”

Cody finally made himself accept the fact that they were, indeed, talking about Olivia. And him. And Olivia’s virginity.

Her virginity.

It was as if the floor dropped out from under him. He felt off-kilter, unable to find right-side up. He couldn’t focus on anything but the replay of the words Emma had said.

“I’ll be right back,” he heard Emma say.

He took a deep breath, crossed his arms and waited for her to turn.

“Oh, hi, Cody.” Emma glanced back at her sisters.

Maybe for help.

“Come here.” She was holding a glass in one hand, but he grabbed her other one and pulled her away from the table. Obviously all the girls knew what was going on, but looking one of them in the eye was going to be hard enough. Plus Emma would give it to him straight—whether he wanted it or not. But he definitely didn’t want it in front of an audience.

He tugged her away from the booth and around the corner into the small hallway that led to the bathrooms.

He dropped her hand and faced her. “Your sister is avoiding me.”

Emma gave him an irritating grin. “I know.”

“She’s not really sick.”

“No.”

“She wasn’t at home when I stopped by.”

“I know. She was shopping.”

Yeah, at Tease. Because he needed help making her happy. What the fuck was that? “I’m her boss. I could write her up for calling in sick and then going shopping.”

“You could.” Emma took a sip of her ginger ale.

For a moment, Cody was struck by how strange that was. Emma Dixon had been the life of the party, the wild child, the tequila-shot champion of Trudy’s, only three months ago. Now she was pregnant, engaged to marry Nate next month and drinking nothing stronger than soda.

But she seemed completely content, utterly happy, more confident and at ease than she ever had been.

“I’m not going to write her up,” he muttered.

“I know,” Emma said.

Olivia was one of the most responsible people he knew. If she was taking a day off, it was because she needed the day off. Maybe she wasn’t truly sick, but she needed to not be at work.

That made
him
feel a little sick though.

He glanced around, locating Conner several feet away, talking with Shane and Nate. He lowered his voice anyway. “I understand she told you about last night.”

“She sure did.”

He waited.

She didn’t say anything more than that.

“So she told you we’re together now?” That was the most important thing here for everyone to understand.