I'll Catch You (12 page)

“Sorry,” Payton said. “Unless you want to try stuffing yourself into a child’s large.” She held out one of the leftover T-shirts to him.

His brow lifted skeptically. “I couldn’t get this over my arm.”

Payton had to agree. The roped muscles of his rock-hard biceps would probably tear the T-shirt in two. But, God, he had to find something else to put on. The white Sabers shirt he wore was now plastered to his chest, outlining the smooth, solid muscles underneath.

“Hey, Cedric, we’re out of here,” Percy Johnson called as he and Vance Boyd, the rookie wide receiver, walked toward the side exit door, along with the rec center’s other two staff members who had volunteered to help with the event.

“Thanks for coming, guys,” Cedric called out to them.

“Like we had a choice,” Vance returned.

Turning to her with a roguish grin, he said, “I get way too much pleasure out of giving those rookies a hard time.”

A little boy with dreadlocks down his back came running from the rear of the center. “Where did everybody go?”

“Hey, little man, where have you been?” Cedric asked.

“I had to go to the bathroom.”

Cedric caught him by the shoulder and shuffled him toward the door, but they were too late. The bus had already taken off.

Mrs. Shipley came through the door shaking the water off her umbrella. She stopped when she spotted the boy. “Daniel Johnson, what are you doing here?”

“Bathroom,” Cedric explained. “I can take him home,” he offered.

“No, I’ll do it,” Mrs. Shipley said. “I know where he lives. This isn’t the first time he’s been left behind.” She motioned for the boy to follow her, but before walking back through the door, she turned to Payton and Cedric. “Ms. Mosely, I know we have a few things to discuss. Do you mind hanging around for just a bit? I won’t be long.”

“Sure,” Payton said. “We’ll start picking up some of this equipment.”

Mrs. Shipley nodded and led the little boy out of the center.

Payton turned to find Cedric standing with his arms crossed over his damp shirt. “I didn’t mean to automatically include you in cleanup duty,” she said. “You’ve been here all day. I don’t expect you to stay.”

“I can’t think of another place I’d rather be right now,” he answered in a silky voice.

Payton stopped short. She attempted to speak but for the life of her couldn’t form a single response.

Cedric took a step toward her and her synapses began firing again. Payton sidestepped him and headed toward the middle of the room, where remnants of the day’s activities lay strewn about. She grabbed a mesh bag that was draped across the back of a chair and began stuffing it with the pieces of uniform equipment Cedric had brought for show-and-tell.

“Looks like the kids enjoyed themselves,” she said, shoving the knee pads and helmet into the bag.

“We’ve already had this conversation,” Cedric said, his voice both amused and sexy.

The blood rushing through her veins picked up its pace. Payton tried to stuff the bulky pair of shoulder pads into the bag, but the protruding edges kept getting caught up in the bag’s webbing.

“What’s wrong with this thing?” she groused.

Cedric grabbed her wrists, halting her assault on the equipment. “Would you relax?” he said. “Give me this before management fines me for destroying team property.”

“I’m sorry,” Payton said. “It’s just…” But she couldn’t finish the statement. How did she verbalize what had her wound so tight? She couldn’t allow Cedric to know that just being around him sapped every bit of her will to resist him. It would only encourage him to try harder, and Payton knew she was living on borrowed time when it came to fighting this attraction. If he pushed any harder, she was going to cave.

She let him handle the shoulder pads while she started picking up footballs.

“Didn’t you have a couple of other guys who were supposed to help out?” Payton asked.

“Jared was here earlier, but his girlfriend called and he went running like the whipped little girl that he is.”

She smiled at the thought of the big football player dropping everything to rush to his girlfriend’s side. “I think that’s so sweet,” she said.

Cedric’s right brow arched, and in a husky whisper he said, “That’s good to know.”

His seductively murmured words traveled along her skin like a sensual caress. Payton felt a hot flush creep up her neck. Her eyes were drawn to his mouth and that sexy dip right in the middle. As if he knew what it would do to her, his tongue darted out and wet his lips.

Payton sucked in a swift breath. The urge to kiss him was so overwhelming she had to stop herself from closing the distance between them and connecting those lips to her own.

“So, everything went okay?” she asked, for what, the third time?

“You really need to stop fighting this,” Cedric said.

Payton pretended she didn’t hear him. She
had
to fight this, even though it was getting harder by the millisecond to deny the intense attraction that suffused the air whenever she was around him.

She picked up another football and tossed it into the air. “I’m sorry I missed the game,” she said. “I was in the mood for a little football.”

Cedric cinched the drawstring on the mesh equipment bag and shoved it to the side. He motioned for her to throw the ball. “Let me see what you’ve got,” he said.

“You want to play football?” she asked.

He hitched a shoulder in a casual shrug. “It’s what I do.” He clapped his hands together, then held them out. “Come on, Ms. Football Guru. You may know a lot about the game, but there’s a big difference between knowing a few plays on paper and knowing how to execute them in the real world.”

A slow smile curved the edges of Payton’s lips. She could never say no to a challenge.

Against her better judgment and the threat of ruining one of her best pairs of panty hose, Payton kicked her heels off and tossed the ball to Cedric. She jogged a few yards away, turned and caught his light pass with minimal effort.

“You throw like a girl,” Payton taunted.

“Maybe because I’m throwing
to
a girl?”

“Well, try to forget that detail,” she said, throwing the ball back to him with a lot more force than he’d used.

He caught the ball against his chest. “I told you once before, there’s no way I can miss the fact that you’re all woman.”

A tingle traveled up Payton’s spine, just like the first time he’d said those words to her.

“Ready?” Cedric called, his arm poised to throw.

“Hold on,” she said. She jogged to the other end of the room. “I want to see if they’ve got you playing the right position.” She held out her hands. “Ready.”

The ball came spiraling toward her. Payton reached up and caught it midair. She tucked the ball between her arm and chest, just as her daddy had taught his players, then she took off toward an invisible goal on the other side of the room.

Cedric waited for her, crouched like a defender, a wide smile spread across that gorgeous face.

Payton tried to sidestep him, but he caught her from behind, his arms locking around her waist.

“Hey!” she protested. “I thought this was supposed to be
touch
football?”

“Exactly,” he whispered against her neck. His hold tightened, his strong hands spanning her waist, his fingers inches from her breasts. Before she could utter a protest, Cedric’s lips connected with the one spot on her neck that drove her mindless.

Payton gasped with need, covering the arms that latched around her and throwing her head back to give him better access. Still locked together, Cedric shuffled them to the wall. He turned her around and pinned her against it, then zeroed in on her neck again, kissing and licking and nipping his way up and down.

He found her breast. Despite the layers of clothing separating his hand and her skin, her body’s reaction couldn’t have been stronger if they were both naked. Her nipple puckered, instantly drawing tight. Her skin burned from the inside out.

Cedric released her neck from his erotic assault. His hand continued to caress her breast as he stared into her eyes, seeking permission. With a slight nod, Payton put an end to both their miseries. Permission granted.

He lowered his head and captured her mouth, trailing his tongue along her lips, applying just enough pressure to coax them open. As soon as Payton relinquished, his tongue plunged into her mouth, thrusting with a power that electrified her. He fisted his left hand in her hair, his right hand still on her breast, squeezing, caressing, driving her out of her mind.

A moan escaped her throat. It only encouraged him to kiss her harder, deeper. Payton ran her hands up and down his back, bunching the wet T-shirt in her fist. She hiked her skirt up to the tops of her thighs and wrapped her right leg around him, clutching him to her.

The sound of a car door slamming knocked Payton out of the sensual fairy tale she’d fallen into.

“Cedric, stop!” She used both hands to push at his chest.

He backed away, his labored breaths soughing in and out of his mouth. He looked dazed and confused, exactly how she felt at the moment. It was hard to think. She couldn’t concentrate on anything with the sparks of electricity still firing from a thousand different points on her body.

“Sorry that took so long,” Mrs. Shipley called. “You get a little bit of rain and traffic comes to a standstill.”

Payton quickly pulled her suit jacket closed to cover the damp spots Cedric’s wet T-shirt had made on her satin shell. She turned to Mrs. Shipley, hoping the flush had faded from her cheeks.

“So,” Mrs. Shipley said, looking from Payton to Cedric. “Should we discuss today?”

“Cedric has to leave,” Payton abruptly announced.

Cedric’s eyes darted to her. His jaw drew as hard as stone, but he didn’t refute her hastily fabricated claim.

The center’s director turned to Cedric with hands outstretched. She grabbed his palm for an enthusiastic handshake. “Thank you so much for today. The kids will talk about this all year.”

“It was my pleasure,” he answered. Then his eyes flashed back to Payton. He didn’t say anything, just stared at her for a moment before inclining his head and heading for the door. He stopped in the middle of the center and retrieved the mesh bag with the uniform equipment and said over his shoulder, “Keep the footballs for the kids.”

With that, he exited the center, leaving Payton with an ache in her chest and a fire still burning in her belly.

Chapter 9

C
edric gripped the edge of the bathroom counter and raised his head. He stared into the mirror, studying his reflection, doing his damnedest to make sure no evidence of the riot going on inside his head showed on his face.

If tonight didn’t kill him, he could get through anything.

A couple of days ago, when he’d invited Payton to accompany him to Torrian and Paige’s engagement party, it had been mostly about business. He knew the place would be wall-to-wall with industry professionals who would be more interested in talking football than celebrating the happy couple’s pending nuptials.

What Cedric had not anticipated was seeing Payton outside of her normal work mode. Gone was the briefcase and restricting business suit. Tonight she wore a seductive little black dress that hugged every curve and stopped just above her knees. After feeling those curves pressed up against him earlier today, all he could think about tonight was getting close to her.

When Payton had opened her front door in that silky, sexy dress, Cedric’s first instinct was to say to hell with the party and sequester them in her apartment. But one kiss—as unbelievable as it was—didn’t give him the right to expect anything more from her. And now he was forced to spend hours with her at this party, knowing what her lips felt like, how her mouth tasted, how her breasts felt inside his palm and against his chest.

And he couldn’t do a damn thing about it.

The door opened and his temporary sanctuary was instantly imbued with the noisy chatter that filtered in from the party. Torrian entered the bathroom, followed by Jared.

“Hey, you hiding out on us?” Torrian asked.

“Just taking a break,” Cedric answered. “It’s packed out there.”

“This is the place to be tonight,” Jared said. He clamped a hand on Torrian’s shoulder. “I think most people are still trying to figure out how you and Paige hooked up after that knock-down, drag-out fight you two had on her blog.”

Torrian had met his future wife, local entertainment writer Paige Turner, after she’d trashed his new book in a review on her blog. The fallout from their online squabble and a cooking competition the two had participated in on a local morning news show had kept all of New York glued to the television.

“Most of the people out there couldn’t care less that Paige and I are getting married. Other than a few family members and friends, the guest list was pure strategy on Paige’s part,” Torrian said. “That woman is always working some angle. She has every food critic in the city out there.”

“She’s a businesswoman.” Jared shrugged. “This restaurant is now her business.”

“And business has skyrocketed since she took over the restaurant’s marketing and PR. My future wife is definitely a savvy businesswoman. And speaking of businesswomen,” Torrian said, stepping up to a urinal. “That agent of yours is working the room. I told my agent he’d better watch out. Payton may steal some of his clients right out from under him.”

“Especially the way she’s looking tonight in that dress,” Jared said.

Cedric took a step toward Jared, his right hand clenched into a fist. “What did I tell you about looking at my agent that way?”

Jared backed away, his hands held up in mock surrender. “Damn, man, would you chill? Learn how to take a joke. Remember I have a girlfriend out there. I’m not about to step out on Samantha,” Jared said, turning toward the wall of urinals.

Cedric unclenched his fist and took a deep breath.

Torrian washed his hands, then leaned a hip against the sink, his arms crossed over his chest.

“What?” Cedric asked, knowing Torrian had something to say. Torrian always had something to say.