Page 44 of Resist

Coulton sighed. “Not taking you out because I want sex. Taking you out because I want to spend time with you. So I’ll pick you up at your apartment at six.”

“What if I just meet you somewhere?”

Coulton shook his head. “Nope. I’m picking you up.”

A date.

With Coulton.

This was a major step in the wrong direction.

And yet, she knew she was going to take it.

“Okay. Fine.”

So much for saying no.

CHAPTERSIX

Coulton whistled happilyas he tied his tennis shoes.

Monday had finally arrived. He’d had an away game in Philadelphia on Saturday that had eaten up his weekend and kept him from seeing Ainsley since their amazing night together.

He’d spent every second since dropping her off at her place replaying Thursday night and Friday morning, over and over. After securing her agreement to a date, he’d coaxed her into taking all her clothes off and crawling back into bed, where they fed each other bacon, strawberries, and croissants before burning off the calories with the world’s greatest workout.

Sex with Ainsley was off the charts. He’d had some good sex with Evelyn, but Ainsley took it to the next level. She was adventurous and fit, and her kinks lined right the hell up with his. Evelyn had preferred a gentle touch, and on the rare occasions when he’d let his rougher side out, sucking her nipples too hard or nipping her neck or shoulder, she’d complained about him hurting her.

Ainsley, on the other hand, seemed to crave the pleasurable pain he offered. Then she went one better and gave him the same. Because, like her, he loved the sting of her nails digging into his skin or the way she pinched his arms, holding on for dear life as he fucked her into the mattress.

“Jesus, man. You keep grinning like that and people are going to wonder about your mental state,” Tank teased.

“Thank God, it’s finally fucking Monday,” his teammate Victor added. “Maybe now he’ll calm the fuck down over this new chick.”

Coulton had filled his buddies in about Ainsley on the bus ride to Philadelphia. They’d been happy for him in terms of breaking his long dry spell, and Blake, a Baltimore local, had been amused that he’d met her in a dive bar in Cherry Hill.

“I have no intention of calming down,” Coulton said, laughing. “I’m crazy about this girl.”

Tank groaned. “Fucking hell, man. You’re starting to sound like Preston. You know you can sleep with a woman without dating her for a hundred years.”

Preston, their team romantic, had been swearing for nearly a year that he’d met and lost his soul mate at a holiday party, the man comparing every woman he’d met since then to Chelsea. Unfortunately for Preston, all those other women had come up short.

Tank persisted. “Now that you’re back in the land of the fucking, why don’t you play the field for a little while? Because you let way too much time pass getting over that last woman.”

Coulton wanted to insist that he hadn’t spent the entire two years since his split with Evelyn, nursing a broken heart. But it was hard to win that argument, given his lack of dating since then.

He’d genuinely thought Evelyn was the one, so it had shaken him for a few months when she’d called and told him it was over. Coulton hadn’t been a big fan of the long-distance deal either, but he’d thought they were making it work. Sort of.

In hindsight, he respected Evelyn’s strength when it came to doing the hard thing and moving on.

“I don’t need to play the field,” Coulton said. “Why would I look for someone else when Ainsley is so awesome?”

Blake gave Coulton a friendly squeeze on the shoulder. “I’m glad you’ve found someone you like.”

Up until a few weeks ago, Blake would have been firmly in Tank’s camp, suggesting Coulton not be in such a hurry to tie himself down. However, his teammate’s tune was starting to change, thanks to the woman across the hall he’d decided to co-parent a puppy with. Erika and Blake had been neighbors and best friends for years, but it looked like that relationship status might be shifting into something more serious. Coulton hoped that was true because he really liked Erika, who’d become a member of their friend group, joining them for pizza and game nights.

Coulton hoped Ainsley would fit just as well with his friends, though he wasn’t sure how to draw her in, considering she worked six nights a week. Money was obviously a big issue for the family, and since she got zero help from her deadbeat brother, she was left to earn all the money to pay the bills.

He’d spent a good bit of the weekend wishing he could find a way to lighten her load, but they were nowhere near that level in this…relationship, he labeled it. Screw what Tank thought. He’d gone out with enough women in the past two years to know when something special was staring him in the face.

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