Page 74 of Fashionista's Playbook

Finally, he touched me. Trembling fingers caressed up my thighs and around, to clutch my hips.

Breaking from the kiss I watched Travis’ face as I rose upward until my shoulders brushed the top of the truck and only the tip of his arousal remained nestled between my folds.

“Moriah, a condom, I can’t—”

Panting, I brushed my fingers down each side of his neck, still up on my knees, resting just on the tip of him. “Birth control is a glorious thing, Travis. Especially when—” With a groan I settled back down upon him. “This feels so good.”

“Jesus, you’re going to be the death of me.” His head rolled back.

And when I lifted my body again, almost pulling myself from him completely, he squeezed his eyes shut on a long moan.

“Don’t tease me, for the love of everything.” His grip moved to my hips and tightened, as if he needed to hold me there.

I obliged him by dropping all the way down the length of his arousal. Another low moan escaped his parted lips. On the field he was this big, tough guy. But here he was pliable, delectable—mine. Over and over, I moved up and down, until my own eyes squeezed shut and my body jerked, bucked, and I came atop him.

Travis wasn’t done, though, and he clutched my hips to him, moving beneath me, rocking in time to my breathing as I clung to the roof of the truck with one hand and twisted the other in his designer shirt front.

What control I’d had before, Travis claimed. I trembled, pulsating pleasure streaking through me with each movement he made.

When he came, his face twisted in a way I’d never seen, and the truck rocked on its shocks in the open garage.

Emotion I couldn’t ignore welled up in my chest and caught in my throat.

I kissed him; his lips soft against mine. I did my best to show him how I felt, to give a visceral reaction to what my heart was saying—even if I’d never admit it to myself.

Then I rolled back to the passenger seat and gathered my belongings. Terrified that if I stayed a second longer, I’d say those three words. Even if I meant them, being that vulnerable wasn’t something I could afford.

He climbed from his side of the truck and grinned at me over the hood. “Will you stay the night tonight?”

His smile was my undoing. “Of course.”

CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

Travis

I lay in bed with Moriah, tangled in sheets that smelled of her—cradling her against my side. I’d seen and experienced a different side of her after dinner. In the past few months, she’d blossomed with confidence that made her more beautiful—even when I’d thought that impossible.

The ache of loneliness that had hovered around me since my parents died was fading away like a ghost. Holding her, pressing my lips against her hair, only seemed to push it further away. In such a short amount of time my mariposa was breathing new life into me.

I didn’t sleep, not for a long time. I watched her, pink cheeks and soft lips, as her chest rose and fell with the even breaths of sleep. Moriah appealed to me on a level I’d never thought of before. Family, a life together—after football.

The room around me spun. Panic swelled inside my chest, sweat beaded on my forehead, and the blankets were suddenly too tight around me. Football was my life. I’d never contemplated there being anafter. As a kid, the goal had been a scholarship to play division one ball. In college, the draft and a pro career. Football defined me.

Kicking my legs free of the sheets, I gently maneuvered my arm from beneath Moriah’s head, and got out of bed.

When my parents died and Vincent went away, everything had been about survival and guilt. My life was consumed by both things. But when I played, I could push it all away and feel the closest thing to happiness I would allow myself.

And that’s the only place I found it. Until now, until Moriah.

Did I even deserve this much happiness? I’d been happy once, with my parents. They’d given us the American Dream, everything we’d ever needed. The perfect life.

And then, it wasn’t. The day the officers came to school and told me Mom and Dad were gone was the worst day of my life. The kind eyes of the social worker only seemed to make it worse.

It had been just me and Vincent then. The money my parents had set back buried them, paid the house off. But everything else had been a struggle. When the car had been repossessed it felt like the entire damn world had settled on top of me.

I did the only thing I thought I could do. Just a few days, take the car back, and pay them Friday when Vincent got paid.

But I’d been a stupid kid, not even old enough to drive. Damn sure didn’t know what stealing a car would do to the rest of my life—my dreams.

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