Page 126 of On Merit Alone
“I am,” she smiled. “And I’m feeling pretty happy with the self-medication, but I do still have you on my mind.”
“You do?”
“I always do.”
“You’re spilling your secrets, Six.”
“And now it’s your turn to spill yours,” she said. “I want to know, Ira. Not just about the contract, but about everything. I stopped holding back with you a long time ago. Basically when you stopped taking no for an answer. I’m not taking no for an answer anymore either. I want to know about you. Not just the easy stuff but the hard stuff too.”
I sighed. Stepping close to her I said, “It wasn’t that I didn’t trust you… I was embarrassed.”
She frowned. “What?”
I shook my head as I looked at her. “You are arguably the most amazing woman I’ve ever met—If you tell my mom I said that I will deny it.”
She laughed, I continued. “You’re not only incredibly strong Mer, but incredibly decisive too. You know what you want, and you go get it. It’s inspiring, and also a little intimidating. I didn’t want to seem like this wishy-washy indecisive punk around you, because I wanted to impress you.”
“What?” She blinked, shocked.
“Six, c’mon.” I shifted. “You knew all of this.”
She shook her head and stared up at me. “I had no idea you were worrying about something as crazy as impressing me. You caught me staring at pictures of you. I’m pretty impressed.”
“Yeah, but that’s just basketball.” I shrugged.
She blinked. Then reaching for me, she slid her hands along my forearms in a gentle caress. She might be sober enough to have this conversation, but not sober enough to control her wandering hands.
“Ira, I’m not just impressed with you as a basketball player. I know I’m messed up but I’m not that messed up. I can see past your ability to shoot baskets,” she said and I think my breath stuck in my throat. She touched my chest, patting it. “What I'm impressed with isyou. The you in here. How kind you are. How empathetic and devoted and dependable you can be. Even through incredible fame and accomplishment you’ve remained that way. You’re a genuinely good person and I’m impressed, King. I admire that in you.”
Well damn. And wasn’t that what I feared? That while I thought of her as so much more than the incredible athlete that she was, but also the incredible, determined woman that she was, that she only thought of me as some meathead.
I had no idea that she thought so much of me. It felt right that I thought the world of her too.
Sighing, I ran my fingertips up the side of her arm, liking the feel of her smooth skin under them. When I caught her eyes, they were already watching me, a different sort of expression filling them.
“Is it the alcohol making you so talkative or did you just miss me?” I asked.
Her hands floated from my forearms to my abdomen, petting me unabashedly. I hid a smirk as she sighed into her ministrations. “Both, I think.”
“And what about the hands?” I asked. “Are you touching me like this because you want to or because of the happy juice?”
“I want to,” she answered right away in a breathy little voice that made my nerves stir to life.
Suddenly, I couldn’t resist reaching up and touching the little straps that held up her even littler top. Testing their strength and letting them snap back to her skin gently. Now that I knew she wasn’tmad at me anymore, I couldn’t help but enjoy seeing her looking so good. “You’re barely wearing any clothes, Six. What’s that about?”
Humming, the little minx slipped her roaming hands under the hem of my shirt and looped her thumbs into the top of my pants. Running her fingers along the seam all the way around in a way that made me twitch, if you know what I mean.
And then she went and said something I didn’t expect from her. Sometimes I forgot that while she was definitely shy about her feelings she was not shy about urges.
There was nothing shy about the way she looked up at me, admitting. “It’s for you.”
I swallowed a groan as I looked up to the ceiling. The twitch quickly turning into a full blown erection from her words alone. I took a step back so I wasn’t tempted to grind against her, and that’s when I noticed a scrap of glittering blue.
Slowly, I closed my eyes, praying for assistance to help me have strength. My voice was almost unrecognizable as I asked, “You know I can see you when you sit like that, sweetheart?”
“Mhmm,” she said and when I peeked an eye open, she had spread her legs a little further apart. Her hands fell to rest behind her as she leaned back against them, basically baring herself open to me.
Fuck.
