Page 51 of Playing for Possession
The weight of all those stars crushed me in the silence. Joanie was right. Sometimes I wasn’t nice. Sometimes I was a full-on dick. So what? I didn’t owe anyone anything. I’d grown up around people who saw a smile as a weakness. People could take me or leave me. But I didn’t want to be a dick to Joanie. I cared about her too much. She deserved better.
I reached for her hand. “I’m sorry.”
She snapped her arm away. “Please just leave me alone. I don’t want to fall for someone like you.”
“Someone like me?”
“Someone who is so obviously going to break my heart.”
Tears glittered in her eyes, and Joanie was as beautiful as that star-choked sky. She was a million silver glittering points. More light than dark. I wanted to say the right words to make this better, but somehow they got stuck between my heart and my mouth.
She hugged herself. “The trouble is, it’s too late. The damage is done.”
“What damage?”
“I really like you, Kieran. I didn’t want to. You’re a footballer. You’re grumpy, and you never smile.”
“I smile.”
“I’ve never seen you smile. Not really. I suppose you get that look when you’re joking around.”
“What look?”
“I don’t know . . . playful . . . like you want to smile, but something holds you back.”
Was that true? I smiled sometimes, didn’t I? “Look, I’m sorry. I was so fucking worried about you tonight. I never want anything bad to happen to you, and I don’t want to break your heart. You’re right. I’m a dick. I am broken in a lot of ways.”
“In what ways?”
“It doesn’t matter.”
We’d moved close again. “It matters. Everyone is broken in their own way. That’s just being human. The point is, we have to understand each other’s brokenness so we can work with it. Aren’t we all just scrambling along, trying to do better? It’s like you said when you saw me in the gym. Showing up and doing the work isenough. The thing is, I don’t know if you want to be better or not. I hardly know you at all.”
I drank in the golden tones in her eyes. She was so soft and warm and gentle, and all I wanted was to be closer. There was so much solace in her and so much patience. I wanted to bury myself in her and lose myself. To melt into her and take away all this hard numbness inside that plagued me.
I’d had to switch off my feelings when Dad left. Mum and Jack had needed me to be the man of the house. I never wanted to end up like my father. Better to feel cold inside than twisted up with anger and violence.
I took her hand in mine. “I don’t care what anyone else thinks about me, but for you, I want to be better. And I want you to know me. I want to know you, too. If you’re broken, it doesn’t faze me. I can show up and do the work. But I don’t think you are. I think you’re just right.”
I brushed my lips against hers, tasting pineapple lip balm. She drew back. I held perfectly still, seeking reassurance, waiting to see if she’d come back to me.Please come back to me.She took a stumbling step forward and pressed her warm body to mine. Her mouth touched my lips, and she kissed me with an unexpected intensity. A torrent of lust rose in me, and my emotions were too raw and unchecked to be restrained.
I let my hands roam over silk. My palms grazed the swell of her hips, her toned stomach, her firm breasts. She moaned into my mouth and kissed me harder. Her hands explored my body. Not solace, but passion. This was losing myself, and I so desperately wanted to get lost. One night and Joanie’s gentleness could make everything better.
We stumbled around the balcony, entwined, breathing heavily, with our hands all over each other. It was more like grappling than making out. Mortimer Fox had made me promise to be agentleman, but he’d made a mistake. I was no gentleman. Here I was panting and groping his pretty daughter, desperate to get her naked and feel myself moving inside her.
My lips found her ear. “You should have knocked on my fucking door. You don’t ever have to read alone when I’m around.”
Her mouth recaptured mine. Joanie’s kisses were breathless and fervent. Her body pressed against me, and I was so hard and drunk on lust, and heat, and sensation, my balls ached.
Gently, I pushed her back. “Let’s slow down.”
She pulled me back to her lips, and I couldn’t resist. How could I resist her in this dress? I’d lost any sense of rational thought the moment her lips had captured mine.
I buried my face into her neck, breathing her in. “We’re supposed to be taking it slow.”
She trembled against me. “I don’t want to stop.”
My heart pounded. “Are you sure?”
