Double Coverage (3 page)

“You’re confusing money with perfection, and we didn’t have that much more than your family had, I’m sure. The difference is that I was an only child. I had an emotionally distant mother and an overly ambitious father who wanted to relive his glory days through me. I spent my life on the football field or in a weight room. I took the classes he wanted me to take—just enough real school to stay on the team and to get the big scholarship because my old man wanted me to go pro. I had very little time to actually go out and play. I could have spent my time riding my bike or playing video games. I played ball with your brother because you played.”

“And you teased me because I threw like a girl.” She remembered that now. “Sarah Beth threw worse than I did, but you didn’t tease her.”

“That’s because Sarah Beth Lawrence was hopeless—and I liked your spunk. Even when we ganged up on you, you didn’t cry or pout. You picked up the ball, and you threw it until you did it right. I liked that about you.”

“So my tenacity as a ten-year-old is why we’re lying here naked tonight? That is sort of sick, if you think about it.”

“Okay, I admit your prepubescent self didn’t rock my little world. Hell, I just thought girls were into tea parties and ballet back then, and those were not activities I wanted anything to do with. But sometime around the end of ninth grade, I think—that’s when I started noticing you again.”

“Mmmm, I was rocking a serious set of braces in the ninth grade. And my mom refused to let me get contacts. And let’s not forget those god-awful braids I wore because I thought I was Laura Ingalls Wilder. Why in the hell wouldn’t you want to hit that?”

“You were cute. Ow—don’t pinch me. You were. Even the braids. But that wasn’t it.”

“What did it for you, then? Seriously. My huge brains? Oh yeah, little Miss Egghead, so smart even her parents were afraid of her. The epitome of every fourteen-year-old boy’s fantasy.”

“Well, if you want to know when I started thinking of you as more than some little geek girl I used to play ball with, it was the day you stood up in Dr. Caldwell’s algebra class and told him he was an idiot. Then you went to the board, took the chalk from my hand, and corrected his formula. When you finished, you went to the principal’s office before he could send you and filed a stupid-teacher complaint. That was what did it for me.”

“Oh my God, I remember that day. I was an insufferable know-it-all brat.”

“Yeah, you really were. And I never forgot it. Never. You had guts. The man humiliated me that entire year, and you stood up for me. That stays with a person.”

“That
was
you at the board, wasn’t it? What was it he said? Something about you waiting for divine intervention, when all the time his formula was wrong. He couldn’t teach worth a damn, and he was mean. I just got tired of listening to his drivel and snapped. My mother was so proud of me that day. That’s sarcasm, by the way. I nearly got suspended, but it was fun.”

“I was terrified of you. Most of us were. You were so smart, and quiet—we didn’t know how to interact with you. That day, you impressed me. I didn’t have the courage to stand up for myself. I wasn’t kidding downstairs when I said I used to fantasize about you. I was too afraid of you to try anything.”

“What sort of fantasies?”

“Oh, the usual teenage under-the-bleacher stuff. You wouldn’t like it if I told you.”

“Hot and sweaty, taking my cherry in the back of your daddy’s car stuff? I wasn’t kidding when I said you could have had it. I used to watch you cut the grass from the balcony outside my room. I used to fantasize about you pulling a Romeo and climbing the trellis at night. Stupid, little girl stuff, I wouldn’t have known what to do with you if you had.”

“Looking back, knowing what you know now, what would you do if I climbed into your bedroom?”

“Oh, I don’t know. Something like this, maybe.”

She licked a path to his mouth. His quickly in-drawn breath made her bold enough to crawl over him until she straddled him. He was hard and ready, and she only had to arch just a little to take him inside. “How does that feel?”

“Like we should have done this a long time ago.” He buried his hands in her hair, his strong fingers holding her captive while he took control of her mouth. Soft kisses turned heated, frenzied even. She rode him slowly, teasing him until he couldn’t take it another second, and before Kailey knew what had happened, he had her on her back, his cock buried inside her, driving into her, taking her to dizzying heights, only to plunge her back to reality.

When she could form a coherent thought again, she wrapped her arms around him, and held him close. “Trig?” she whispered in his ear.

“Yeah?” His voice was sleepy, sluggish.

“That was really nice. Thank you.”

“My pleasure.”

* * * *

His heart raced wildly as he watched the sex kitten amble out of the hotel, her sun-streaked hair tousled from some lucky bastard’s hands. The pale green sundress she wore hugged her curves in a way that made him happy to be a man. She looked at him as she passed; there was no recognition in her green eyes, and she sure as hell wasn’t someone he knew. The reluctant smile she gave him turned sultry, but she kept on walking until she disappeared into a red SUV.

“Damn.” Regret made him watch as she drove away. If only he’d been here earlier. Her hair would be more than just a little tousled, and she sure as hell wouldn’t be walking away this early in the morning.

* * * *

How many people had she run into on the way out of the hotel? How much speculation and gossip would be flying about her and Trig when she returned for the evening festivities? “If I go back. I don’t have to go back.”

Damn, what the hell had she been thinking, going up to Trig’s room? Curiosity, lust, stupidity? Whatever it was, she sure as hell wished she could undo it, or at least have had the sense to leave before dawn to avoid the stares. The walk of shame. Oh dear God—she, Kailey Whitmore, had taken the walk of shame for the first time in her life.

Now, because she couldn’t contain her libido, she was late for the meeting she’d been anticipating since before she even knew about the reunion. Not to mention the drive across the bay into Mobile. She hated driving through tunnels, hated the irrational fear that the damned thing might break and flood while she was inside. And Christ, but Trig made love like a damned machine—he just kept going and going. How many damn times had she come? She couldn’t remember. Three before he even managed to get her naked.

Oh, shut up. Just shut the hell up
. However, her brain just kept on whirling away, turning over every minute detail of the last few hours.

“Who the hell was that guy in the limo?” she asked the steering wheel, remembering the big man climbing out of a stretch limo just as she let herself into her car. He’d stared at her as if he was planning to have her for his next meal. He looked familiar, but she couldn’t place him.

Funny that she could hardly place any of her classmates, but all of them knew her. Okay, not necessarily by sight. Apparently, she’d changed a great deal since her braces-and-glasses days. But they all knew her, every last one of them. She had no recollections of any of them whatsoever, which was why she’d sought refuge at the bar with no one but the safe bartender and a trio of appletinis for company.

She wouldn’t go back; that was all there was to it. She would go to her meeting at the university and then directly to the airport. Forget all of her belongings. She’d have the rental company send them to her when she called and canceled her month-long lease. It was a mistake coming home. Yes, a mistake.

A spiraling, clenching, tingling feeling started in her stomach. Oh, but Trig’s cock had felt so good, and she wanted more. So much more, she squeezed her legs together, hoping to stop the throbbing before it started. She shouldn’t think of Trig and his talented tongue or his magnificent cock, she told herself, not if she wanted to get through this interview with her dignity intact.

She pulled into the exit lane just the other side of the tunnel, the radio blaring Pink’s CD. All of her anger and determination came racing back. With effort, she put a mental block on her night with Trig. She focused on her notes and all of the things she planned to say.

And just who the hell
was
that guy in the limo?

* * * *

Trig stumbled out of the elevator, bleary, rumpled, and starving, to the sound of crowing. Why was there crowing?

“Woo-hoo, look at what the cat dragged in.” That wasn’t crowing; that was Bullet.
Oh fuck.

Robert “Bobby” Brady, otherwise known as Bullet—because who the hell wanted to go through life as Bobby Brady and because he was the fastest animal on two legs—was the best wide receiver in the NFL and his best friend. Or he used to be, back in the day.

“Rumor has it, Trig, my man, that a certain brainiac valedictorian was seen taking the walk of shame shortly before I arrived. Rumor also has it she was seen leaving the party with a certain gunslinger last night. Care to comment?”

“Is there coffee anywhere around here?” Trig ignored the accusation, but it sure would explain why he’d woken up alone. “I can’t see straight.”

“Over there.” Bullet cocked his head to the buffet set up in an atrium room. “So is it true? Trigger scored with Indiana Bones last night? Inquiring minds want to know.”

“No comment.” Trig stumbled past his friend and into the atrium, where about fifty others of their former classmates sat, some looking as bad as he felt. “Why are you here? I thought you couldn’t get time away from some football thing.”

“Called in a favor and took the red-eye down last night. You know you look like you’ve been rode hard and put up wet, don’t you? Oh fuck, Trigger, did you just blush? Little Miss Valedictorian couldn’t have been that good of a lay.” Bullet hooted, pounding him on his back.

Damn, he really was glad to see Bullet, but couldn’t Bullet have waited until Trig could clear the cobwebs from his befuddled brain before being so loud, so … Bullet.

“No comment.” There was coffee, strong dark coffee so black he could see himself in it. He took a whole pot and a cup and found a table as far away from the happy chattering as he could. Too bad Bullet followed him, his oversized body radiating good humor and happiness. “Don’t you have groupies who need your attention somewhere else?”

“So she wasn’t what you expected, man. No need to take it out on me.” Bullet spoke low—which for him was just below a shout—as he leaned over the table peering into Trig’s eyes, sympathy sparkling in his almost black eyes. “There’s a set of twins staying here. What say you and me revisit the good old days?”

“No thanks, Bullet. I’m not sure I can handle that kind of blast from the past.” Trig felt the heat rise in his face, remembering some of the things he and Bullet had done when they were turned loose on the world. Before Trig busted his knee and had to give up football—before the Broncos drafted Bullet, and Trigger was left behind. “Besides, after last night I’m not sure I’ve got anything left.”

He really shouldn’t have said that. Bullet crowed again, a sound somewhere between a hoot and a guffaw that echoed around the room. “Worn out by a dork. What the hell is the world coming to when Trigger Morgan can’t get it up for a set of twins.”

“Shut the fuck up, Bullet, before I shut you up,” Trig said with more bravado than he felt.

Bullet just smiled and leaned over the table, his mouth turned up in a grin, humor in his eyes. “You and what army?”

Chapter Four

“I’m going to make you eat sand, pretty boy,” Bullet shouted over the sound of the waves and the blood pounding in Trig’s brain. Full-tackle football on the goddamned beach. What the hell were they thinking?

“Yeah, Bullet, you and what army?” He threw the taunt back in his friend’s face, just as he signaled his center. Bullet leaped across two of his linemen coming right for him, a grin of mayhem on his pretty face the second the ball was snapped. Somehow, Trig managed to shoot off a perfect spiral before Bullet took him down.

“I don’t need an army to drop you, pretty boy. You’re out of shape, slow, sloppy, and distracted.” The intensity in Bullet’s eyes actually made Trig freeze for a moment. Would that be him if fate hadn’t intervened and his life gone a different direction? “But you haven’t lost your arm. I guess that’s all that matters.”

“Since we just scored a touchdown and your wimps are sitting winded in the sand, I guess that is all that really matters.” He looked down the beach at one of the guys spiking the ball and doing some stupid dance. Farther in the distance, a curvy body with a long flowing mane sauntered their way, and his brain went into a tailspin. He knew those curves. “Get off me, Bullet, before someone starts thinking there’s more going on between us.”

Bullet just grunted and rolled over onto the sand, pulling his extremely ripped body into a sitting position beside him. “I think I might be getting too old for this shit.”

“It’s just the air down here. It’s heavy, and you’ve been up there in Denver all these years. You’re not used to it.” Thirty-three wasn’t exactly old for football, but Bullet was right; he wasn’t a spring chicken anymore. He probably had another two, maybe three years left in him, unless his knees went, and then all bets were off.

“Yeah, well, I’ve got to get used to it before training camp starts,” he said, staring off in the distance, directly at the same set of hips sashaying their way. His eyes flared wide in appreciation. “Check out that babe. Do you believe the tits on her? I could bury myself in those puppies for a month and not come up for air.”

“World-class tits, that’s for sure.” Distracted, Trig followed the white halter-top up to the woman’s face when he realized he really did recognize those curves. “Why do you need to get used to the air down here?” He needed to distract Bullet before he had to kill him, but Kailey saw them and veered their way.

Bullet stood up, dragging Trig with him. “Didn’t I tell ya? I was traded to the Saints. Ain’t that a kick in the balls? Hey, honey, how you doing?”

Trig watched as those green eyes flitted up and down Bullet’s body, appraising him. Apparently, she liked what she saw if the smile she flashed Bullet meant anything. “Fine. How about you?”