She nodded. “I’m in.”
I kissed her hard before pulling away. “Okay, let’s eat and then go for a swim.”
“I thought we weren’t working out for the next three days. Isn’t this supposed to be a vacation?” she asked, raising a brow.
“Well, fucking you in the turquoise water feels like a vacation to me.”
“I like the way you think.” She jumped up and hurried into the room.
We ordered room service and sat outside, looking at the photos of new home listings my realtor sent over while we ate pancakes and bacon.
There were two homes that we both really liked from the photos online, and we agreed to go see them after Brinkley’s interview in San Francisco.
Things were coming together.
We had a plan.
I pulled on my swim trunks just as my girl came around the corner wearing a white bikini and a white cowboy hat on her head. Her tan skin glistened, and I wanted to kiss every inch of her gorgeous body.
We walked down the few steps to the private beach beside our villa. Brinkley dipped her toe in the water. “Oh, it’s a little chilly.”
I picked her up and flipped her over my shoulder because I was not waiting one more minute. She squealed and tossed her hat onto the shore as I ran us out to deeper water, dunking us both beneath the surface.
When we came up, my hands were on her waist, and she was laughing and swiping at her eyes before pushing her long hair away from her face.
“I guess that’s one way to get used to the water.” She gripped my shoulders and wrapped her legs around my waist.
“You’re so fucking beautiful,” I said as I nipped at her mouth. “Fuck. I didn’t bring a condom. I had big plans of what I was going to do to you out here.”
She smiled as she ground up against my erection. “I told you that I went on the pill. I’ve never been with anyone without a condom before. You’d be my first.”
“I haven’t either.” I ran my tongue down her neck, and her head fell back. “I’d love to feel you with nothing between us.”
“Me, too,” she whispered, her hands in my hair as she pulled my mouth to hers.
I was standing chest-deep in the dark turquoise sea, the sun shining down on us, and this gorgeous woman wrapped in my arms.
Our tongues tangled, and I moaned into her mouth as she continued grinding up against me. My cock swelled, and we continued making out for what felt like hours but was probably more like minutes. My hand moved between us, pushing her swimsuit bottoms to the side and stroking her a few times before shoving my trunks low enough to free my eager dick.
“Is this what you want, baby?” I purred into her mouth as I teased her with my tip.
“Yes.” She pulled back to look at me as I positioned her above me, and she slowly slid down, taking me in, inch by glorious fucking inch.
“Holy fuck,” I hissed. She was wet and tight and everything I’d ever wanted.
Her hooded eyes closed, her head fell back, and she took me all the way in. Her breaths were labored, and I gripped her hips and moved her up slowly at first.
We found our rhythm, and I pumped in and out of her as she rode me like a fucking stallion.
I tangled my hands in her hair, tugging her mouth back down to mine, and kissed her hard.
Desire built.
Faster.
Harder.
With a need I’d only ever experienced with this woman.
My woman.
My hand moved between us, and I circled her clit because I knew she was close. Her nails dug into my shoulders, and she tightened around me, and I couldn’t hold on another second. She shattered right before my eyes, and I went right over the edge with her.
My entire body quaked as a guttural sound escaped my lips.
She rode out every last bit of pleasure, and I continued thrusting into her.
When our breaths slowed and her gaze found mine, she smiled. “That was amazing.”
“You’re fucking amazing.”
She chuckled. “Let’s do that again soon.”
“Any time, sweetheart.”
Cabo had been exactly what we needed, but now we were back to reality, and the pressure was getting to both of us. This looming timeline that I’d be leaving in a few days, and so much was still up in the air with her. She’d flown out to interview with NFL Today, and she really liked them; however, she didn’t want to be pigeonholed to only one sport. But she was keeping them on the back burner.
“So, you’re going to be in New York. That’s so far away,” Tia said as Brinkley and I shared a FaceTime screen with her. We’d made a day trip to meet her in person when we got back from Cabo, and she liked to FaceTime often, so we’d been talking daily ever since.
“Yeah, but you’ll come to a game, and we’ll keep talking as much as we can, okay?”
I spoke to Romeo often now, too, and the two of them had become family in a matter of a few weeks.
“That sounds like a plan. Brinkley, you’ve got your big interview coming up, right?”
“Yep. And Lincoln is coming with me, so that will make it less stressful for me, having him there.”
“He gets to go into the interview with you?” she asked.
“He does.” Brinkley chuckled. “I have that story I wrote about him, and they want to print it, as well as offer me a long-term position. But I think with the story being about Lincoln, they requested that he be there, too.”
I had red flags going off that they’d asked me to come along. It was not the norm, and as far as I knew, they didn’t know we were a couple. The one thing Breen fucking Lockhart hadn’t done was expose our relationship, which I was grateful for. Not because I didn’t want it out there, but because I wouldn’t want to do anything to hurt her career. So, in my opinion, it was odd that they’d asked her to bring me along to the interview. Brinkley had a one-track mind, and Sports Today was what she considered the gold standard of her profession, and she wanted it. She wasn’t going to question anything they asked of her, but I sure as fuck would.
“I know you want to work there, but I think it will be hard for you guys to live so far apart,” Tia said as she tucked her hair behind her ear.
“We’ll do whatever we need to do,” Brinkley said.
“Oh, man, you guys are so freaking cute. Well, big news. I broke up with Leo. He never makes time for me.”
I raised a brow. Teenage dating advice was not really my strong suit, and it was the last thing I wanted to talk about.
“How’s the weather?” I asked, and they both laughed.
“We’ll talk about Leo later, when it’s just us,” my girlfriend said. I loved that she’d made such an effort to get to know Romeo and Tia. It meant a lot to me.
“Perfect. Call me later.” She blew us a kiss and ended the call.
“She reminds me so much of myself at that age,” Brinkley said.
“Damn, baby. I would have been all over you when I was a horny teenage boy.”
She moved toward me, standing between my legs as I sat at the kitchen table. “And now you’re just a horny man, huh?”
I laughed. “Only for you.”
And that was the damn truth.
twenty-nine
Brinkley
“I need this to go well,” I whispered as we rode the elevator up to the top floor. We’d stayed at Lincoln’s penthouse apartment in the city last night. He said he wasn’t going to put it on the market until we knew where I’d be living. If I took the job here, I’d stay at his place, and we’d travel back and forth.