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Man, she looked pretty in tight jeans and a light purple scoop-neck top with long sleeves, but she would look even better out of her clothes.
“I paid the driver a little extra to circle back for us after dropping Zack off.” I opened the passenger door and gestured.
“Thank you.”
Giving me a smile that I felt in my chest and my cock, she climbed in. The tail end of a multicolored scarf that she’d draped artfully around her neck floated in the air behind her. I climbed in after her, not wanting to be anywhere else.
“This is nice.” She scooted to the middle of the bench seat and set her purse on the floor.
“You look nice,” I said.
As her warmth and her fragrance swirled around me, my already hard cock throbbed. I took the seat beside her, trying but failing to clear my mind of my memories from the island and how she looked naked.
“What perfume are you wearing?” I asked as she buckled her seat belt. “It seems different.” There was a hint of orange that I didn’t recall from before.
“I bought a new perfume in the duty-free gift shop at the Saint Croix airport.”
She blushed because she was embarrassed, either remembering running from me or because of something else I didn’t know, but I wanted to know. My curiosity about her hadn’t lessened.
“It’s called Orange Kiss. I think it pairs well with the Carolina jasmine one I usually wear. Jeremy has been spritzing my scarves with it all week. It gives me a boost of energy at the end of my shift.” She glanced at me through her thick sooty lashes. Her eyes were prettier without the addition of fake lashes. “It reminds me of the night we spent together.”
My senses sharpened, liking that last bit a whole fucking lot, so I shared an admission of my own.
“Every time the guys sliced mango at the villa, I got hard thinking about you, our breakfast together, and then getting caught in the rain shower.” I clicked my seat belt, lifting my head, and gave her a heated glance.
She slowly smiled, and I liked that too. Hell, I liked everything about her. Even the difficult parts were understandable, caused by pain that she mostly hid. Fuck if I knew how to fix that, but I knew that I wanted to.
“Ready, Mr. Valentine?” the driver asked, glancing in the rearview mirror.
“Yes,” I said, giving him a nod. “We’re all buckled up back here.”
“I’ll take the tollway to Highland Park,” he told us. “Google says there’s no traffic. I should be able to get you home in about fifteen minutes.” He pressed a button and raised the privacy glass that separated his section of the limo from ours.
“You live in Highland Park?” Electra asked.
“Yeah,” I said, and when her pretty silver eyes widened again, I shrugged. “It’s convenient to the airport. And the new stadium.”
“It’s the most expensive subdivision in Dallas.” She suddenly looked unsure.
“I guess. But that wasn’t why I chose to live there.” I rubbed the back of my neck. “I just asked the realtor to find something with a pool and a decent-sized backyard. Where do you live?”
“In an apartment on the Northwest Highway. The cheapest one that was close to work.”
“So, not far from me.”
I focused on the logistics, rather than another difference between us that I knew didn’t work in my favor. I marveled that it had taken a vacation on a Caribbean Island far from where we both lived to bring us together.
“Not far distance-wise.” Her shoulders drew in. “But entirely different.”
“We’re at different places in our lives economically, but that wasn’t always the case. I would never have been able to afford college if not for my scholarship, and you probably know that I wasn’t drafted high. I was a sixth-round pick. My salary stank, and it came with a lot of scary contingency clauses. As a third-string quarterback, I was afraid of being cut. So, I rented a small bedroom in a house on a side of town that was probably a lot like where your apartment is. I shared a kitchen and a bathroom with three other guys. I shopped at Cost-Plus because it was cheap. I didn’t have a car. I could walk to the stadium. I even sold protein powder to my teammates to supplement my income.”
“I didn’t know that.” Her expression revealed her surprise.
“The league leaves stuff like that out of my official bio.”
I took her hand and placed it on my thigh. I needed her touch. Craved it.
“I didn’t get a starting position until I found a personal trainer who helped me eat and think better.” I gazed out the window. It was dark outside, but the urban sprawl reminded me of those long-ago days. “I had to get all the toxic shit out that my old man had put in to make room for good stuff.”
