Keeping Score by Cathryn Fox
Rocco
With the bacon halfway to my mouth, my hand stills, Reagan’s question hanging heavy in the air between us. What do I want? To be perfectly honest, at this very moment, I want my hands and mouth on her—I want to lose myself inside her—but the real problem is, I might want it tomorrow, or again next week…maybe forever. But that’s not going to happen, and I honestly have no idea why I even told her that much about my history. There are a lot of rumors about me, but I’ve only ever opened up to Alistair.
I toss the bacon into my mouth and try to settle my racing heart as she waits for me to answer. “I guess I want to finish my degree, get into the NFL, and live happily ever after.”
Her lips quirk. “Fairy tales. Nice, but—”
“But you don’t believe in them either,” I say, finishing her sentence.
She shakes her head, and toys with the corner of her toast. “How did you know?”
“We’re not so different in some ways.”
“You’re right.”
“I want that for you, Reagan. I want you to have the happily ever after, the house, kids and minivan.”
She reaches across the table and squeezes my hand. “I want that for you too.”
I nod. In the world I grew up in, fairy tales don’t exist, but if she starts living her own life, maybe she can have all the things she wants and deserves.
“What do you want to do after the NFL?”
“The scholarship comes with a degree, and while football is my life, and I don’t know what I’d do without it, I’m pretty good in math.”
“If you weren’t, you wouldn’t be here right now.”
She’s referring to the card game. “If your douche…” I catch myself. No trash talking her boyfriend, or her ex-boyfriend. I’m not even sure she knows where she stands with Cochrane. “If Cochrane hadn’t handed you to me, I wouldn’t be here.” I consider that for a second. “I guess now I can’t hate him as much as I used to.”
Her lips pinch tight. “Yes, you can. He was horrible to you.”
“I hate that he hurt you.”
She nods and looks down for a second. “After the NFL, what are your plans?”
I shrug. “I love coding, so maybe something in the tech industry.” I lean back and take a sip of coffee. “Or maybe I’ll open my own art studio.” Her eyes go wide, then she laughs. “What, you don’t believe me?”
“No, I don’t.” She crushes a napkin and tosses it at me. “So you can stop that right now.” I catch the napkin and toss it back. “Do you think about having a family or kids?”
“I don’t know. I guess not really. Is that something you want?”
She nods. “Cochrane and I talked about it.” She snorts. “We had our entire future planned out.”
“And now?”
She rolls one shoulder, and shrinks into herself. “And now…I have no idea what the future holds.”
“Can I ask you a question?”
“I guess.”
“You and me. Us.” I point my finger back and forth between the two of us. “Here, this weekend. Is it still what you want this morning, now that you’ve had time to sleep on it?”
She grins. “It’s not like I really slept, but yes, it is, and I’m sorry I brought up Cochrane. It’s just you mentioned family, and kids.”
Christ, I can’t even stand to hear his name on her lips. I’m not sure what I’ll do if she goes back to him, and I see them on campus together. I push that thought from my brain. “You’d be a good mom.”
She bites into her toast and goes quiet, thoughtful, a little smile touching her lips as she recalls something from the past. “Did you ever have to do that project in high school where you take an egg home and have to care for it for a week. You know, like it was your baby.”
I nod and remember the foster home I was in when I was assigned that project. Food was scarce and punishment was harsh. “Yeah, I remember that. I bet you made it through the whole week with that egg fully intact.”
“I did. How did you make out?”
I rub my stomach. “I made scrambled eggs.”
She stares at me for two long seconds, then breaks out in a belly laugh. “Did you really?”
Her laugh is contagious. “I was hungry.”
“You’re always hungry.”
I lick my bottom lip, my gaze going to her nipples, which are poking against my white T-shirt that does little to hide her gorgeous body. “Yeah, I am,” I agree, my hunger for food shifting to a hunger for her. My head lifts, and while I want to take her again, I also want to enjoy our time together outside of bed.
I stretch my arms above my head and she stares at my chest. “Do you have a lot of studying to do today?” I ask.
“I do, but first I thought we could take the kayaks out, and maybe later we can grab the rods and fish from the dock.”
“Maybe I’ll catch us a walleye for dinner. Toss it on the barbecue.”
She smiles at me. “You’re game?”
“You bet. I do have one small problem, though.” I run my hands through my mess of hair, finger combing it into place as my dick twitches, and my mind races, recalling why it’s a tangled mess in the first place. “I’ve never been in a kayak, and I’ve never fished.” She claps her hands, delight stamped all over her face. “Why does that make you so happy?”
“I get to do a first with you, and don’t worry, you’re naturally athletic and it’s pretty easy.”
“I like easy.”
She laughs at that and tosses the napkin back at me. “I am not easy.”
“I am.” I give a wiggle of my eyebrows, and she stands and shakes her head. While she might not be easy, and I wasn’t suggesting she was, she is easy to be with.
“You’ve been with a lot of girls, haven’t you?”
“Yeah.” Shit, I’m not going to lie to her, but I don’t want her to think she’s just another notch on the bedpost. I take in the tightening of her body.
“Last night…was I any—”
“Jesus, Reagan. Don’t do that. Don’t compare yourself with anyone.” I drag her into my arms, and brush her hair from her face. “Last night, and what you did for me earlier…” I put my hand beside my head and mimic an explosion. “Mind blowing.”
She smiles, her worries easing. “Yeah? It was good for you?”
“Good? No, it was fucking great. I have never come so hard in my entire life. Everything in the way you trusted me with your body, the way you opened up for me, that was all new for me too, Reagan. Last night wasn’t just a night of firsts for you.” What I don’t tell her is that sex with her was the best sex I ever had, and it’s probably because I feel things for her that I have no right feeling—and had never felt for anyone else.
With a new lightness about her, she goes up on her toes and kisses me. “Such a sweet talker.”
“I’m telling you the truth.”
“Uh huh,” she teases.
“I am,” I say and whack her ass. She yelps and jumps back, a wide smile on her face, and I love that I was the guy who put it there.
“Come on, let’s get outside and enjoy the sunshine.”
“I’d rather take you back to bed, and enjoy you, Sunshine,” I mumble under my breath.
“What was that?”
“Nothing.” I toss the last of my breakfast into my mouth. We put our dishes in the sink, and get ready to enjoy our day. Reagan finds some suntan lotion, and after we’re greased up, we head to the dock. The early morning sun glistens on the water as we drag the kayaks into the lake. Reagan gives me a quick lesson and I’m a fast learner, so I catch on quickly.
We paddle around the big lake, a comfortable silence between us as we lose ourselves in our own thoughts. We float and paddle until the sun is high in the sky. I have no idea what time it is or how long we’ve been out on the lake. We left our phones back at the cottage and I have to say, no communication with the real world is rather cathartic. A loud knocking sound ripples across the water, and I glance around.
“Over there.” Reagan points and I follow the direction.
“What is it?”
“A woodpecker.”
“Let’s go see.” We paddle toward it, the sound getting louder.
“It’s a beautiful bird. Annoying as hell, though, especially at five in the morning, when it’s banging against the satellite dish.”
I laugh at that. “I’m guessing you’re talking from experience.”
“Oh yeah.”
I take in a deep breath, filling my lungs with the morning air, and letting it relax every bone in my body.
“Nice, huh?” she asks.
“Peaceful.”
“Rocco?”
“Yeah.”
She comes up beside me. “Thanks for coming here with me.”
“There’s nowhere else I’d rather be,” I tell her honestly. I glance around at the tall trees reflected in the water. “You should paint this.”
“I should. It’s gorgeous.”
“Sanctuary.” There’s a long pause as I have an epiphany. “Hmm.”
“What?”
I take in the peaceful view before me. “I never thought a wide-open space would give me the same feeling as the treehouse.”
“Yeah.” She smiles at me and we go quiet for a long time, just soaking it in, and letting it soothe our souls. A bird flies overhead and squawks, breaking the moment. “Want to race back in?” she asks.
“Depends.”
“On what?”
I wag my eyebrows, and go into playful mode. “What does the winner get?”
She taps her chin. “How about this. If I win, and you lose, I get to do whatever I want with you for the next hour.” She points to me. “If you win and I lose, you get to do whatever you want with me for the next hour.”
“In no world would that be considered losing for me, Sunshine,” I say and her soft laugh wraps around me and strokes my dick.
“You agree to the terms, then?”
“You bet I do.” I start to paddle, but she dips the end of hers into the water and splashes me, throwing me off to get a head start. I swipe at my face as her laughter curls around me. “You’re going to pay for that.”
She’s squealing when I catch up to her, and she tries to splash me again, but she’s laughing so hard, having so much fun, she starts to wobble and loses her pace.
I pass her by. “See you on the dock, where I get to do all kinds of dirty things to you.” My heart pounds a little harder. God, I love seeing her happy like this. I make it to the shore, jump out and drag my kayak up onto dry land. I walk to the end of the dock and stand there with a gloating, shit-eating grin on my face as I think about all the things my fingers and tongue are going to do to her. I shove my hands into my pockets, and admire everything about her—especially the pleasure on her face—as she paddles in.
She points to me. “You cheated.”
“You’re the one who cheated, not me.” I lift my arms and flex my biceps. “It’s these guns that gave me the edge,” I joke, just to pull a laugh from her, and she rewards me with one. She drags her kayak ashore, and catching me by surprise, she comes running at me and jumps into my arms, her legs around my waist and arms around my neck. I slide my hands around her ass, and hold her to me as her lips find mine. She kisses me, deeply, and my body reacts the way it always does when she’s near, or not near. I don’t even want to think about how many times I’ve jacked off to fantasies with her in mind.
A groan filled with need crawls out of my throat, and her lips linger close to mine as she cups my cheeks and says, “I’m so glad you enjoyed kayaking.”
“That’s not what’s making me moan, Sunshine.” She chuckles, and it’s so obvious that she loves toying with me. “I have to say, I love that we’re the only two people in the world right now.”
“I love it too.”
I open my mouth about to say, I love you, but catch myself. What the hell? I guess I must be caught up in the moment, because love has no place in this situation. We have the weekend, not a future. I’d be wise to remember that.
I put my mouth close to her ear, worried she can read what I’m feeling on my face. “I won.”
“That’s because I let you.”
I chuckle, and her body vibrates in my arms. “Is that because you want me to have my way with you?”
“I really like that you’re a quick learner.”
“What would you say to me stripping you right here on the dock and putting my cock in you?”
Her chest rises with a deep breath, and a flush of heat crawls up her neck. She blinks innocently at me and shrugs. “What can I say? I can’t break the terms now, especially after I was the one who set them.” Her legs slide down my body until she’s standing, and my cock is so damn hard it’s straining against my jeans. Tease that she is, she rubs against me, fully aware of my arousal.
“Take off your clothes,” I growl.
She draws her bottom lip into her mouth and glances around. We’re secluded. Unless someone on the other side of the lake has binoculars, no one can see us. I wouldn’t let her strip if I thought there was a chance of anyone else seeing her. I don’t want anyone other than me looking at her gorgeous body. She backs up and reaches for the hem of her T-shirt, ready to tug it off.
“Slow.”
“Oh,” she murmurs. “You want to watch, huh?”
“Yeah.”
She wiggles her curvy hips and leisurely drags her shirt up over her stomach, chest and head. I growl with want, and she gives me a demure yet sexy smile in response. Two seconds later, her bra joins her shirt on the dock. She takes her gorgeous breasts into her hands and squeezes them together, and my cock jumps, aching to slide between her creamy cleavage. I am so going to fuck her tits.
“Nice…” I murmur.
She unbuttons her jeans and I rip into my pants, freeing my cock. She grins as I take my dick into my hand and stroke it. It’s crazy how hard I am. We fucked last night and she sucked my cock this morning. Nevertheless, I can’t get enough of her.
“You have the nicest tits. I might have to fuck them.”
She gasps and wets her thumb to run it over one pebbled nipple, and I nearly shoot off in my hand. Turning slightly to shake her sweet ass at me, she kicks off her shoes, slides her tight pants to her feet, and tosses them away. Her fingers go to the band of her panties.
“Stop,” I command softly, and she fully turns to me, and arches a questioning brow. I quickly close the distance between us, and slide my hand between her legs. Her heat scorches me, and I love finding her so hot and ready.
“I loved this sweet mouth of yours wrapped around my dick, but you know what I’m going to love even more?”
“What?” she asks, her voice breathless as my finger shapes her lips.
“My mouth.” I tug her panties to the side, and push a finger into her. She gasps. “Right here.”