Dolce (Love at Center Court #2) (37 page)

“Wore my lucky underwear today,” he said with a wink.

“Are they working?”

“Oh yeah,” he breathed out, and then he was on me. He dunked his finger in the cake and placed some on my tongue. I lapped it up. He went back for more, but ended up knocking the cake on the floor.

My eyes grew wide and we both leaned over the side of the bed to see the cheesecake smashed onto the hardwood floor. When our gazes met, we laughed.

“Fuck it,” he said. “I’d rather have your sweet any day.”

Sliding down my body, he sent his tongue on a path to my heat. With the tip of it, he traced my folds, finally landing on my clit. I moaned loud and long.

“Hurry,” I urged him, but he didn’t.

He took his own sweet time on me, wringing two orgasms out of me before crawling back up my body.

“Want you,” he whispered in my ear.

“I need you to roll on your back first.”

He grinned at me. “Do you now?”

“Yes.”

He did as I asked and I moved down his chest, my hand roaming the hard planes and my finger swirling his flat nipples. He lifted his hips so I could slide off his lucky briefs, giving me a glimpse of what I wanted.

His dick bobbed as pre-cum dripped, and I wrapped my hand around it and jacked him up and down. I watched his head loll back on the pillow and his mouth open on a moan before I lowered my own head. My mouth found him, and I sucked gently on his length before picking up the pace. When his hips lifted toward my mouth, I pulled stronger on the tip with my lips, sucking and now jacking harder with my hand.

It was sensual and hot and beautiful all at the same time, not the least bit raunchy or distasteful. I felt sexy and wanted as he continued to pump into my mouth.

“Cate, this isn’t how I want it to end right now, honey,” Blane mumbled. He grabbed my shoulders and hoisted me back up his body, his mouth meeting mine.

I brought my knees up and straddled him until his tip hit my clit, and a loud groan escaped me at the skin-on-skin contact there.

Catching his eye, I breathed out, “I’m on the pill.”

“I’m clean.”

He brought his hand down to where we almost met and positioned himself. I slowly lowered on him, taking my time, and he grabbed my ass and held me in place. We stilled for a moment, both of us savoring the feel of being bareback for the first time.

“Ecstasy,” he muttered. “Better than the ’ship.”

“Oh, please,” I said on a smile.

I started to move, riding him with abandon, our mouths fused until we broke the kiss and I moved faster. His hand rested on my hip, guiding my pace, his hips lifted off the bed and meeting my thrusts until he said, “I’m close.”

His hands roamed my body, scorching my side cleavage and finding purchase on my breasts. He held them, grazing the nipples with his thumbs as he stared directly into my eyes. His focus said it all.

He was all mine.

The thought of him coming inside me with no condom, a first for me, set me off. My whole body sparked and tingled as Blane finished inside me, pumping until he was completely spent. Slumped over him, I didn’t want to get up, but I was dripping.

“Let me clean you up,” Blane murmured. “Then we’ll cuddle a while until I recover.”

“What about the scones?” I scooched up on the pillow while he walked toward the bathroom.

“They’re not going anywhere. Like you,” he said over his shoulder.

Blane

Late June, nearly a year later

“B
lane Steele, your team just won the NBA finals. Where are you going now?”

I was leaning against the guest lockers in the Phoenix arena; we were on the road and had just clinched the national title in game five. I hadn’t showered yet, and my sweatband was still stuck to my matted hair. I could smell myself and it wasn’t pretty, which made it hard to believe this idiot actually wanted to stand near me.

Excitement and nervous energy swam through my veins. I wanted to get home and wasn’t in the mood for the interview. I’d hated being interviewed ever since Sonny and his dare—although that had ended well for me.

Fucking around with the guy, I asked, “Why do you ask?”

His brows drew together. “Well, you live near, you know . . . the place,” he prompted, encouraging me to say the words he wanted to hear so we could both get paid.

Truth was, I was going to Disney.

I gazed upward and snapped my fingers. “You know, that place with the guy with the big ears. What’s it called?”

“You don’t know? You live in the same city.” He raised his eyebrows at me.

“Disney! That’s it, that’s where I’m going.”

Mark, the reporter, gulped, relieved I’d come through. Disney was probably paying for his trip here.

“Seriously, dude, I’m going to Disney World . . . I live in Orlando. We all are; the victory parade will be there later this week. Wait, one second.” I grabbed his mic and looked straight at the camera. “Cate, honey, meet me at the castle,” I finished with a wink. She’d know what I meant.

I handed Mark back his mic. “Okay, you want to talk about the game? I have a plane to catch.”

“What do you attribute your success on the road to? You’ve had a tremendous season on the road.”

“We’re all very serious right now about ball. I wish I could say more, other than we’re hungry for it and go after what we want.”

My hair dripped sweat down my forehead, and I pushed my sweatband up. I was going to have to frame this bad boy; it had brought me a lot of luck.

As for being hungry, we were. As the resident loudmouth, I kept the team on track, spouting shit all the time about staying healthy and being ready to win.

Yes, I’d gone out and bought a big mansion and spent a ton of cash doing a few things—like buying my mom a condo, paying in advance for Cate’s tuition, building other crap, traveling and eating at the best places—but I knew what the other side of the coin looked like. I wasn’t going back there. I needed a job, and that was playing ball. To do that, I had to be on top of my game.

Pun intended
.

Mark was rambling on and on about a certain pass of mine to a teammate for a dunk, and how many times I’d gone to the line. I kept nodding and smiling. I hadn’t loved the media after what they had done to Cate and me in college, which was ironic considering she was part of the media now. At some point, I’d have to make my peace with the mic.

My girl had just graduated early and scored a gig on cable TV. HBO—
no shit
—had hired her to do a series on women. It would mean travel for her and me, which would require extra planning on both our parts.

Mostly, I had to get back to Orlando right now. I needed to do something and fast.

I wrapped up the interview, hit the shower, dressed in my suit, and tried not fidget through the press conference. Then I rushed to the plane.

With the time change and the long flight, it was morning by the time we touched down in Orlando, and I knew Cate would be drinking her coffee and waiting for my text. She couldn’t travel to the game for a good reason, but I had to hurry up with my current plan. When the team landed at the airport, we were swept up in Lincoln Navigator limousines and shuttled to the arena where our personal cars waited.

I fiddled with my pocket the whole ride, my knee bouncing and my head pounding. I hoped I’d make it in time.

A sea of people waited in a cordoned-off area as the Navigators pulled around back of the arena. I wasn’t in the mood, but I waved to the fans through the window and smiled. There were posters and streamers, and confetti flew through the air, some landing on the windshield of the limo. When we hit the end of the route and the driver threw the limo in
PARK
, I jumped out and booked it to my truck.

With no time to waste, I peeled out of the lot and off to my destination. The guys knew what I was up to . . . I’d see them at the celebration parade.
Hopefully.

Rounding the golf course toward to our house, I turned into the driveway, passed the garage, and drove down a newer gravel path. I stopped in front of a barn. We called it our castle
mostly because
of the cylinder-shaped chimney, and the lagoon that wrapped around the far edge looked like a moat. But this was also Orlando, and everything was make-believe here.

I’d surprised Cate with the barn when she returned from her first HBO interview. I’d had the whole thing framed while she was away, and then we watched it be built together. It was the most perfect place to celebrate with Cate, and I wanted to spend as much time as possible back there before we couldn’t.

I jumped out of the truck and ran for the door, stopping short when I saw Cate standing there, round and plump and glowing in the doorway. Yep, I’d knocked my girl up pretty damn fast. It was an accident, I guessed you could say, but we didn’t care. We were excited.

“Hey, baby.” I closed the distance to run my hand over her distended belly. When she just smiled, I looked up and said, “Oh. Hey, Cate,” and kissed my girl, prompting her to smack my arm while kissing me.

She was the first to pull away. “Nice game,” she said with a wink.

“Did you watch?”

“I caught a few minutes,” she said, squeezing my hip.

The doctors gave a firm no when she asked about traveling to the game. She was eight months pregnant and at just a tad over five feet tall, she pretty much looked like she was going to explode. The flight was too long and if she went into labor there, she would likely have the baby in another state without her own doctors.

After Mo had talked some sense into me, I tried to let it go. When I thought about what he went through with their baby, I realized it wasn’t worth dragging Cate with us. But I was still a wreck over potentially missing my baby’s birth as we sang the national anthem.

Our assistant coach—a female, by the way—came up to me right before the tip and said, “Shut it down, Steele. If she goes into labor, we’ll win and you’ll go straight there. But she wants you to win.”

I’d nodded, realizing she was right, and then that’s what I did.

“Come on.” Cate tugged on my arm, dragged me inside, and pushed me onto the sofa. We didn’t sit on the floor anymore.

An array of food was spread out on the coffee table. She nabbed a scone and sat down to snuggle into my side, and my hand went straight to her belly.

Rubbing figure eights, I asked, “Sarina take good care of you?”

“Yep, I think she was kind of hoping for me to have the baby. I think she misses that stage or something.”

“Everything work out with her staying here? Her little guy sleep okay?”

I used my free hand to move Cate’s hair behind her ear. When I bent to nibble on her lobe a bit, she leaned into my mouth.

“Yep, Sean had fun. He loved the guest room, and was super happy when Ri made pancakes in the morning. He likes his new school, and of course, thinks you’re a god. Pretty sure he volunteered you to come speak to his class.”

I laughed. “No problem.”

Sarina had moved to Florida after Christmas when Cate told her she was pregnant. She’d still been making movies in Ohio, but Cate wanted her to have more choices. I’d anonymously provided two scholarships to the same college Cate was finishing up at, and made sure Sarina was offered one. Now she was studying business and tended bar in the evenings at the Capital Grille. She made good money there from the business travelers and all my NBA buddies who went in.

“Glad she was here for you,” I told Cate, pressing a kiss to her cheek.

“She’s my family now. Your mom too,” Cate said matter-of-factly, and it was the truth.

Cate was still close with her dad. Anthony visited over Christmas, and I met him for the first time. Her mom and sisters were seething jealous over Cate’s new celebrity status. They couldn’t believe she’d landed a pro athlete, and were eaten up with jealousy. They mentioned it frequently in the beginning, but then we cut them off.

“By the way, your mom’s planning to stay here for a week when we have the baby,” she said.

“What about the dogs?” I clenched my jaw, thinking about the dogs she’d bring with her. We didn’t need all those pets in the house with a new baby. “And my dad?”

“Apparently, her new boyfriend is going to stay with the animals, and your dad’s going to come when the baby is a month old. I’ve got it all set. Plus, Ri is going to come with the baby and me on my first taping as an extra set of hands, and Sean’s going to stay with your mom.”