with the team, Gervais needed to cultivate a backup plan for injuries and for talent that didn’t pan out. That meant he needed to familiarize himself with what else was out there, which underrated players might need a new home with the Hurricanes before the October trade deadline.
A creak from the door behind him caused him to turn around in his seat. Erika was there, in the doorway. A bag of popcorn in one hand, with two sodas in the other.
She certainly was a sight for his tired eyes. He drank her in appreciatively, noting the way her bright pink sundress fit her curves, the gauzy fabric swishing when she walked. The halter neck was the sort of thing he could untie with a flick of fabric, and he was seized with the urge to do just that.
As soon as possible. Damn.
“I thought this could be like a date.” She gave him a sly smile, bringing her magnolia scent with her as she neared him, a lock of blond hair grazing his arm.
He took the sodas from her and set them in the cup holders on either side of the leather chairs in the media room.
“Well, then, best date ever.”
“That seems untrue.” Worry and exhaustion lined her voice. “I am sorry about my family arriving unexpectedly. And for how much time they are taking out of your workday.”
“It’s no trouble at all. They are my children’s grandparents. That’s huge.” Pausing the game, he gave her a genuine smile, conceding that he wouldn’t be giving the footage his full attention now. But he had notes on the talent across the league, of course. As an owner, he didn’t run the team alone.
And right now nothing was more important to him than Erika and his children.
Settling deeper into the chair beside him, Erika flipped her long hair in front of one shoulder and centered the bag of popcorn between them.
“I also appreciate how patient you have been. And my sisters loved the tours through New Orleans.” Erika leaned on his shoulder, the scent of her shampoo flooding his mind with memories of London. St. Louis. And last night. Making love, their bodies and scents and need mingling, taking them both to a higher level of satisfaction than he’d ever experienced.
Damn. He loved that. Loved that this smell made her present in his mind.
“Of course.” He breathed, kissed her head, inhaled the scent of her hair and thought of their shower together.
Her breath puffed a little faster from her mouth. She nibbled her bottom lip and gestured to the screen. “May I ask what you are doing?”
Gervais hit Play, a game springing to life. “Well, I have to get a feel for who is out there. I have a team to build. So I may have to replace my current rookies with some of these guys.”
Erika nodded. “And why is this so important to you? Why do you spend so much time on football when, according to the press, they are worth only a fraction of your overall portfolio?”
“Someone’s been doing her research,” he noted. Impressed.
“I was not joking when I told you that I am trying to figure out where to go from here. I am thinking through all possible paths.” Her blue gaze locked on him. “Including the one you have proposed.”
His chest ached with the need to convince her that was the best. But he restrained himself. Focused on her question.
“Why the focus on football?” he repeated, reaching into the popcorn bag for a piece to feed her. “My family is a lot like yours. They come with expectations. But I have my own expectations, and I’ve always wanted to carve out something that was all mine within the vast Reynaud holdings. Some success that I made myself, that was not handed to me. Does that make any sense?”
He presented her with the popcorn and she opened her lips. His touch lingered a bit longer than necessary against her soft mouth.
She chewed before she answered. “You want to stand on your own two legs?”
Gervais smiled inwardly. Her idiom use was so close. “Something like that. If I can stand on my own two feet, make this team into something...” His mind searched for the correct words.
“Then no one can take that away from you. It is yours alone.”
Gervais nodded, stroking her arm. “Exactly. I imagine that’s why you want your Master’s in Nursing so badly. So that is holistically yours.”
“Mmm,” she said, tracing light lines on his chest. “Very wise of you. You have been listening to me, I see.”
Her touch stirred him. Heat rushed through his veins as he set aside the remote.
“We are more alike than you think.” He curled an arm around her shoulders and drew her closer, his fingers skimming through her silky hair to the impossibly soft skin of her upper arm.
“Because we are both stubborn and independent?” She slid her finger into the knot of his tie and loosened the material.
“It’s more than that.” He wrenched the tie off, consigning the expensive Italian silk to the floor.
“We are both struggling to meet the expectations of too much helpful family?” She arched a pale brow at him, all the while fingering open buttons on his shirt.
The hell with waiting.
He slid an arm under her knees and lifted her up and onto his lap, straddling him. Her long sundress spilled over her thighs, covering her while exposing just the smallest hint of satin panties where she sat on his thighs.
“And we both need to lose ourselves in each other right now.” His fingers sifted through her hair, seeking the ribbon that secured the halter top of her sundress.
“You are correct,” she assured him, edging down his thighs so that their hips met.
Her breasts flattened to his chest.
A hungry groan tore from his throat.
He kissed her hard, his control fractured after so many days of thinking through every move with her, of strategizing this relationship like the most important deal of his life. Because while it was all that and more, Erika was also the hottest, most incredible woman he’d ever met, and he wanted her so badly he ached.
She met each hungry swipe of his tongue with soft sighs and teasing moans that threatened to send him right over the edge. Already, her fingers worked the fastening of his belt, her thighs squeezing his hips.
“This day has been too much,” she admitted, her whispered confession one of the few times she’d confided her feelings. “I need you. This.”
And he wanted to give it to her. Now and forever.
But he knew better than to rattle her with talk of forever. Understood she was still coming to terms with a future together. So he forced himself to be everything she needed right now.
Flicking free the tie at her neck, he edged away from the kiss just enough to admire the fall of the gauzy top away from her beautiful breasts. Her skin was so pale she almost glowed in the darkened theater, his tanned hands a dark shadow against her as he cupped the full
