#Poser Read online

  I rubbed against his stiffness and purred, “Sleep is overrated.”

  He groaned. “We got a week before classes start, Blondie. I plan to take full advantage of that week.”

  I hurried to go close up. The picture he painted was exactly what I’d been hoping for almost from the minute he left.

  I guess if summer had to end, if reality had to return, spending my last few days of freedom with Braeden was definitely the way to go.

  And all my worries, fears, and unknowns could wait.

  Chapter Two

  Braeden

  Since I could remember, green had always been my favorite color.

  But when I walked into the store tonight, her sapphire eyes lit up when she saw me, and the way they looked…

  Maybe blue was my favorite color now.

  I was prepared to miss Ivy while I was gone, but I’d missed her a hell of a lot more than I thought I would. Training camp for the Wolves wasn’t that long, and it usually flew by. It was usually something I looked forward to. But this year, I looked forward to being done.

  Don’t get me wrong. I loved football. I probably always would. But Ivy was rivaling the way I felt about the sport. Ivy was rivaling for first place in my life.

  Hell, she already had it in my heart.

  When she saw me tonight and I watched her face shift and the emotion flood her eyes, I felt like the fucking man. I always thought being wanted, being eye candy to a bunch of girls, was as good as it got.

  I was wrong.

  Being the center of one girl’s—the right girl’s—universe was incomparable.

  But…

  Even through the bliss of the moment¸ of finally getting her back in my arms, I still noticed. She had dark circles beneath her eyes. And just before she looked up and saw me, I noticed something else.

  Something was weighing on my girl.

  That wasn’t okay with me. Ivy wasn’t the kind of girl to be weighed down. She was light. She was bright.

  I thought about demanding to know what was going on, but I didn’t. I kept my trap shut. I wasn’t going to let it get in the way of us finally being in the same room together.

  Not like it was very hard to let it go. The way she looked when I gave her that necklace, the same way the sky shone when the sun broke out from behind a cloud, it chased away all thought of everything else.

  I always thought Ivy was high maintenance. That she was the kind of girl who would exhaust a man just by breathing.

  I was a damn idiot.

  Ivy might appear that way. She might give that impression with her light-blond locks, glossy lips, and sassy little outfits, but Ivy wasn’t what she appeared.

  Deep down, she was simple. It didn’t take much at all to make her happy. All she really wanted was to be important to someone, for someone to think she was special.

  I could give her that with no effort at all. But I wanted to give her more. She deserved it, and I fucking loved to see the look on her face when I did something she didn’t expect.

  I also loved to see the look in her eye when I moved inside her.

  As if she could feel the rousing within me, the rush of heat through my limbs, her body stirred in my hold. Her leg slid across my skin, fitting itself between mine. Her cheek was against my chest, but her head tilted back, and I looked down into her sleepy bedroom eyes.

  “I fell asleep,” she murmured.

  I pulled her just a little closer. “Well, I have kept you busy.”

  She smiled. “You didn’t sleep?”

  “For a while,” I whispered and brushed the hair off her face. I let my fingers travel down the length of her spine and then back up again.

  Truth was I didn’t want to sleep. I wanted to be here in the moment with her. I wanted to listen to her breathe soundly and enjoy the way her skin brushed against mine. What I had with her, what I felt with her, was something I never thought I’d have. Something I never thought I wanted.

  But she changed all that, and now I couldn’t imagine my life without this.

  I glanced back down at her. “You sleep okay?”

  “Mmm.” She arched against me. “Better than I have in weeks.”

  Was she still having nightmares? Was she still dreaming about Zach?

  “Go back to sleep.” I pressed my lips to her forehead. “I’ll stay here with you.” My words were a lot gentler than my thoughts. Goddamn, when would they stop? When would what he did stop haunting her? She was probably so confused.

  “I’m starving.” Her hand brushed across my abs and seemingly distracted her from food. “You’re even more muscular than before you left.”

  “You like?” I rumbled.

  I felt her smile against me. “Mm-hmm.”

  My eyes drifted closed as she caressed my waist. “Training was tough,” I murmured. I pushed myself hard, harder than usual. There wasn’t one reason; there were many.

  She leaned across me, her wheat-colored silky strands spilling across my chest like ribbons. Her lips were warm and her tongue was soft as she pressed kisses along the ridges of my abs and down the muscles on my hips.

  I had the urge to fist my hand in her hair and direct her hot little mouth exactly where I wanted it to go. But I curbed the urge. I curbed a lot of my urges around her; not all of them, just the ones I thought would be too rough.

  “Whatcha doing down there?” I rasped.

  “Kissing it and making it better,” she murmured between well-placed kisses.

  My stomach muscles contracted, and she licked around my belly button. I groaned. I was gonna ask what she was making better, but who the fuck cared?

  “Are your muscles still sore?” she asked, looking up at me.

  It took a minute for the question to penetrate my sex-fogged brain. She thought my muscles were sore from training. I guess they were. Hell, I hadn’t noticed.

  “Nah, but I got an itch that only you can scratch.” My smile was lazy, and I wagged my eyebrows at her.

  She giggled. The action caused her bare chest to rub against me. Ivy slid down my body a little farther and prepared to pull the sheets up over her head. I grabbed the ends and yanked them away.

  Her blue eyes rounded and glanced up.

  “I wanna watch,” I explained.

  A seductive smile curved her full mouth, and her hand reached for my hard cock. I’d already had her four times since last night, but it still wasn’t enough. I thought momentarily about pulling her up and anchoring her on my shaft, but the thought died the second her lips wrapped around it.

  She was probably sore by now anyway…

  This girl gave a blowjob like nobody’s business. She used her lips, tongue, and teeth simultaneously to create some kind of vortex that sucked me right in.

  And when she looked up at me while she moved, blond hair around her face and sapphire eyes full of passion, I had to remind myself not to come right then.

  “Damn, baby,” I moaned, tipping my chin back and closing my eyes. I surrendered to her completely, something I never used to do.

  I was no stranger to sex, to women and getting my knob slobbed, but I always held part of myself back. I always stayed in control. But with Ivy, the sensations she brought over my body using her hands and mouth made holding back impossible.

  Release came too fast, but it could not be derailed. I felt myself explode into her mouth, and I covered my face with a pillow to muffle the sound of my satisfied shout. My sis was in this house after all.

  Even after I emptied, she still stayed between my legs. She worked my now semi-hard cock, massaging it with her lips and making sure she claimed every last drop of pleasure I had in me.

  I tossed the pillow away and blew out a breath, staring up at the shadowed ceiling. It was covered in glow-in-the-dark stars. The ones I filled her dorm room with last semester. They were dim now, but I could still see their outline. Gently, Ivy laid my relaxed manhood against me and patted it.

  A chuckle vibrated my chest. “He’s not a dog.”
<
br />   “But he’s a very good boy.”

  She collapsed on top of me, and I wrapped my arms around her. A second later, she stiffened and looked up. “Where’s Prada?”

  Usually that dog tried to squish herself between us the entire night. “She heard Rim moving around down in the kitchen and was scratching at the door. I let her out, so she’s probably downstairs.”

  “I’m gonna take a shower,” she said after a few minutes. “Then go feed her.”

  “You have to work today?” I asked, not wanting to get out of bed.

  Her head shook against me. “I took it off ‘cause I knew you’d be home.”

  “You mean you’re all mine today?”

  She grinned over her shoulder as she bounced out of the bed. “Yep.” I enjoyed watching her shake that naked ass around the room as she went to drawers and pulled out some clothes. When she was done, she bent over—if her ass wasn’t the finest on Earth, then I’d never seen an ass before—and picked up my T-shirt.

  It fell past her thighs once she had it on. Then she grabbed up her clothes. “Have I mentioned how much I like not sharing a bathroom with a bunch of other girls?”

  I smiled lazily, thinking about all the naked ladies in the same room together. “Couldn’t have been that bad.”

  She threw her socks at me, and I caught them. “Now, baby,” I admonished. “You know you’re my favorite girl.”

  “I better be your only girl,” she cracked and reached for the door handle. She tossed her hair over her shoulder and looked back. “I’ll be in the shower. Alone.”

  “Was that an invite?” I called after her.

  She slammed the door against my words.

  I grinned. I loved pissing her off.

  I figured if I jumped up and followed her right away, she’d throw something else at my head, and as tempting as that was, I decided to give her a few. Besides, lying around in bed was hella nice. At camp, we were up before the damn roosters and worked our asses off ‘til dark.

  It had been weeks since I had the chance to lie in bed just because. Not that I would want to at camp. Those beds were rock hard. Besides, lying around would have given me too much time to think.

  It was weird enough without Rome at camp. First time I’d been to football camp without him. It helped a little knowing he was at camp too, just a different one. But I still missed his presence.

  So I stayed busy. I tried not to notice the Romeo-sized gap on the field and worked hard not to think about all the other shit that chained itself around my neck at the end of last semester. I pushed myself. I ran drills. I worked in the gym.

  All the mental distraction sure was good for the physical part of me.

  ‘Course, I knew eventually there wasn’t gonna be anything left to distract me.

  Oh, and by the way, the walls in here weren’t pink. Or purple.

  My girl knew better than that.

  She just wanted me to spank her ass.

  Naughty thing.

  The walls were still the same color they were when I left, a neutral shade of light tan or something. On the back wall, there were two large windows that overlooked the driveway and front yard, covered with white wooden blinds. And while I was gone, Ivy hung curtains.

  Curtains were for women. We never hung that shit in the dorms. Hell, I wouldn’t even have them in my old room at Mom’s if she hadn’t hung them.

  At least these weren’t lace or covered in hearts or something equally girlish.

  I knew my girl liked pink, but thank God she kept it under control in here. The curtains had wide white and green stripes on them. It was a girly green, kind of like a bright shade. But it wasn’t so bad I would complain.

  The bed was done up in mostly white. White sheets, blankets, and pillows. Of course, there were a million pillows we didn’t even sleep with. She tossed them on the floor when we got in bed at night. What the hell was the point in that?

  She said they made the bed look pretty.

  All I needed to make it look pretty was her naked ass in it, but whatever.

  Some of those useless pillows were the same color as the green stripes on the curtains, and then there was one (I counted to be sure) hot-pink pillow. And it was furry.

  She tried to tell me it was for Prada. I knew damn well she just liked it.

  But I wasn’t gonna complain about that either.

  I’d rather eat toenail clippings from a guy who never washed his feet than admit I kind of liked her girly shit. I liked anything that reminded me of her. I liked walking into this room and seeing her everywhere. Most of all, I liked knowing she was mine.

  The running water in the shower across the hall caught my attention, and I smiled.

  I threw on a pair of basketball shorts before heading toward the door. I was momentarily distracted from my destination when a ball of fluff came racing down the hallway toward me.

  I grunted and looked down at the rat.

  Her light-colored ear hair was all over the place and sticking out wildly, her entire butt was wiggling with the force of her tail wagging, and her dark eyes were intent on me.

  “Hey, Gizmo,” I called, using the nickname I’d given her, which drove Ivy nuts.

  Giz put her two front paws up on my leg and wagged her butt some more. I laughed and scooped her up to scratch behind her ears.

  “Good looking out this morning,” I told her as I scratched. “Giving me some alone time with my girl.”

  She licked me.

  “Dog breath,” I muttered and set her back down on the floor. She raced off into the bedroom, no doubt toward the mountain of toys Ivy bought her.

  I let myself in the bathroom and turned the lock silently. I could see Ivy moving around behind the curtain, and I shucked my shorts and tossed them on the floor.

  The air in here was moist, almost humid, and the mirror was already fogging up. She was humming to herself. I went to the edge of the shower and slid the curtain back barely enough for me to step in.

  She had her face under the spray, and ribbons of water cascaded down over her shoulders and back.

  She was just way too sexy not to touch.

  I reached out and grabbed her by the waist, meaning to tow her back against me.

  But she never made it.

  Ivy’s body went rigid so fast it was almost like her body spasmed. A low shriek vibrated her throat, and she lurched forward.

  “No!” The protest was almost a moan, the fear in her voice real.

  I jerked back immediately, letting go. I must have been too rough. I must have hurt her.

  I started to apologize, but the words died in my throat because the force in which she pulled away and the fact she was soapy and standing in water wasn’t a good combination.

  Ivy slipped forward, plunging toward the shower wall and the large silver knob that jutted out.

  “Whoa,” I gasped and quickly recovered the space between us. I caught her just before she fell and would likely smack her head on the knob.

  Her body went rigid again, but I didn’t let go this time. This time I was ready for her. I pulled her back, bringing her body up against mine, and stepped so we were out of the spray.

  I could feel her trembling in my arms, and it scared me.

  “Easy now,” I said in her ear. “You’re okay. I’m not gonna hurt you.”

  “Braeden.” She said my name on a relieved sigh and went boneless against me.

  “Right here, baby,” I whispered. “I’m right here.”

  She turned, pressing herself as close to me as she could get, and when I didn’t tighten my arms (for fear I’d freak her out again), she whimpered. “Tighter.”

  I tucked her as close against me as possible. She buried her face in my chest, and another shiver worked its way down her spine.

  I stared at the falling water over her head, right through it and at the wall.

  Concern, alarm, and anger warred within me.

  I wasn’t exactly sure what the fuck just happened.


  But I was pretty sure all those distractions I’d just been thinking about were long gone.

  I was pretty sure this wasn’t just a case of her being startled.

  No.

  It was much, much more.

  Chapter Three

  Ivy

  I didn’t hear him.

  I didn’t think.

  I just reacted.

  People get scared every day. Things happen to startle everyone. But even those with the most focused concentration don’t ever react that way.

  Violently.

  Almost like they’re being attacked.

  There was something wrong with that reaction.

  With my reaction.

  It threw me, and I stood there pressing myself as close to Braeden as I possibly could until the feeling of sheer panic went down the drain with the water.

  I pulled back enough to apologize. He probably thought I was certifiable. Yet when our eyes met, he wasn’t freaked out. He seemed almost scared. It wasn’t a look Braeden often wore. It threw me off balance even more.

  He cupped my cheek, and without thinking, I turned my face into his palm.

  “Did I hurt you?”

  “No,” I replied immediately. Braeden was gentle when he touched me, and just then had been no different. “I—” I glanced away and then back. “I don’t know why I acted like that.”

  His brown eyes studied me, like he was trying to see everything I wasn’t saying. But there was nothing to see because I honestly couldn’t understand why I acted that way. It was like my body went into flight mode and only wanted to get away.

  Only there wasn’t anything to get away from.

  “I’m sorry,” I whispered, confusion and a little despair in my tone.

  Both his hands took my face and held me firm so he could stare at me intently. “You didn’t do anything wrong. You don’t need to apologize.”

  Goose bumps rose across my skin. Standing here out of the spray of warm water was making me cold.

  Braeden turned us and stepped back so he was far enough under the water to warm us both, but his broad shoulders kept it out of my eyes.

  “I should have told you I was in here,” he muttered, almost like he was scolding himself. He ran a hand across my shoulder and down my arm. “I’ll get out and let you finish.”