There was only one thing Wells wanted in this life—and it was to fuck this woman.
He wanted to get her somewhere dark, tear down her panties, and bury his cock between her soft, sexy thighs. And for some infuriating reason, everyone and their mom wanted to stop him. A crowd followed him to the clubhouse when he turned in his scorecard. Reporters shoved microphones in their faces, using the C-word on a loop. Comeback. Comeback.
Is she responsible for your comeback?
Josephine, how do you feel about being a good luck charm for Wells Whitaker?
Will we see you at the Masters together?
If Wells was even remotely capable of responding with anything but please I need to come inside my caddie, he would have told them yes, Josephine was unequivocally responsible for his comeback. Two weeks ago, he was a corpse. He’d never expected to pick up another golf club as long as he lived. Now he had a beating pulse. A purpose. The potential revival of his career. His blood was flowing again.
He had hope, because of Josephine.
And he just wanted to worship her for all that he was worth. Praise her and get lost in her and . . . demand to know what the hell they were to each other.
That’s right—he wanted specifics.
Were they a golfer and caddie who incentivized sex as a strategy?
Stranger things had happened.
Maybe friends with benefits? Boyfriend and girlfriend?
Shit. He liked the sound of that last one. A lot. It was too soon, though, and what would it mean for their dynamic on the course? Would they have to keep their love life and golf separate in order to be ethical? In order to have a healthy relationship, in which she wasn’t constantly having to refocus him and talk him out of killing people?
Labeling what they had could complicate everything.
Josephine would have to be out of her mind to want to be his girlfriend, really.
Still, it had a nice ring to it.
Oooh. Rings.
Wow. Pump the brakes, man.
They were almost to the lobby of the hotel when a crowd swelled through the doors, holding up their phones to take pictures of Wells and Josephine.
They traded a pitiful glance and reversed direction.
Josephine laughed, stumbling a little as he pulled her along.
“What could possibly be funny at a time like this?” he demanded to know.
“You’re dragging me all over this family-friendly golf resort looking for a place to”—she waved a hand—“collect on our wager. There is something funny about it.”
“I promise you, Josephine, there is not.”
“Wait!” She yanked him to a stop on the path. Eyes wide, she slowly drew a single key out of the pocket of her skirt, holding it up to the light. Sun glinted off its majestic surface like the angels were ordaining it the new Holy Grail. “We’re forgetting I have my own bag room.”
“Where is that from here?” He pressed both thumbs into his eye sockets. “Christ, I’m so fucking horny, I’ve lost my sense of direction.”
“This way.”
“Fair warning, Josephine, I don’t even have two seconds of foreplay in me.”
“Aw, honey.” She batted her eyelashes at him over her shoulder. “I don’t need it.”
Wells’s tortured groan would echo on the pathway to the clubhouse for the next century. And it only grew louder when they saw that it was blocked by a group of autograph seekers.
“I know it’s wrong to wish for a flash flood to sweep them away, but . . .” Wells trailed off.
“Don’t do it.”
“Too late.”
“For shame, Wells—” Josephine broke off on an intake of breath. “Wait. There’s Ricky. I’ve got an idea.” Josephine waved at the caddie as he left the clubhouse and he changed direction to approach them, glancing between Josephine and Wells curiously.
“Ricky, remember that rare bearded dragon you were hoping to buy if Tagaloa finished high enough in the money?”
The young man smacked a hand over his chest. “Ouch, way to rub it in.”
“If you create a diversion for us, no questions asked, Wells will buy you that lizard.”
“I’ll buy you ten lizards,” Wells deadpanned.
“Done.”
Josephine’s friend ran in one direction shouting about a wet T-shirt contest in the hotel lobby and, miracle of miracles, the crowd migrated with him. Distraction in place, Josephine and Wells wasted no time running the remaining distance to the clubhouse, veering around the corner to where her personal bag room was located.
Josephine’s hands shook as she tried to put the key in the lock, so Wells took over, all but kicking the damn door open to get them inside. A couple of caddies caught them in the act of disappearing into the bag room together, but Wells couldn’t care less about the gawkers when this woman was in front of him, stripping off her white polo shirt as soon as the door was locked behind them. Her sports bra followed and she let it drop, and shook out her ponytail like a goddess, her tits bouncing around with the sultry movement.
Son of a bitch.
I’ve never needed anyone like this.
A few strokes of his cock and he could have come. Just from looking at her.
“Josephine,” he growled through his teeth, backing her toward the row of lockers, gripping her hips hard with both hands. “Your tits are ruining my life.”
Her back hit the lockers, rattling them. “In a good way?” she gasped.
“The first time I saw them, they were all wet and covered in bubbles. Swear to God, the image is burned into my fucking brain.” Massaging her hips in his hands, his tongue traveled the slope of her neck and shoulder, lips suctioning, teeth scraping. Her skin was like ripe fruit that had spent all day warming in the sun. Absolutely delicious. “It’s a crime that I haven’t had those nipples in my mouth yet, belle. Push up and let me suck them.”
Josephine arched her back on a stuttering exhale, elevating on her toes, but she was still too low because of their height difference. Desperate to get her closer as soon as humanly possible, Wells wedged a thigh between her legs and dragged her all the way to the top, straight up moaning over the warmth of her pussy through his pants and her underwear.
“Tell me you’ve got a bad ache between your legs,” he rasped, dropping his mouth to her tits and raking his tongue across one of the stiff peaks. “Tell me you need me to fix it.”
“Fix it,” she said, shivering. “Please. It’s bad.”
Gratification punched him in the middle. Honor. Responsibility. It wasn’t a small thing, to be the one this self-sufficient woman asked for relief. She was a kingdom—and she was handing him the keys. Make it count. His hands snuck around to her ass, taking hold of her firm cheeks so he could ride her up and down his thigh, her resulting whimper making his balls draw up painfully. “How long have you been wanting me inside you, Josephine?”
She blinked at him with lust-glazed eyes, her inner thighs tightening around his leg. “More and more since I’ve gotten to know you, Wells,” she whispered.
Oh.
Shit.
Invisible claws dug into his jugular, his heart hammering loudly in his ears. Maybe deep, deep down he’d wondered if Josephine was still harboring a star-crush on him. Maybe subconsciously, he’d worried that she was just fulfilling a fantasy. But that’s not what this was. They knew each other now. And the closer they’d gotten, the more she wanted him.
Same. He felt the same way about her.
The more he experienced Josephine, the more he required.
His chest damn near burned with the need to cave in, she’d unlocked so much hope and happiness. Unable to look at her without saying every last revealing word rattling around in his head, he focused on her breasts. Her swollen nipples, which wanted to be sucked on so bad. They were smooth and firm on his tongue, tightening the more he drew on them. Josephine writhed around on his thigh, sobbing when he flexed rhythmically beneath her pussy, his grip on her taut butt pulling her up and back, up and back.
It was worth every second of waiting. Worth ten millenniums of waiting, this woman.
“I think I’m close,” she hiccupped, a thread of disbelief in her tone.
“Mmmm. These nipples sensitive, Josephine?”
“Apparently, I . . .”
“You never had them sucked the right way?”
“Wells.”
“Come on my thigh, baby. No one is stopping you.” He dragged his tongue over to her other nipple and teased it with bats and licks, before pulling on it deeply and feeling her entire body vibrate against him. “You get to rub yourself off on my leg. I get to turn you around and hit that wet little pussy from the back for a while. Sound fair to you?”
She half laughed, half sobbed, her hips moving faster, shifting up, back, side to side. “Are you supposed to be talking to me like this?”
“I don’t know.” He delved his hands inside her panties, digging his fingers into the supple flesh of her backside, jerking her closer, closer, closer. “But if the way I talk gets you humping my thigh like a dirty girl, try and stop me.”
Josephine sucked in a breath and gripped the collar of his shirt, bending back in a clear request for more of his mouth on her nipples, and lord, he was all too happy to grant that wish. His cock turned into a fucking pike between his legs as he licked at those rosy tips, one of his fingers sliding down the cheeks of her ass to press a finger to her back entrance, something animalistic ripping through his insides when she mewled and rode his thigh with more urgency.
Oh, fuck. Fuck. Fuck.
She’s going to kill me.
“As soon as you’re done coming in your panties, belle, I’m going to put my cock inside you,” he said an inch from her ear. Sensing how close she was, Wells pushed more firmly against that breach between her cheeks and felt her begin to shake, her mouth falling open on a gasp of his name. “You sure about letting me come in it with no rubber?”
Her breath caught. “Yes,” she managed, before pitching into an orgasm, right there as he watched, her hands twisting in the front of his shirt, her mouth gasping against his lips—and he attacked it with a kiss, knowing she was in search of an anchor and honored, desperate, aching to provide her with one. Oh Jesus, she was fucking magnificent, grinding into his thigh and kissing him with a total lack of self-consciousness. In a way that made him feel like he’d dragged the world’s greatest treasure into the dark to selfishly keep and experience for himself—and hell, that’s exactly what he’d done, hadn’t he?
Mine.
Josephine, you’re mine.
Those big green eyes connected with his, nearly rocketing his heart out through his mouth. In a blind panic over what she made him feel, Wells slid her off his thigh, whipped her around to face the lockers, flipped up her skirt, and stripped her damp, twisted panties down to her ankles. “Kick them off, Josephine. Nothing to keep me from spreading your legs.”
While she did as he asked, flattening her palms on the locker in front of her, Wells unfastened his belt and lowered his zipper, hissing out a breath while traveling over the aching inches of his erection. Shoving his pants and briefs down to his knees, he trapped Josephine’s hips with his left forearm, drawing her up to the very tips of her toes, all while panting, panting, in anticipation of feeling this woman from the inside. He rubbed his cock against her slippery entrance, groaning hoarsely into the nape of her neck.
“Josephine . . .” He was almost afraid of the words that wanted to leave his mouth, but he closed his eyes and let them tumble out, anyway, because it was her. “This . . . you and me. We’re about more than golf. Or some incentive to win. We’re more than that. But tell me I earned you, anyway.” He pressed the head of his dick inside her, groaning through a gentle thrust and knew, instantly, that he’d never want to fuck another woman as long as he lived.
Call it intuition. Call it whatever you like, but the way Josephine held her breath and looked back at him over her shoulder, like she sensed some kind of radical shift in the atmosphere, was nothing short of life changing. She looked him right in the eye and whimpered as he pushed in every inch, deeper, deeper, until she was closed-mouth screaming.
An image of her walking down the aisle short-circuited his brain.
Made his pulse zigzag through his veins.
What the hell?
“Tell me,” Wells demanded raggedly.
“You earned me,” she murmured, squeezing him. “Have me however you want me.”
Wells didn’t need any more encouragement than that. He bent her over and banged her motherfucking brains out. What else was he supposed to do when her pussy felt like tight silk and she’d given him permission to come inside her? When she was using her leverage from the lockers to push back and meet his pumps, letting out horny little sobs of his name, her fingers busy playing with her clit? He couldn’t have gone slow to save the world.
Have me however you want me.
“I want you everywhere. All the time,” he rasped, breathing shallow, his hips slapping up against her incredible ass, watching it shake with a raw possessiveness that shocked him as much as it felt completely normal when it came to her. Only her. “Over and over and fucking over again, Josephine. I’ll earn this hot pussy every single time, if I have to.”
“You don’t,” she whispered.
And he wanted to hear her say that, watch her mouth form the words, so he wrapped her hair in a fist, drew her upright, and flattened the front of her body against the lockers. “Josephine?”
She turned her head, their mouths coming together like magnets. “Like you said, we’re more than a sport. Some incentive.” Heavy-lidded eyes searched his face. “Aren’t we?”
“Yes,” he exhaled, winded. From exertion. What was happening to him?
His emotions were cymbals crashing in his head and rib cage. He couldn’t make sense of them now. Just knew this woman was his only method of breathing. He needed air. And he could get the most oxygen from her pleasure, so he knocked her fingers out of the way and stroked her clit with his own fingers. Middle and ring. Circling and playing in the wetness of her cunt, the place where they joined, that button that made her thighs dance anxiously.
“There it is, baby, let it happen. Right there on my cock this time.”
“Oh my God, please God.”
“Yes? I’m listening.”
“Wells.”
He drove upward, bringing her tiptoes off the ground, his fingers strumming her clit in a blur. “God? Wells? Somebody is giving it to you good, Josephine, because you’re wet as fuck.”
She slapped the locker with both hands, struggling to get her feet on the ground for leverage, but he wouldn’t let her, instinct telling him she’d come harder if she didn’t have that piece of control, and he was right. Her muscles locked up, fingers curling into fists, and she convulsed around him so tightly, he had to bite her shoulder to keep from shouting the ceiling down.
Mother Mary.
It cost him an ocean’s worth of self-control to thrust deep and hold, letting her grind on his dick and draw out the pleasure, before he started pumping again.
“The things I’ll do to keep you coming back,” he growled into her neck. “Anything. God help me, I’ll do anything for more of this.”
She turned her mouth to meet his in a breathless kiss, her right hand leaving the locker, fingers spearing into the hair at the back of his scalp. Holding firmly while they devoured each other’s mouths. “Let me see you,” she whispered. “When you finish.”
He didn’t even know which part of his body was storing his heart right now. His stomach or his mouth. “That’s going to make you want more?”
“I . . . think . . . m-maybe feeling close to you would—”
Quickly, in the name of self-preservation, Wells cut Josephine off with his mouth, because if she kept talking like that, he was going to start making a lot of premature vows. I’ll never kiss anyone else. I’ll never touch anyone else. Or asking her to come to Miami tomorrow morning, instead of going home during the break between tournaments. So he could see what she looked like in his bathtub and take her for long walks on the beach during sunset.
Am I romantic now?
When did that happen?
Wells didn’t have a single clue. But if she wanted to look at him while he busted, it was the very least he could do.
Or so he thought. It was a lot more difficult than he imagined, in the sense that he could barely breathe in the face of so much intimacy.
She touched the tips of their tongues together and flexed her cunt—and he started naming saints. He wasn’t even Catholic. Didn’t realize he knew any of the saints, either. But he was obviously having some kind of religious experience, because the more she worked those muscles around his shaft, the more brilliant light flared at the edges of his vision, his body surging forward of its own volition, crushing her against the lockers. Hard. Thrusting. Thrusting.
“Oh Jesus. Sorry, baby. Sorry,” he ground out, the slap of flesh, her halting breaths, the firmness of her ass against his stomach, it all blew him into oblivion, but her turning to lock their gazes together while it happened was like having his soul ripped clean out. Everything was green, like her eyes.
His entire universe.
His entire existence came down to her. Little gold flecks and the scent of flowers and her unruly auburn hair.
The dramatic release of tension happened in his lower body, but higher, too. In his chest. He was releasing himself to her. Just handing everything inside him over, and he couldn’t stop, couldn’t stem the desperation to bond with Josephine permanently, and that need took the form of rutting her up against the locker, her knees crashing into the metal, his own fist pounding it out of pure savage ownership.
Not only that, he was being owned.
Such a simple request. To look at her when he came.
But it was easily the most intimate leap he’d ever taken in his life.
Then she smiled at him toward the end and everything just kind of exploded into place.
The final scrape of sexual frustration left him, for now, exiting on a tide of raw, unparalleled relief, filling her body, her body that received him so perfectly, stroking him with fine muscles and sleek flesh, squeezing to a tempo only they could hear. His spend slowly dripped back out, coating their joined flesh while he groaned, working into her even as his erection subsided, because he simply couldn’t stop, couldn’t quit trying to get as close as possible.
Nothing had ever felt better than this woman. Ever.
“What are you doing between now and the next tournament?” he asked into her neck, voice uneven. “Come to Miami. I have a bathtub.”
Color deepened on her cheeks. Wells just stared at the increase of pink in a total stupor. Like, how had he been living his life without realizing an angel was existing right under his nose?
“I . . . I mean, that sounds amazing,” she started, visibly caught off guard by his offer. And why wouldn’t she be? He’d just taken the postcoital leap from sex to spending nongolf time together. He’d prodded the relationship bear. At least she looked mildly interested in saying yes to coming to Miami. Right? “But I just . . . I really have to get repairs started on the shop—”
“Of course, you do,” Wells rushed to respond. “That’s . . . yeah. Obviously. The shop.” Wells slid out of Josephine with a wince and pulled up his pants. He might have taken a moment to enjoy looking at the mess he’d left on her inner thighs, but he was in this odd place of feeling possessive, bonded with her, exposed. Was this how women felt after sex? Emotionally skinned alive and needing some kind of label stamped on the whole situation that said permanent?
Fuck, it was terrible.
Wells backed into the small bathroom and found a hand towel, returning to clean her up, compelled by some almighty force to kiss her shoulders as he did so.
All right, she didn’t want to come to Miami. Maybe he could go to her? Help fix up the Golden Tee? But what if she wanted distance from him in between tournaments? Considering he was a mega asshole 90 percent of the time, that would be completely reasonable.
Why did the thought of Josephine wanting distance make him feel queasy?
He’d just test the waters to find out where they stood. “Today is Sunday. We’ll need to leave for the Dominican Republic on Wednesday. That doesn’t give you much time to sort out repairs on the shop.” He let out a breath he’d been holding. “Maybe you need some help—”
“The Dominican Republic?”
Josephine had gone pale.
Wells’s brows drew together. “That’s the location of the next tournament.”
“Oh my God.” She pressed a hand to her forehead, slumping back against the lockers. “Wells, I’m such a ding-dong.”
“I promise you, that’s not true.”
“I don’t have a passport.” She opened her mouth, closed it. “My parents were always afraid to take me out of the country in case we lost my supplies or had an emergency . . . I just . . . it never even occurred to me we’d have to leave the States.” She crossed her arms over her tits, like maybe she was cold, so he found her bra and shirt, handing them to her, watching in fascination as she worked tiny, little clasps and straps, eventually pulling the garment on over her head. “I totally understand if you want to find a different caddie—”
His insides nearly became his outsides. “What?”
“Just for the next tournament.”
Why did his pulse feel like it was going to pound straight through his skin? “It’s you and me, Josephine. Or nothing. Period.”
“But you won’t be able to play in the next tournament,” she pointed out. “There’s no way to get a passport in three days.”
“Then I’ll withdraw, and we’ll skip it.” He thought for a moment, which was very hard to do when she’d just proposed that he find another caddie. “California is on the schedule after the Dominican Republic. We’ll pick up there.”
“But Wells.”
“This conversation is over, Josephine.”
She glared up at him, stubbornness on full display, and he couldn’t stop himself from bringing their foreheads together, rolling right, then left. Licking gently into her mouth and kissing her, increasing the rhythm in degrees until their lips were moving at an eager tempo, her hands fisting in the front of his shirt in a way that proved she was affected as much as Wells, thank God. “A week and a half should give you time to make decent headway on the shop,” he said gruffly, their lips damp and rubbing together. “I’m only sorry you’re going to miss me so much.”
She laughed softly. Shook her head at him.
What the hell did that mean?
Was it laughable that she could miss him?
Probably.
Definitely.
Maybe he needed a week and a half to get his heart in check. Because he’d most definitely fallen harder than a motherfucker for this woman, and he had no idea if she wanted anything with him beyond a professional relationship . . . that occasionally involved life-altering, rating-scale-shattering sex.
How was he going to last a week and a half without knowing where they stood?
God, she’s beautiful. Those eyes. Her voice. Everything about her.
Nope.
A week and a half wasn’t happening. Life would be hell without some clarity. So he was getting some. Tonight.
“Is your flight in the morning?”
“Yes,” she responded. “Early.”
“Mine, too. Have a drink with me, tonight? We deserve to celebrate.”
His invitation seemed to relieve her, lines softening around her mouth. Was that promising? “Yes. I’d . . . like that,” she said, beaming up at him.
That’s when he knew.
Holy shit, he was going to ask this woman—his caddie—to be his girlfriend.
