I passed on forty-five million dollars and probably a championship title.
You’d think that would be the first thing I thought about when I woke up this morning, since I can still hear Jared’s damn voice screeching in my head.
Nope.
This moment. This moment right here is the first thing I’ve thought about every morning for the last three weeks. I had so many ideas about the way it could go, but I thought the flower was my best bet. It would remind her that, though we haven’t ever been a couple, we have a history and an undeniable connection. That every time we’ve been together, we’ve gone deeper and known each other better. There is an August and Iris, and I’m ready to go all in on it. I’m sure that by the end of my life, I, like most people, will have a stack of regrets and “wish I hads,” but Iris DuPree won’t be one of them. Even if things don’t ultimately go the way I’d like them to, I won’t regret trying.
She’s too worth it.
“August?”
Shock and pleasure and confusion march across her expressive face in quick succession. She stands, the Louisiana iris held between her fingers, and I get my first full look at her in more than a year.
Sweet Jesus.
My eyes rove her from head to toe, taking in every minute detail. Except for the night we met, her hair has always been straight, but it’s not today. It’s longer, untamed waves flowing down her back and almost reaching her elbows. Thick, dark coils cling possessively to the silky curve of her throat and to her arms, touching all the places I hope to claim. Those eyes, flecked with autumn—amber, gold and green—startle me with their clarity under a dense sweep of sooty lashes and brows. Her skin has this glow. She’s always been beautiful, but there’s some new dimension to her. I can’t put my finger on it, but it adds this layer of irresistibility, and I clench my fists so I won’t reach for her.
My eyes drop to her mouth. It’s too soon to kiss her. There are explanations and questions and details. There’s all of that shit, but really, I want to set it all aside and just devour her mouth. I want to suck those lips between mine, plunge my tongue down her throat, and lick around until I’ve sampled every hot, slick inch of her.
I hazard a glance below her neck.
Holyyyyyyy shit.
Iris has one of those bodies. She’s one of those women men recall in perfect detail years after they’ve seen her. Even a glimpse would burn an impression into your memory. But to stop there is to literally skim the surface because under the fineness of her skin and the unflawed shape of her lives an opulence of spirit—a richness of strength you could overlook if you let her beauty distract you.
“August?” she asks for the second time.
I don’t know. Maybe she’s said my name five times, six. Maybe she’s snapped her fingers in my face. I’m so damn wide open for this woman, I’ve lost track of time and space just taking her in after so long.
“Yeah.” I smile down at her. “Hey.”
“Hey?” She shakes her head and presses a hand to her forehead as if that will help things make sense. “You’re not from human resources.”
“Uh, no. Not exactly.”
“Not at all.” She swallows, her dark brows pinched together. “I’m glad to see you, but—”
“I’m glad to see you, too,” I pounce on the positive. “You look . . . amazing, Iris.”
She blinks at me owlishly. If you’re a goddess-like owl, that is. “I’m glad to see you, but really confused,” she finishes. “What’s going on?”
“Well, Jared and I are brothers,” I say. “Stepbrothers, actually.”
“I don’t understand.” She takes a shallow breath. “Go on.”
“I didn’t realize you two even knew each other until the day before you disappeared.” I leave my last word dangling in the air. You know. In case she wants to elaborate on where she’s been for the past damn year or so and tell me why she never showed up again.
She tilts her chin up, silently telling me she’s the one demanding explanations right now.
“Yeah, so, the day before you disappeared,” I resume, “Jared picked me up from the community center and saw you. That’s when we pieced together how we both knew you.”
I smile, knowing there is more to say, but really just kind of losing my train of thought. We’re finally in the same room when I didn’t know if I’d ever see her again.
“And now I work here?” she asks, her brows lifted. “Isn’t there a lot you’re leaving out?”
“Isn’t there a lot you’re leaving out?” I ask right back. “Like why you wore Caleb’s ring, but said you weren’t engaged? Or how we kissed and I ate you out and you came in the closet, but then I never heard from you? Couldn’t find you anywhere? Are there some details you might want to share?”
It’s only in the silence tightening around us that I realize that underneath my rampant desire to fuck Iris, to hold her possibly for the rest of my life and never let her go, I’m also a little pissed. Well, now we both know.
“You first.” A muscle flexes along the delicate line of her jaw. “Why am I here, August?” She clasps her hands together in front of her, her eyes fixed on the Louisiana iris cupped in her palms.
“Is there even a job?” she asks.
“Of course there’s a job. I’m a silent partner in Elevation. Jared and I never advertised our connection and decided he wouldn’t be my agent when I first came to the league, but we dreamed about this company for a long time.” I shrug and go on. “We were gonna wait, but my injury put everything in perspective and made me realize just how short this career can be. So we started it last year.”
“You own Elevation?”
“Part-owner, yeah. Jared handles all the business stuff. I’m just kind of our poster child to make other high-profile athletes want to work with us.”
“But Elevation is yours.” Her dark lashes flutter in quick blinks, and she bites the corner of her mouth. “Is that what you want me to be? Yours? I’m just here . . . for you?”
My first instinct is to bang my chest and say damn right she’s mine, but then I realize she doesn’t mean it in an I find cavemen sexy kind of way.
“Not like that.” I blow out an uneasy laugh.
When she looks back up, I hate the hurt and disappointment darkening her eyes, detracting from that glow she wore when I first saw her. And now I get it. That glow, it was pride—in herself.
When I graduated from college, I went to the NBA just months later, received a ridiculous amount of money, set up my home here in San Diego, became a brand, racked up endorsements, and now I have one of the highest-selling jerseys in the league.
She never had that.
Not the money or the fame of any of that shit. Most people never get that—the independence.
After college, Iris was pregnant and on bed rest, unable to earn money, then responsible for a baby, dependent on Caleb, and living in his house, guarded and kept. That’s the way she probably thought of it. The night we met she said she never wanted to be like her mother, a woman kept by men. On some level, she probably thinks that’s what she was.
The idea that she was standing on her own, making her own way, it made her glow.
And she thinks I’ve taken that from her.
“It all makes sense now.” She huffs a disparaging breath. “I’m such an idiot. I knew I shouldn’t have been able to afford a house in that neighborhood.”
Oh hell.
“You know I called on the house for rent next door. Just for shits and giggles, to see how much of a bargain I got.” Her laugh goes sour and cynical. “It was three times what I pay. That’s you, too? You did that?”
“Iris, let me explain.”
“And the daycare. You can explain that, too, right? How Elevation just happened to start on-site daycare for their employees when Jared hired me?”
I’m silent. I thought I was being awesome. I thought it would make her happy not to have to leave Sarai miles away. I wanted to make this easy for her, but somehow I’ve screwed it all up.
I have to make this right, to explain and drive out the disappointment clouding her eyes.
I breach the invisible wall of tension separating us by cupping her chin, tilting her face up so she can see the truth when I tell her. I’d do anything to restore that glow, that pride in herself that made her even more beautiful than I’ve ever seen her. “Iris, no.” My thumb strokes over one high cheekbone. “I can explain about the house and the daycare. I can explain everything.”
“I should be flattered you made up a job for me, huh?” Her eyes shimmer with unshed tears. “Men always seem to find good use for me, don’t they? What are my responsibilities exactly? Blow jobs under desks, quickies in the copy room? When do I start?” She drops to her knees in front of me and touches my belt. “Now?” Bitterness sets the lushness of her mouth into a hard line. “Or maybe you’d like to see the goods first?”
I’m stunned as she fumbles at the buttons holding her dress together, her fingers shaking as she undoes the top one and then another. The curve of her breasts swell over a black satin cup. I hate that my breath quickens and my dick stiffens at seeing even that much of her.
“I thought you’d like that,” she whispers, a tear splashing onto her hand.
“Stop, Iris,” I grit out. “It’s not supposed to be like this.”
“Like what?” Her fingers keep slipping buttons out of holes, revealing the taut line of her waist, the exaggerated curve from waist to hip. She’s so finely crafted, but I’d hate for her to think that’s all I want from her.
I go to my knees, still much taller than her, but at least now we’re on the same level. I quickly re-button her dress, ignoring the silky skin my knuckles brush over along the way. I cup her jaw and press our foreheads together. I gentle my grip on her, my displeasure and frustration softening when I feel her under my hands.
“You did this. I promise,” I say. “Jared had already given you the job before he even told me you called him.”
She opens her mouth to speak, but I rest my index finger over her lips. I have to get this out.
“When he told me about the job he’d already offered you . . .” I pause, making sure she hears it was a done deal before I was involved. “I admit, I was excited.”
Slight understatement.
“I wanted things to go well for you,” I continue, reluctantly dropping my finger from her mouth. “San Diego is one of the most expensive cities in the country. With an entry-level position, you wouldn’t have been able to afford the neighborhood you’re in. I wanted you and Sarai safe and in a good spot. I don’t expect or want anything in return. I haven’t set you up like a mistress or something.”
“It feels like it,” she says, but some of the tightness eases from her neck and shoulders.
“I don’t even own that house. One of the guys from the team dabbles in real estate on the side. It’s one of his properties. When he heard an Elevation employee, a single mom, needed a place, he knocked the rent down.”
The air begins loosening between us, and I risk taking her hand.
“And the daycare.” I shrug. “I don’t have a good excuse for that except . . . I wanted you to have Sarai close, but in Jared’s last employee survey, several moms indicated on-site daycare would be helpful. It’s not just for you. There were other kids there when you dropped Sarai off, right?”
Iris nods, searching my eyes for several seconds. “So there is a job?” she finally asks. “A real job? That phone interview Jared put me through wasn’t just him going through the motions for his brother’s girlfriend?”
Girlfriend?
Calm down.
She doesn’t mean it like that.
She isn’t saying . . . shit. Who am I kidding?
“Girlfriend?” I can’t resist asking. “Are you gonna be my girl, Iris?”
I’m still cupping her face, and her thick hair is falling across my fingers. She smells like paradise, and I’m not sure I can do this—can make it out of this room without kissing her. Without lifting her onto the conference room table, shoving that dress over her legs, and eating the hell out of her pussy. Because that’s pretty much all I can think about now that we’re this close. It’s like I haven’t had a meal since the last time I had her, and my mouth is watering imagining that clit, those lips, her juices. Her coming for me—coming in my mouth, dripping down my chin.
“I need to take it slow, August,” she whispers.
Slow.
That would be in direct contrast to my right-now fantasy. I struggle to command my body. I haven’t had sex in a really long time. Jared was right. I need to fuck, but the only girl I want is telling me she needs to go slow. And though my body is raging and burning and yearning to bury every inch I got inside of her, slow we will go.
“We can do that,” I tell her. “However long it takes.”
My voice sounds even. You’d never know there’s a rocket in my pants ready for lift-off. Rehabbing my leg, getting back on the court in less than a year, coming back stronger—that took Herculean effort. If I can be that disciplined for a game, I can control myself for Iris. I’ve waited for her, and I’ll wait some more until she says we’ve waited long enough.
“I wasn’t prepared for this,” she says, her voice almost an apology. “For any of this. I thought . . . I know I’ve been out of the loop, but last I heard you were being traded to Houston. I didn’t even know you’d be living in the same city.”
That’s when an awful thought occurs to me. Have I had things that wrong?
“So did you accept the job because you thought I’d be gone?” Disappointment and embarrassment drive me to my feet. I miss her warmth immediately, but maybe I need to get used to the idea that she moved here because she thought I was leaving.
“Wow. Now I feel like a fool.” My laugh is a three-dollar bill. Fake. Counterfeit. “I didn’t even think . . . yeah, I guess I didn’t think this all the way through. I assumed you felt . . .”
I swallow down the emotion burning my throat. Jared’s voice comes back to haunt me—his warning that I would regret staying with the Waves if things with Iris didn’t pan out. The flower I brought her lies on the floor by her knees, and that’s how I feel. Clipped at the stem. Discarded.
“I did.” She stands, her head only coming to the middle of my chest. “I do . . . feel it, I mean.”
She reaches for my hand, winding her fingers through mine and looking at me the way I imagined she would, a mixture of possibility and want and hope in her eyes. “I feel it, too, August. I always have,” she says softly, tucking her full bottom lip into her mouth for a second before going on. “I’ve just . . . been through a lot, I guess, and I’m still sorting some things out.”
Been through a lot? What the fuck does that mean? What’s she been through? Who hurt her? Caleb? That dude is dead if I find out he hurt her.
“What does that mean?” I ask, hoping my voice sounds more civilized than I feel. “What have you been through, Iris?”
I feel it immediately, the wall erected between us. Her eyes go distant, looking inside herself. “I can’t . . . I mean . . .” Her eyes beg, and I’m willing to do whatever she wants. To give her whatever she needs. “Can we just not talk about that right now?”
Frustration strangles me for a second, but I force myself to calm down. She’ll tell me eventually who I need to maim.
What happened to her?
I nod, twisting our fingers tighter, letting her know I’m not going anywhere.
“Oh.” She shakes her head, confusion back on her face. “Wait. So what happened with the Houston deal? Last I heard, it was all but done.”
Do I tell her the truth? If I tell her what I did, all that I gave up on the off chance she’d be with me, that’s a lot of pressure. On her. On me. On this relationship, once it becomes an actual relationship with dates and daily conversations like normal couples have, and sex . . .
Shit. I’m probably gonna break my dick jerking off so hard before I leave this building.
“August?” she asks again. “What happened with the Houston deal?”
Sneaking around trying to help her, not being completely upfront got us off to a rocky start. I won’t risk that again being anything less than honest.
“When Jared told me you were moving here, I passed on the deal.” My words fall into this chasm of stunned silence. She rears back as if I’ve struck her. Her fingers start loosening from mine, but I don’t let her go.
“No.” I squeeze her hand gently, lifting my other hand to cup her face. “Listen to me.”
“August, that contract was forty . . .” She draws a deep breath before charging on. “Like, forty million dollars.”
“Forty-five, but what’s a few million here and there?” I joke.
“But what about the team?” She asks, ignoring my attempt at humor. “Houston made the finals this year.”
“Yeah.” I stamp down the fear that I’ll never win a championship, never have a ring, the holy grail I’ve pursued most of my life.
“That team is primed for a championship,” she reminds me unnecessarily. “Maybe even next season.”
“Iris, I’m well aware.”
“But it makes no sense. I don’t understand.”
Here’s my chance to get it right. My chance to make sure she knows that, though I’ve been chasing a ball up a court all my life, with this I’m not playing games.
Take the shot.
“Your dreams and ambitions got swallowed up when you had to follow Caleb,” I say, holding her eyes with mine. “I want you to know there’s someone who will follow you.”
She blinks several times, and I can only hope my words are sinking in.
“But you can’t . . . I’m not . . .” She falters and tries again. “August, Houston is your best shot at winning a ring.”
“You’re right.” I loosen my fingers from hers so I can hold her face between both hands. “Going to Houston is my best shot at winning a ring.”
“Then why would you—”
“But staying here,” I cut in, caressing the fullness of her bottom lip with my thumb. “Staying is my best shot at winning you.”
