Road Games Read online

  She was gorgeous. I had been hooked from the first time I saw her. Regular workouts combined with hours spent on the golf course kept her muscles lean and strong. My pulse quickened at the thought of those muscles rippling beneath my fingers. A natural redhead, Grace usually pulled a baseball cap bearing the logo of her sponsor low over her eyes to protect her fair skin. I knew without being able to see them that Grace’s hazel eyes sparkled with pre-match anticipation. It was more than just a competitive gleam—she thoroughly enjoyed the game whether she won or lost. But I knew from experience that her post-win high jacked up her already healthy libido.

  Still, it was more than just her great looks that attracted me to Grace. Ten weeks before, I had shown up for my first tournament, nervous and very much aware that I was now playing in the big time. I was paired with Grace Manning, a tour veteran. My anxiety increased exponentially—I’d be playing with one of my heroes of the game. It didn’t take long for me to see firsthand why Grace was the top-rated player on the tour. She had a fluid, seemingly effortless swing and one of the longest drives in women’s golf.

  But as I soon found out, Grace was also very down-to-earth. Her easygoing attitude and natural sense of fun rapidly eased my jitters. We hit it off immediately. By the third hole we were exchanging teasing banter and laughing between shots. We played a round of golf reminiscent of a time when I played for my own enjoyment, before competition and ranking became so important.

  “We’re up,” Grace reminded me only moments before she was announced as the next golfer.

  She teed up a ball, settled into her stance, and paused for an instant with her club head resting behind the ball. Her long, lithe body created textbook lines from the beginning of her backswing through the top of her follow-through. I thought again, as I always did when I watched Grace play, I had rarely seen anything quite so perfect.

  Grace kept her eyes on the ball until it rolled to a stop in the center of the fairway and then turned to me.

  “Ryan, you’re distracted,” she accused.

  “No, I’m not,” I protested, wondering how Grace could read me so easily already. I grinned as I allowed my eyes to purposely drop down and trail lasciviously back up Grace’s body. “I was simply admiring your—form.”

  “That might be the worst pick-up line I’ve ever heard,” Grace shot back.

  “Like I need a line to get what I want,” I murmured, brushing my arm deliberately against her breast as I passed. I teed up my own ball.

  Grace laughed, and my stomach tightened. I loved the sound of her laughter. She was so free with it. I envied Grace her lack of inhibitions.

  I lined up with the ball off my left toe, shifted my stance, and placed the heel of my driver directly behind the ball. My swing was unique in that lining up slightly off center seemed to be the most effective method for curbing my natural draw. Giving in to various trainers and coaches over the years, I had allowed them to tinker with my swing. But this unorthodox approach had proven the most consistent.

  I glanced over my left shoulder to find my target. Tucking my chin, I slowly drew the club back, slightly shifting my weight to my right leg. Years of practice had ingrained the feel of the swing in my body. At precisely the right moment, I instinctively began shifting back to the left and my downswing took shape. The club’s impact with the ball was solid, as indicated by the indescribable but oh-so-recognizable sound made by good contact between ball and club. My ball came to rest a few feet from Grace’s.

  I turned in time to catch Grace jerking her eyes guiltily from the vicinity of my ass. She grinned as I narrowed my eyes suspiciously.

  “You’ve got a rather interesting form yourself.”

  “You think so?”

  “Sure. But it could be better.”

  I laughed. “Are you volunteering to help?”

  “I could. But it will take a lot of personal attention and I have a very—hands-on—approach.”

  The image of Grace’s hands on me nearly made me stumble as I handed the club to my caddy. Grace and I walked shoulder to shoulder down the fairway.

  “So—eight, huh?” Grace whispered, letting me know that her thoughts weren’t entirely on golf either.

  “I’ll show you when we get there.” As we walked, I let my mind wander back to the events of the past two months.

  The third week of the tour, late one night over drinks, we began flirting. The next night a walk on the beach ended in a kiss. Just a kiss. But there was a moment, when her lips opened and I slipped my tongue against hers—I knew from that moment I didn’t want it to end there.

  The walk back to my hotel room seemed endless. My blood ran hot, I was almost painfully aroused, and I could still feel the firm pressure of her hips against mine. Just a kiss. It was anything but just a kiss. She had moaned against my mouth and pressed closer. Just when I was thinking I could take her right there on the beach, she had pulled back, grasped my hand, and continued walking down the beach. It was more than a kiss. It was an amazing kiss with a gorgeous woman on a beach in Hawaii. Could there be a more perfect moment?

  To top it off, I played the best round of my life the next day and took second in the tournament—second to that same woman. I could handle that. It was the wanting her that was going to kill me. Just the sight of her was enough to send my fantasies into overdrive, conjuring up all the things I wanted to do to her. Mercifully, it turned out I wouldn’t have to wait too much longer for more than just a kiss.

  “Keep it up and we won’t make it until tonight,” Grace hissed, interrupting my mental replay.

  I fixed what I hoped was an innocent expression on my face.

  “I’m not buying that look,” she said. “I know what’s going on in that precious head of yours.”

  “I don’t know what you mean,” I teased, but I was wet already and we hadn’t even finished the first hole. “It’s going to be a long eighteen,” I muttered.

  “Stop it right now.” Grace was all business again. She moved away and conferred with her caddy.

  Grace birdied the first hole, while I paid for my distraction with a par. But as we approached the second tee, I drifted back to thoughts of Hawaii. And Grace.

  The night before we left Hawaii we had decided to take one last stroll under the palm trees behind the club. The courses always felt subtly different as night fell. I loved to explore them under the cover of darkness, and Grace seemed to share my feeling of enchantment.

  It started innocently enough. We walked along the cart path, talking about the tour. Thanks to Grace, my transition had been smooth. I was having fun and playing better than ever. It was unheard of for a rookie to place in the top five in her first four tournaments. I was being touted as a rising star.

  Grace dismissed all the press, telling me that she was responsible for my success. “Do you think you would be playing like this if I wasn’t winding you up with all of this sexual tension?”

  “What tension?” I arched an eyebrow. “I already know you’re just a tease.”

  “Really?”

  She stopped in the middle of the path. I took one more step and was jerked to a halt. She held my hand tightly and wasn’t budging.

  “A tease?” she asked, pulling me against her.

  She cupped the back of my neck with one hand and cradled my jaw with the other. I leaned in, humming with pleasure and anticipating our kiss. I could get used to the buzz of excitement I felt just before Grace kissed me.

  “I think you’re getting a little full of yourself,” Grace murmured as she drew back just inches short of the kiss. “I might have to put you in your place.”

  “I like the sound of that.” I wondered how long it would take to get her back to my room and to get her clothes off.

  She held her mouth away for a moment longer before she finally closed the distance and her lips caressed mine. But she still didn’t give me exactly what I wanted. She was aggressive until I responded and then she pulled back, lightly stroking her tongue against my lips. J
ust as I was getting frustrated she gave me more, pressing into me until I could feel every curve of her body.

  “Hmm…is this more of that tension you were talking about?” I drawled as she gazed at me. I tried to sound casual, but I was raging with anticipation. Every word was foreplay. Every touch made me wetter.

  “Maybe.” She skimmed her hands down my chest. Her fingers brushed my nipples and my breath hissed through my teeth. She returned, pinching them through the thin silk of my shirt.

  She practically growled as her mouth claimed mine. When she spread her legs to straddle my thigh, I wondered if I would make it back to the room. All I could think about was being inside her. I didn’t even care that anyone could happen upon us at any moment. I craved her in a way I never had anyone before.

  “Ah, baby, there’s no way I’ll make it if we keep this up,” I pled.

  A spark of challenge set off the heat already smoldering in her eyes. Wordlessly, she rolled her hips against mine. All thought of making it back to the room fled my mind as I felt the heat of her against my thigh right through my slacks.

  When I palmed her breast she arched her back, pushing it more fully into my hand. Jesus, she’s not wearing a bra. She opened several buttons on her shirt and shoved my hand inside. Lord help me. I stroked over her soft skin, kneading and caressing.

  “Touch me.” She reached for the fly of her jeans.

  “Oh God, I want to—just as soon as we get back to the hotel.”

  She sucked my earlobe into her mouth. She bit my neck just hard enough. I pressed my hips into her in an attempt to release some of the pressure pounding between my legs. Her hands found my ass and she pulled me even tighter to her, grinding against me. I fisted my hands in the back of her shirt and buried my face in her neck, inhaling the subtle woodsy scent of citrus and teakwood I’d come to associate with her. I had to taste her.

  “Here.” She spoke aloud the word that was screaming through my head.

  “Yes.” I was beyond hesitation.

  I dragged her toward the green. My head swam with the feel of her beneath me as I laid her down on the neatly manicured grass. Moving over her, I reached between us and pressed my hand into her open fly, encountering warm, bare skin. No panties either?

  I had to taste her.

  Dipping my head, I nudged my face into the open vee of her shirt and pulled one of her nipples into my mouth. It grew impossibly hard against my tongue. Oh yes, baby. Could you know how much I’ve wanted you all these weeks?

  “Ryan—please.” She grasped my wrist and thrust my hand farther into her jeans. “Please don’t make me wait any longer.”

  I groaned as wetness coated my fingers. Her hips jerked as I brushed over her clit and when I pushed inside, she squeezed around me.

  I wanted her naked. Her jeans were still tight around her hips and constricted my movement. I wanted room to fuck her, in and out as hard and fast as she could take it. I wanted to drape her bare legs over my shoulders and push my mouth between her thighs. I wanted to feel her clit twitch against my tongue.

  I had to taste her.

  Instead, still conscious that we were in public, I contented myself with rocking my fingers into her, pressing the base of my hand against her clit. She met my thrusts, lifting her knee and pushing her thigh between my legs. My already aching clit throbbed in response.

  “Grace.” I was incapable of anything more than the strangled moan as she pressed her foot flat on the ground, her thigh driving against me. “Jesus, Grace.”

  I couldn’t help myself, the pressure against the already sensitive flesh between my legs sent an almost painful streak of arousal through my cunt. I needed relief. She would own me until I got it. I needed it in order to once again form a coherent thought.

  “Come on, baby. Let it go,” she urged.

  “Oh God, I-I—Grace.” I’ve never been more inarticulate in my life. Her name spilled from my lips amidst reverent moans, and even that was nearly more than I could manage. The heady scent of her—the feel of her firmly against my center—her body pulsing around my fingers.

  I lifted up, bracing myself on one arm, and rode her leg to orgasm. It was a tight flash of light behind my clenched eyelids—white-hot pleasure that lanced through me. My body tightened, my fingers hard inside of her as she came with me. I lost myself in her. In the way she cried out and shuddered against me. In the soft panting breath against my ear.

  Her hands were in my hair and she tugged my head up to rest her forehead against mine. “I knew it would be like this,” she whispered.

  “I had no idea.”

  “Was it good for you?” Grace purred in my ear, dragging me back to the present.

  I was still standing at the second tee. Shit, I’d just had an orgasm from the memory of our first time while standing amidst a crowd of spectators. My legs felt like rubber and my heart pounded. Grace gave me a self-satisfied look. She knew exactly what had just happened, because after that first time, it had become a game between us. Every tournament was a challenge to find a new place to play on the next hole. After the sand trap at the seventh in Orlando, we’d had to take an extra-long shower.

  I glanced around, immensely relieved to find Grace was the only one who appeared to be aware of my mental lapse. Realizing it was my turn to tee off, I stumbled forward. My smile mirrored hers as I thought about my plans for her tonight at the edge of the water hazard on the eighth hole.

  I finished that tournament at two under par. Grace shot three under, beating me by one stroke. First or second, I always won when I played with Grace.

  A Quiet Night In

  Lesley Davis

  The conference had gone on for what seemed like days before the guest speaker finally noticed he had most of us bored to tears and mercifully let us go. Shawn grabbed my arm, unceremoniously pulled me out of my seat, and led me out of the conference hall at a fast gait.

  “If that pompous windbag had kept up any longer, I’d have decked him.” Shawn hailed a taxi with one hand and kept me close with her other.

  Once seated in the back of the taxi, I yawned so widely my jaw cracked. Shawn looked me over solicitously and ran her fingers along my face.

  “You tired, babe?”

  “A little, but I want a drink so bad I can taste it already. I’ll have one beer with you, but then I think I want to go back to the hotel.”

  “You need to relax and work those kinks out of your spine from sitting all day listening to Motormouth.” Shawn brushed my lips with hers and I felt my stomach alight with flames.

  “I’ll relax in our hotel room with you,” I muttered, accepting her rough tongue between my lips and letting her take her time exploring me.

  The taxi jerked to a halt and we were on the receiving end of a very censorious look by our driver. Shawn merely stared at him as she paid.

  “He’s just pissed because I’m more man than he could ever be.” Laughing, she smoothed down her suit, unconsciously accentuating her androgynous look.

  “Shawn, we both are.” I indicated my own attire, a suit as dark as Shawn’s was light. I ran a tired hand through my short hair and squared my shoulders. “Ready to make the locals squirm in their seats?”

  Shawn wrapped her arm about my shoulder. “They squirm because you make them hot.”

  “They squirm because they see us together and can’t help but wonder how two handsome butches got to be lovers.”

  “Because I knew a good thing when I saw it, and you had the smarts to recognize my worth.”

  “God, you’re arrogant.” I laughed at her and received a swift kiss as my reward.

  “And you love me for it.”

  “You know it.”

  Inside, I smiled at the bartender as she poured me my drink, and then sneaked a look at my lover, who was searching the bar with curious eyes.

  “See something you like?” I asked. Shawn immediately turned her sights to me, ever attentive.

  “Seeing someone I love,” she replied smoothly and
pulled me close to her at the bar so that her leg pressed between mine. I shivered at the pressure.

  “I don’t think I want to stay, Shawn,” I admitted as I drained my drink.

  Shawn cocked her head to the loud music coming from the dance area. “Madonna not doing it for you tonight?”

  “You know Madonna never does it for me.”

  “Want me to come back with you?”

  I shook my head. “No, stay. Unwind. Just get in before the sun comes up.”

  Shawn flashed the rakish pirate smile that always twisted my heart. “I’ll bring you something back?”

  I put my hand behind her neck and pulled her down for a lingering kiss. “You do that.”

  *

  At the sound of the door opening a few hours later, I glanced away from the computer magazine I had been poring over to see Shawn saunter in with a woman in tow.

  “Put your magazine down, Troy, we have a guest.” Shawn grinned and gently pushed the woman toward me. My blond lover, tall and slim, was accompanied by a short, full-figured redhead I didn’t know. I immediately got up off the bed to welcome our gorgeous visitor.

  Shawn introduced us politely. “Troy, this is Cait. She was at the conference too today.” Shawn grinned at me. “She works behind the scenes with Mr. Personality.”

  My face gave me away and Cait laughed.

  “He’s not so bad, really.” Her voice lilted with a little bit of an accent. “But he does waffle on once he starts to get into his spiel.”

  “Would you like a drink?” Shawn asked, slowly undoing her tie. I had never seen anyone do such a normal task so sensually. Shawn laid a hand on Cait’s shoulder, drawing her attention away from me. “Something to eat, maybe?”

  I tried not to smile at her attempts to be a good hostess. We all knew exactly why Cait was here.

  “No, I’m fine, thank you.”

  Shawn slipped Cait’s coat from her shoulders while Cait kept her attention on me, her green eyes boring into mine.