stand.
Though…it had been more than one night. I probably should have called it a one-weekend stand, though some head-stands were involved too. The alcohol stole most of my memories, but the remaining flashes were shamefully explicit and astoundingly lewd.
Also good. Very, very good.
But I was never doing anything like that again. Like a camel crossed with a puritan, I’d store up my sexual inhibitions in those couple humps we had.
The day I’d returned, missing all of my panties as well as every photograph I’d taken of the rookie scouting combine, I’d vowed never to think of, speak of, or indulge Lachlan Reed ever again.
Until the moment I’d knocked him out.
“Come on, Charming.”
I couldn’t easily move his bulk, so I straddled him in the middle of the sidewalk, my knees on either side of his hips.
An all-too familiar position.
“Let’s get you up.”
An all-too familiar saying.
“Don’t make me blow a whistle, pretty-boy.” I sharpened my voice. “Huddle up!”
Lachlan’s eyes opened, and the sea-foam green intensity of his gaze crashed through me like white caps against a jetty.
God, I’d almost forgotten how beautiful this man was.
Almost.
Every part of him angled hard—his cheekbones, his brow, the fierce strike of his nose, the solid authority of his jaw. But what might have seemed severe was warmed by the playful quirk of his lips. Lachlan always donned a panty-melting grin. The charming, wicked kind that lured girls like me a little too close.
He packed a smirk for every party, a laugh for every fight, and a sleeve of condoms for luck.
And he got lucky.
A lot.
Those green eyes blinked once, twice, and unfocused once more. I sat back, puffing the hair from my face. Maybe the new bump on his blonde head would blend in with the old lumps he suffered from practices and games?
But he seemed to be coming around. A little. He licked his full, dangerous lips and hissed a word. I couldn’t make it out. I leaned close just as he sat up.
Mistake.
Lachlan seized me, tangling his fingers in my hair and pulling me close.
I squealed. “What are you—”
His kiss blindsided me.
Soft.
I’d forgotten how soft his kisses could be. Either he was tearing through my clothes with his teeth, or he kissed warm and sweet, little nibbles of dew-dropped gentleness that shivered me in all the right places.
My heart lurched into my throat, skipping a couple of beats and deciding then and there to skip town, skedaddle back to Vegas, and lose myself with Lachlan in the best suite the Bellagio could offer.
I almost parted my lips for him.
Which one of us had the head injury?
What in the world was I doing? What was he doing? Maybe this pig should have been roadkill!
I pulled away, slapping his chest. Lachlan rested once more against the sidewalk.
His satisfied sigh was thoroughly inappropriate.
“Easy there, Sleeping Beauty.” I warned him.
What good was scolding him? My lips still hummed with excitement.
No man should have kissed that well, especially one potentially suffering from a multitude of internal injuries.
I ignored the fluttering in my chest and resolved never to acknowledge the desperate tingle warming other parts of me.
“A concussion doesn’t give you the right to kiss me,” I said.
Lachlan laughed. His chuckle still good-natured, the kind of carefree nonchalance of a man who never sweated the little things—like being rendered unconscious.
He squinted into the light, his eyes unfocused. “You tackled me. So…I kissed.”
“A word of advice before you take to the field?” I shook my head. “Please don’t kiss everyone who tackles you.”
Lachlan’s eyes fluttered closed. “Don’t often get tackled by a princess.”
Fantastic. I broke the first-round draft choice. There went my raise.
“I’m not a princess, Lachlan.”
“Fucking A.” He grinned. “I’m glad. A princess would be too prissy to go bad.”
“Bad?”
“Fucking dirty. Need a bad girl. Someone naked. Writhing. What kind of girl are you?”
I stopped him before he tried to get up…or demonstrated his preferences. “I’m the kind of girl who should probably get you medical attention.”
“Oh. A naughty nurse. Like that too.” His words almost slurred. “Sponge baths. Physicals.”
“MRIs. Neurological assessments.”
“Yeah, talk sexy to me.”
“Oh, good Lord. Just sit still.”
I placed a hand on his chest. He immediately covered it with his—huge, hot, and five claws short of a paw. He enveloped my dark fingers with his far paler hand and grinned.
“Do you taste like brown sugar?”
Yes. We had determined that in Vegas. Multiple times.
I ignored him. “How’s your head?”
“I don’t give, I receive.”
And we were getting nowhere. “I had no idea you could flirt even with moderate to