Dropping The Ball - A New Year’s Billionaire Romance - Weston Parker Page 0,95

gentle shove. “I wasn’t the only one looking.”

He lifted his hands in surrender, showing me his palms before sliding his arms back around my waist. “True. Catching you looking at me like I was a lollipop you wanted to lick clued me into the fact that you weren’t so little anymore. Slowly but surely, I started noticing that you’d grown boobs, that your face was actually beautiful and not so dorky anymore, and that the guys at school practically salivated when you walked into a room.”

“My face was never dorky,” I protested while trying to stifle a laugh, “and no one salivated. Not even almost.”

“Bullshit,” he whispered. “It didn’t take me long to notice you’d grown into the most gorgeous girl in town. After that…” Winding his fingers into my hair, he gave it a soft tug that made me lift my face more fully to his. “After that, it was game over for me. I lectured myself every fucking time I went over to your place about not looking at you like I wanted to lick you right back, but I wanted to do it so badly that I could never quite follow through on not looking.”

“Why didn’t you make a move?” I asked, becoming breathless from the way his eyes heated when they dropped to my lips.

“Like I said, you were too young. I convinced myself it was just my dick’s natural reaction to a pretty girl and that my hormones were all fucked up. I thought it would go away.”

“Did it?”

He locked his gaze to mine before slowly shaking his head from side to side. “Nope. As soon as I saw you sitting in that room at my office, I realized I still wanted to lick you just as badly.”

“Now you get to lick me whenever you want,” I said, “and I finally get to do the same.”

“Exactly.” He brought his hand up to my shoulders and pushed me down on the couch. Grabbing my legs, he slid them out from underneath me and draped them around his waist before flicking open the button on my pants. “I really shouldn’t let any opportunity to do it go to waste. My teenage self would never forgive me.”

“We can’t have that, now can we?” I helpfully lifted myself up when he slid my pants and panties down in one go, then kicked off my shoes so he could get my clothes over my feet.

The air in the room felt cool against my heated core, but then Carter’s hot mouth was on me and nothing else mattered anymore. As strange as it felt to know it, we were an us now, and nothing would come between us again.

Chapter 33

CARTER

It was balls crazy in Times Square, but it was New Year’s Eve. Crazy came with the territory.

Bart stood beside me in a black suit, his earpiece in as he barked orders to the rest of our team. Everyone was on high alert. With a crowd this size, anything could happen.

“Rylee’s going to be performing on that stage,” he said to me and pointed to our left after finishing up with the others. “They’ve got her appearing and exiting through a hatch in the floor.”

“Roger that.” We’d been over the logistics for this evening a hundred times. I knew every step she was going to be taking tonight, but this was our final work-through. The stakes had never been higher, and we needed to make sure everything was perfect. “She’s already in the back going over her warm-ups. The biggest threat will be once she’s up onstage.”

“We’ve got fifteen guys around the perimeter of the stage itself, five on every exit route, and the police are here in full force. I’ve informed them of the threats that have been made against her and that she’ll be on the stage this evening.”

Since her performance was still supposed to be a surprise, I knew that only some of the higher-ups had been informed she’d actually be making a comeback tonight. Even those people had only been told within the last couple of days. The rest had been told she’d be in attendance and would be up onstage with the hosts for a chat.

Everything was going exactly according to plan, but I was as tightly wound as they came. If anything happened to her… I squeezed my eyes shut for a beat. I couldn’t even think about it.

Bart clapped me on the shoulder. “It’s going to be fine. She’s okay, she’s safe, and we’re going