Everyone who works within the New York Warriors organization knows that star player August Fletcher refuses to talk to most people...and especially team reporters. All except Quinn Castle, that is.
Quinn doesn't know why the broody football player...
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I STARED UP AT AUGUST while reclining on my beach towel after applying sunscreen to my front. It wasn't until I caught the way his jaw flexed that I realized how my question likely sounded.
Flirtatious. Teasing. Unprofessional.
That hadn't been my intention. Honestly. As much as August's hot body, handsome face, and surely-capable hands were hard to ignore, I hadn't been thinking with my vagina when I asked him to rub me down. I'd been more concerned with not looking even more like a roasted tomato in his golden, god-like presence.
"Turn over, Castle," August said gruffly. Three words, but my stomach made the tiniest flip at the sound of them. All his years of being an NFL team captain made his commands ooze confidence, and he had me turning over instantly.
I flipped onto my stomach, and August heaved a sigh. Of exasperation? I couldn't really tell. But it wasn't a happy sigh. It might have been an irritated sigh. Maybe because he realized his retirement had led him to this: rubbing sunscreen all over the Warriors reporter who had stalked him to his hometown.
"Do you want me to untie my straps?" I asked, turning my head to the side and resting it against the towel so I could still talk to him.
"Do I want you to untie your straps?" he repeated. "As in, take your top off?"
The last part came out choked, as though he couldn't believe I'd said that.
I couldn't believe I'd said that, either.
"Just thought it might make it easier," I mumbled.
The squirt of sunscreen hitting my back was so cold that I shivered. And then I shivered again when August's voice caressed my skin ahead of his hands. "If I find that I need to take your top off, I am perfectly capable of doing it."
I didn't doubt that for a minute. August likely had more than his fair share of experience with taking off women's tops. I'd documented a few of his flings over the years, although they never seemed to last long.
The thought sparked curiosity in me.
"So, August..."
"Here we go," he muttered under his breath, and I wasn't sure if he was referring to the line of questioning I was about to launch or the way his hands started smoothing the sunscreen across my back.
"Have you been seeing anyone lately?" I asked before clamping my mouth shut when August massaged the sunscreen into a pressure point, and a moan bubbled up from my throat.
"Christ, Castle," he grunted, his hands temporarily vanishing before they returned to spread sunscreen on my lower back.
"What?" My breath hitched as his fingertips dipped beneath the seam of my bikini bottoms, but then they moved into safer territory, and I somehow managed to recover. "I'm trying to get a scope of your life, including your dating habits, now that you've left the city."
