Payoff Pitch (Philadelphia Patriots) (21 page)

But Noah clearly meant what he said about punishing her. He spread her wide and used his fingers to tease her, stroking through her moisture, circling her tight clit, even slipping the tips of his fingers just inside the entrance of her body. He spent the next few minutes driving her berserk, all while detailing in a dirty, sexy voice the outrageous things he was going to do to her.

When, that is, he wasn’t telling her not to move. That, she was beginning to discover, was next to impossible.

In less time than she would have though possible, Noah had her entire body shaking and on the edge of orgasm. And he still hadn’t even touched her where it counted most. If he didn’t get to it soon, Teddy was sure she was going to lose her mind.

“Noah,” she finally wailed, “you’re driving me crazy.”

“Yeah, that’s the point,” he growled. “This what you want?”

He slicked two fingers over her clit, rubbing gently on and around the tight bundle of nerves and flesh. Teddy’s pelvis flexed off the bed and she could feel the first ripples of her orgasm.

He suddenly pulled his hand away. “Not yet, Teddy. I don’t want you coming yet.”

She lifted her head, dazed and frustrated. He wasn’t kidding when he said he was going to punish her. Torture was more like it. “Noah,
please
.”

He actually laughed, the sadist. “Yeah, I think I’ve teased you long enough.”

“You think?” she panted.

Then the glint of laughter in his eyes faded, and he went all dark and intense. He wrapped his hands around her ankles and brought her feet up to rest on the edge of the mattress, her legs bent and wide open.

“Stay still, Teddy,” he ordered in that husky, deliriously sexy voice of his. He slicked two fingers once more over her clit, as if daring her to disobey him, and then he went down on her.

Teddy gasped, her hips bucking under the onslaught of his mouth. Noah clamped his hands around her ankles, holding her legs still and steady. Then he doubled-down, driving her crazy with his talented, relentless mouth. His tongue flicked her, tasting and stroking until she was bathed in a white-hot glow of lust.

He kept her lower body clamped to the mattress, but Teddy lost the battle to keep her arms in the position he’d dictated. She curled up, bringing her hands to his head, driving her fingers through his short, thick hair and clutching his skull, desperately hanging on as he drove her wild. Not that he seemed to care that she was ignoring his commands to remain stretched out, tight as a bowstring and helpless beneath him. No, he was totally focused on the task at hand, and the occasional low, sexy growl she heard told her he was as into it as she was.

Teddy felt like she’d died and gone to heaven.

Just when she was about to pitch over the edge into what she was sure would be the biggest climax of her life, Noah pulled back. She was beyond speech at that point, only able to voice a strangled and incoherent protest.

“You’re so fucking gorgeous, babe,” he said in a raspy voice. “I’m going to make you come right now, and then I’m going to get inside your tight little pussy.”

She couldn’t do anything but stare at him, trapped by his dark gaze and outrageous sensuality. Then, slowly, deliberately, he inserted two fingers into her drenched sex. Her body clamped around him, and she felt the first, tiny contractions begin to ripple outward.

“Keep watching,” he whispered.

He leaned forward and dragged his tongue over her clit one more time. Teddy detonated, her back arching up off the bed as incredible waves of sensation shuddered through her body. She cried out, stunned by the strength of it, her eyes squeezing shut against the sudden rush of tears. Noah let her ride it out, his palm pressed against her mound in a gentle massage.

The ripples had barely started to fade when she felt him come to his feet. She dragged her eyes open, forcing her vision to focus on him as he stripped off the rest of his clothes. God, he was beautiful. Tall, bronzed, and muscled, with a huge, engorged cock. He was bigger in all ways than any man she’d been with, and Teddy couldn’t wait to take all of him.

Noah pulled a condom from the wallet in his jeans and quickly sheathed himself. Then he came to her, lifting her fully up onto the bed. He spread her legs wide, his hips wedged between her thighs as he propped himself up on his elbows to stare down at her.

Teddy stared back, her heart pounding with excitement and the lingering effects of her climax. Nerves too, she had to admit, and a sense that they were about to do something more profound than it had any right to be. It almost overwhelmed her, and yet she felt everything inside straining to meet him.

He tenderly stroked the hair back from her damp forehead. “Ready, sweetheart?”

She managed a trembling smile. “As ready as I’ll ever be,” she answered, hoping she didn’t sound as nervous as she felt.

He gazed at her a few seconds longer, then he slowly pushed into her. His eyelids shuttered down as he breathed out a groan. Teddy gripped his forearms, wishing she could see what was in his eyes, but as his erection forged into her, she felt her own eyelids flutter shut as her awareness spiraled down to the point where their bodies joined.

He was huge and hot and almost too much. It felt
wonderful.
So incredibly sexy, and so amazing to be filled in a way she’d never been before.

Then Noah started to move, his body hard and muscled against her softer curves. She gripped his arms, easily falling into the rhythm as their bodies slapped together. When he reached a hand under her ass, tilting her pelvis as he drove deep, she gasped at the jolt to her clit. Her eyes flew open, and she was stunned by the beginnings of another orgasm. Teddy rarely had more than one orgasm a night, and always hours apart. That pattern seemed about to change.

Noah’s eyes were open now as well. Heavy-lidded and smoldering, they were fixed on her face, intently watching her every expression. His features were tight, his cheekbones flushed with passion. Teddy had never seen anything—or felt anything—that made her feel so freaking good.

Sexy, beautiful…connected.

He flexed his hips, nudging her perfectly. She couldn’t hold back a loud moan.

“Oh, yeah,” he rasped out. “I want you to come again. Right now.”

Another delicious, controlled flex—God, the man was truly an athlete both in and out of the bedroom—and her climax washed through her. It was softer, slower than the last one, but now he was inside her and that made it more powerful in all the ways that truly counted.

It made them, together like this, achingly real.

She let out a cry and wrapped herself around him. A moment later he followed her, surging high and hard, holding himself in place as he shuddered through his orgasm. As he finished, he came down and plastered a hot, devouring kiss on her mouth, one that was so perfect she felt drugged with pleasure.

Then it was the slow slide down, both of them panting, sweaty, untangling as they sought to catch their breath.

Noah slowly rolled to his side, tucking Teddy against his chest, one hand coming to rest on her hip. She curled herself against him and pressed her lips to his damp skin, right over his heart, too overwhelmed to say a word.

The minutes ticked by as the silence of the house settled over them. She lay quietly against him, deliberately trying to blank out everything that would pull her out of the moment.

“Hey,” Noah finally murmured, “everything okay down there?”

She lifted her head to look at him. He seemed as sex-stupefied as she felt, although his gaze held a hint of wariness as if he was already bracing for her
not
to be okay.

Instead of responding with words, she wriggled up, dragging her breasts across his hot skin as she stretched up to reach his mouth. When she kissed him and went on kissing him, he breathed a satisfied sigh into her mouth.

Right now, that was the only answer that counted.

Teddy wished for even a tiny fraction of the dogs’ exuberant energy this morning. Toby and Sadie were bouncing along in a happy gait while she was dragging herself step by exhausted step. The dogs had been constantly nudging and bumping her all the way home from the park, as if to speed up her stride. The message from the two was clear—
what’s the matter with you Teddy? It’s a beautiful day in the neighborhood. Time for fun!

On a certain level, she wondered why she was dragging. Shouldn’t she be over the moon, glowing with energy and thrilled with the world after she’d had the best sex of her life? Make that the best sex she could ever imagine in this or any other life.

Yeah, it had been that good.
Noah
had been that good.

Sex had been the sole item on their agenda last night from the moment Noah captured her mouth in that first incredible kiss. While they had whispered a few inconsequential words to each other in between frantic and tender bouts of love-making, it had been obvious that both wanted to ignore the persistent voices in their heads—voices that told them they were six ways of terminally stupid for falling into bed. Under the onslaught of Noah’s overwhelming passion, it hadn’t been hard for Teddy to give her worries a hard shove out the bedroom door. She suspected Noah felt exactly the same way, since he’d forsaken conversation in favor of alternately dozing and making Teddy’s eyes roll back in her head from a series of sheet-gripping orgasms.

While Noah had shown her that a new universe existed out there, she’d made him feel good, too.
Very
good, if she’d correctly read both his groans and the growling audibles he’d called to make sure she knew exactly what he wanted her to do. And knowing that she could make this man—this wildly hot man that had his pick of gorgeous, sexy women—lose himself in her embrace was a true revelation. For the first time, Teddy understood the power of her own sexuality.

So, why had she not drifted quietly and sweetly to sleep when Noah finally zonked out? Part of it, she supposed, was fear that she’d fall into a deep sleep and still be in Noah’s bed when Cristina rose in the morning. While that was a horrifying prospect, she knew it wasn’t the main reason.

No, when the bedroom finally became silent but for the contented breathing of the man sleeping beside her, all Teddy’s cautions and fears came charging back with even greater vigor and menace. Last night hadn’t been some carefree fling of casual sex. It had been the furthest thing from it—for her, anyway. She’d felt herself bonding to Noah since the day they met, and the hours they’d spent in each other’s arms last night had strengthened those bonds exponentially.

But what had Noah felt beyond his immediate gratification? Teddy had no idea. Not many words had been spoken and certainly nothing about any feelings they might have for each other. She suspected they were both shell-shocked by what had happened between them.

Time will tell.
It was one of the oldest sayings in the world, no doubt because it held such obvious truth. She kept telling herself to stop worrying about it and get on with her job and her life. Noah would do what Noah would do.

Back at the house, she gave the dogs some water and a few cookies before she sat down with her second cup of coffee of the morning. She doubted Noah would be up for hours yet. Unlike her, he probably had no pressing reason to get out of bed and was no doubt exhausted from last night’s exertions, both at the ballpark and in the bedroom. The man had certainly demonstrated admirable stamina until he finally drifted off, his arm draped over her waist and his breath warm on her neck.

A full laundry basket in her arms, Cristina emerged from her suite and passed by the kitchen. When the housekeeper spotted Teddy on a stool at the high counter, she shot her a tight-lipped glare. Had she heard any of what went on last night? Cristina had seemed to be a heavy sleeper, so Teddy hadn’t given it much thought, especially since she and Noah had been relatively quiet—until they got up to his bedroom, anyway. She truly couldn’t imagine the elegant Cristina slinking upstairs to listen outside the door.

Cristina set the basket down on the floor and strode into the kitchen to stand directly across the counter from Teddy. She flipped her glossy hair like a fashion queen, as if to emphasize that
she
looked pulled together, unlike Teddy who was definitely not looking her best. Not that her best resembled anything as polished as Christina.

“You must be very pleased with yourself this morning, Miss Quinn.”

Crap. Back to Miss Quinn.

Teddy bit her tongue and maintained her silence. She
so
did not want this conversation. She hoped Noah still slept soundly because she hated the thought that he might come downstairs to stumble into the middle of a laughably clichéd cat fight.

Cristina slapped her hands onto the counter and leaned forward, a fierce scowl on her elegant features. “You must not be too attached to your job. That surprises me.”

Teddy sighed as she got up. She couldn’t stand having the woman glare down at her one second longer. “Look, Cristina, if you’ve got something you want to say, just say it straight out, okay? I’m not into verbal games, especially when I haven’t had my second cup of coffee.”

“There is nothing that goes on in this house that I don’t know about, so don’t think otherwise,” Cristina snapped. “I know what happened last night. I can tell how he feels about you, and I warned you.”

Teddy pointedly raised her eyebrows. “Surely you realize that’s none of your business.”

Cristina snorted. “I think you could use some advice. There are no better employers than Mr. Noah. I would never do anything to put my position here in danger, so I don’t understand why you would either. Isn’t it obvious that once he tires of you, you won’t be able to stay?”

Of course, that was precisely what Teddy feared, but why the heck would Cristina even care? As far as she could tell, the housekeeper would happily see the back end of her heading out the door for good. “Given the way you’ve treated me since I since I started working here, I would have thought that prospect would make you delirious with joy.”