The Secret Hook-Up

I’m splayed across Addie’s bed Friday morning, buck naked, watching her get ready for the day. She’s wrapped in a towel, and I can barely see her flipping through her hangers. “You don’t have a game day uniform?” I ask her.

“I do, but I—hold just a minute.” Her phone’s ringing. When she picks it up, it’s clear she knows the person on the other end. “This did not require a phone call. I’m not trying to take all of your time.”

Whatever the other person says, it’s obviously not what Addie wants to hear. She makes a noise that I know very well.

It’s her you’re stepping on my independence grunt. “Thank you. You could’ve said that in a text…. I would too have listened. You have a very authoritative text style when you want to.”

A soft blue sundress comes flying out of the closet, followed by a short-sleeve white cover-up thingy.

I forget what Paisley calls those. She has a couple though.

The motion in the closet stills. “Are you asking because you don’t know, or are you asking because you want to know if my version lines up with the version Cooper told you after Luca and Brooks texted him the rundown?”

I lift my head off the pillow and try to get a clear view of Addie, but she’s moved deeper into the closet.

It’s a walk-in, but it’s on the smaller side. There’s not far for her to go.

“Absolutely not. I—no! No. Okay. Fine. Hold on.” She leans out of the closet, still wrapped in a towel, her hair hanging wet at her shoulders, her cheeks nearly burgundy. “Will you please tell Waverly she doesn’t have to put one of her security agents up to following you to make sure you’re behaving?”

She holds her phone out.

It’s just a phone call—no video—which is good, since my ass is on display.

While I’m not all that modest, none of us need one of the world’s biggest pop stars telling her husband she saw my ass in bed.

He’d enjoy the pranks he’d play as a result too much.

“I’m not behaving,” I call to Waverly. “You should definitely have one of your security people trail me to give a full report to you and Addie at the end of every day. Especially if they can help me with my golf swing.”

Addie squeezes her eyes shut, but I see the glimmer of a smile tilting her lips at the corners.

I like glimmers of smiles far more than I like tears.

Especially after the best orgasm of my life.

Overwhelmed was all she said when we finally got off the couch. But she insisted she didn’t want me to go.

And I was more than happy to stay.

“Okay,” she says into the phone as she puts it back to her ear. “I’m outnumbered. Put one of your security guys on him. Kick ass this weekend. I can’t wait to see the videos floating around social media. Thank you for the reassurance on the dress. And you don’t have to—okay. Okay. I promise I’ll call next time.”

She hangs up, then looks at me.

Really looks at me.

Her gaze starts at my eyes, but soon it’s trailing down my face to my lips. Then my chin. My neck. Shoulders. Side.

She bites her lower lip when her gaze gets approximately to my ass.

My dick presses into the mattress like we weren’t screwing like rabbits in her shower twenty minutes ago.

“I’ve made a lot of smart financial moves since my first contract,” I tell her. “We could both quit our jobs and just stay home and have sex every day for the rest of our lives. Even if I pay a hundred grand another few times for more dates with you.”

Her eyes dart back to mine.

I grin. “I’m only joking if you don’t like the idea.”

She flips me off, but she’s laughing as she bends over to retrieve the dress on the floor, giving me a view of her ass peeking out from under the towel.

Dammit.

I cannot get enough of this woman, and not just because this is the first night we’ve spent together in four years.

It’s because I never could.

And that’s why I fucked up and got pissed that she didn’t want to take things to the next level.

And that’s why I’m not at all offended at her playfully flipping me off this morning.

She drops the towel entirely as she reaches her dresser.

I groan.

That pretty pussy gets covered with blue silk panties.

Those lush, pink-tipped breasts go into a matching blue silk bra.

I stifle a growl. “You’re fucking sexy as hell.”

The look she gives me takes my breath away. It’s sexy and shy and vulnerable and it makes me want to jump out of bed, toss her over my shoulder, and haul her back here to stay all day long.

“You’re the first man I’ve ever believed when you say things like that,” she says quietly.

I stifle another growl.

I officially hate every single person in her life.Ccontent © exclusive by Nô/vel(D)ra/ma.Org.

None of them are good enough for her. None of them are supportive enough. None of them see her.

Or possibly I’m overreacting. She did just have a pop star on the phone who clearly adores her and thinks she’s fabulous.

As she fucking should.

“You should come back to bed,” I say.

The blue dress goes over her head. “I’ve come back to bed three times since my alarm went off. And I need to be in early today. I have a meeting with the big bosses.”

“Twice,” I say. “The shower wasn’t bed.”

She has no idea how gorgeous she is when she smiles like that.

Absolutely none.

If she did, she wouldn’t be leaning over the bed to press a kiss to my lips. She’d be out finding someone much better than me.

“Do you have any idea how much I appreciate that you have nothing to gain from liking me?” she says.

Is she fucking kidding? “You mean beyond getting to enjoy your personality, your body, your heart, your intelligence, your sense of humor, your⁠—”

“Professionally. You don’t want my job. You don’t want to play baseball. You don’t want my connections. You’re not threatened by me. You just…like me. And when you don’t like me, it’s because I don’t like you enough.”

I shift so I’m sitting on the bed and pull her into my lap.

She doesn’t fight it, though she does squeal. “Duncan, I have to go to work,” she says on a laugh.

I kiss her neck and breathe in the scent of her.

Lavender will forever be Addie to me. Forever and ever. “You deserve all of the people to like you for who you are and fuck what you can do for them.”

“Will you come over again tonight?” She loops her right arm around my neck and kisses the top of my head while I trace the barest hint of cleavage at the edge of her dress.

“If you want me.”

“I want you.”

“Good. I need to talk to you about how I’ve been thinking I should try baseball after I retire.”

She playfully shoves my head away as she climbs off my lap. “Don’t do my dishes.”

“I thought being an equal partner meant sharing the load.”

She stops dead in her tracks as she’s reaching for the white cover-up thingy. Her eyes meet mine, and they start to water again.

Fuck. “Addie⁠—”

“No, you’re right.” She straightens slowly. “I—I’ve done everything for myself for so long, I’ve insisted on doing everything for myself for so long, so I wouldn’t put myself in the same situation that my mom put herself in, that I didn’t even realize that’s exactly what I’m doing, but for opposite reasons.”

I scoot to the edge of the bed, watching her.

She shakes her head, slips her sweater thing on, and then bends over to kiss me once more. “Thank you.”

I catch her hands in mine and press a kiss to each of her palms. “I haven’t done your dishes yet.”

“And you don’t have to. But if you do…thank you. And thank you for being patient with me. I…clearly have a lot more to figure out than I thought I did.”

I don’t want her to go.

But I know why she has a meeting with her bosses this morning. I know what she needs to tell them. Whether or not she’s making the right decision, time will tell.

“We all have a lot more to figure out than we think we do,” I tell her. “Don’t be too hard on yourself, eh?”

“I really have to go,” she says softly.

But I don’t want to is the rest of the sentence she’s not saying.

I can see it in the way her gaze lingers on my body and goes dark. In the way she’s not making a mad dash for the door. “The game will probably go until ten, and then we have some things after…”

“I’m free all night. Text me if you want to come over to my place. Or if you want me to come here. Or if you change your mind and don’t want to see me tonight.”

I hope we hit a point where I’m not holding my breath every time we have this conversation.

But until she tells me to stop going slow, we’ll keep having this conversation.

“I want to see you tonight,” she says.

Relief floods my veins. “All of me, or just this guy?” I ask, pointing to my hard-on.

She smiles. “That’ll depend on how my day goes.”

“Fair enough.”

She kisses me once more, and then she grunts out a frustrated noise. “I’m leaving. I have to get to work.”

“Good luck today.”

“With the meeting or the game?”

“Both.”

“Thank you. Now shh. Or I won’t leave.”

I blow her a kiss.

She’s blushing when she charges out of the bedroom.

Fucking perfect.

I like being in Addie’s life.

And I hope this time it lasts.