ach lifted his face and watched Adele’s eyes turn a shade darker. “Are you going to invite me in?”

She nodded and took a step back into the house. “Did you win your game?”

“Yes.” He followed.

“What was the score?”

“I don’t know.” He brought his mouth back down to her soft lips. He tried to keep it gentle, to ease into it, but Adele wasn’t playing around. The kiss she gave him sucked away any thought of gentleness. It was all slick tongues and carnal implications. Which was fine with him. Sometimes you had to go at it hot and hard and get the first one out of the way.

He kicked her front door shut and brought her body against his, so close he felt the imprint of her against his chest. Her hands slid over his arms and back, greedy as if she couldn’t get enough. He liked knowing he did that to her. God knows he couldn’t get enough of her.

He’d left her at four that morning, and sixteen hours later, here he was again, back for more. He’d driven like a madman from Amarillo to get to her, and he hadn’t even known if she wanted to see him.

Her hand slid down his waist to the front of his pants. She squeezed his erection and caressed him through the denim. Desire, hot and gripping, tightened his scrotum, and he had to lock his knees to keep from falling.

He lifted his face and came up for air. “I couldn’t stay away.”

“I’d hoped you’d stop by. I went to the E-Z Mart.” She slid two fingers inside the top of her slip and pulled out a condom wrapped in black plastic. “When I set the box of magnums on the counter, the clerk’s eyes bugged out of her head.”

God, he loved that she was prepared. He took the condom from her and stuck it in his back pocket. “What would you have done if I hadn’t shown up?”

“Tracked you down.” She pulled his green-and-black sweatshirt over his head and reached for his belt. “I don’t have your phone number, so I couldn’t call and ask you to come over.”

“We’ll fix that.” He grasped the bottom of the little black slip she wore and drew it up to her waist. “Later.” His hands found her bottom covered in the small silk panties. As she pulled at his belt, he lowered his face to the curve of her neck and opened his mouth against her soft skin. “I like this.” She smelled of flowers and he kissed his way across the top lace of her slip.

“I bought it this afternoon. It’s sexier than the old T-shirt.”

“I like the T-shirt.” He grabbed her wrists to keep her frantic hands from finishing things before they started and pinned them behind her. “Not so fast.” Her back arched, and he buried his face in her cleavage. He rubbed his cheek against her breasts and sucked her hard nipples through the slick, silky fabric. He loved her breasts. In his hands. Mouth. Against his chest.

“Let go. I want to touch you.” She fought against his grasp, but he wasn’t ready for her to touch him. Not ready for it to be over. He might not remember a book he’d once given her, but he remembered this. At least his body did. He felt twenty-two again. As if they were picking up exactly where they’d left off.

He let her wrists go, and she reached for the front of his pants. She pulled and unzipped and shoved her hand inside. Her soft palm wrapped around his dick, and he nearly lost control before he was inside her.

“Baby, you have to slow down.” He turned her and pulled her back into his chest.

“No,” she whispered, raised her hands, and brought his mouth down to her. “Later.”

She gave him a long wet kiss, drawing out his will to slow anything down. He loved the way she touched him. How she let him know how much she wanted him. He’d been with women who’d done anything and everything to fuck a football player, and he could always tell if a woman was feeling it or just trying to impress him. Adele wasn’t putting on an act. She wanted him every bit as much as he wanted her. And he wanted her. In every savage beat of his heart. In the dark place in his soul that wanted to push her down and rub his face against her, lick her up one side and down the other, and plunge deep into her hot, wet body.

He reached for her hands, which were on the back of his head, and brought them down in front of her. Then he bent her over, and she grabbed the edge of a table in the entryway. He pushed her panties down her legs and palmed her smooth behind. He loved her round butt almost as much as her breasts. He pulled the condom from his pocket as his pants slid down his legs, and the belt buckle hit the floor with a thud. “Spread your feet a little bit for me,” he said as he pulled himself out of his underwear and rolled the condom down his shaft.

She did, and he slid his hand over her bottom and between her legs. She was wet and ready, and moaned deep in her throat as he parted her and teased her slick flesh. Her back arched as he positioned himself and slid into the hot, gripping pleasure of her body. She was incredibly tight around him, and he pulled almost all the way out, then sank into her. He pushed her hair to one side and lightly bit the side of her neck. Mine, he thought, his body covering hers. She pushed her bottom against him, wanting more. He gave it to her in long, powerful thrusts. He drove inside again and again, his heart pounding in his head as he felt the first tightening pulse of her orgasm. It milked him, pulling a release from deep in his belly that went on forever. He thrust into her, hard, and the thin condom barrier burst. A gush of fiery liquid heat surrounded him, pulled him deeper, and sucked him dry. The most intense pleasure he’d ever felt in his life rippled through his body, and he closed his eyes. It spread fire across his skin, grabbed his insides, and stole his breath. His heart pounded in his head, and he thought he just might have died and gone to heaven.

“Fuck.”

A dele tied the black robe around her waist and walked out of the master bathroom and headed toward the sounds in the kitchen. Zach had just given her the best quickie of her life. It had been hot and intense—then he’d slipped from her body, pulled up his pants, and moved to the bathroom down the hall without a word.

He stood at the kitchen sink, filling a glass with water. His back was to her, the light overhead picked out golden strands of his hair and poured over his bare shoulders, the hard planes of his back, and the indent of his spine. His pants hung low on his hips.

He turned and lowered the glass. His pants were zipped, but he hadn’t buckled his belt. “The condom broke.”

“I know.” He’d been an athlete. His marriage hadn’t been good, and she figured he’d been with more than his share of women. She grabbed his glass and drained it, wishing that it had been something a bit stronger. Like a Limoncello or a snakebite. She would not freak out, she told herself. Not yet. “Let’s talk about that.”

As he refilled the water, he looked at her across his big shoulder. “I haven’t had sex without a condom since the night Tiffany was conceived.”

Relief eased the tension in her back and the knot in her stomach, and brought a smile to her face. “Seriously?”

“Seriously.”

“Then I don’t think we have a problem.” She took the glass from his hand, and confessed, “I haven’t had sex for a really long time.”

“How long?” He turned toward her and shoved his hip into the counter.

She took a drink and handed it back. “Three years ago, when I broke up with my boyfriend. He started acting so weird that I had myself tested, and I’m clean. We don’t have a problem.”

He lowered his gaze to her belly. “My guys are swimming upstream searching for your egg, and you don’t think that’s a problem?”

She shook her head. “I have an IUD.”

“What’s an IED?” He took a drink, and his brown eyes watched her over the bottom of the glass.

“IUD. Intrauterine device. It’s a form of birth control.”

“How effective is it?”

“The IUD has a failure rate of 1 percent.”

“Are you sure?” He set the glass on the counter, and a frown wrinkled his forehead. “I don’t want another child.”

Adele knew she shouldn’t feel insulted, but she couldn’t help it. He was suddenly looking at her as if she was the enemy. “I’m sure. I had one of my yearly visits to the doctor a few months ago, and the IUD was right where it’s supposed to be. Believe me, Zach, I don’t want a child right now. That’s why I have birth control implanted in my body.”

“Devon said she was on the pill when she got pregnant, but she lied.”

She crossed her arms beneath her breasts. “Do you think I’m lying to you, Zach?”

“You wouldn’t be the first woman to lie about something like that.” He tilted his head to one side and studied her.

She’d never been accused of lying about birth control. And being compared to Devon made her want to punch him. “Then you need to leave.” Instead of hitting him, Adele walked out of the kitchen and moved to the front door. She wondered if this was part of the curse. Zach was normally a rational guy, but at the moment he was being crazy. He’d turned into a jerk, but unlike the latest victims of the curse, she was not so forgiving.

She picked up his sweatshirt from the floor. What kind of woman lied about birth control, she fumed.

Apparently Devon.

Adele tucked that bit of info away to think about later. “Don’t compare me to other women. I wouldn’t lie about something like that,” she said as she held the shirt out to him. “It’s insulting even to think I would.”

“I’ve never had a condom break before.” He took the shirt and pulled it over his head.

“So?”

“So why now?” He shoved his arms in the sleeves and pulled the sweatshirt down his chest and stomach.

Adele’s brows lowered over her eyes, and she tried to control her anger. “I don’t want your child, Zach. I’m leaving as soon as Sherilyn has her baby and is able to take care of herself. I’m not ever coming back, and the last thing I want is to be some jock’s baby-momma and raise a kid by myself.”

“But you wouldn’t raise the kid by yourself.” He pulled his keys from the front pocket of his pants. “I wouldn’t allow that to happen, and I think you know it.”

That did it. “You’re the one who showed up on my door tonight, and now you’re acting like the broken condom is my fault! As if I did something to it.”

“It was your condom. Any sane man would wonder—”

“Leave!” she interrupted as she opened the door and pointed out into the dark Texas night.

“Jesus, why are you so mad?”

She pushed on his chest until he stood on her porch. “This may come as a shock to you, Zach Zemaitis, but not every woman in this world is lyin’ and dyin’ to birth your baby. Some of us actually find the thought horrifyin’.”

“There it is.” He actually smiled. “When you’re mad, your accent comes back.”

“Good, then you should be able to understand this. Go fuck yourself, and don’t ever show up on my porch again!” She slammed the door as she heard the last few words of her own voice in her ears flattening all the vowels as if she were a Texan. Only her momma hadn’t raised her to swear. Her momma hadn’t raised Sherilyn to swear either, but both of them seemed to be cursing with alarming frequency. For that she blamed Zach and that jerk William. She’d like to blame the curse for turning Zach into an idiot, but couldn’t. No, Zach hadn’t needed any outside help. He’d turned all on his own.

Z ach paused as he moved through the living room and glanced at the portrait of Devon hanging above the fireplace. Adele thought it was spooky. He tilted his head to one side and looked up into Devon’s green eyes staring back at him. He didn’t think the portrait was spooky. The special soft light hit it, as if it were hanging at the Met, making it more narcissistic than spooky. Not that he really thought about it one way or the other. It had been more than three years since Devon had died, and unless someone brought her name into the conversation, he didn’t really think about his dead wife all that much.

“…why is your house practically a shrine to her?” Adele had asked the night before. Was his house like a shrine to Devon? Had he allowed his daughter’s grief and his own guilt over Devon’s death dictate how they would live in their home? Maybe. And maybe when Tiffany got back, they’d talk about taking the portrait down.

He walked down the hall to his bedroom and flipped on the light. This may come as a shock to you Zach Zemaitis, but not every woman in this world is lyin’ and dyin’ to birth your baby. Some of us actually find the thought horrifyin’. He smiled as he shucked his clothes, then moved to the bathroom. He’d overreacted. Clearly he had, but the condom breaking had thrown ice water on his amorous mood, chilled him to the marrow, and twisted his gut into a knot. When it came to birth control, he didn’t trust women. He only trusted himself. But did he think she was lying?

Zach turned on the shower and stepped inside. No, he didn’t think she was lying. Not only because until the night before, she’d been running from him instead of to him, but because he really didn’t believe Adele would lie about something so important.

He thought about the football game earlier that day. They’d eked out a win in the last four minutes of the game, and he knew he was partly to blame. He hadn’t been able to give the boys his full effort. His mind had been split between the playing field and Adele. While his tight end had been having difficulty running his pass patterns, Zach had been having difficulty keeping his mind in the game and off Adele. While he should have been watching the tight end more closely to make sure he was getting his hands up at the snap, he’d been wondering what Adele was doing with her hands and calculating the distance back to Cedar Creek.

He’d been distracted. Impatient to win and get back to Adele. That had never happened to him before. He’d always been able to wrap his head around the game and leave his personal life off the field. Nothing ever affected his game. Especially not a woman.

Perhaps it was because he’d gone without sex for three years that he was having a hard time concentrating on anything but seeing Adele again. Of pulling her up against his chest and getting her naked. His team had noticed, and Joe had even commented on it.

“Is something wrong, Z?” he’d asked, as they’d walked from the locker room after half. “You seem distracted.”

“Nothing’s wrong,” he’d assured his defensive coach, and had done a little better during the second half of the game.

He asked 110 percent of his boys, and they deserved no less from him. He needed to put the brakes on his relationship with Adele; to slow things down before it really got him in trouble. That wasn’t going to be a problem since she’d kicked him out of her house and told him not to show up on her porch again.

Sure, he’d been wrong to get crazy and accuse her of lying, but a broken condom made him crazy. There was a one-in-a-hundred chance that she’d get pregnant, but he didn’t like those odds. Then again, maybe the broken condom was just one more distraction that he didn’t need. He had one more game to win before the state championship next month, and he needed to concentrate all his energy on bringing home the trophy.

Adele was beautiful, and he’d like to get to know her all over again. He’d like to get reacquainted outside of bed and reconnect a lot more in bed, but the last thing he needed was a woman distracting him. Especially one who touched him in hard places with soft hands and made him want to forget about everything but being with her.

Ignoring Adele completely wasn’t an option. One, because he didn’t want to, and two because it was impossible. He’d tried that, and it hadn’t worked, but he did need to slow things down. At least until after State.

He thought of the look in her eyes as she’d slammed the door in his face. State was a few weeks away, and she might need that time to cool off.