“You’re wet. Do you know how wet and tight and hot you are?”

She didn’t think his question required a response. She was too busy gasping as he moved inside her, so she couldn’t have answered him. Her only reply was moving back, giving him more access to her.

Mick grabbed her h*ps to draw her against him. He leaned over to cup her breasts, pounding inside her with hard thrusts now. Tara fisted the comforter and braced herself against the edge of the bed as he pushed deep, then retreated, each time faster than before, each time taking her higher, his shaft seeming to swell inside her, brushing all her sensitive tissues.

She wanted to come with him inside her. She moved her hand between her legs and rubbed her clit, so filled with him that just touching herself made her cl**ax draw closer.

Mick slowed down and took it easy then, wrapping one arm around her waist and rocking against her in an easy rhythm, seeming to know what she needed. She felt the pulses, felt her pu**y grip him in a tight vise as she rolled over the edge with him.

He groaned and tightened as he thrust over and over again. Tara cried out with her orgasm until they were both spent, her facedown on the bed and Mick lying on top of her back.

She breathed in and out, enjoying the feel of him against her. She felt dizzy, elated, took her time to get her bearings as she opened her eyes just as her phone rang.

“You going to answer that?”

“I should. It might be Nathan.”

She grabbed her jeans and fished her cell phone out. It was Nathan. She blushed as she answered, even though Nathan couldn’t know Mick was here.

“Hey.”

“Hey, Mom. I forgot my key, so I just wanted to make sure you were home.”

She shot off the bed. “Your key? Why?”

“I need to get a game I left there. Be home in about ten minutes.”

“Uh, okay.”

“Shit!” she said, grabbing her panties and jeans as she clicked off the phone.

“What?”

“It’s Nathan. He’s coming home.”

Mick’s lips lifted. “Oh. Sooner than you thought?”

“No. He wasn’t supposed to be here at all. He was spending the night at his friend’s house.”

“So. You got me over here with false pretenses, huh?”

“Oh, shut up and get your clothes on.”

She dashed into the bathroom and turned on the faucet, threw a washcloth at Mick, who grinned as he walked by her. How dare he look so relaxed and at ease?

She cleaned up in record time, put her wild, sex-crazed hair back in a ponytail, and splashed cold water on her flushed face, then practically dragged Mick out of her bedroom and down the stairs.

“Okay, kitchen,” she said, out of breath as she dashed into the kitchen and started making tea.

“Would you relax? He’s not here yet, is he?”

“No. But my God, he could have walked in. What were we thinking?” She shook her head as she filled the pot with water.

He came up behind her and wrapped his arms around her. “I don’t know about you, but I was thinking how good it felt to be inside you.”

She shoved him with her hip. “Stop that.”

“Mom! I’m home!”

She jerked around and plastered on a smile. “In here.”

If only her heart would stop frantically slamming against her chest, she might not drop into a dead faint.

Nathan came into the kitchen, took one look at her and then at Mick, and his eyes widened.

“Holy shit.”

“Nathan, watch your language.”

“You’re Mick Riley.”

Mick smiled and went to shake Nathan’s hand. “I am. And you’re Nathan. Nice to meet you.”

Nathan swallowed, and Tara was sure she’d never seen her son so incredibly starstruck before.

“I take it you know who Mick is?”

He didn’t even glance at her, just kept his stunned gaze focused on Mick. “Duh, Mom. I’m not a moron.”

Mick pulled out a chair and sat. Nathan sat in the chair next to his. “Your mom says you play football.”

“Yeah. Junior varsity since I’m just a freshman. Well, I’ll be a sophomore in the fall.”

“I played JV as a freshman, too. Didn’t make the varsity team until I was a junior.”

They started gabbing away about football, which gave Tara a minute to get her heart rate under control. Okay, disaster averted. Her son hadn’t found her and Mick in the middle of wild monkey sex. Good Lord, where had her common sense gone? She never brought a man over to the house, let alone had sex with him there.

Mick was a very bad influence on her.

“So where did you two meet?”

“Your mom planned an event for our team a couple weeks ago.”

Nathan shifted his wide-eyed gaze to her. “You did?”

Tara brought tea to the table. “I did.”

“I didn’t know that.”

“I believe I mentioned it. More than once, as a matter of fact. You might try listening when I talk about my job.”

Nathan shrugged. “Your job is mostly boring.”

“Evidently not,” Mick said, “or you wouldn’t have missed the part about her catering an event for my team. She might have even finagled you an invitation if you’d been paying attention.” Mick elbowed Nathan. Nathan had the decency to bow his head and blush.

Nice move, Mick.

“Yeah, okay, so maybe I should have been listening. Anything else good coming up, Mom?”

“Sadly, no. Unless you want to accompany me to a luncheon for the city council. Or maybe a garden party for the Daughters of the American Revolution?”

Nathan shook his head. “No, thanks. I’d rather have my legs waxed.”

Mick laughed. “Can’t say as I blame you, buddy.”

Tara ordered pizza, and Nathan somehow managed to finagle invitations for a “couple” of his best friends to come over. Tara balked at that, but Mick said he didn’t mind. Before she knew it, five teenagers were hanging on Mick’s every word and devouring the ten pizzas she’d ordered, which Mick had insisted on paying for. Once the ravenous horde of teens and one very hungry adult male had been satiated, Mick sat in the living room with Nathan and his friends crowded around him, and they talked nonstop football.

Tara leaned against the wall and listened. Mick seemed so at ease with the kids, didn’t mind answering the barrage of questions, and she hadn’t heard her son talk this much since he was six years old. Of course, it wasn’t like she routinely talked football with him, either. After all, she was his mother. And a girl. So many points against her, whereas Mick was made of hero. He was a football star, and he never had to do the dirty work like tell her son to do his homework or ground him for not making his curfew.

So unfair.

“And what about Gavin? Is he as awesome as he seems?” Nathan asked.

Tara mentally ran through the list of all of San Francisco’s players and came up blank. She thought she knew them all. “Who’s Gavin?”

Nathan shot her a look that said she was a complete idiot. “Gavin Riley, Mom.”

“Uhhhh ...”

Tara shifted her gaze from Mick, who looked amused, to Nathan, who looked appalled.

“Mom, Gavin Riley is not only Mick’s younger brother, he’s also a professional baseball player. First base? Plays for Saint Louis, which, by the way, is also Mick and Gavin’s hometown? What planet are you living on, anyway?”

“Mars, apparently,” Tara said, shooting a helpless look to Mick, who laughed.

“I don’t think she’s required to know every player in every sport, Nathan. And your mom and I just recently started going out, so she doesn’t know my bio as well as you do.”

“Yeah, but if she’s going out with you, she sure as hell should know who your brother is.”

“Language, Nathan,” Tara shot back.

Nathan just shrugged.

“We’ve mainly been just talking about each other, not getting into family history, Nate,” Mick said with a smile that was directed at Tara.

The guys ooohed and ahhed in a very adult way. Nathan cast a curious look at Tara that made her want to slink out of the room.

“That is gross. So anyway, about that game with Green Bay ...”

Saved by football. Tara slipped out of the room before any other embarrassing topics about her and Mick came up. Tara let Mick enjoy the adoration of teen boys for a while longer, until he found her in the kitchen doing dishes. At least she hoped the guy sliding his arms around her was Mick. She turned around when he kissed her neck.

“You don’t have to hide in here,” he said.

She dried her hands on the kitchen towel and backed away. “I didn’t want to get in the middle of such hero worship.”

“Good kids. But like all boys, they tend to want to be the center of attention. I’m dating you, not them. And you have a right to assert yourself.”

“I didn’t mind. Where are they now?”

“I sent the fan club home. Nathan is upstairs working out some plays for tomorrow’s practice with his buddy, then they’re taking off. He said he has practice tomorrow, so I told him he should be asleep by eleven.”

Tara heard the heavy stomping of feet down the stairs. Nathan and Devon appeared in the kitchen.

Her son was smiling. Grinning, even.

“We’re outta here. Bye, Mom. See ya, Mick.”

“See ya, Nathan,” Mick said. “Don’t forget to get some sleep.”

Nathan saluted. “You got it.”

After he left, Tara snorted. “Lights out at eleven? Yeah, right. Like that’s going to happen.”

“It will. He promised me.”

She arched a brow. “You’re serious. He’s actually going to sleep at eleven.”

Mick shrugged. “I gave my speech about growing boys and athletes needing sleep and how much football practice takes out of a body every day, especially in the summer. I can guarantee at eleven p.m., he and his friend will go to sleep.”

Tara leaned back. “I’m ... stunned. I can’t tell you how often I fight with him about going to bed at a decent hour.”

“I was a teenage boy once. I know how hideous we are and I apologize for my gender.”

She couldn’t help but laugh. “Apology accepted.”

“Good. Now come sit down with me and relax.”

He dragged her into the living room, turned on the television, and flopped down on the couch, then expected her to snuggle up with him.

She hesitated.

“What’s wrong?”

“I don’t bring guys over here.”

He propped his feet up. “Why not?”

She sat on the chair instead of the couch with him. “I don’t know. I just ... don’t.”

“So you think it’s wrong for your son to know you have a guy over watching television with you?”

She stared at him. “Mick. I don’t know. I don’t ... date.”

“He’s fourteen, Tara.”

She chewed her bottom lip. “His birthday is next month.”

“So you’re telling me that he’ll be fifteen next month, and you’ve never brought a guy over? In how long?”

“What do you mean?”

“What about his dad?”

She hesitated. “He’s not part of Nathan’s life now.”

He studied her. “How long has his dad been out of the picture?”

“Oh.” She looked down at her hands for a few seconds.

“I’m prying. Sorry.”

“His dad’s never been in the picture.”

“Ever?”

“No.”

“Bastard.”

She shuddered an inhale and lifted her gaze to his. “Long story.”

“Wanna talk about it?”

“Not tonight.”

“Okay. But still, you’ve got a right to have a life.”

She shrugged. “I’ve been busy, first when Nathan was little, and then with my education, and now trying to get my career going.”

“Again, you need to have a life. And it’s okay to bring a date over now and then.”

When he put it like that, it sounded ridiculous and provincial. “I just never wanted to be the kind of single parent who paraded a bunch of guys in and out of his life.”

“And you haven’t, have you?”

“No.”

“Then come over here and let’s watch a movie. I promise not to ravish you.”

“Well, where’s the fun in that?”

OH, MAN. MICK WAS IN BIG TROUBLE.

He liked this woman. Really liked her. And he liked her kid, too. She was a good mother; he could tell. She wasn’t out for her own pleasure. She took care of her son and his needs, obviously didn’t party to the detriment of Nathan’s welfare, and was actually one of those women who put her kid first.

And this was so far out of his element he had no idea what he was doing.

An hour and a half into the movie and she was zonked out on his shoulder, lightly snoring, which he found incredibly—real. No woman Liz would fix him up with would be caught dead with her mouth open and snoring on his shoulder, let alone her hair sticking out the sides of her ponytail.

He adjusted and laid Tara’s head in his lap. God, she was cute. Not drop-dead gorgeous in the sense that he was used to. He’d had plenty of stunning women on his arm before. But he liked that Tara was just ... normal and pretty. And she snored. Yeah, he really liked that about her.

She snorted once and then rolled over onto her side, drawing her knees up toward her chest. Mick grabbed the blanket from the top of the couch and covered her with it.