Capital Pizza was The Tacos’ after-game celebration locale. Mostly because it was the only place still open this late at night. Consequently, the place was packed, and it took a solid thirty-minute wait to get a table big enough to seat nine.
I took a seat next to Jordan and Blaire and across from Julian, Hollin, and Ashleigh. Blaire’s roommate, Piper, sat on her other side with her twin brother, Peter, and Peter’s boyfriend, Jeremy, taking the end of the table. I’d never been as close to Piper as Blaire because of the soccer team, but I admired that she was a strong woman, running Sinclair Cellars. While it used to run in the Sinclair family, their grandfather had left it to the Medinas, but they’d kept the reputable name. And that was as much as I knew about the wine business in this town.
Once we were seated, we agreed to order a half-dozen pizzas to sate the giant dudes at our table. While everyone else was arguing over what toppings to put on, my gaze drifted to Jordan. He was dressed down in jeans and a button-up with the sleeves rolled up to his elbows.
“What do you prefer?” I asked him.
“Honestly shouldn’t eat any,” he said with a shrug. “I have five miles to run in the morning.”
“Oh, come on. I feel like I just ran five miles, and I’m having some.”
“Pepperoni,” he said with a shrug. “Do you still run? Outside of soccer?”
I frowned. Maverick running next to me at our Fourth of July marathon. Him collapsing. The screams that had ripped out of my mouth when I realized he wasn’t moving. The fastest final three miles I’d run in my life as I rushed to get Sutton once the paramedics took him away.
I shivered.
“Sometimes,” I said softly. “It’s hard to find time.”
“I know. I’m usually up at five or six a.m., and if I have to be in the office early, then I’m running in the middle of the night.”
“I used to have a schedule like that,” I said. I missed it, if I was honest. But then the memory of Maverick falling down hit me hard again, and I remembered why I’d never taken it back up with such vigor.
“You’re opening a winery?” a voice asked at the other end of the table.
Both Jordan and I turned to see Piper’s look of disbelief and Hollin’s shit-eating grin.
“Yeah, baby, I’m opening a winery,” Hollin said.
Piper narrowed her dark eyes. “What do you know about running a winery?”
“Everything,” he spat back. “I worked at West Texas Winery for years.”
Piper snorted. “You managed a bar. That’s not the same thing.”
“If you’re so afraid of the competition, just say so, Pipes,” Hollin said, leaning forward.
“Don’t call me Pipes,” she growled.
Blaire sighed heavily and rolled her eyes. “I did ask you both to try to be nice to each other.”
This was normal behavior for Piper and Hollin. I had no idea what had transpired to make them hate each other so much, besides Hollin’s smug face, but it was constantly like a bomb had gone off in each other’s presence. Right this minute, they looked ready to reach across the table and rip out each other’s throats.
“You know my fondness for Sinclair Cellars,” Ashleigh said conversationally, her voice nasally and grating. “But Julian is going to be investing and working at Wright Vineyard, too.” She patted her boyfriend on the arm. “It’s going to be great.”
Piper looked over at Julian. “You let him con you into this?”
Julian laughed with that soft charism that he had to defuse a situation. “There was no conning. Wright Vineyard is going to be a new winery on the market.”
I was so deeply invested in their conversation, listening to their quips back and forth, that I barely registered that Jordan had leaned in closer to me. Not until his hand landed on my thigh under the table. My eyes widened for a second as his fingers slipped lazily under the hem of my soccer shorts, brushing against my sensitive skin.
My eyes tipped back to his, and he arched an eyebrow as if to say, What?
No one else was paying attention. No one else could see his hand drifting ever further up my leg, a leisurely pace northward.
I swallowed hard and then reached for my water as my body heated under his rather public touches. I should have stopped him. We’d agreed that we weren’t going to have a relationship. But did friends with benefits do this? I didn’t know where the line was. And letting him touch me in public felt like crossing it.
Yet…I didn’t mind.
Fuck.
His finger reached the apex of my thighs, dragging down my center. I forced down a shiver. I didn’t want anyone to notice what the hell was happening. I didn’t even know what to think about it. Besides not wanting it to stop and not knowing if that was the right reaction.
Double fuck.
He hit my clit, and I couldn’t stop myself from jumping. Blaire glanced back over to me, and Jordan retreated.
“Cold?” she asked, offering me her Italian rose-embroidered jean jacket. It had to have cost a fortune. I knew she’d gotten it for free, like most of her stuff.
“Thanks,” I murmured, draping it over my shoulders.
I shot Jordan a warning look, but he was a mask of innocence.
“What?” he asked.
“Don’t what me.”
He leaned forward so that only I could hear him. “Then tell me to stop.”
But I wasn’t going to do that. So, I settled on glaring at him. He smiled wider and started his ascent back up my legs. His fingers crested my clit faster this time. Our eyes still locked. It took everything in me not to close my eyes and give in to this. My body superheating under the table, in front of everyone. And no one else knew what was happening.
He tipped his head, as if to tell me to look away. I swallowed, scooted forward in my seat, and tried to engage in the conversation. But I couldn’t hear any of the argument that was taking place between Piper and Hollin. Blaire and Julian trying to play mediators.
I just felt Jordan slowly working me to climax while he casually drank from his beer, as if nothing at all was happening.
My breath hitched as I came so close to hitting that point that I nearly tipped over my drink. Jordan pulled back then when all eyes came back to me. I shot them a weak smile and was glad that pizza appeared then to distract everyone again.
After two pieces of pepperoni pizza and an entire glass of water, I was coming down from my high. I could still feel the tingling between my legs and the wetness coating my panties.
“Hey, I can drive you home,” Jordan offered offhand as soon as he finished his pizza. “I know you said that you had to do some studying tonight.”
“I…do,” I agreed. “That’d be great. Thanks.” I handed Blaire her jacket back. “Jordan’s going to give me a ride home.”
Blaire smiled wide, unassuming, unlike Julian and Hollin on the other side of the table. “No problem.”
Jordan and I both handed over cash for the pizza. I was glad that I had some on me because I didn’t want to be there another minute.
We walked at a normal pace to his car, but as soon as we were inside, the door closed behind us, he grabbed me from across the car, crushing our lips together. I moaned, the heat that had built between my legs not completely extinguished.
“Fuck, I want you,” he ground out.
“I noticed that,” I gasped.
His dark eyes gleamed. “Oh, you liked that?”
“Almost spilled my drink everywhere as I fought not to come.”
“Mmm,” he groaned. “I like that. Can I make you come now?”
He didn’t wait for my response before his hand slipped under my shorts and slicking through my wetness.
“Fuck, Annie. You’re so wet.”
My body pulsed at his words. Our lips still pressed together. His hand working my clit in ways that I wasn’t entirely sure were possible in his car while I was wearing all of my clothes. But the tension in the pizza parlor coupled with the very public groping had me exploding in mere minutes.
I barely came down before he had the car out of the parking lot and was driving south. Away from my house. I would have fucked him in the backseat of his car at this point, but his house was good enough for me. I didn’t even complain that I didn’t have time. Because I wanted this—this effortless, sexy, easy thing between us.
No commitments. No strings. No questions. Just friends…and great fucking sex.