On the Sunday afternoon after she arrived back at her parents’ house, Tiffany stood in the parking lot of the Newcastle Country Club with her cousins and said, “I don’t like it. This is a bad idea. Are you sure Jericho’s not going to be here?”
The three girls watched the construction equipment crawl by, enormous tires grating on the gravel of the parking lot as they billowed exhaust and burning oil from the roaring diesel engines.
Asia had not been kidding when she’d said that there were more backhoes and bulldozers in the golf club’s parking lot than there were sports cars. The sports cars were parked on the mown field across the street. The clubhouse was half-built, and construction equipment tore some walls down while workers framed others.
Past the driving range, an enormous new building rose from behind the range’s netting and hovered in the warm afternoon air. Cranes poked the sky over its rounded roof.
Tiffany pointed to it. “What the hell is that?”
Imani stood beside her, arms crossed while she fidgeted from one foot to the other. “That must be the stadium or casino or whatever the heck Parr got the building permits for. Seriously, it’s over a hundred yards long inside. It could hold a football field, and there’s a huge parking lot on the other side of it. Asia, I do not know why you thought coming here was a good idea. Tiffany needs to walk away and leave this grunt forever.”
Asia waved her hands. “I didn’t say we were here to see anyone. We are here to see what is going on with her club. Come on, let’s go see what he did to the driving range.”
Tiffany shook her head. “I don’t want to get mad. I don’t need to be mad. I need to rest and not do anything that causes inflammation for a few days, and then I’m going back to Tennessee State and Coach Robinson. Murderous rage causes inflammation.”
“I’m sure you’re not going to have any reason to feel murderous rage,” Asia said as she started walking through the parking lot toward the driving range. “The driving range looks longer. Didn’t you always say that your drives were hitting the netting in the back, so you couldn’t calibrate how far they were going?”
Tiffany looked at her. “You were listening?”
“Of course, I was listening, sis. I’m always listening.”
That didn’t make Tiffany feel any better. “You say the driving range is longer?”
“Yeah, but he was starting to do that before you even left, right? Did you bring your golf clubs?”
“They’re in the trunk of my car, but I don’t need to hit balls. You said we were here just to look.”
Asia shrugged. “Why don’t you just grab your clubs? Even though you need to rest while you’re here, you probably shouldn’t entirely stop practicing, right? You should probably hit just a few balls.”
Asia was right. Entirely laying off golf for an entire week would be detrimental to her game, and Tiffany couldn’t afford that if she wanted to win at the qualifying tournament.
And she wanted to win the qualifying tournament.
So, Tiffany wrestled her clubs out of the back of her car and flipped the backpack-style straps over her shoulders, and they set off down the path through the meadow toward the driving range with her clubs clanking on her back.
The grass around the path mown into the meadow was late-summer high and brittle as hay, and they tramped single-file toward the driving range. Connecticut must have been getting a lot of rain lately because the soil had eroded around some of the large stones embedded in the earth, and Tiffany stepped carefully lest she twist her ankle or worse.
As they got closer, a row of skinny kids wearing matching red golf shirts occupied the driving range.
Tiffany pointed at them. “Is that the NFA golf team?”
“You tell me,” Asia said. “How am I supposed to know? I don’t know who’s supposed to be here.”
As they got closer, Tiffany saw they were indeed the high school golf team she had coached, and the skinny girl on the end was Latoya Miller, who about came out of her shoes when she spotted Tiffany walking up to the driving range.
Latoya sprinted across the field, yelling, “Coach Tiffany! Coach Tiffany! Are you a professional golfer? Are you on the LPGA Tour? Why are you walking funny?”
Tiffany caught Latoya as the teenager launched herself and hugged her. “I’m not walking funny. I’m not not walking funny. I had a limp because I was wearing a brace. But my leg got fixed, so I’m not limping anymore.”
“They said you were down at TSU for the summer.”
Tiffany told her the whole story. “And I’m just back for a few days before I train even harder for a qualifying tournament.”
Latoya was practically dancing with excitement. “Come see my swing. I got rid of the reverse pivot.”
Tiffany thanked the golf gods Latoya had finally gotten over her wicked reverse pivot, and they walked down to the driving range. She squinted as they got closer. “What’s that on the other side of the caddie shack?”
The tees of the driving range that were occupied by the high school golf team were just as they used to be, and then there was the little shack for the range attendants and bag boys, and then there was another section of the driving range that was occupied by some club members she knew and a whole bunch of members she didn’t.
Latoya told her, “That’s the new driving range. Didn’t you know about that? It’s made it so much easier for the team to get range time because we don’t have to squeeze in between all the leagues.”
She asked Latoya, “So, are you allowed to practice here?”
“Yeah, why wouldn’t we be? If anything, we’re practicing more. Coach has us playing eighteen holes every day, and we’re going to be able to practice over the winter here, too.”
Tiffany didn’t have time to ask Latoya what she meant about practicing golf during the winter in snowy, bitterly cold Connecticut. Instead, she walked around the side of the caddie shack and trotted down an embankment with her bag on her back as she watched her feet, making sure she didn’t step in a hole or on a rock and destroy her knee and her life goals again, and she peered at the new section of the driving range.
Three bays down stood a tall, muscular man whom she absolutely, positively didn’t want to see. He wore a red NCC staff golf shirt and khaki athletic pants, just like when she’d first seen him in the bag room months before. “No frickin’ way.”
And yet her heart fluttered in her chest, and a blush rose and warmed her skin the way his warm hands and the way he used to touch her once had.
Jericho Parr looked up as she came around the corner. He took one long, scorching glance down her body, and she swore she could feel his eyes through her clothes on her stomach, and thighs, and all the way to her toes, which he had actually sucked that one time in his suite at the inn.
She’d thought the toe-sucking thing would be weird right up until the warmth of his mouth had closed on them. It felt like when he’d kissed her fingertips. Nerve endings were nerve endings, and she’d already been panting from what his hands and mouth had done to her breasts and back. And then when he’d done that, wow, she’d gasped and almost screamed.
Just looking at his mouth made her skin tingle, and her bra felt tight as her body reacted to his fingertips and mouth and tongue so close to her.
Jericho said, “Hello, Tiffany.”
The tee he was hitting from had been blocked from her line of sight by the beige shed, so she hadn’t seen him until she’d come around the corner. Of course, she was standing there gaping like an idiot, but she shouldn’t have been surprised.
Of course, he was at Newcastle Country Club. It was his club. He literally owned it. Why wouldn’t he be there?
Tiffany asked him, “What are you doing here?”
She considered running away.
His smile was warm and slow, and she felt that all along her skin, too. “Waiting for you.”
“That is the cheesiest thing I have ever heard, Jericho Parr. You were not waiting for me. And if you were waiting, you’re going to be waiting a lot longer because I am out of here.” She turned and flounced, and her heavy golf bag hanging on her back clattered as she did. One could not gracefully flounce while carrying golf clubs.
“Did you see the NFA golf team on the other side?” he called after her.
She stopped in her tracks. “What about them?”
“What did they tell you?”
“That they were practicing here. Is that true?”
“Yes. The high school kids have more allotted range time and course time than before because we extended the driving range.”
Tiffany turned back. “It’s a nice driving range.”
“It was important for the community,” he said.
Tiffany slung her clubs off her shoulders and planted them on the ground. “That’s great, Jericho, and it’ll be great for the next few years. But after that, all the new kids coming up on the NFA golf team will just be upper-middle-class kids who would’ve taken golf or tennis lessons somewhere anyway. The monthly dues here are so high that working-class families can’t afford a membership.”
Jericho grinned, because of course, he did. He was always grinning. “We instituted a new pricing structure this month, and within the last few days, we reached out to all the members who resigned to invite them back. For people who live within the Township of Newcastle, membership dues will return to the levels they were at last year. New members outside of the township will pay the higher dues. Ninety-three percent of the lapsed members rejoined. Unfortunately, your father didn’t take us up on the offer. I suspect he’s pissed at the new management.”
“But then it’s not sustainable. You said so yourself, that NGC went under because the dues weren’t enough to support it. I was a business major, Jericho. Just taking a look at everything you’ve done here, even doubling the membership with all the new members at the higher tier wouldn’t be anywhere near enough to pay for the changes you’re making. Even if every single person in Newcastle bought a membership, there aren’t enough people in Newcastle to support all this.”
“I agree. We added a national membership level and sold memberships to people who live out of state. They cost a ridiculous amount of money for a partial membership, and the out-of-towners can play up to twenty rounds per year at NCC. Most will play half that or less. Those initiation fees covered a lot of the course renovations. The Newcastle Inn and Spa is booked solid with our out-of-town members, too, so that’s a bonus. The national memberships go a long way toward our net growth, and then, there’s our new installation.”
She pointed to the arena on the horizon, grayed by the atmosphere between them. “Yeah, I saw. What is that monstrosity you’re building over there?”
Jericho glanced at the stadium or whatever was being built. “Do you want to see?”
“I don’t even know what I’m looking at.”
“Pick up your bag and come with me.” Jericho slid the golf club he’d been using into his bag and hoisted the straps over his shoulders.
“I don’t even know if I want to,” she said, looking away from him.
On the warm August afternoon, the range smelled like freshly mown grass and sunshine. Jericho was standing in front of her, a tower of maleness. When she turned back, she had to look up to stare at him in the eyes.
He gestured to one of the new bag boys whom Tiffany didn’t know. “Do you want one of our new caddies to carry your bag?”
“I don’t need a caddie. Wait, you have caddies now?”
“We’re now one of the few courses in New England to employ actual, human caddies, and it’s one of the big draws for the national members.” He motioned to some kids over by the range hut. “Darius, could you please carry Miss Tiffany Jones’s bag to the new building?”
She started, “I don’t need a—”
A skinny, high school-looking kid with knobby elbows sticking out of the sleeves of his NCC Staff golf shirt trotted across the driving range, hoisted Tiffany’s bag on his shoulders, and took off for the monolith on the horizon.
Tiffany turned back to Jericho. “I don’t even know that kid. When did you hire him?”
“Darius is a member of our work-study program. He’s in high school now, but in addition to his hourly pay, he also gets playing lessons and instruction in golf course management. It’s probably too late for him to start golfing and get a sports scholarship to a university, but he will have an excellent resumé builder for his college application. We’re also funding five scholarships per year for the caddies. They’re not full-rides, but they’ll help. We’ve been recruiting kids from NFA and Newcastle Tech for the program.”
Tiffany took a gander over at the other caddies, most of whom looked more like her high school graduating class than the Narragansett Club’s employees did. “Well, I guess that’s okay then.”
Jericho asked her, “What did Asia tell you about NCC’s expansion plans?”
Tiffany, ever suspicious, asked him, “What’s my cousin got to do with it?”
Jericho paused for a moment before he answered, “She was standing behind you when you came around the corner, but she left when we started talking. I assumed she was here with you.”
“Asia hasn’t said anything about this place.”
Jericho smiled and adjusted his bag on his shoulders. “Good. Then I get to show you what we’re building.”
They walked around the netting of the driving range and along its length toward the construction zone. Golf balls plunked into the net beside them as they strolled.
Ahead, the enormous structure built on the cleared forest land rose, and kept rising, and became just damn huge. It did look like a football arena, but longer. “Holy cow, Jericho. What is this place?”
“You’ll see.”
“Everyone thought this land was too wooded and hilly to build anything on. That’s why we never put in a third nine,” Tiffany told him.
They stepped onto a vast cement courtyard between the new building and the driving range. “The architects and engineers fought for a week over whether it was possible or not, but it was.”
“What was possible?”
They’d reached the doors, which were glass and reflected the afternoon sunlight’s glare. “I hope you like it.”
Tiffany’s bag of golf clubs was sitting beside the door. Darius was sprinting away and already halfway back to the driving range. His dark legs were a blur as he ran.
She turned back to Jericho. “Brave of you to put glass doors and big bay windows at the end of a driving range.”
Jericho laughed as he unlocked the doors and held them open for her. “We tripled the thickness of the netting at the end of the range and added the extension at the top that leans in. Also, this is bulletproof glass. I’d be surprised if even you could drive a ball that would crack it.”
She hauled her clubs around to her shoulders. “I will totally take you up on that bet.”
“Yeah, well, I’ve been known to make stupid bets, but why don’t you drive a ball inside the building instead?”
Tiffany walked through the doors in front of him. “Drive a golf ball inside a building? Jericho Parr, have you lost your mind? That would have all the ambiance of a shooting gallery.”
“I’m not joking in the slightest.”
The doors opened into a space that Tiffany assumed must be a lobby area because booths that appeared to be for selling tickets were lined up along the outside wall. “Is this a theater for concerts?”
Jericho laughed, and she realized she’d missed the joy in his laugh. “I suppose it’s big enough for concerts, but it’s not set up that way.”
Beyond the ticket windows and tiled entryway, a refreshment stand and café tables occupied most of the area, but the whole lobby was a narrow strip that seemed to go around the building on both sides, like there was a large central area in the middle for something else, like a stadium or a concert arena, like Asia had said. Staircases led up to narrower balconies above, at least four floors, and then pillars held the floors in between.
Tiffany wandered closer to the low wall that separated the lobby from what must be the massive interior of the building. “Seriously, what is this place?”
Jericho strolled behind her as she explored.
Beyond the barrier, Tiffany stepped down into what appeared to be a living room with couches and chairs and a coffee table, careful not to smash anything with her golf bag and clubs that extended beyond her hips. She held onto the bottom of the bag with one hand and the tops of her clubs with the other, gauging their length so she wouldn’t break anything.
The coffee table had some kind of monitor on it, but it was turned off.
To the left and right of her on the balcony, more living room areas were staged with low walls between, like bookcases dividing each one from the next. The next three were complete, but beyond them were raw, unfinished concrete spaces that echoed her steps when she walked.
Right near the edge of the balcony, a green, deep shag rug was set up with the little brown box to the side of it.
Except it wasn’t carpeting. The rug was Astroturf, harsh green plastic grass under Tiffany’s gym shoes.
She lowered her clubs to the floor and popped out the bag’s kickstand.
The rear wall opened to an enormous expanse that was larger than a football field and spilled to the far white walls.
Overhead, the roof appeared to be a giant skylight. The afternoon sun shone in, bathing the entire building in sunlight.
The back walls weren’t merely white-painted sheetrock, though. Instead, heavy fabric rippled in the air conditioning’s breeze.
The fact that they were standing on a balcony without a safety wall or even a railing was the weirdest part. The floor just continued out into the middle of the air and then stopped, like one more step and she would fall off a cliff.
The void spun, and she reached out and grabbed the wall beside her that separated her from the next living room setup. “OSHA cannot have approved this.”
Jericho laughed from behind her. “It’s safe.”
When Tiffany inched closer and peered over the edge, a safety net extended ten feet out from the platform they stood on, presumably to catch anything or anybody who fell off. The safety net ringed the balcony’s edge all the way around like orange lace trim.
Down on the floor of the huge building, probably thirty feet below where Tiffany stood, the bottom of the expanse was painted or carpeted green. Seven enormous pits that ranged from twenty to a hundred feet across interrupted the fairway-like surface. An oversized golf hole stick and flag stood in the middle of each cavity.
Jericho stepped up to the edge and stood beside her. “I call it Pop Golf. Essentially, I’ve gamified golf even more than it is. You can come here with your family or friends for an hour or more. You can play against each other, and we’ll post the highest scores of the day, week, and month on the leaderboard at the back of each room.”
Tiffany looked. Behind them, on the wall, there were indeed large flat screens that could serve as scoreboards.
Jericho walked back and sat on the couch, turning on the monitor and typing commands into the terminal there. “This is how NCC is going to make money. Pop Golf will be open to the public. Members get a discount and members’ only hours during the winter. Because it’s enclosed, people can play golf here all year long. They can play the gamified version of golf in the late afternoons and evenings until midnight because we can light this place up. In addition, we’ve got geothermal to heat it in the winter and cool it in the summer. This is what it’s going to look like during the times it’s open to the public.”
He tapped a few more keys, and the skylight that formed the roof and ceiling tinted blue, dimming the sunlight. The back wall and parts of the side walls glowed, and a simulation of a long driving range enclosed by trees projected on the screens that Tiffany had seen rippling in the breeze.
The impression was that the driving range was eight hundred yards long and the forest beyond it went on forever. “Wow.”
Jericho chuckled. “For nighttime or parties, things can be a little more psychedelic.”
With a few more taps on his keyboard, the skylight turned completely opaque, filling the vast building with darkness.
Down on the floor, however, the round pits that the flags stood in began undulating with neon colors, rainbows flashing in circles. Happy pop music blasted from speakers positioned all around.
Tiffany cracked up. “My eyes, my eyes! This is insane!”
“We got a liquor license, too, so this is going to be quite the party place.”
The strobing lights shut off, and the skylight turned transparent again.
The screens returned to showing a long fairway. “And then, during the school year in the winter, the NFA golf team and any other high school golf teams will have the use of the facility to practice for an hour or two right after school lets out. From six in the morning until four o’clock on weekdays, this place turns into an elite golf academy. I’ve already been in touch with Butch Harmon and Hank Haney. We’re talking about which of their instructors might want to move here. The building itself is over a hundred yards, but that back screen is a golf simulator. Go ahead and hit your driver.”
Stunned, Tiffany retrieved her driver, her longest club, from her bag.
A ball rolled out of the box at the end of the hitting mat, and she teed it up on a stumpy post embedded in the mat.
With one long, round swing, Tiffany launched the ball toward the back of the building.
The physical ball smacked the screen and dropped to the floor, where it rolled into a trench near the wall and disappeared into a hole.
On the screen, however, a phantom version of her ball kept flying. It bounced onto the golf course’s fairway in the distance.
From behind her, Jericho said, “Nice shot. Two hundred and eighty-three yards, four yards left of dead straight. I’ve got more statistics back here on the simulator’s monitor.”
Tiffany dropped her club in her bag and walked around the couch to look at them. Every statistic she had been working on at the simulator at TSU and more was displayed on the screen. “Jericho, this is amazing.”
“For the academy, we have hundreds of real courses programmed in the simulator. You can play Augusta National, Bethpage Black, or other courses where PGA and LPGA events are held. Before tournaments, you can practice here on the course where the match will be held. On the ground floor, we have twenty simulator booths for individual lessons or private games, and you can play the courses in those, too.”
“The NFA golf team is going to go nuts. They’re going to be in here every day in the winter, chipping balls into those psychedelic vortexes.”
Jericho went on, “And because Pop Golf will be a year-round destination, it’ll provide full-time jobs for Newcastle. We’re going to need more than golf professionals working here. There will be jobs for people to run the concessions and ticket sales. There will be maintenance personnel, and we’ll need computer technicians to run the equipment. Plus, we’ll need management, human resources, public relations, and accountants to keep the place running. It’s part of my grand plan to not only make Newcastle Country Club profitable but also to make it an asset to the community.” He looked up at Tiffany, his clear blue eyes serious. “There will be more kids who get a chance to win golf scholarships to college from Newcastle, a lot more of them. You aren’t going to be the last professional golfer to come out of the city of Newcastle and Newcastle Country Club. I’ll make sure of that.”
Tiffany’s throat unclenched.
Worry about Latoya Miller and Newcastle and NFA and all the young golfers who might have been finally lifted from her mind.
“You did all this for Newcastle?” Tiffany asked, looking at the extravagant building around them and meandering toward the edge of the platform. She couldn’t stop looking at the enormity of the golf complex, and the lights, and the balconies above them, and the vast swath of grass leading to the walls where the projections seemed to go on forever.
“I did this for you,” Jericho said, his voice low.
She turned back toward him, watching his eyes as he looked right back at her.
He was leaning back on the couch, his arms resting on the back of it. He’d crossed his long legs. “You were right. Newcastle Golf Club has been a pillar of the community for decades. Not only would it be morally wrong to ruin it, but its status is one of its best assets. It’s not what you know around here; it’s who. And I know you.” His voice lowered further like he was gutting out what he had to say. “And I miss you.”
Sunlight streaming in through the skylight behind her illuminated his face and the square angle of his jaw.
But his eyes never strayed from hers.
He said, “You’ve been on my mind ever since you left. I thought what you wanted for the club was incompatible with what I needed to do to save the club from bankruptcy and Last Chance, Inc. It took me a while to work out how to do both what you wanted and what I needed.”
“You didn’t do all this just for me. I mean, you couldn’t have. You shouldn’t have.” Tiffany walked back toward him. Her heart was full, but she was clear-eyed about their future or lack thereof. “I went back to TSU so I could become a professional golfer. I’m entered in a qualifying tournament in a few weeks.”
“I know,” he said.
“Jericho, I want to be a professional golfer on the LPGA tour. I’m good enough to be one. The rest of my professional career is going to be traveling to tournaments all over the world. I can’t stay in Newcastle.”
“I know what being a professional golfer entails. I built you this world-class practice facility so you can come back here and live with your family between tournaments and during breaks. Without this, you’d have to live somewhere down in Florida or California, somewhere with year-round golf. You can’t golf in the winter here in Connecticut.”
She smiled, wishing it were funny. “Orange balls, so they won’t get lost in the snow.”
“And they bounce off the water hazards.” He wasn’t smiling. If anything, his expression was intense. “But now you can live here if you want to. With this, you’ll have a practice facility. You’ll have elite-level coaches right here on staff. Timmy Johns from Greens of Grass has already committed to work here.”
Tiffany raised her eyebrows. Timmy Johns was the best swing coach in the Northeast. The only reason he hadn’t left to join an elite PGA prep academy was because his family was in Newcastle and he didn’t want to leave them.
Jericho continued, “You can have your home base here if you want to. You can be a pillar of the community. Your family and all those NFA golf team kids can see that they can get golf scholarships for college and be professional golfers. There will be a path for them here.”
Tiffany gazed up at the cavernous practice facility, soon to be staffed with coaches she needed, a part of the puzzle she had been lacking.
Still staring at the skylight and rafters, she asked Jericho, “What’s the catch?”
“There’s no catch. It’s here for you if you want it.”
Tiffany turned and walked back toward Jericho. If she’d been playing around, she would’ve let her hips swing as she walked, but she wasn’t playing. “What about you?”
That’s when Jericho broke eye contact. He looked off to the side, and his lips pressed together before he said, “As we say in the venture capital business, I’m a separate legal entity. I need to be around Newcastle Country Club for the rest of the year to optimize its net worth because there is that rather important wager I committed myself to, but I can stay out of your way if you want. After that, I have options. I can work from almost anywhere with a computer, or at least travel to possible acquisitions and then back to my home base, wherever that is. This golf facility is for you when you’re not away playing a tournament if you want it. I’ll stay in my office in the clubhouse. I won’t bother you when you’re here, if that’s what you want.”
She was standing in front of him by the time he finished that speech, and he turned back. He was looking up at her, his gaze guarded and his expression carefully neutral. “Like I said, I’m excellent ex-boyfriend material. Women just love having dated me. I’m a grown man, and I act like one. I won’t ever make a scene. But whatever you want, it’s yours, including me.”
Breath filled her lungs. “Including you?”
“This facility is a moonshot to win the bet with Gabriel Fish, but I’ve been building it to lay it at your feet. You were right about the club’s place in this community. Pop Golf will be another asset to Newcastle, but this was always for you. I fell in love with you months ago, probably during one of the times you told me how important the club and Newcastle were to you.” He closed his eyes and chuckled. “When you talk about something you’re passionate about, you’re the most beautiful person I’ve ever seen. You could convince me of anything. Whatever you say is important, I believe you, and I want to make it happen. So this is it.” He flung his arms out to the sides, indicating the arena-sized building, his words echoing off the raw cement and unfinished steel girders. “Pop Golf is my love letter to you, my valiant attempt to give you everything you need. Whether or not you want to give us another chance is up to you. No matter what, now you can fulfill your dreams on tour, and then you can come home to Newcastle. And if you want to, if you’re willing to give me another chance, you can come home to me, too. Sometimes, I can travel with you, and sometimes, I’ll be waiting for you when you get back.”
When Tiffany had ripped out her knee in college and realized she wasn’t going to be able to play competitive golf, she’d been devastated, but she’d metaphorically picked herself up and continued on her path even though she wasn’t sure what her journey was anymore.
When Jericho had given it all back to her by getting her in to see Dr. Cooper and then Coach Robinson had offered her a spot in the intensive, her life had all come rushing back as if the last year and a half of desperation had been a time loop she’d merely had to step away from.
Suddenly, her feet had been back on the uphill path to her dreams.
When Jericho had begun methodically dismantling Newcastle Golf Club and admitted it was all for a stupid bet, even though it was an astronomically expensive stupid bet, the path had diverged again, and she’d walked away from him. She’d had to. She couldn’t have watched that. She couldn’t have been a part of that.
Walking away had been hard, so hard. She’d forced herself to accept that she would be walking alone until she found someone else, and Jericho Parr would never be with her through life.
And yet, she’d found the path under her feet had led her back to him, and all she had to do was take one more step toward him.
Tiffany stepped forward, closer to where he sat on the couch.
Jericho looked up at her, his expression still serene as if he expected nothing.
She placed her knee on the couch beside his thigh and swung her other leg over his, straddling him and settling back to rest her ass on his knees.
A smile began to form on Jericho’s mouth, and when he looked up, his eyes seemed brighter.
That was probably due to the sunshine streaming in the skylight over Tiffany’s shoulder, but she’d take it.
She braced her hands on his shoulders.
Jericho trailed his hand up her arm, reached behind her neck, and drew her down to kiss her.
His lips were soft under hers, testing, not demanding. She shuffled forward on her knees and rested against him, lying against his firm chest. Her fingers splayed over the red fabric of the Newcastle Country Club staff shirt, the logo’s embroidery thick under her palm. Jericho must’ve upgraded the staff shirts, too.
His hands feathered down her back and rested on her hips, his fingers tentatively sliding under her shirt and stroking her skin above the waistline of her pants as he kissed her.
Passion sparked and then caught. Every moment of her days and nights with him came rushing back as if she’d never gone to Tennessee and been away from him.
Every touch of his hands on her skin, of his hands sliding up her bare back under her shirt, felt right, felt real.
She’d missed him so much in her heart, and she hadn’t been able to tell anyone she was so lonely. Her cousins would have narced to her parents. Coach Robinson would have suspected Tiffany wasn’t fully committed to golf.
He broke away from kissing her and grabbed her ass, scooting her up higher on his chest so his mouth trailed down her neck. She gasped, and he nipped the tendon in her neck that stretched to her shoulder.
When she inhaled again, he chuckled against her skin, and he squeezed her ass with his strong hands. “I’ve missed you so much.”
“Me, too,” Tiffany whispered as he wrapped his arms around her waist, pressing her down so that she was grinding against his pants. A hard ridge already bulged in his trousers, and he flexed upwards with his hips like he was straining to shred the fabric of their clothes between them.
A jolt of pleasure zinged through Tiffany at the pressure between her legs. She grabbed the hem of her shirt to strip it off but then stopped and asked, “Is anyone else here?”
“No,” Jericho growled near her ear. “And I locked the doors.”
“Do you have a—”
“Oh, yes.”
She dragged her shirt off over her head and threw it on the couch.
He raked his hands up her ribs, bending her backward, and mouthed her skin on her chest above the black lace of her bra cups. “Black,” he whispered. “Jesus, Tiff. You’re going to kill me.”
“You’ve got a thing for lingerie,” she said, her voice becoming breathless as he sucked lower, catching her nipple in his mouth through the lace.
He released her breast with a pop that sent the blood rushing to her nipple and between her legs, and the cool air chilled her wet skin. “I like it all. Lacy lingerie, nothing under a dress, white cotton girlie panties, a bustier that looks like it was designed by an architect and required calculus, I like anything on you.”
He sucked and stroked her body with his tongue and fingers like he was reclaiming every inch of her skin. When he’d teased Tiffany’s nipples so much that each pull of his mouth on her with another assault on her swollen breasts had her whimpering, he pushed her backwards, moving her off his lap, and then he stripped her clothes off of her where she stood.
Tiffany tried to help him get his clothes off, but he grabbed handfuls of the cloth and threw them aside, though he dug his wallet out of his back pocket and fished around inside before he threw his pants on the floor.
She shoved him backward, intending to push him back onto the couch and take him astride, but he caught her wrists and flipped her around. She ended up lying on her back on the leather cushions with Jericho kneeling between her legs while slapping the condom on himself.
She reached for him, wanting his skin against hers and him inside of her.
Jericho scrambled on top of her, holding himself against her opening and easing inside.
Tiffany shoved her hips up, desperate for him.
His cock filled her, the deep pressure rubbing inside her body. She was still grabbing at him, her fingers slipping off his shoulders, rounded with muscle, as he worked his way inside of her. When he was halfway in and she thought she wasn’t going to be able to take any more of him, Jericho crawled up her body and wrapped her in his arms.
He kissed her, penetrating her with his tongue in her mouth and his cock inside her, and she strained to open herself up enough for him. She wanted him, wanted to touch every part of him, wanted to hold him and never let go.
When his hips nestled into hers, Jericho held himself on his elbows above her shoulders, slowly moving in her as his body trembled in her arms. The lumps and bulges of muscle on his chest and abdomen rubbed over her stomach and breasts, and his breath caught as he breathed near her ear. “I love you, Tiffany. I missed you every second you were away.”
She whispered, “I missed you. I missed hearing what you would say about the golf courses at Tennessee State, and I missed laughing with you when I messed up a shot. I missed you at night.”
He pushed himself up on his arms to look down at her. “Did you miss this?” He shoved himself farther inside of her, and Tiffany arched her back as the pressure drove her closer to the edge. “Did you think about me and touch yourself?”
“Yes,” she admitted, babbling in the delirium of his strong body and that faint male musk of his skin and his cologne. “I missed you. I wanted you.”
“I wanted you,” he growled and buried himself more deeply inside her. “I wanted you in my bed. I wanted the softness of your body in my hands and under me. I wanted that sweet scent of you that smells like vanilla and flowers and drives me crazy all around as I slept. I woke in the dark and ached. Every minute that I was building Pop Golf, I wanted you to see it, to tell me what you thought. God, Tiffany.”
Jericho buried his face in the couch beside her neck, and his body rippled as he surged into her.
Tiffany was struggling to rise to meet him, one foot slipping off the edge of the couch.
He braced himself with one foot on the floor, wrapping her leg around his back and rushing into her, grinding against her clit with each stroke.
Tiffany was holding onto him, her arms clenching around his back as he thrust inside her. She must have been crying out because her throat was raw and yet the blood rushing in her head and Jericho whispering his love and his need and dirty, dirty things in her ears was all she heard.
“I love you,” she said over and over, her heart exploding every time she admitted it and yet she rejoiced. “I love you.”
“I love you,” he whispered, his voice curling inside her ear and falling into her soul. “I love you.”
When her climax came, her body twisted, the tension unbearable, until it broke over her with the waves and throbs of ecstasy. The world was gone. Everything ceased to exist except Jericho in her arms and her body wrapped around him, their flesh pressed together as they gasped.
The sunlight glowed above them, shining through the skylight on their skin.
“Does this mean you’re giving me another chance?” Jericho panted.
Tiffany cracked up and pressed her hands to her forehead. “Maybe.”