Love Letter for a Sinner (The Sinners sports romances) Read online

  Heaven had nothing to do with this. Funny, he’d always believed the torments of Hell would be fiery, but mostly, he felt chilled. She didn’t arouse him, whether because of his own free will or the drugs for pain. He didn’t care which.

  Straddled across his thighs now, Layla unzipped his fly and ground herself against his groin with only those black boxer briefs between them. She breathed with small, gusty pants. Her head thrashed her blonde hair across his muscles. His penis made a feeble attempt to provide her with a mount, but for him, nothing much happened. Layla gasped until she came, those violet eyes all but rolling back into her head, and collapsed against his chest. Rex guessed he should have held her in his arms, but he kept them rigidly at his side. Layla cuddled close licking at his nipples until she caught her breath. Again, that chilly sensation. He shivered.

  Layla chuckled. “Now you are supposed to climb on top of me. I’m all primed and ready for another, but it is nice to let a girl go first.”

  “Don’t think I can.”

  “What do you mean by that? You’re young and healthy. You can’t be impotent.” She explored inside his briefs. “Right position but wrong consistency. You’ll need some handwork or maybe a BJ. Let’s get the rest of your clothes off.” Layla did a reverse straddle and tried to force his shoes from his feet. Rex got a premium view of the size of her butt.

  “Did you glue these things on?”

  “No, ma’am. They’re just laced up tight.”

  “Like all the rest of you.”

  “I think it’s my leg injury. I took some painkillers for it.”

  “Oh, my poor baby. Of course.” Layla swiveled around again flailing him with her breasts as she reached for his face and stroked his stubble. She offered him a nipple to suck for comfort, rubbing it against his lips.

  Rex clenched his teeth. “No! That’s a lie. Okay, not a lie because I did take some pills. But Layla, I just don’t want you. I think I love someone else.”

  She cackled like a witch in Macbeth. “This isn’t about love, sweetheart. Nobody does it better than Layla Devlin. The woman you think you love is going to be a great disappointment in bed. She can’t compete with me.”

  “She doesn’t have to.” Rex stood up and zipped, noticing with dismay that some glitter and the scent of Layla Devlin got on his hands. He wiped them on the satin sheets. “I’m leaving, and I won’t be back.” Pulling the T-shirt over his head, he shrugged into the dress shirt without bothering to button it, just pushing the long sleeves up to his elbow. He headed for the exit.

  A barrage of pillows followed him. “Soft just like you! I swear you’ll come back begging. You’ll never get over Layla Devlin.”

  Chapter Nineteen

  The soft thumps continued after Rex shut the door, crossed the length of the condo to the other bedroom, and walked in without knocking. Tricia sat crossed-legged on a wildly flowered spread in the middle of a queen-sized bed that made her appear to be sitting in a meadow in full bloom. She swayed to the music playing through her earbuds. Tears leaked from under her closed eyelids and stained a simple cotton knit shirt the same color as the sky the day he first saw her suffering at the practice field. She’d drawn her straight, dark brown hair back in a high ponytail, keeping it out of the way of the waterworks. Wearing cutoff jeans so old they’d turned nearly white and grown a long fringe, she’d left her feet bare.

  Rex touched her shoulder. She startled, those summer sky eyes opening wide and watery. Gently, he removed the earbuds.

  “What are you doing here?”

  “You’re crying. How come?” Rex removed a tissue from a box on her dresser and tenderly dried her face.

  “Sad, sad songs. Why aren’t you with Layla?”

  “I’m done with her. I want you to teach me anything I need to know, anything you enjoy. Come with me.” Rex stooped to hand her a pair of sandals discarded on the floor.

  “Where?”

  “My place.”

  “You know I can’t do that. I’ll lose my job. If you left her, Layla will be furious, I—”

  “Don’t care.” He strapped the shoes on her feet and heaved her off the bed. “Let’s go. We can walk like normal people, or I can carry you the way I did the night you took the ruffies for me, but people will notice.”

  “I’ll walk.” Tricia grabbed her large, black bag and slung it across her chest.

  “Leave that.”

  “No, I could survive a month on the run with the contents of this bag, and I might need to.”

  “Don’t you understand? I’ll protect you. Let’s move before Layla starts screaming, and you go running like always.”

  Rex cupped a large hand on her elbow and guided her from the apartment, down the elevator, and out onto the street coming alive as the night deepened. Jazz wailed from nightclubs, and the ladies of the evening lounged on their street corners in outfits of bright Spandex or leather that barely covered. Rex looked neither right nor left, only straight ahead. The long walk might do them both good. They skirted the casino, crossed busy, treacherous Canal Street, passed by the Windsor Court, and kept on going so fast they had no time for small talk.

  “Aren’t you supposed to stay off that ankle?” Tricia gasped.

  “I’m feeling no pain. You want me to get a cab?”

  “No, only slow down a little. I like to go running now and then, but I haven’t done any wind sprints lately and I’m carrying some baggage here.” She slapped a hand against the enormous bag.

  “Sorry. Want me to carry that for you?”

  Tricia smiled at the thought of great big Rex carrying a purse, even a large one. “No, I’m fine if we don’t have to power walk.”

  “I just want to get down to it in a hurry.”

  “So romantic,” she grumbled.

  Still, he slowed his pace as they entered the Warehouse District. A few galleries beckoned passersby with wine, cheese, red grapes, and an opening show of promising new artists. The hulking museums of the district had gone dark for the evening. Rex stopped before one of the trendy renovated buildings and let himself into the lobby with a key. The elevator took them up just high enough to see the lights glinting off the wide river and the humped back of the Huey Long Bridge from the window the illuminating corridor. The apartment had the same view.

  Attractive, Tricia observed, and probably professionally decorated. The living area surrounded her in deep brown leather and shiny dark wooden surfaces. Yes, he had the recliner essential for every man and a large flat-screen TV mounted over a black marble fireplace, never used, all enclosed by walls of hunter green. The designer had tossed a few wine-toned cushions onto a massive sofa to add more color. The dining area adjoined the space to take advantage of the view, windowless kitchen to the rear. The mantel held a few golden football trophies from Rex’s college years, and the end table a worn Bible, no men’s magazines, but a small volume of poetry.

  “It’s only two bedrooms, two baths, not a big one like Joe’s. I like to have the extra room in case my parents or sister visit. They haven’t come yet. My mother says I signed on to live in Gomorrah.” Suddenly tense, Rex added a feeble joke. “At least it’s not Sodom.”

  “You have a nice place, and remember, the angels did find at least one righteous man in those cities.”

  “Not enough to spare the places. Hey, you know your Bible.”

  “Hardly. I liked the more gruesome stories when I was a kid. Rain of fire, wife turned to salt, you know.”

  “Want to sit down?”

  “Sure. You should get off that ankle, too.” Tricia seated herself on the couch so wide it could have been a bed and tossed her black bag into its far corner out of the way.

  “I-ah-want to shower. Is that okay with you? I mean just make yourself at home while I clean up.”

  She could have offered to shower with him, but he seemed spooked enough already simply having her here. “You look clean enough to me.”

  “Believe me, I’m not. I won’t take too long.”
/>   He entered the first room off a short hall, shut the door, and she swore he locked it as if she might run in there and catch him naked. Tricia took her bag to the other bathroom and unzipped the pocket holding the drops to take the redness from her eyes and found enough cosmetics to repair her light makeup. Taking down her ponytail, she brushed her dark hair to a nice sheen.

  Looking in the full-length mirror on the back of the door, she regarded her sorry outfit not exactly geared for seduction. She supposed she could take off her clothes and spread herself out on the deep sofa, but she wasn’t Layla and didn’t desire to be. How far had they gotten before Rex walked out? In the end, she only removed her sandals and enjoyed the feel of Rex’s plush burgundy-colored carpet, thick and soft enough to serve as a mattress, as she returned to the living room. Behind his closed door, water drummed hard in a shower.

  Tricia put her purse back in the corner and settled on the sofa with his book of poetry, a pleasant discovery, but no surprise that the poems were inspirational. The leaves fell open naturally to John Donne’s Meditation 17, the “no man is an island” poem. That explained his odd comment when he’d tried to make her an object of his charity. She wondered if he knew Donne had written love poems, sometimes erotic, before finding God. She doubted it. The rain of water in the shower stopped. Now, she got to be the one to feel tense. What next? How to begin?

  Rex toweled off with one of those super-sized bath sheets the interior designer had gotten for him. Big towels for a big man, she’d said with a suggestive gleam in her eyes and a pretty head cocked to one side as if issuing an invitation. He liked the towels but didn’t take her up on the implied offer. He knew now he’d waited for Tricia. Wrapping the bath sheet around his middle, it came down well below his knees like one of Adam Malala’s lava-lavas.

  He considered his face in the bathroom mirror and decided to shave. He didn’t want to chafe her skin and would have to take his chances that she might laugh at his round visage kind of pink from the scalding hot shower. Rex scraped away the stubble and patted on the lime aftershave he hadn’t worn for Layla. Brushing back his wet hair, he debated getting dressed again. His clothes lay in a heap by the hamper. Gingerly, he picked up his briefs defiled by Layla’s slime and a scrim of glitter and deposited them in one of the plastic bags his cleaning lady kept under the sink for trash collection. He knotted the bag tight and placed it in the waste can. The rest of his clothes made it into the hamper for a thorough washing before he wore them again. Taking another deep breath, he went to the living room wearing only the bath sheet.

  Tricia, reading his poetry book, looked up. “This okay or should I get dressed?” he said.

  She took a moment to answer. All that fine male flesh on display, even a bit bruised, would stir any woman’s juices. Thick neck, wide shoulders, hard pumped pecs, a coating of light brown hair spread across them and arrowing into the towel. Below it, well-defined calves, an ankle in a tight wrap, and feet big enough to carry a man far. “Not if you’re comfortable. You should put that foot up though,” she finally managed to say.

  Rex took a seat on the edge of the recliner but did not recline. “See, I took some painkillers for my injury. Maybe that’s why things didn’t go well with Layla, that and my not wanting what she had to offer. We should probably wait for them to wear off a little. Maybe talk a little first.”

  “Okay.” Tricia noticed a new detail. “You shaved for me.”

  Already pink from the shower, Rex grew redder. “Yeah. I didn’t want my beard to hurt you.”

  “So why is it you don’t shave often?”

  “I already told you this.” He gestured to his face. “Sensitive skin, round baby face, need to look tougher for the NFL.”

  “Sorry, I don’t remember. Thank you. That’s very considerate. And I don’t think you look like a baby.” Maybe an “oh, baby”, but definitely not an infant. Tricia set aside the book of poetry and curled up on the end of the sofa nearest to his chair. “Maybe we should find out what you do and don’t know. Have you kissed, petted, beat off, had a BJ?”

  His complexion headed toward the hue of boiled crawfish. “Kissing, sure. I had a religious girlfriend from my father’s church in high school and one in college for a while that I met on Christian Mingle. Petting only above the clothes. No BJ’s from either. As for the other thing, sometimes it just happens. I had a really bad case of self-pleasuring in middle school, but you know, Leviticus 15:16.”

  “I’m not familiar with that particular Bible verse.”

  “Basically, it says if you spill your seed you should wash up and keep your hands to yourself for a day or two. My dad gave me the same advice.”

  “He wasn’t against that altogether?”

  “No, really, he’s a pretty understanding guy, I guess because he is a guy. I found out recently my father had a whole different life before he become a missionary. My mother is all about purity. She made me wash my own sheets because she wasn’t touching them.”

  Tricia seemed to remember her mother’s mild complaints about how often she had to change her boys’ bedding, but she’d never shamed them by saying why. Poor Rex. “Why don’t we start with kissing? You want to come here or should I go over there?”

  “You could sit on my lap.”

  “Now that’s an old line if I ever heard one.”

  But, she went and settled herself on his sturdy thighs enrobed in the thick towel. He positioned the chair to a reclining position and put his feet up. Tricia stretched out along his length and framed his face with her hands. Rex closed his eyes. His lips were heavy but soft beneath hers. He took his time exploring their boundaries with his tongue before teasing her mouth open and going in shallow at first, then deeper, definitely mimicking the act of love. Surprising. When they came up for air, Tricia pushed against his chest said, “I’d say you passed Kissing 101 and went on to the accelerated group.”

  “Well, when Chastity told me kissing was the gateway to sex and we weren’t going through that gate, I got fairly good at what we could do. May I touch your breasts?”

  “Don’t ask, Rex, just do. If I don’t want you to, I’ll lean back. If I’m interested, I’ll lean in.” She leaned into those big hands that soon found their way under the plain cotton top. He had trouble with the hooks on her bra but finally got them undone.

  “I want to see Pretty and Perky again,” he said, rough-voiced.

  “Huh?” Tricia sat up straight.

  “Your breasts. I named them that when you exposed yourself to me from the neck down that night. I mean I know you were out of your mind at the time. You seemed sad that Layla’s big ones had names and yours didn’t so I-I should have confessed before.”

  Tricia took a turn at blushing. “I’m sorry I embarrassed you.”

  “Not so much. I mean I didn’t touch them or anything, but I did pull your dress up again so you wouldn’t be upset in the morning.”

  “Okay, now I understand why they weren’t in their cups. You really want to see them again?”

  He nodded. Tricia raised her arms and allowed him slip the shirt over her head and discard the dangling bra that had nothing sexy about it. She let him look. Beneath the towel, something stirred and grew more restless when he placed his hands over Pretty and Perky and started a gentle massage that encouraged her nipples to peak. How she loved that and the names he’d bestowed. Her eyes closed. She enjoyed the moment.

  “I guess I’m not as numb as I thought,” Rex said. “I think we should go to the bedroom now. Don’t get up. I can carry you.”

  “Your ankle.”

  “Still not feeling any pain down there.”

  He gathered her and closed the distance to his room faster than he could run the ball for ten yards. Showing no shyness, Rex removed her sandals but hesitated when his hand came down on the zipper of her jeans. “You sure?”

  “Oh, yes. Go ahead.”

  A man good with his hands, in seconds he had the cutoffs on the floor and began reverently removing her
panties, cotton, pale blue, not bikinis or a thong, but low enough to expose her navel. She had a dark patch of hair between her thighs, probably trimmed up some for wearing a bathing suit, but he couldn’t be sure. Not much experience in this area. It looked natural to him, a soft place where a man might want to rest. He lay down beside her and began to stroke that mound. She rewarded his efforts with quiet moans.

  “One thing I learned from Layla. It’s all about friction.”

  “Yes, it is, but don’t ever mention another woman’s name while doing someone else. Harder, deeper.”

  Rex complied, getting his broad finger in there, finding exactly the right spot to make her writhe.

  “Quick learner,” she gasped.

  “Yeah, a quarterback must be able to think on his feet—or off them, I guess.”

  No answer to that but an arching of her back and a clamping of her thighs against his hand, keeping him in place, rocking against the pressure, until she suddenly loosened with a great sigh. “Ladies first,” he said.

  “And thank you for that. Your turn. I’m ready. You won’t hurt me.”

  “Maybe a little more friction first.” Rex positioned himself over her as she opened wide for him, but he placed his penis, so hard, more swollen than he imagined it had ever been before, into her cleft and rubbed it back and forth. Not slime, lubrication. He got it. Tricia started tossing her head and pressing against him again. He’d held out for twenty-four years. He could wait and give her two orgasms, maybe three once he entered. That would be good, right? He didn’t have the ability to ask her right now.

  In the background, music began to play, nothing romantic, some corny old song about not being able to keep ’em down on the farm after they’d seen Paree. He traveled very close to Paree right now and needed to reach his destination. Condoms! Did she have any in that black bag?