He didn’t answer.
“Beau.”
Still no answer.
She carefully slid off his sunglasses and sure enough his eyes were closed. So she guessed she was staying.
She reached across him to place the sunglasses on his nightstand, then curled up close and settled in, all the while trying to ignore how good it felt to have just done something that went against every moral fiber in her body.
CHAPTER 11
ONE MOMENT THE STADIUM WAS ROARING and the next, everything went completely silent. It had always been like this for Beau after the ball was snapped, from the very first time he played quarterback. It was as if a mute button had been pushed, one that turned off all the distracting sounds and sent the world into slow motion.
One of his best wide receivers was open in the end zone, but there was also a two-hundred-and-fifty pound linebacker blitzing toward him with the ferocity of a rabid dog.
Beau feinted to the side, and cocked his arm to throw the ball, but then something hit him from behind—a three-hundred pound defensive end he was told later.
That guy was just trying to do his job, which was to take out the quarterback before he could throw the ball. If Beau hadn’t been totally focused on his receivers, maybe he would have heard him coming. Maybe he would have thrown the ball away, or dumped it off to his hot receiver.
But Beau didn’t see the big lineman coming, so it was a complete surprise when he got hit from behind. He didn’t go down, but the force of the blow sent his helmet flying.
For a moment he just stood there stared at his helmet in a daze, trying to figure out why it was no longer on his head. Helmets weren’t supposed to come off. The NFL had all sorts of rules about chin straps being securely tightened because the last thing you wanted was to get hit when your helmet was off.
“Don’t look at the coach.”
“What?” He looked up and all the other football players were gone off the field, except for one. A tall, muscular guy dressed in the Suns uniform. He looked exactly like him, except he had on a pair of Ray-Bans.
“Don’t look at the coach,” the quarterback who looked exactly like him said again. “If you dive for your helmet, then you’ll get away with just a concussion. If you look at the coach, then it becomes a freak accident.”
“I don’t understand,” Beau said to his other self. “What’s the difference?”
“If you look at the coach, that means you won’t have a helmet on, and your occipital lobe will be unprotected when the other guy hits you.”
Beau scrunched up his forehead and looked at the coach to see if he could see what other-Beau was seeing. “What other guy—?”
That’s when the blitzing linebacker hit him from what should have been his left side, but ended up being square in the back of his head, sending a white hot flash through the part of his brain that housed his primary visual cortex.
Then the world went black.
Beau woke with a start. His eyes opened to nothing, an unnerving absence of visual sensation that he would have been hard put to describe even if he wanted to. And just like every morning since taking that unexpected second hit, his heart seized with panic until he remembered what had happened, that he was blind now.
But unlike those other mornings, the disappointment of waking up without his sight gave way to another realization: He wasn’t alone in bed. Josie Witherspoon lie next to him. He could feel her thin arm flung across his stomach and the warmth of her steady breath across his chest where her head rested.
He pulled her up so he could feel her face next to his, then pressed his lips to her forehead, her closed eyes, her nose, and one of her cheeks, before he found her mouth. She responded with a low moan. Warm and willing, but still half asleep.
“Open your eyes, Josie,” he said. “I don’t want to miss this.”
He could feel her smiling against his lips when she answered, “Whatever you say, Mr. Prescott.”
But then she went still.
“What?” he asked.
“Your eyes,” she answered. “This is the first time I’ve seen them since you came home.”
Now it was his turn to go still. He hadn’t realized he wasn’t wearing his Ray-Bans. “Did you take my sunglasses off?”
“I thought maybe you’d be more comfortable without them.”
His heart once again seized with panic, but this time for different reasons. “Hand them to me.”
“But your eyes look fine without them. Just like they used to, in fact.” Her voice sounded a little breathless.
He knew that. That’s why he wore the sunglasses, so people wouldn’t see the man he used to be when they looked at him. “Hand them to me. Now.”
The bed creaked and he felt Josie’s small breasts brush his chest. A moment later, the glasses were placed in his hand. He jammed them on his face, and immediately felt better, sheltered and protected from things he’d rather not think about. He pulled Josie back into his arms, continuing with the kiss he had initiated earlier as if they’d never had the sunglasses conversation at all.
“What’s going on now?” he asked between kisses. “Talk to me.”
“I’m, um… kissing you. Or you’re kissing me. I guess we’re kissing each other.” She cleared her throat. “Your… thing is pressed into my kit kat. You’re, um… really excited.”
He stopped kissing her face and neck. “Just me?” He turned his whole body toward hers and pushed himself into her, pressing just hard enough to slip inside her warm folds, but not so hard that he got all the way in. “You’re not excited, too?”
“I’m—” her breath caught when he rocked against her, which was enough to tell him his bulge had successfully made contact with her clit. “I’m excited.”
He let his tongue lazily explore her neck before asking, “Excited enough, to let me all the way in?”
“Yes,” she answered breathlessly. “I think so.”
“You think so?” he repeated. “That’s not good enough, darlin. I’m going to need you to check.”
“Ch- check?”
He loved how nervous she sounded. “That’s right. I’ll be needing a confirmation of readiness before we go any further.”
“I’m ready,” she said. And this time she pushed herself against his rigid member. “I’m definitely ready.”
“I don’t believe you.”
“What reason do you think I’d possibly have to lie about that?”