Me, on the other hand? I’m not so sure about this.
I stuff another candy ribbon in my mouth and chew, and then I strip off my clothes down to my panties. I pull on the black satin demi bra that is not my size, because it’s about two cup sizes too small. It feels like my nipples are barely contained, and that’s it. And then I step into my racing suit. It’s not skintight, but it’s also not baggy like the coveralls the girls are wearing. It has a wide elastic belt that cinches the material at my waist.
“Well,” I say to myself. “I guess it’s now or never.”
And then I take a deep breath and roll my shoulders back before I walk out of the locker room.
The air immediately changes. It feels heavy and carries with it a charge I can’t place until I turn my head and see King. His face is a mask of barely concealed rage that I don’t understand. Sure, he’s made it abundantly clear he doesn’t like me, but I still don’t get why.
Over the last two weeks, we did not share another meal. We do not talk. He drives me to and from the track and my various other obligations. He shadows me at the grocery store and home again. But we don’t talk. We do not bond. We are not friends.
The magazine’s photographer poses the girls and me this way and that. We laugh and giggle like friends do the whole time, and I feel light. They somehow manage to chase away my nerves and fears, and it becomes fun.
And then the photographer reaches over to me and yanks the zipper on my suit down to my navel, exposing more than just a sexy hint of cleavage—more like the whole thing. That dangerous energy fills the room again, and I’d be lying if I said I’m totally comfortable with what just happened, but then again, I’m not comfortable with a lot of what’s going on in my life right now, so who am I to complain?
The girls and I keep going for another thirty minutes, but now it feels less fun and more forced.
I breathe a sigh of relief when the photographer shouts, “That’s a wrap!”
I turn to smile at my friends, but before I can, a strong hand wraps around my upper arm, and I’m hauled toward the locker room. I have to run to keep up with King. My legs are long, but his are much longer, and his angry strides eat up the ground to the doorway.
He shoves me through the door and slams it behind me, and I hear the sound of the lock flip over as it echoes through the dark locker room.
“Wh-What’s happening?” I gasp and somewhere in the back of my brain take in that he’s not turning on the lights.
“You get off on that?”
“Get off on that?” I repeat.
“Yeah, baby,” he drawls. It’s the first time he’s let more than a tiny hint of his Texas twang show through. “You like teasing men? Making them hard for you?”
“Don’t be gross,” I snap as I turn to walk away, but he grabs me by the back of my neck and hauls me back around until I’m flush against his hard body.
And then he crashes his mouth to mine.
I gasp, and he does not hesitate to take that opportunity to invade my mouth as he thrusts his tongue between my lips. His kiss is as hungry as it is harsh, and I hate it as much as I want it. When he rips his mouth away from mine, my breath saws in and out of my lungs.
“B-B-But you don’t like me,” I stammer as I stare up at the beautiful man with wide eyes.
“Baby, I don’t have to like you for you to make my dick hard.”
“And do I?” I ask breathlessly. “Make your dick hard?”
“You wanna find out, I’m not gonna stop you.”
And I do. I want to find out if he’s hard for me, if King is as turned on as I am right now. I don’t know what possesses me, because I damn well know I shouldn’t, but I do. Slowly, with a shaky hand, I press the flat of my palm against the front of his jeans and find him hot and hard. The long, thick ridge of his erection calls to me and emboldens me, and I press down as I stroke with my open hand down the covered length of him. When he lets out a quiet but rough groan, I grip him tight through the soft, worn denim, and the true size of him is overwhelming.
I want it.
I want him.
But then it’s gone in the blink of an eye, and my wrist is gripped in his tight fist as he hauls it over my head. His hazel eyes burn my skin everywhere they track down my body.
“You like what you do to me?” he growls.
“Yes,” I answer in a whisper as he uses his free hand to grab my other wrist and raise it over my head to be gripped with the other.
“If I pulled down your bra, would your nipples be hard?” he asks me, and I gasp at his coarse words, but the undeniable truth is there for him to see if he followed up his words with actions.
