My tired muscles relaxed under the spray of the warm water.
I watched suds disappear down the shower drain as a sense of calm finally filtered through my system after the adrenaline from today’s game. The team had played exceptionally. So had I, despite the state of my mind. Everyone was riding on a high from our win. Coach Turner had never been prouder as he gave his usual talk post-game. I didn’t want to get overly cocky and confident before the finals, but we all had a strong feeling that the championship trophy was finally coming home to the Panthers.
Now everyone left and I was the last one in the locker room, needing time alone to untangle the mess that was my head. I felt like a wreck on the inside. It didn’t matter that I played the best game of my university career. Not when all I could focus on was the red-haired beauty sitting in the bleachers.
I assumed my eyes were playing tricks on me. That she was a mirage.
But there she was, in the flesh, and I couldn’t comprehend why she’d shown up after making it clear last night that she only saw me as a friend.
The painful reminder had me gnashing my teeth until my jaw hurt. But I was grateful for the ache elsewhere than in mygoddamned heart—the stupid organ that brought me nothing but torment since I’d first laid eyes on Gabriela. I wished I could carve it out of my chest and throw it away.
This yearning was tearing me apart and I just wanted it to stop.
But like a masochist, I kept replaying the moment she sliced me to ribbons with her words. She never meant to give me false hope for a future. She couldn’t be with melikethat.
While I foolishly confessed wanting to be just hers.
In the midst of my self-loathing, over the pitter-patter of the water, I heard the locker room door swing open and then a soft click. My shoulders stiffened and I raised my head, wiping back the wet strands sticking to my face.
Maybe Josh had returned to pester me again and ask if I was okay for the tenth time. I appreciated his concern, but I was not in the mood to tolerate his or anyone else’s presence.
As I hedged a glance over the shower stall, I seized with tension.
Through the steam rising around me, I managed to decipher the silhouette of my obsession, leaning back against the locker room’s door.
Most of the lights were shut, save for a handful of fluorescent ones in the changing area that lent some faded illumination near the shower stalls. But it was enough to confirm that it wasmyGabriela.
She appeared dazed before her head snapped up.
Her gaze unceremoniously connected with mine.
A slow-burning heat erupted in my core. My pulse pounded embarrassingly fast, the way it always did when she was near me. I wanted to know why she was here and what I needed to do so I could be a man worthy of her.
My moral compass was nonexistent where she was concerned, for I feared that I wasn’t above doing whatever ittook to make her smile and laugh. To make hermineif she allowed it. As a queen to my humble kingdom, I would give her access to my everything. She only needed to reach out and claim me. I was hers for the taking. I had always been. And though I never considered myself to be a gluttonous bastard, I greedily wished she’d be willing to give me a little piece of her heart in exchange for all of me. I would cherish it—her—until the end of my time.
There were a thousand things I wanted to say, yet I couldn’t speak a single word.
My luring siren became more visible by the second as she waded closer.
Her indelible beauty struck me once again.
Those blue eyes of hers always reeled me in with their power like I was a pirate lost at sea who’d finally found his beacon of hope. Those red lips held me hostage like a man whose only task in life was tasting her kiss, and that toned body with gentle curves that belonged on a painting in a museum taunted me like a forbidden fruit.
Gabriela was exquisite and I was sick out of my mind with need for her.
In my trance, I opened the shower stall’s door, an invitation clear as day.
Suddenly, we were mere inches apart as she came closer. I could practically taste her exhale with my inhale, her signature vanilla and red roses fragrance funneling through my lungs like a drug.
Her hypnotizing gaze fell over my muscular body in rapture, following the water rivulets glistening down my skin. Lust formed on her features as she eyed the snake tattoo wrapped around my right thigh before gasping when she registered the sight of my thickening cock.
I didn’t bother hiding myself. She already saw all of me.
And though Gabriela may not like me the way I liked her, she couldn’t hide that she was insanely attracted to me.
It was my curse, it seemed, to fall for women who only cared about my outer appearance. But that wasn’t entirely true with Gabriela, was it? She cared for me immensely. Just not the same way I cared for her. This was allfriendlyfor her while I’d strayed too far in the romantic realm of things.
Quietly, we watched each other through a thin curtain of steam and water. Words were insignificant for this moment crackling with pure thrill and anticipation.
