“Like slam that door shut, hike that sexy-as-hell dress up, and destroy every single boundary I’m trying to keep in place right now.”
The smallest whimper escapes from her parted lips, and I want to capture it with my mouth. Her eyelids are heavy with desire, and my cock strains against the confines of my pants. I angle the slightest bit forward, so my length brushes against her stomach, in both a warning and a promise.
“That doesn’t sound so stupid to me,” she croaks.
It doesn’t to me either right now. “But it should.”
Christ, she’s dug under my skin, festering like an open wound until I can’t ignore it. I fucking hate it, but I also fucking love it because it fills that empty void that resides in my chest with the sweetest venom from her lips and spitfire from her eyes. I need to get her out of me. Need to get her off of my mind, out of my skin.
So close. She’s so close I can almost taste her, and fuck, I know it’d be sweet. Maybe just one kiss, one kiss to get it out of my system and her out of my head. I dip my head, ready to damn us both.
Lennon’s face suddenly pales, and she snaps to attention. My heart stops as I quickly step back and listen. Footsteps approach, and I glance over as two party guests walk into the room, hand in hand. They look startled to see anyone else in the small space but recover quickly and grab their jackets from one of the racks.
One of the women eyes the two of us curiously as the other helps slip her jacket on, gaze bouncing back and forth at our proximity. I take another subtle step back and adjust the lapels of my jacket. Hopefully she can’t see the evidence of what I was just feeling moments ago tenting the front of my pants.
The other woman doesn’t pay us any mind as she retakes the other’s hand and leads her out of the room. Out of the corner of my good eye, it looks like Lennon is barely breathing. The reality of where we are, what we were so close to almost doing, and then getting caught before we could, crashes down on both of us.
She runs her hands down the front of her dress and presses against the wall as if she wishes she could melt into it. She refuses to look at me, and it shouldn’t grate against my nerves, but it does.
So to save us both from doing something that will have lifelong consequences, I give her a curt nod. “Don’t be late tomorrow.” With that, I take off down the hallway and out thedoor of the mansion, letting the cold, winter air slap reality back into my fucked up head.
25
Lennon
Coach Holloway shows up to our workout the next morning with a backwards hat and a bad attitude. Both set my heart racing, but for different reasons.
We were reckless last night, getting that close to each other, moments away from kissing, in the same building as not only a crowd of people, but Coach Maver and the dean. Stupid. Absolutely stupid.
And yet it doesn’t make me want to stop. But seemingly, it’s had the opposite effect on him.
“Pull-ups, let’s go.” He crosses his arms, muscles bulging, and waits for me expectantly.
Sweat already drips down my back, my legs wobble as I walk over to the bar. “Are you trying to kill me today?”
He says nothing.
I brush the flyaways out of my face and reach for the bar. It’s cool beneath my fingertips. Three, two, one…I hoist myself up, pushing off my feet, and my arms nearly buckle under the strain of my full-body weight. My chin reaches the top of the bar once,twice, but my arms shake like two wet noodles on the third, and I drop to the floor.
“You could do five last week,” Luke states behind me.
I glare over my shoulder at him. “That was at the beginning of the workout. Not after you’ve already tortured me for nearly an hour.”
He stares with a cool indifference, and it sets my teeth on edge. He surely wasn’t looking at me like that last night. And I’m starting to get sick of his hot-and-cold attitude toward me.
“Two more,” he demands.
I turn around and put my hands on my hips. “I can’t.”
“Can’t or won’t?”
“Literally can’t.”
His jaw clicks. “Fine. Grab your weights. Shoulder presses.” He adjusts the weight bench and waits expectantly.
I grab the dumbbells off the rack, and they practically drag my entire body down. “Coach…” I’m getting close to the point where I’m not above begging. “I don’t know if I can. I’m exhausted.”
“Going to quit out on me?”
