One caressed my middle, snaking up and over my breast. My head dropped back on his chest, the tiniest arch in my back pushing up into his grasp. The other hand made its journey steadily downward, where it first grazed… then gripped… my thigh. I arched harder, eyes closed to the feel of him, my neck exposed in a kind of sensuous invitation that thankfully, Theo didn’t ignore.
He buried his face there, sucking and nipping gently, leaving a trail of fire everywhere his mouth touched.
And the whole time, we moved together, perfectly in sync, our bodies possessed by desire that wouldn’t subside. We rode the hypnotic beat just like this, a dance that was so much more than a dance. I held onto the back of his neck to keep as close to him as physically possible, because any breath of air between us was a breath too much. My other hand drifted behind him to rest on his ass. I squeezed down hard, and Theo bucked his hips into me, his hand on my thigh moving now. Inching onward, up under my dress.
My eyes flew open just as he inhaled sharply next to my ear, his hand gliding over the wetness of my inner thigh. The irrefutable evidence of his effect on me. Sure, it was hot in here, and I could just be sweating. But he’d know better.
I discovered I was right when he clutched my arm and spun me roughly back around to face him. His mouth was so close to mine that I breathed his air for those few, hair-raising seconds.
“We have to get out of here. Now.” His voice was nothing more than a choked-up rasp, but I heard him loud and clear.
No time was given to hesitation or deliberation. I grabbed his hand and led him off the floor, dodging through the crowd of sweaty bodies as we moved toward the exit.
A rush of cool air hit us as we emerged, and I stopped dead in my tracks, stalled by McAvoy’s broad chest.
“I won’t keep you,” he said, his gaze moving between us with subtle judgment. “Just wanted to say… I know Grayson played it off as a joke before, but Theo… you’ve never questioned me.”
Theo’s fingers clamped tighter around mine. He nodded stiffly.
McAvoy took his silence as a bid to go on, which he did. “Hopper probably knows more than I do, but as your coach, I’m telling you to sit out Round 3 and fix whatever the hell’s going on with you.”
“Coach, I—”
“You’re out, Theo.” No number of beers could’ve dulled the gruffness in McAvoy’s tone. “And if I were you, I’d take the Hail Mary that management’s giving you.”
His nostrils flared with the effort it took him to stay calm, but I felt the anger vibrating through him. Just like I’d felt his heat moments ago.
“And if I don’t?”
“Then you’ll be traded,” McAvoy replied.
18
Theo
The rehab area hugged one side of the gym, separated by frosted glass walls that only gave a fraction of privacy to whoever was in there. Today it was me. I caught the strain on my expression in the mirrors that ran along one side, muscle in my jaw twitching as I tried to control my movements. Hard as it was, harder still with Reese watching me like a hawk.
“Shouldn’t I be lifting weights?” I grunted through another internal rotation of the resistance band.
“You can barely lift your stick.” More bands hung on hooks, and she made her way over there now. “That one’s too much. Try this.”
She tossed a lighter band at me, and I let it fall to the floor without even trying to catch it. “I’m fine with this one.”
To prove my point, I pushed into another rotation, blowing a hard breath between clenched teeth. But I could’ve popped all the veins in my head and still come up short.
Reese fixed me with a smug look. “Ready to try the lighter band now?”
“I can do it.”
She sighed, her hands moving over my shoulder and elbow before I could jerk the band off balance, pressing into the tense muscle at the edge of my deltoid. “It’s day one, so I’ll go easy on you. But you can’t fight me on everything if you want this to work.”
“I still think the weights would be better.” I got through another shaky rotation. “It’ll work faster.”
She shifted my arm slightly, correcting the angle I couldn’t hold on my own. “Which is why you’re the dumb jock, and I’m the charismatic, skilled, super smart physio.”
“Charismatic, huh?” I blew out a pained laugh. “Is that what the kids are calling it these days?”
“Come on,” she said, “you’ve got more than that in you.”
