“Yes.”
“You want to catch it at the sweet spot. Not too hard, not too soft.” I pull back, then guide her through the motion. “Hear that?”
The soft thunk answers for her.
She nods, her body shifting slightly against mine. Her ass brushes against my cock. The friction should send a jolt of heat straight to my groin.
It doesn’t.
Because I can’t think past what she might be thinking, I’m too in my damn head.
“We’ll do it together,” I say.
“Okay.”
“Steady...gentle.”
With my hands around her, she taps the head of the mallet against the ball. Another thunk echoes in the quiet space as the ball rolls just past the arch.
“That was good.” I don’t want to let her go, but I step back.
“Was it?” She turns to me.
“It didn’t hit me, so I’m going with a strong yes.”
She struts to the ball. “Better than my cooking?”
“Another strong yes.”
She gasps. “I can’t tell if that’s a compliment or an insult.” She snatches the ball, and I don’t miss that flash of worry she’s trying to hide, but she says nothing.
She hits and misses again.
“This is harder than it looks.” She retrieves the ball and glances back over her shoulder after she lines up her mallet. “I think I need another lesson.”
I resume my position behind her. My hands land on her waist. My grip slackens like my bones forgot how to hold me up, and something in me unravels.
My chest tightens. The air goes thin.
The room shrinks to her back under my palms, and the old fear claws up my throat.
I want her to hear it from me. I don’t want her finding it in some late-night search spiral.
“I... Shay—” My voice snags halfway out of my throat. “There’s something I want to tell you.”
Her laughter dies down, and her hand touches mine. “Tell me.”
My forehead drops between her shoulder blades. I fold into her like I’ve got nothing left to hold myself up.
“They were right. I had a stalker for a year.”
The word stalker scrapes on the way out. I swallow hard and try again.
“I want you to know my side. Not the version online. Not the one where I looked fine. I wasn’t. I kept filming, but everything else stopped.”
My throat tightens, and the next breath shakes.
She waits anyway, giving me the time to go at my own speed.
