“I want to know every way to defend myself. Please show me.”
The first run through went by without a hitch, but on the second, when I moved into position, knees bracketing his hips, weight settling above his waist, Oliver’s muscles went taut under me, and he twisted, trying to wiggle free. His breath grew faster. Not quite panicked, but erratic.
“Easy,” I murmured, shifting my weight forward to remove the pressure off his hips. Bracing one hand on the floor beside his shoulder, I reached my other out to his face, stroking along the curve of his jaw, a light touch meant to guide him back to the present.
“You’re okay. Just slow down. Find your body. Both—”
Something twitched against my inner thigh. I almost wrote it off, until his pelvis bucked into me. A raw, choked-off sound tore from him, and the truth hit like a lightning bolt.
Oh.
This wasn’t panic or fear. He wasn’t trying to escape. His body’s response came from a completely different direction. His eyes widened in horror. Color flooded his face—a deep, mortified blush rising from his collar to his hairline.
“Red! Luke, red! Off! Get off me!” he yelled, pushing at my chest.
With care, as quick as I could, I rolled off him.
He scrambled upright. “Shit! Shit! Shit! I’m sorry. I didn’t mean for that to happen.”
“Hey, it’s alright. It happens. Adrenaline, proximity, it’s your body doing its thing. It doesn’t always know the difference between threat and uh... other stuff.”
“Please don’t,” he cut in. “Just . . . don’t.”
Not waiting for a response, he turned and fled, rushing up the stairs to his bedroom.
I stood there staring at the spot he’d just bolted from. My thighs tingled where he’d been pressed against me, and my brain, god help it, began instant-replaying the moment.
Why couldn’t my damn heart pick a rhythm? My thoughts switched betweendude, what the hell just happenedandplease, for the love of all that’s holy, let it happen again.
The first I understood, the second was new and blindsiding. But it made me wonder whether, if he hadn’t run off, would I have pulled away? Would I even have wanted to? I gave my head a rough shake, like that could rattle the thoughts away. No dice. It just seemed to dislodge more questions.
Had I misread everything? Misunderstood what Oliver meant to me and what I’d come to feel for him all this time?
I’d always figured I was straight. I’d never been attracted to a guy before. Then again, it’s not like I’d been attracted to many women, at least not in the sexual sense. I ran on low gear in that regard, once in a blue moon, during the thirteenth month of a leap year kind of low. But the way my body lit up a few minutesago? Yeah, not sure that was low gear. That was more like I’d hit the ignition and forgotten where the brakes were. Oliver’s body had moved underneath mine and something in me had activated, not with confusion or panic, but want.
That surfaced the biggest questions of all. Did I want Oliver like that? When I tried to conjure an image to fill the white space that had always existed in my mind when I thought about sex, did Oliver’s face appear? His mouth? His body?
The instant and loud mental affirmative told me everything I needed to know. Well... shit.
Chapter 21
Oliver
This was bad. Really bad. The kind of bad that turned to acid in my stomach and festered. My stupid crush on Luke had metastasized into something I couldn’t control.
It made me inappropriately flirtatious. Pulling his face to within kissing distance of mine? What the hell had I been thinking? Then the crowning moment, getting hard while in a position where he felt it. As if that hadn’t been mortifying enough, I couldn’t overlook the sprinkle of irony on top in which he thought I’d been panicking. He’d mistaken my arousal for a trauma response. First when he’d demonstrated the grab from behind, and then again on the damn floor. The way his voice gentled, the way he touched me, careful, reassuring, so damn tender, it hadn’t done a thing to alleviate the situation.
To him, I’m someone to shelter and protect. A responsibility, not a possibility. Someone recovering, not someone to want. Believing it could ever be more was a laughable fantasy. Well, the joke was on me now, because my body had betrayed me in the most humiliating, spectacular way imaginable. My only defense? Duh.
When a guy as sexy as Luke—body carved from steel, voice like velvet, and a soul made entirely of soft things—straddles you, his muscles flexing, his breath warm across your skin, hisbaritone voice all warm and gentle, what the hell else is going to happen? Getting hard had been inevitable.
Burying my face in my hands, I willed the humiliation to seep out of my skin. The physical reaction embarrassed me enough, but it also meant I couldn’t trust myself around him anymore. I’d made something safe complicated.
What if he was disgusted? What if I’d made him so uncomfortable and violated he regretted ever letting me stay here? I couldn’t lose this. I couldn’t lose him. Even if I never touched him. Even if he never looked at me that way. Even if I spent every goddamn day pretending the things in my chest reserved only for him weren’t eating me alive.
A tentative knock sounded at my door. Panic and desire swirled in me in equal measure. Part of me wanted to stay silent; the other part of me wanted to salvage this.
“Ollie? I’m not asking to come in. I know you want space, and I don’t want to push past that. I just wanted to check if you’re okay and to say I hope you don’t regret today. You did incredible, and it means a lot that you trusted me enough to train with me. I’m sorry if I messed that up or made it worse somehow. We don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want to, or we can, up to you, whatever makes you comfortable.”
