Page 103 of Hard to Hold

CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR

LENNOX

“EXCUSE ME, BUT I DO believe this is my bathroom.”

I look at Rush who is standing in the doorway, his shoulder against the jamb, his eyes focused on me as I put my toothbrush in the holder.

“Yours, huh?”

He reaches out and tugs me against him. “Mine.”

My breath catches at the look in his eyes and the feel of his hands on my waist. How is that possible? How can desire grow stronger, even though I’ve already had him before?

“Thank you for helping to surprise me,” I murmur, leaning up on my tiptoes to press a kiss to his lips.

“Thank you for taking me to the ballgame,” he says and returns the kiss, but this time slips his hand beneath my tank top so his hands are on my bare skin.

“Thank you for putting up with my nosy sisters, who probably asked you way too many questions and assumed way too many things.”

Another kiss where my hands roam freely up the plane of his chest.

“Not a problem.”

And this time the kiss leads to me jumping so my legs wrap around Rush’s waist, before he carries me into my bedroom and lays me on the bed.

It wasn’t intentional.

This wasn’t supposed to happen.

But day by day and night by night, kiss by kiss and laugh by laugh, this thing between us, which was supposed to be fun and something to fill the time, became something more.

It warmed the parts of me that had grown cold and ignited the parts of me that others had heated but never lit. Not until Rush had I ever really burned, and oh how he made me burn.

I was in love with Rush McKenzie.

But there’s no way in hell I could ever tell him.

He has his own crowd to go to, and his own place to be cheered on.

His own life to live.

His own everything to be.

I’ve always known I’d have to let him go so he could.

“Hey, you okay?” Rush asks as he pushes his way into me. The burn in my chest only serves to heighten the sweet ache of us becoming one.

“Yes,” I murmur as I lean up and kiss him again.

“You’re crying,” he whispers as he kisses each track of my tears away.

“It’s okay.” I grab his biceps as his hips slowly move against mine.

“You sure?” His eyes find mine in the darkness.

“Yes.” Another kiss. “I just need you tonight, Rush.”

“You have me, Lennox.” Another push in and slow withdraw out. “You have me completely.”