Page 89 of Hard to Hold

“It is because you planned this incredible getaway, and I ruined it.”

“You didn’t ruin it.” He reaches out, cups the side of my face, and runs a thumb over the line of my jaw. “You’ve gotten to know the real me, Lennox. All I can say is that I hope that’s enough for you to believe what I’m saying is true.”

I open my mouth and then pause. Just say what really matters, Kincade. “I hope you can hear me when I say this. You’re wrong in what you said last night. You can depend on me, Rush, and dammit, you’re more than worth fighting for.” I hate that my voice wavers on the last few words, but how sad to live a life feeling like you have to face every battle alone.

His eyes never leave mine as he forces a swallow and nods. “Thank you.” His voice is barely a whisper but it shouts in my head.

He climbs out of the car without another word said.

The afternoon gets lost with me catching up on work and him training. The evening even more so as Johnny has some friends over who challenge Rush to a game of pool. Their echoes of laughter and trash-talking over winning and losing the ridiculous amounts of money being bet float up the stairs.

I try to read, but every time I get into the page, I hear Rush’s voice or laugh and am taken back to the idyllic rendezvous we just left. The rendezvous that at the time was incredible, because it was just the two of us, but now? I’m left feeling like it never happened.

Several times I think to call my oldest sister, Dekker, and talk to her. She’ll set me straight with her reasoning. But then that would open a can of worms, because they’ll know the man I’m supposed to be recruiting is slowly winning over my heart too.

And until now in my life, my heart has been one hundred percent off limits to anyone other than family.

I’m just about to fall asleep when I hear Rush brushing his teeth in our bathroom. A part of me, the needy part apparently, wants to call out to him and ask him to come and sleep in my bed with me. The sane part of me shuts my mouth and rolls onto my side to face the wall away from the door.

“Hey? Nox?” Rush whispers at my door, and I’m not sure why for the life of me I pretend to be asleep. Maybe it’s to quiet the needy part of me. Maybe it’s to prove I don’t need him, after all.

The last thing I need right now is more sex that confuses how it makes me feel physically with how it makes me feel emotionally.

I hear his feet on the floor and assume he’s walking away, but am surprised when I feel the covers lift and the bed dip at my back. Without another word, he slides in behind me, wraps his arms around me to pull my back to his front, and then murmurs, “Good night.”

“Hey,” I say in mock protest. “My bed.”

He presses a kiss to my shoulder as if it’s the most natural thing in the world. “You can have the bathroom if I get to keep your bed.”

“Are we negotiating again?”

“Nah, this one’s already a done deal, love.”

And it’s the last thing he says before his breathing evens out.

I’m left wide awake, trying to figure out how to deal with an off-limits heart that wants to start playing the game. And why that’s with a man with a definite time limit and secrets that guard his heart and soul.

Why is it with someone just like me?

CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

RUSH

7 Weeks Ago

THE CHANGING ROOM IS SILENT save for the groans from the guys tired after playing ninety minutes plus stoppage. And while it’s quiet, the boos of the crowd echo over and over in my head. The bullshit chants—the word cheater drawn out three times in a row followed by a quick, yes, he is—directed my way every time I was near the sidelines.

It doesn’t help that we played like shit. We can make the excuse it was a brutally physical game, seven yellow cards ought to tell anyone that, or that the calls didn’t go our way, but it was our fault we didn’t advance.

Plain and fucking simple.

We got our arses handed to us and we deserved it, because we played like individuals and not a team.

It doesn’t help that it’s been less than twenty-four hours since that fucking picture of Esme and Rory hit and owned every social media platform known to man.

Talk about fucking up team chemistry.

I steered clear of Seth as much as possible, but now? Now I fear it’s going to come to a head, and I’m so not ready for it.