Page 75 of Lucky Shot

Fuck this.

And that’s when my control snaps.

Without warning, I slant my mouth over hers and take from those parted pouty lips. Her tongue meets mine with a hesitancy that turns me on and then a certainty that kicks it into fucking overdrive.

I take what I’ve wanted, what I’ve craved, since the first time I saw her.

She tastes of sugar and sin. Of hunger and greed. Of fucking sanity and a crazed need. I take until I can’t take anymore. Until her initial resistance fades. Until her hands fist in my shirt and hold me close instead of pushing me away. Until that unabashed moan is in the back of her throat.

Christ, if I’d known this is what she tasted like, that restraint would have been gone so very long ago.

I hold her face as I break the kiss and then take a step back, not trusting myself to stop with just this. Her taste is seared into my brain, and the scent of her skin leaves me breathless. “You want me, Whitney, just as bad as I want you. Last night was a precursor to that.” I’ve heard her words. She doesn’t believe we have a chance, and she doesn’t trust my motives, so I want to help her see just how fucking much I want her. How I hate that she’s been so hurt in life that she can’t see genuine respect and care. I wouldn’t have waited all this time for her if all I wanted was a quick fuck.

It’s more than that, but I need to explain this so she hears me.

“When I fuck you, Whitney . . . and I will fuck you, it’ll be because you’re goddamn good and ready and have acknowledged that want. Not because it fits a media narrative or to polish the shine on my reputation. Not because of some war you’re waging in your own head over different lanes and life differences. And sure as shit not because I pity you. Rest assured, I do not. It’ll be because you trust me. Because you want me. Because you know how goddamn good last night was. Because you hunger, you ache for what we’ll feel like together. The same as I do. Until then, you can remember the taste of my kiss because I promise you, that’s just a hint of just how fucking great it’s going to be.” I drop my hands from her and force myself to take another step back. “Your ride is here.”

I round my car and get behind the driver’s seat without another word. The image of her—cheeks rosy, lips parted, eyes darkened with desire—makes my steps feel like I’m trudging through goddamn quicksand.

And I am.

No woman has ever shaken me up from just her kiss alone. Whitney has.

I watch her ride pull away. I stare at its taillights until I can’t see them anymore. And I wonder what the fuck has gotten into me.

I may be a lot of fucking things in this life, but it seems I’m suddenly a man of my word. That’s one promise I will definitely be keeping.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

Hardy

I sit on the balcony of my penthouse with my eyes on the water. Its white froth is the only thing I can see in the moonlight—the sway of it in and out—but it’s a soothing sound to go with my buzz.

The hand I scrub over my face does nothing to shake loose the bullshit of my last two days. I woke up to messages from my teammates back home, asking me who Red Dress had been at the premiere. None of their fucking business is who. Then there was Ari who wanted to analyze the “success” of seeing Whitney from a social media perspective. Fuck that.

Then there was a shitty practice that is one hundred percent on me.

My head was messed up. Still is. There’s something about my convo with Whitney, that I can’t quite shake from my mind.

It’s driving me mad.

But nowhere as mad as her fucking kiss. Her taste. The softness of her lips. The tentativeness stripped away with an urgent greed.

Christ. I can’t scrub it from my mind.

I startle when my mobile rings and am tempted to leave it be. No doubt it’s the guys asking me to come out with them.

But when I look at the screen, I pause. I wonder if I should answer but know I will.

“Whitney? Everything okay?”

“I . . . yeah.”

“What is it?”

“I’ve rehearsed this a million times in my head, but I know that means I’m going to mess it up.”

“Welcome to my life,” I joke and hear her nervous chuckle before she falls silent.