Chapter 11
CHAPTER 11
HANNAH GRACE
“ I could have sworn I had it in my hand when I came to bed,” I tell myself, flipping the covers over and back and moving the pillows in case it fell under them when I was changing into my pajamas.
It wouldn’t be the first time my phone has ended up under my pillows or under my bed when I walked in and tossed it down on my way to change my clothes.
But no luck.
Which means my plan to avoid Cole for the rest of the night isn’t going to work either. We’d finished the second game and I begged off, wanting to end on a high note with my strike. I was refusing to acknowledge my last frame of two gutter balls.
At least to Cole and Zach. Even if the way Cole studied me told me he didn’t believe a word I was saying.
But even though he was right, I wasn’t going to admit it.
The truth was, I was avoiding how badly I had wanted him to kiss me. How much I had wanted to rise to my tiptoes and let my lips refamiliarize themselves with his. I have no idea how I stopped myself, but by some small miracle I had.
I couldn’t trust myself without some distance, and I needed more than the length of the drive home in separate cars. Once we had gotten home, I had said good night as fast as possible while not all-out sprinting for my room.
I was proud of my restraint.
But now I had no choice but to go out and search for my phone so I could read on it and try to relax a little, fall asleep, and not think about the fact that Cole was in my guest bedroom.
Creeping to my bedroom door, I open it, searching for any sign of the man I’m trying to avoid.
“Cole?” I keep my voice at a whisper to avoid calling him if he’s not within earshot.
Light filters below the door of the guest room, but the sound of the shower is what moves me from my hiding spot behind my bedroom door. If he’s in the shower, I have no idea how long I have and I’d rather not have another encounter of him in a towel.
He looks good in a towel .
“Which is why I don’t need that temptation right now,” I mutter to myself.
My phone is exactly where I left it—on the kitchen counter next to my bags—and I grab it and scurry back toward my room. Fingers wrapped around my doorknob, I’m almost there when a hollow thud echoes from the bathroom.
“He’s fine,” I say to myself.
The words are meant to be an assurance, but I also can’t help but picture something bad happening. Especially with the low moan that reaches me next.
Spinning on my heel, I don’t bother to knock. Instead, my mad dash to make sure he’s okay is frozen in place by the scene in front of me as the sandalwood-scented steam teases my nostrils and wraps around me to hold me in place. Like I’m going anywhere.
The clear glass shower door provides more of a highlight than any sort of privacy, and the bathroom lights highlight the way water sluices over toned muscle. His dark hair is almost black from the water, his eyes closed as he leans against the shower wall. His breathing is a ragged in and out and alternates with the muscle tic when his mouth closes on another moan.
My eyes have a mind of their own, gobbling up the broad shoulders and smattering of hair on a chest that I’ve imagined touching more than once. It tapers down toward his abs, and the muscles tighten and flex under my perusal, highlighting the lines that bracket his hips. But it’s what comes next that has heat flooding my core and my panties dampening.
His dick is rock hard, gripped tightly in his hand as it moves up and down the shaft. His forearm muscles stand in relief as he drags his hand down before moving immediately back up, his speed increasing in a hypnotic beat that is tied to the way my pussy clenches.
I should leave. I shouldn’t be here, watching this like some sort of Peeping Tom. But I can’t look away.
“Fuck, Hannah Grace .”
My attention flies to his face as heat that has nothing to do with desire fills my cheeks. But his eyes are still closed, his hand speeding up again.
“Yes,” he hisses the word. “Fuck, yes, Honey Girl.”
Oh my God. Am I what he’s imagining right now? Is that why he’s in the shower like this with my name on his lips?
Desire drives out all other rational thought, my own hands inching along the waistband of my sleep shorts the more I witness. I squeeze my thighs together to seek relief, but find none despite the pressure. The hand not still holding my phone dips below my shorts and panties, and my fingers zero in on the spot that aches the most. My knees almost buckle at the first pass of my fingers against my clit, and I bite my lip, a low whimper escaping.
His hand drops and his eyes fly open and drop to where my hand disappears below my sleep shorts. His nostrils flare, his dick bobbing in my direction like it’s been programmed to find me.
Maybe it has.
“Oh God.”
I yank my hand from my shorts, humiliation burning along my collarbone and cheeks as I straighten my shorts and sleep tank.
“I-I’m sorry. I heard…I’m sorry.” I don’t bother to try to explain any more.
Get out , get out , get out .
The door is still open from when I burst in here before. I need to get out of here. I need to go to my bedroom and attempt to forget what just happened. Otherwise how am I going to look him in the face?
Guess you should have thought of that before…
Time to go. I race toward my escape, intent on disappearing into my bedroom and locked door. A wet hand reaches above my head and slams the door shut, another one spinning me back around against damp, hard muscles. And something else that’s hard that isn’t a muscle.
The fire he’s managed to keep controlled the few times I’ve caught it in his gaze is an inferno. There’s no pretense, no walls, nothing to shield me from the intensity that burns in front of me, that travels through my blood to center in my core.
“What are you doing in here?” His voice is full of gravel as he backs me against the door.
“Y-you’re naked.”
Way to state the obvious, Hannah Grace .
One corner of his mouth lifts.
“I normally am when I take a shower.”
“I heard a thud and you moaned…”
Suddenly it hits me. The thud was probably him leaning against the shower wall. And the moan, well…I witnessed firsthand where that came from.
“You were worried about me?” His question is innocent enough, but the drag of his fingers against the sensitive skin of my stomach where his hand grips my hip is scrambling my brain.
His expression softens slightly, but if anything, it only makes the fire banked in his eyes burn brighter.
“Of course I was!” I grip his biceps, my fingernails pricking into the skin along the back of his arm.
Too many nights I had lain awake, worrying about him when he was deployed. Wondering if he would be okay, praying he would come home to me. It wasn’t something I could turn off even if I was able to push him to the back of my mind when he decided he couldn’t come home to me.
“Why?” His thumb sweeps my hipbone in a maddening pattern of nonsense that makes me want to strip as naked as he is and demand he really touch me.
I shake my head, unable to voice the answer to that question. I don’t want to think about that right now. All I want to do is allow myself this temporary insanity and loosen the tight grip I have on the lust he inspires. Dragging one hand down his still-damp chest, I use my index finger to bisect his breastbone and abs until I can drag it along his waist. His breath is a hiss of sound as his fingers flex into the fabric of my shorts.
“I got a strike tonight,” I murmur and continue to drag my hand lower.
“You did.” The timbre of his voice is rough and connected via a superhighway to whatever is feeding this craziness between us.
“Do you remember our deal?” I graze his thigh with my fingertips and he shudders.
A muscle tics in his jaw and he drops his nose, dragging it along my cheek until his lips brush the sensitive skin of my earlobe.
“A kiss for every strike,” he whispers.
A giddy rush of warmth travels from my heart to war with the desire that reigns supreme. He remembers. As if to prove his point, his lips pucker to place a chaste kiss against my hairline.
“Do you want me to kiss you, Honey Girl?”
I don’t answer. At least not with words. Turning my head, my lips find the corner of his while my fingers wrap around his hard length.
I unleash a beast. His mouth slams against mine, our tongues tangling for supremacy of the kiss as sensations from right now in this tiny bathroom mix with memories from the past. His hand that had been pressed to the door above my head drops to my hip while the other drags a line back, palming my ass and squeezing.
I moan, but he doesn’t let the sound escape the fusion of our mouths. My phone falls from my fingers, freeing my other hand, and I use it to pull him closer. He deepens the kiss, his second hand joining the first as he boosts me up and I wrap my legs around his waist. My hands tangle in his hair and his dick rubs the center seam of my shorts, creating a delicious friction.
But it’s not enough.
My lungs scream for oxygen but I refuse to break the kiss first, relishing the minty fresh flavor of his toothpaste mixed with something that is uniquely him. His fingertips brush my folds and I whimper, ready for the next step, my lungs screaming at me, while everything about this moment is centered on the man kissing me brainless against the bathroom door.
He breaks the kiss, and I gulp in the sweet relief of air while he presses hot open-mouthed kisses down my neck before tonguing the pulse point at the base of my throat.
Too much, too soon, too…tempting.
I silence the voice that tries to warn me from jumping off the deep end. As if I had any other choice once I saw him again.
I hold him in place, not like he seems to want to go anywhere from his focus on my neck and collarbone as he traces the line from one side to the other and back up to my jaw.
Leaning my head back against the door, I squirm against his grip, desperate for his fingers to move a little more south from where they barely brush me.
“ Cole .”
“Do you know how many times I’ve heard you say my name like that in my dreams, Honey Girl? How desperate I was to feel you. To savor you.” He licks along my jaw before nipping at my earlobe.
I cry out, tilting my head to give him better access, and he takes it, fitting his mouth against my neck in a combination of lips, tongue, and teeth that has me ready to combust on the spot.
“I’ve never forgotten, Honey Girl. Nothing. Not the taste of you. Not the sounds you make when I do this.” He lowers his head, nipping at the tendon between my neck and shoulder.
I cry out, pushing myself as close to him as I can with the position we’re in.
He chuckles, the sound vibrating against me.
“You’re so fucking hot. I couldn’t stop thinking about you earlier. I couldn’t fight you anymore.” The words are murmured against my skin followed by a groan.
“I…didn’t think you’d be…doing that…when I walked in,” I manage to pant as I struggle to form a coherent thought as his lips continue to move.
“I couldn’t stop myself. And opening my eyes to see you with your hand in your panties. My good girl has a naughty side to her.”
Reaching between us, I trust him to hold my weight as I wrap my hand around his dick and run my thumb over the head.
“Fuuuck, Hannah Grace.” His muscles lock, tendons standing in relief on his neck as he leans his head back and pushes me farther into the door.
We stand like that as my heartbeat trips faster, my pussy begging for relief as I continue to drag my hand up and down his cock. Pre-cum leaks from the tip and I run it along his length.
“I’m going to fucking come.” The words rip from his lips like he’s fighting a losing battle.
“Isn’t that the idea?” I ask and moan as his tongue pushes past my lips in response.
My nipples tighten against my shirt, and the layer of fabric between us is beyond frustrating at this point.
“Maybe we should take this to my room,” I say, breaking the kiss and trailing my lips back to his ear.
There’s a sensitive part just below the lobe that still causes him to shiver.
“Oh yeah?” His growl is one of the sexiest sounds and ratchets the steam between us.
“Mmm. I want you. I need you to fuck me.” I rim his ear with my tongue after my statement.
He freezes, his eyes popping open.
“Fuck you?” He pulls back far enough that he can bring me back into focus.
I nod.
“Yes.”
“Is that what this is to you?” The fire dims in his gaze and he steps back, lowering me to the floor until my feet are once more beneath me.
“Isn’t that what this is?” I ask in return.
I’m confused. One second he’d been kissing me like I was the only method of his survival, and now he’s studying me like I’m a stranger.
“Is that what you think?” He adds additional space between us and reaches for a towel to wrap around himself.
What the hell?
Disappointment, sexual frustration, and anger war with a weird combination of relief and humiliation. He was just as into this as I was, but maybe we both shouldn’t have been. Or maybe I was the only one who wanted things to continue.
“We’re not in a relationship, but that doesn’t mean we can’t have sex.” We’re both consenting, interested adults.
Or we both were until thirty seconds ago.
“It’s never going to be just sex between us.”
“It’s never going to be anything more than sex again.”
“I can’t do that.” He drags a hand through his hair, and it bounces back into the crazy hairstyle created by my fingers.
Why does it feel like he’s suddenly rejecting me all over again? The back of my nose burns, but I refuse to give in to the sensation regardless if the tears are ones of anger, disappointment, or something else I don’t want to put a name to.
“Why not? We were both on board with the idea a few minutes ago.”
“It’s never going to be just sex. Not for me. I still have feelings for you, Hannah Grace. I never stopped.”
I still have feelings for you .
Those six words may be small on the surface, but each one is like a roller coaster drop for my stomach.
“You don’t have to tell me things you don’t mean to sleep with me, Cole. I already told you I was okay with just sex.”
Please let him be lying. Let me be able to call his bluff.
He closes the distance, his brown eyes searching mine, the glimmer of hope buried deep within them.
“You had to feel it in how I kissed you, Honey Girl. It’s not something I can hide. Not from you. Not once you kissed me.”
I try to retreat and slam into the door at my back.
“Stop.”
“Hannah G?—”
“No! Stop!” I cover my ears with my hands.
While it will do nothing to truly block the words if he wants to say them, the action is enough that he pauses.
“No,” I repeat, lowering my hands and taking a deep breath. “You broke up with me, Cole. Not the other way around. You can’t do something like that. You can’t tell me you love me, promise to marry me someday, break my heart, and then walk back in four years later and tell me you never stopped.”
My hand fumbles for the knob at my hip and I twist it, wrenching the door open. Cool air rushes into the room, removing all traces of the steam. In more ways than one.
“Hannah Grace,” he whispers, and it’s another cut to my heart.
My already bruised and scarred heart.
“Good night, Cole.”
Rushing from the bathroom, I don’t stop until I’m leaning against my closed and locked bedroom door.
That was too close. I should be grateful things didn’t go further. Even if I now have the worst case of blue bean ever.
It’s worth it to avoid that level of heartbreak again.