Chapter Twenty-Six
TOMMY
My arms tremble as I carry Jenna into her bedroom and kick the door shut behind us. She has her legs wrapped around my waist and her mouth clamped firmly against my own.
I was nervous to kiss her and not just because of fear that she could reject me. I can’t remember the last time I kissed a girl, and that’s the God’s honest truth. With sex, I’m confident of my abilities, but with kissing, I’ve genuinely no idea if I’m any good.
Jenna has always teased me for being younger, and the last thing I wanted was to show myself up as inexperienced.
Truthfully, tonight, I haven’t got a fucking clue what I’m doing.
I might as well be marooned on a desert island with no map or supplies.
I’m completely out of my depth. Still, there was no chance that I was driving straight home from the airport.
I’d never gotten through security faster and never made a twenty-five-minute car ride in fifteen minutes either.
I wasn’t lying when I said that I expected her to text me back. I’d felt sure the day I left for our away series that she was feeling the kinds of feelings that I was. A kind of attraction that runs way deeper than lust.
For the final hour of our return flight home, all I could think about was Jenna getting all dressed up to go out with her girlfriends, only to end up in another dude’s bed.
I knew she’d be tempted to go searching for affection in an empty hookup because we’re the same.
It’s what I’ve always done with women. If I’m going through shit in my head, I’m more likely to bag a girl and bring her back to my place for some fun.
Jenna might act like the playgirl—easygoing and not after commitment. That’s not who she is though, and I can see that in her eyes. I can feel it in the way she kisses me back.
When she appeared at the end of her hallway tonight, I couldn’t miss the redness around her eyes. She’d been crying, and I guessed that was why Kendra had come over to keep her company.
I fucking hated to see her upset, but realizing that my worst nightmare of her sleeping with another man hadn’t come true, and instead, she was curled up on the sofa with fake wine, only spurred me to push the boundaries and refuse to leave her place when she repeatedly asked me to go.
This girl might think that I’m the one playing games, but right now, the only one fooling themselves is her. She wanted to text me back, and I honestly thought I could walk away if she didn’t.
I was wrong.
I can’t walk away; I could barely spend eight nights before I lost my goddamn mind over who she might be jumping into bed with, letting them touch her body. The only hands that should be on her skin are mine.
Laying her on the bed beneath me, I swipe a pile of folded clothes on the floor and crawl over her body, caging her in with my arms. We’re both fully dressed, but that’s okay. I’ve got way more I want to prove to her tonight than just how well I can fuck her.
I don’t know what we are to each other, and frankly, defining us isn’t my priority.
Jenna Miller needs to see the real me. The person I buried so many years ago that I’m struggling to remember what he looks like.
I know she can see him behind the bravado, and I know I’ll lose her forever if I don’t at least try and reconnect with who I was before I “lost” my parents.
“What’s happening in here, Tommy?” Jenna taps my temple softly.
Fuck me, she’s beautiful like this. No makeup, pieces of dark hair scattered around her face.
It would be so easy to kiss her again and then fuck her raw until the sun rises and I have to show up for practice.
But avoiding her question would get us nowhere, and I’m tired of being an asshole to this girl.
I know she doesn’t deserve it. She had every right to hate me for what I did to her brother, although I can’t say that entitlement stretched to me hating on her too.
Jenna was right to turn me down last season.
She valued her self-worth and didn’t want to get caught up with the Blades bad boy, who only looked at her like a piece of ass he couldn’t wait to conquer.
I squeeze my eyes shut at the memories, along with the recollection of what Sawyer said to me on the bench the other day. He spoke a lot of truths I couldn’t deny. Or at least maybe didn’t want to anymore. Especially not to the girl patiently waiting on me for an answer.
My voice is thick and hoarse, almost gravelly, when I reply, “So much, Jenna. I wish I could lay it all out for you in a few short sentences.”
She presses her head into the duvet as her eyes analyze my face. “Why do you need to summarize your thoughts so succinctly? I’ve got the time to listen.”
I can feel the coil of tension as it twists and contorts in my stomach. How the fuck am I supposed to open up to someone after years of hiding beneath layers of bullshit?
“I’m lonely too.” Jenna’s whispered confession is the hardest punch I’ve ever taken, and her words hang between us, unrequited as they wait for me to add my own.
As I open my mouth, I’m unsure if I’ll speak or puke, my stomach contracting, to the point of pain.
“But you have friends and family,” I tell her, twirling a piece of her hair around one of my fingers.
Jenna shrugs a shoulder. “Just because I don’t look lonely doesn’t mean I’m not.”
“And just because I pretend I don’t care about anything doesn’t mean I don’t,” I whisper back, appreciating how smooth her hair is against the rough pads of my fingers.
“Tell me something you care about, Tommy,” Jenna says, draping one arm over my shoulder so she can run her fingertips along the shaved hairline at the nape of my neck.
The sensation feels soothing, and instinctively, my eyelids flutter closed.
“I care about being wanted.” My arms tremble again as I hold my weight above the girl who seems to have mastered the art of infiltration, pulling me apart from the inside out. “And I care about what certain people think of me.”
Jenna moves her hand up the back of my head, gently stroking her fingers through my longer hair. “Like whom?”
I’m back to feeling nauseous, fighting the urge to get up and run while I still can. Something stronger keeps me here though, pinned to her mattress with my eyes fixated on her blue irises. “My teammates and coach,” I reply, swallowing past the lump in my throat. “My mom.”
Dropping my head down, I brush my lips across her mouth. “You.”
Jenna’s breath catches in her throat, but she doesn’t say anything in response.
“I don’t want you to hate me, Jenna.”
She shakes her head. “I mean, I did. But I don’t anymore. I’m mixed up over how I feel about you, but I definitely don’t hate you, Tommy.”
I know she’s confused over me. Who wouldn’t be after the way I’ve acted?
“I shouldn’t have punched your brother, and for that, I’m sorry. He was defending your honor, and for what it’s worth, I’d have done the same if I had a sister.”
Jenna rolls her lips together, nodding her head once in acknowledgment. I’ve got zero idea what happens after tonight, but whatever transpires between us, it feels good to get that out in the open. Being a good person feels good.
“No, you’re right. He didn’t deserve it,” Jenna confirms on a sly smile. “And right after we left the bar and went back to my place that night, Holt told me never to go within a hundred feet of you again.” She laughs darkly. “As you can tell, I always listen to my brother.”
I smile down at her. “Holt would fucking murder me if he knew what I planned to do with his sister tonight.”
I don’t know if it’s my imagination playing tricks, but I swear to God I feel her body radiate heat from beneath me.
“What do you have in mind? Taking my ass and making me scream so he can hear over in France?” She laughs nervously.
I pause for just a second before I shake my head and run my thumb across her plump bottom lip. “No, Jenna. That’s not what I want to do with you tonight.”
Pushing off the bed, I stand in front of her and undress until I’m fully naked.
Jenna lifts her hips up, and I peel her sweats down her legs, taking her soaked thong along with them.
She sits up and removes her T-shirt and then unclips her bra and tosses them both on the heap of clothes beside my feet.
We’re both bare and silent.
Comfortable to observe and absorb the shifting dynamic between us.
Taking my cock into my left hand, I pump myself a couple of times, the tip instantly shining with hot arousal.
God, I want her so badly.
Jenna’s about to flip onto her hands and knees for me when I stop her with a firm hand on her upper thigh.
“No. I don’t want you like that tonight.”
She pauses, and I crawl back over her sweet body.
“I told you I want to prove myself to you, and that’s what I’m going to do.”