Chapter Twenty-Five Keely #3
She must have nodded again, because warm fingers wrapped around her wrist, bringing her palm up. Then it was splayed across Max Simmons’s chest, the way his was on hers.
His heart beats, the blood rushing through his lungs and under his skin, gave her something to count other than all the seconds she wasn’t in control, the number of things still on her to-do list today. All the ways she could fail and was already failing.
“You’re here, Keely,” Max murmured. After hesitating a second—which stretched wide and endless in front of Keely—he dropped his forehead to hers, his furrowed brow smoothing along her sweaty one.
From this close, his jaw looked like her ribs felt, immovable and iron tight.
It took up all her vision. “You’re here with me, and the only responsibility you have right now is to breathe.
To focus on how my chest expands and make yours match.
That’s all you have to do.” His voice was fierce.
Commanding. “Just look at me and breathe.”
It came back to her in increments. The breeze floating down from the mountains. The sun warming her skin through her black tank top.
Max’s hand splayed across that tank top. His heart, slow and steady under her palm, the vein in his forehead pulsing lightly against hers. Her fingers flexed, then curled into a fist around the fabric.
A shockwave of electricity ripped through her. She’d always thought that was a metaphor, how some touches created electricity.
But the buzzing beneath her skin said something different. Her nerves were sparking rapid-fire. They were so close. Their bodies were fused, foreheads to chests, the backs of their hands brushing.
Keely tried to step back, put an iota of distance between them so she could unjumble her thoughts.
But her legs still weren’t working quite right, or maybe her shoelace was untied, or the universe didn’t think she’d had enough of Max Simmons’s body on hers yet, because something snagged her foot and sent her careening backward toward the asphalt.
Her butt hit first, and she would have smacked her head next if Max hadn’t caught it, cradling it and taking the brunt of the hit on his knuckles.
“Oof.” Max groaned.
As the dust settled, Keely became hyper aware of their position. Max was on top of her, the hand not cradling her head pressed to the ground near her breast. His thumb was against her bra again. Nerves misfired in her still-fuzzy brain.
Passion. So this was what it felt like.
“Are you okay?” His voice was sandpaper-rough. “Can you still breathe?”
She really couldn’t, not with her legs on either side of his hips like this. But she knew what he meant, so she nodded, threaded her fingers through the damp hair at the nape of his neck, and pulled his mouth down to hers.
He grunted, the hand cradling her head tightening around her hair, and she was a scientist, but this was art, how he molded her lips with his own and kissed her in earnest.
Max pressed her mouth apart, and she tasted his toothpaste. Peppermint. She grinned, and he used the opportunity to drag her lip with his teeth. The canine was the last to release, and the pinch of pain was followed quickly by delicate pleasure as he sucked her bottom lip into his mouth.
She could work her whole life and not be able to master this the way he had. But she’d try—with enthusiasm.
Her hands weren’t in his hair anymore. They were dragging down, down, clawing over his shoulder blades, memorizing the muscles of his waist and back. There were divots just above his waistband, on either side of his spine, and she filled them with her fingers experimentally.
With a groan, Max’s tongue shot out, licking up and learning the curve of her lips from the inside out.
She met him with her own, and this became a new way they fought and sparred with each other.
She pushed and he pulled. He gave and she took, hand over fist, greedy for him and his mouth and hands and little noises.
Light burned bright behind her eyes, and she wouldn’t have been surprised to open them and find she was glowing.
Her entire body was uncomfortably, perfectly warm, buzzing with that potential she’d talked about so many weeks ago.
She was the ball before a drop, waiting, waiting, waiting for Max to touch her where she ached.
He tore his lips from her with a pained grunt, and she followed him blindly, seeking the softness of his mouth on an otherwise granite body. But his hand was still fisted in her hair, holding her in place.
“I haven’t stopped thinking about the locker room,” he murmured to the skin of her jaw, his mouth following the same pattern now as it did then. He didn’t stop himself this time as he took more sips of her.
“I haven’t, either,” she admitted, a suck of her neck stealing the last syllable. Stealing her ability to think clearly in any capacity. “Max,” she breathed.
This was insane. They were in public, in broad daylight.
It was the most reckless she’d ever been, and there was a zero percent probability of stopping.
She didn’t care. All she wanted was this, to quell the desire for Max that had been building since—since longer than she cared to admit.
Their bodies hummed with energy; she was sure she felt his heartbeat in the space between them.
With a whimper, she bucked up, seeking relief from his heavy presence there.
Max’s hand shot to her hips, stilling her. “Key,” he said, a warning and a plea. “Stop.”
She froze; she’d read this so wrong. Maybe he regretted the moment in the locker room, this moment now, after all, especially now that they were friends.
He was right. It had taken them months to get to this point, this truce, and it still hung precariously in the balance.
Just like the scholarship.
The campus bell tolled, signaling the turn of the hour and breaking the spell.
Keely pulled away with a jolt, and she got to take in the full glory of Max Simmons, post-kiss. Bruised lips, tousled hair, pupils swallowing all but the tiniest sliver of color. She let herself have it for a few seconds, suppressing the ache in her chest.
“I have to go,” she said, scrambling out from under him. She rushed for her bag, still back where they’d started.
The back of her neck prickled, which meant he was probably watching as she slung it over her shoulder.
“You okay?” he asked.
“I’m. . .” she started, but she didn’t know how to finish that sentence. Was she okay? Not really. “Late to class,” she supplied instead.
“Ah.” He nodded, but a look of confusion crossed his features. His hair was stuck up in wild strands, mussed from her fingers, and his cheeks and the hinge of his jaw were bright red. All of it made him even hotter. Unfair.
He’d shifted to sit on the ground and leaned back on his hands, revealing the lines of his hard body—all of his hard body.
She tore her gaze away, turned and ran all the way to class.