Moral Conclusion #2
“Well, explain it to me once and for all!” I demand, slamming my heel against the floor.
“Because I’ve been driving myself absolutely crazy all day, thinking you regret being with me.
Tell me what the hell has changed. Tell me why, all of a sudden, I’m just another player on the roster to you again. ”
Before I have time to react, her long fingers clamp around my wrists with brutal force.
She drops the folder of reports to the floor with a sharp thud and pins me decisively against the metal wall of the elevator.
The impact suddenly knocks the wind out of my lungs.
And not because of the force of the movement, but because of the closeness of her body.
She’s so close to me that I can feel the scorching heat of her skin through my club sweatshirt, her perfume flooding my senses, and the frantic rhythm of her ragged breathing against my mouth.
“Listen to me very carefully,” she whispers dangerously close, staring at me with devastating intensity.
“I don’t want us to keep hiding as if this were something to be ashamed of.
You don’t deserve to have to hide from anyone, nor do you deserve to have people spread rumors about you that aren’t true. I don’t deserve it either.”
The air drains from my body. I feel the anger, frustration, and panic that had been building up inside me spill out chaotically within my chest, colliding with one another.
I’ve spent the last twelve hours convincing myself that Clara was dumping me out of fear of complicating her life, and now, having her this close, I realize she wasn’t pulling away.
She was scared to death. Just as terrified as I am.
I stare at her and notice how her eyes drift down for a millisecond toward my lips with an agonizing hunger.
“Clara…”
“I’m terrified of what might happen once those rumors spread and the higher-ups find out,” she confesses in a broken voice as she slowly raises a hand to caress my cheek tenderly.
“I’m tired of everyone taking the liberty of judging you without having a fucking clue who you are.
And it terrifies me to think of what they might do to you if they find out about this.
You’re the team’s star player, yes, but the board members will use that damn list of your past disciplinary and behavioral issues to bring you down, and I… ”
She doesn’t say another word. She stops fighting her own demons and kisses me with unbridled fury.
The whole world, the club, and the preseason vanish the very instant her mouth finds mine.
It’s not, by any stretch of the imagination, a gentle, conciliatory, or restrained kiss.
It’s a desperate, wild, intense kiss, brimming with all those emotions that have been making our stomachs churn ever since we met.
My hands rise automatically—almost out of survival instinct—to her waist to pull her closer to me, while she deepens the kiss, sliding her tongue inside with a hunger that makes my knees tremble.
Her fingers dig firmly into my hair, gently pulling it back to tilt my head, and a hoarse, involuntary moan escapes my throat straight into her mouth.
The elevator keeps descending floor by floor mechanically, but I’m no longer able to feel anything at all other than Clara.
Her body pressed tightly against mine, her breath completely ragged, the urgent and delightful way her lips devour mine…
In the midst of all this metallic chaos, I suddenly realize that my heart belongs only to her.
There’s no turning back in this story—not after realizing that absolutely nothing on this damn planet matters to me as much as she does.
“I need you like I need air,” I whisper directly against her lips between kisses, biting her lower lip eagerly. “Don’t shut me out of your life out of fear, Clara. I’m begging you…”
“And I need you, Alicia,” she replies, her voice completely choked up and her eyes misty. “So much more than I’m capable of admitting. It terrifies me how brutally fast you’ve turned my world upside down, girl, and it pisses me off that I can’t control it.”
The mechanical whir of the elevator puts us on alert.
Clara pulls back just a few centimeters from my mouth, though without letting go of me entirely.
We’re both breathing as if we’d just played an entire overtime period in the middle of August. The glass doors open, and then time stands still.
The coach is standing right in front of us, and beside him, looking less than pleased, is the club’s sporting director himself.
Both of them are motionless, staring at us.
The silence that settles over the lobby is absolute and devastating.
I’m still pinned against the metal wall at the back.
Clara is too close to my body—almost on top of me—her hands still touching me.
Our breathing is still a complete mess, ragged and frantic.
And even though neither of us has opened our mouths to say a single word…
the scene before their eyes is clear and unmistakable.
You don’t have to be a genius to know what we were doing.
I feel the blood drain from my cheeks, leaving me cold.
Hugo’s eyes widen in utter shock and surprise. The sporting director, for his part, reacts much faster than the coach, and from the look of contempt and severity on his face, it’s clear to me that we’ve just crossed a line that can’t be uncrossed.