Hard Tackle (A Stepbrother Warriors Novel) (12 page)

"I'm yours," I reply
immediately and unthinkingly.

"Only mine."

"Only yours."

He comes with a cry in my ear just
as my orgasm peaks. His grip tightens on my hands as my body attempts to absorb
all the tantalizing sensations that are flowing through it. I gasp for air as
he collapses on top of me, also breathing hard. I feel him shake his head
behind me, like he's coming to, and he rolls to the side.

"Sorry, didn't mean to crush
you," he says, cracking his neck from side to side.

"S'alright," I reply
groggily. Suddenly, he jumps up.

"You take your time," he
suggests. "I should probably get us moving back to the house." He
walks into the bathroom and comes back a minute later with his bathing suit
back on. "Just make sure you make the bed."

"Right," I reply, raising
my head to watch him walk out and down the hall. I blink my eyes quickly,
trying to clear my head. I think he wanted me to say something during sex, but
my mind feels so clouded…

I'm yours. Only yours.

Suddenly I feel wide awake and
alert. Shit. That means something, right? But then he left so abruptly
afterward, almost like he wanted to get away.

Should I ask him about it? We've
been having such a fun day, I don't really want to bring it down with a serious
talk. I'll wait until tonight, when we're back at the house.

Chapter Twenty-Two

I stand in between Jack's arms as he guides the boat away
from the reef and back toward the house. If he was acting oddly earlier, he
isn't now. We fall into a comfortable silence as the wind blows against us.
There's plenty of daylight left, and the sun glimmers off the tops of the small
waves around us. We don't encounter any other boaters as we return, and it
almost feels like we're the only people on the planet for a while. I feel
myself storing the memory of the moment away in my brain to take out later and
admire, like a treasured keepsake.

As we reach sight of land, I reluctantly step away from him
and sit down in the cockpit. It certainly wouldn't do for any of his tony
neighbors to see us snuggling together as we motor down to the dock. Jack hops
onto the wooden boards to tie us on while I gather up our towels and the unused
fishing rods. We deposit them back in the boat house and walk up past the pool
together. Without thinking, I reach out and take his arm, but he shrugs me off.

"Someone's in the kitchen," he says, nodding at
the open refrigerator door visible through the glass. I press my lips together
as we walk the final distance to the French doors.

"Hey, hon!" my mom calls out, turning as she
closes the fridge. "Oh! What were you two up to?" she asks, spotting
Jack behind me.

"Jack took me fishing, and then we went for a
swim," I explain. "You're home early."

"Silvio was doing such a good job as a manager that I
felt like I could take off early," she says, taking a baby carrot out of a
bag and munching thoughtfully on it. "Miles came by the house just
now," she adds seriously as Jack crosses to the cabinet to get a water glass.

"Yeah?" I ask lightly, but inside, it feels like
my heartbeat just stopped.

"Why didn't you tell me you guys had broken up? He said
he had to apologize for something he said the last time he saw you." I
wince. Jack continues to fill his water glass from the filter on the fridge,
but I notice a slight tensing of his back muscles over my mom's shoulder.

"I guess I forgot," I reply lamely.

"You forgot you and your first boyfriend broke up?"
my mom asks, putting her hand on her hip.

"No, I mean I forgot to tell you about it. It wasn't a
big deal," I say, willing her to let it go. Jack turns around and stands
next to my mom, taking a slow sip of water. My eyes flicker between them
nervously.

"Well, OK, but you can always talk to me, you know
that, right? I just don't want you to keep anything bottled up. It just makes
it hurt more in the long run," my mom says.

I sigh. She's just speaking out of concern, but, man, does
she have terrible timing, not knowing that I've been trying my damndest to keep
this information from Jack. "I know, Mom. Thanks. Maybe later," I
say, heading out of the kitchen and into the foyer. I listen for the sound of
Jack's footsteps following me, but I don't hear anything. Good. Maybe he won't
think it's a big deal.

I hurry up to my room and head into the bathroom to hang the
slightly damp towel on a hook behind the door. When I return to the bedroom,
Jack's standing in the middle of the room, the door shut behind him. From the
frown on his face, I can tell this isn't going to be good.

"Why didn't you tell me he broke up with you?" he
asks flatly.

"He didn't break up with me, actually. I broke up with
him, thank you very much."

"That's worse."

"Not for me," I point out, trying to play it off
jokingly.

"You know what I mean," he says, sounding more
frustrated. "I guess I could understand you not telling me if he broke up
with you…maybe you were embarrassed or something, but if you broke up with him,
then—"

"I guess it's too late to change my answer to he broke
up with me," I say, almost to myself.

"So?" he asks, crossing his thick arms over his
chest, demanding an answer. I chew on the side of my lip nervously. I guess
it's time to be honest.

"I could tell that the fact I was dating Miles made you
worry less about me developing feelings for you, so when I broke up with him I
didn't tell you because I wanted to keep seeing you." The words spill out
of me in a single breath.

"That must have been important to you, if you decided
to lie about it," he notes quietly.

"Well, yes. I do like…what we have," I admit.

"But now it has to stop," he says, turning around
and heading for the door. I feel like the wind's been knocked out of me.

"Wait, what? Why?"

"You know why!" he retorts, swinging back around,
his neck muscles tense.

"I'm sorry I lied, but I don't understand why you're so
mad!"

"Because I
told
you," he says, struggling
to keep his voice down. "I
warned
you that I don't do
relationships, and now you tried to back me into one!"

"That's not what I was trying to do!" I protest,
fighting back tears. "I tried not to love you, but I couldn't."

"
Love
?" he repeats, looking aghast. Shit. I
didn't mean to say it. "No, you don't love me. You're confused. It's
because we slept together, the chemicals in your brain are telling you—"

"No, that's not it," I argue. "It's not because
of the physical stuff, it's because of you. It's because we have fun together,
and we can tell each other things, and I feel my most alive when you're around.
And I know you feel it, too."

"I don't know what—"

"What about when we were on the boat and you wanted me
to tell you that I was 'yours, only yours'?" I say, trotting out my
biggest piece of evidence.

"I—we were fucking!" he bursts out.

I recoil. "No, no it was more than that."

"Not for me."

"You're lying. Maybe it's hard for you to see, hard for
you to be intimate because your mother—"

"No. No, spare me your dime store psychology
bullshit," he spits out. "I've heard it all before, and trust me, that's
not what's going on. I'm an NFL star, and I can get any woman I want, and
that's what I like to do. Forget anything ever happened between us."

A chilling emptiness spreads through my body as he turns
around and heads out my bedroom door, shutting it behind him. I drop to my
knees and curl up into a small ball as tears begin to flow down my cheeks. The
pain is physical and almost unbearable.

I didn't realize how out on a limb I had gone, and that I
was out there alone.

I think the whole time I had allowed myself to harbor the
idea that he felt the same way. I kept it deep down so I would never have to
examine it. And now that it's out in the light, it's exposed as the lie it
always was.

It was all in my head.

Chapter Twenty-Three

"Your mom told us about the breakup," Silvio says,
resting a hand on my shoulder.

"What?" I reply, coming out of the fog I've been
in for my whole shift.

"With Miles. She says you've been in denial and it's
only hitting you now." He nods with understanding.

"Oh, yeah," I reply. My mom's assumption has
proved convenient recently, as it explains away my moroseness and lack of
appetite.

"You want me to take some of your shifts?"

"No, no, it's alright. I'd rather keep busy."

"OK…" Silvio says, looking unsure. "I don't
want to rush you, but could you take out table four's order?"

"Oh, crap! I'm so sorry," I murmur, looking at the
window where the plates of food are sitting. I hope they're still hot; I have
no idea how long they've been there. I grab them and hurry over to the table
and drop them off, giving an apologetic thumbs up to Silvio as I walk back.

It's been two weeks since Jack broke things off between us,
and I don't feel any less raw than I did the day after it happened. If
anything, I recognize more every day how much I'd come to depend on seeing him,
even just as a friend.

I keep wondering if I could have done things differently.
Maybe there was some way to spin things where we could have at least retained a
friendship. Or maybe being friends and nothing more would have been even more
painful. I don't know. My mind feels like mush and there's not much use in my
trying to think anything through.

"Table six," Silvio whispers to me as he passes
behind the bar. My head snaps over and I see them waving at me. I recognize
their expressions as that of neglected customers and hurry over.

By the end of my shift, my tips are measly and I leave
apologizing to Silvio and promising I'll do better the next day. My body feels
drained and heavy as I drive to the house. I don't want to go back there. Even
if I'm not doing a good job at work, at least I don't have to worry about seeing
him around.

Not that he's been home much lately. I had to sit through
one family dinner with him, but besides that I've caught sight of him working
out in the backyard and a fleeting glimpse of him headed up to the third floor.
I think he's been sneaking out at night again, too. I woke up one night and
thought I heard him coming in, and all I could do was hope that he wasn't
bringing anyone with him.

I pull into the garage and shuffle up to my bedroom, vaguely
hearing voices from somewhere else in the house. I pitch face forward onto my
bed and lie there, my breath hot against the duvet. I'm pathetic. I lift my
head up and start banging it down on the mattress.

Lots of people in the world have it worse than me. Just look
at the place I call home now. I have to stop feeling sorry for myself, and
start showering. But first, I launch myself out of bed with considerable
effort, and change into my running clothes. At the last minute, I pull on a
baseball hat and tuck my hair into it in case it rains. Outside of work, I've
been huddled up in front of the TV, and that doesn't help anything. I tug on my
sneakers and pray the endorphins might make me feel a little better.

Outside, the sun is just setting, casting an orange glow
across the sky. The daytime heat hasn't subsided yet, though, and my face is
quickly covered in sweat. I feel like I'm cutting through sodden air as I begin
to jog, but feelings my lungs start to work does make me feel better.

After a slow warmup mile, I take it up a notch, imagining my
pain behind me as I press the concrete away from it. I don't know what I'm
running toward yet, but I feel focused and my mind clears for the first time in
a long time. I forget the time, and when I look around to see where I am, it's
dark. I turn and head for home, feeling my legs wobble beneath me.

When I'm a couple of miles from the house, I begin to curse
myself for overdoing it. My legs are numb beneath me, and I slow to a walk. I
hear a car behind me, and move over further. The engine sounds quite loud, so I
glance back at it. A black sedan is racing toward me, and without conscious
thought, I realize that it's headed right for me. I summon the last ounce of
strength I have and leap as far as I can into the undergrowth next to the road.

I fling my arms out awkwardly as I go, but don't catch
myself quite right. My head snaps back and my vision goes dark. My stomach
sinks as I hear the car stop and a door open. I fight to sit up as I hear
footsteps running toward me, but my body won't obey my brain.

"It's not her," I hear a man above me say. The
last thing I hear before I blackout is the car starting back up and driving
away.

* * *

I feel myself being jostled and blink my eyes open in
confusion. All I see is darkness and I begin to panic before realizing that I'm
staring up at the night sky. A bright light suddenly shines into my eyes and I
try to pull away, but can't.

"Calm down, you're strapped onto a stretcher," I
hear a strange woman say. "Load her in." The night sky disappears,
replaced by a bright white ceiling. Sirens begin to wail and I realize I'm in
the back of an ambulance.

"What happened?" I ask, but my voice doesn't sound
quite right.

"Try again," the woman says, and a young African-American
woman's head comes into view over me.

I pause, gathering myself. "What happened?" I say
again. I still sound like I'm slurring my words, and I wonder if I'm drunk.

"We were hoping you could tell us," she says.
"You don't remember?"

"No.
"You have a cut on your head on the back of your head and lost
consciousness, so we're taking you to the hospital. Your brother's getting in
touch with your parents."

"Carter?" He's home? I'm so confused…

"Who's Carter? My name's Valerie, and I'm just going to
ask you to do a few simple things, OK? Can you wiggle your toes?"

"They're wiggling, right?" I ask, unable to look
down.

She laughs softly. "Yes, they're wiggling. That's a
very good sign. Can you squeeze my finger?" I feel her lay her finger in
the palm of my hand and I squeeze it. "Great. Do you know what day it
is?"

"Um…no," I realize, and hear a machine beeping
alarmingly.

"Breathe, breathe," Valerie says. "That's
your heartbeat. It's normal to be a little confused and forgetful after you hit
your head. What's the last thing you remember?"

"I…I was running. The sun was setting," I recall.

"See? That's a good sign, because the sun hasn't been
down for that long, and the less time you were unconscious the better."

"Valerie?"

"Yes, Bree?"

"Can I hold your hand?"