Kicked: A Bad Boy Sports Romance (30 page)

“You're both going?” Teagan asked, snapping out of her texting daze like she'd been bit. “Should we all just go then?”

“Stay here,” Melia said, shrugging into a Ducks hoodie and smiling. “We'll be right back. Hang tight, and don't get into any trouble.” The blonde gave us a little wave, and then the door slammed shut behind them.

Silence descended like we were in a fucking graveyard.

“Teagan,” I began, but she was already in the process of standing up. I reached over and wrapped my fingers around her arm, tugging her back down next to me. “Please sit down.” She resisted my touch for a moment before slumping back into place with a sigh. When she finally looked at me, our gazes locked and I couldn't pull away. Heat throbbed through me and my cock responded in an instant. If Teagan noticed the growing bulge in my pants, she pretended not to. “Why can't we just hang out? I like hanging out with you, Tea.”

“You
really
hurt me yesterday, Tyce. You keep hurting me. I can't stop thinking about the way you feel inside of me, the way your hands feel against my skin. My brain hurts, and my heart is always pounding, and my mouth is always dry.”

My own throat tightened up at her words, and I swiped a hand down my face.

Teagan took a deep breath and continued.

“You're my friend, sure, and nothing will ever change that, but when I look at you, all I think about is how temporary this is. I know I'm setting myself up to miss you again.”

Fuck.

I exhaled, heavy and hot.

“When you talk like that, I can't think straight,” I said, putting a hand on her hip. Teagan's mouth parted, that gorgeous red lipstick catching my gaze and holding it. I'd fucked her—twice—but I hadn't gotten to feel her mouth on my cock, hadn't gotten to taste her, hold her. Hell, I'd
barely
gotten to kiss her. “When you talk like that, I feel like you own me.”

I leaned forward, the fingers of my right hand sliding into the silken strands of her hair.

“Tyce,” she whispered against my mouth. Teagan's eyes slid closed as I leaned into her. “I can't do this again,” she murmured as I put pressure against her lips and she opened up to me, letting me take over her mouth with my tongue. Teagan draped her arms around my shoulders and leaned back, pulling me into her so that I was leaning my weight on my left elbow, positioning my body above hers.

I kept my eyes open at first, watching her face, the emotions that burst across her skin like fireworks. The game was my chance to make this friendship thing really work, cement the type of relationship between us that I said I wanted us to have. I screwed it all up. After that, everything was different. I felt it; she felt it. A mistake made once can be called an accident, but a second time? What does a second time mean?

I closed my eyes and let myself fall into the kiss, working our mouths together until they felt bruised, until she opened her legs and I found myself fitting perfectly between them. This time, I didn't try to rush anything, just enjoyed the sweet fruity taste of her mouth, the way her hands explored my back like they were desperate to learn every swell and dip of my muscles.

I pulled my right hand down, cupped the side of her face and held her with trembling fingers.

I wasn't really sure
what
I was doing, but when Teagan was around, it was hard for me to remember my goals, to remember the rules. The rules. Rules that
I
had set between us.

Between Teagan's thighs, it was molten hot, and my cock was rock hard. I thrust my hips against her sweats and she groaned into my mouth, arching against me as I kissed my way down her jaw. I tasted her throat, licked the frantic gallop of her pulse while my right hand migrated to Teagan's breasts, cupped them gently through the fabric.

Her hips moved more frantically against me, the sounds from her throat turning into soft mewling cries as I increased the pressure of my body, moved harder, faster. Her breath was picking up, guiding my movements as I ducked a hand beneath her shirt and felt the velvety soft flesh of her tummy.

Meanwhile, I moved my mouth back to the smeared lipstick, cleaned it off her teeth, memorized the shape of her mouth. Fingers clawed at my biceps, dug into the ink of my tattoos. I let my weight settle fully into her, putting my left arm around her waist as I cupped her ass through her sweats with my right hand.

Frenetic gyrations of our hips pushed us both to the edge until Teagan was yanking on my hair and tossing her head back, groaning and falling into me, surrendering completely as she came from wild dry humping, from well-placed kisses, from the teasing hardness of my cock.

She was still shuddering and shaking when she reached up and slid her hands down the sides of my neck … paused. Let her eyes go wide as she leaned back and started to crawl away from me.

“What's wrong?” I asked as the green of her eyes turned dark, flashed with rage. I sat up as Teagan stumbled off the couch and stared at me with her hands curled into fists. Her red hair was mussy and twisted on her head, her lips wet and tender and bruised. “Teagan?”

The hormones were messing with my head. I stared at her and tried not to get angry as I struggled to figure out what it was that I'd done this time.

“You … what did you come here for today?”

I sat up and raked my fingers through my hair in anger.

“To fucking see you. Why else?”

“To screw me again? To use me?” She reached a hand up and pointed a finger at her neck. “Because it doesn't look like you need me at all, Tyce. Looks like you've already got that covered.”

I put my left hand on my neck and … realized what it was that she was upset about. Last night at the club, when I'd let that girl kiss on me in a drunken stupor, I'd gotten hickeys. A bunch of them. In my rush to get over here, I'd forgotten all about it.

Shit.

“It's not … I didn't sleep with her,” I told Teagan, but her face was flickering with rage and her lips were tight as she glared down at me. “It was some drunken kissing. I was messed up. I'm so confused about this whole fucking thing, Tea. About the park, and the game, and just … seeing you again really changed everything for me.”

“I. Don't. Give. A. Shit. If you can only think about me in terms of how I affect you, then you're the same teenage asshole that ran away from Quaker Park like it was hell on earth. But you know what? It was never hell for me because you were there, because I loved you since I can remember. You talk about that place like it was murdering your soul, but our relationship, you and me, that was nurturing mine. I would've been happy being there with you, Tyce. I would've been happy because we'd be together.”

“Tea,” I started, but she was on a roll and had no intention of stopping.

“It might not seem like a big deal to you, but when we touch, when we … do things together, I think about it all the time. It hits me right here,” she puts a hand over her heart, “and it takes little pieces away. After the game, I was really messed up, Tyce. I needed you to step up and you basically said
sorry, babe, but I don't love you enough.
And then, just to rub a little salt in the wound, you … come here with some girl's marks all over your neck.”

I cupped my neck with my palm and tried not to feel ashamed. We weren't together. I didn't owe her anything.

So why did it feel like I owed her everything?

“You can leave now, Tyce. Don't worry. I'm
telling
you to go this time, so you don't have to feel bad about it. Just get up, and go.” Teagan reached down and picked up her phone, wiggling it at me. “I'm busy anyway. Your friend, Mason, he invited me out, and I think I'm gonna go.”

I stood up suddenly and took several steps towards her. She backed up like I was going to hit her or something which hurt like hell. I would never. Never.

“Stay way from Mason,” I told her, but that was the absolute wrong thing to say.

“Go. Away.” Teagan lifted her chin up and glared at me, red lipstick all around her mouth like blood. I lifted my right arm up and rubbed it away from my own face with a single swipe. “I'm tired of being disrespected. For a split second, just a
split
fucking second, I thought I would be okay being number two. Or even number three. But I'm not. I'm your last priority and your consolation prize, so go. Get out and leave me the
hell
alone.”

I was breathing so damn hard, I thought I would fucking puke.

Instead, I did what she said, backed up and turned towards the door.

Melia and Risika chose that moment to walk in.

“We're back, party people!” she shouted before she noticed my face.

“Tyce is leaving now,” Teagan told them firmly, still staring at me when I glanced over my shoulder at her. “And he won't be coming back.”

I reached into Melia's bag and grabbed a six pack, smiling tightly.

“If you don't mind,” I said curtly, storming out the door and down to Kai's car. I drank the entire thing before I pulled out of the parking lot. It's a wonder I didn't fucking die that day.

My heart sure as hell felt like it had though.

As I laid in my dorm room later, one arm over my face, the other curled into a tight fist on my sheets, I thought about Teagan's face. It was the only thing I
could
think about right now. The surprise, the hurt, the hate. Jesus.
What was I fucking thinking?
That girl in the club was
nothing
to me. Literally nothing. And yet, she was everything to Teagan because she was that last push, the straw that broke the camel's back. I'd been pushing Teagan away, but she'd wanted this to work so badly, she'd been refusing to step back.

Now, she was running in the opposite direction, something I knew with all my heart that I deserved.

“Jesus Christ, Winship,” I growled aloud, running both my hands down my face. I'd really thought I'd found the Teagan hack. I thought I could have my cake and eat it, too.
What a goddamn
idiot.

I'd finally realized that I couldn't forget about her, not when she was so close, just a hop, skip, and a drive away. When I had her number and could text her, when I knew she'd answer me right back. But I'd also been thoroughly convinced that if I let myself, I'd go too far. I'd want her for myself, and I'd make her mine and one of two things would happen. Either she'd screw up my career, everything I'd worked for, or worse, I'd screw
her
up by always putting her in second place.

Looked like I'd been right about that.

This was a serious lose-lose situation.

But I'd really thought I'd found it: a way to be with her and stop my mind from constantly obsessing. Friends. We could be friends. We could run together in the park, send each other stupid memes, share Snapchat videos. For the first time in my
entire
life, I'd felt whole, like I was exactly where I was supposed to be. I just hadn't realized it until now.

Until I'd thrown it all away.

I dropped my hands to my sides and stared up at the ceiling. Friendship with Teagan wasn't going to work, was it? If I wanted her, I had to commit. But I couldn't do that. And even if I could, I'd probably blown it. As of right now, she didn't want a damn thing to do with me.

I was convinced that this was the worst that could happen to us.

Until that night at the club.

I should've known this thing with me and Teagan would only get worse before it got better.

TYCE:
'I'm really sorry, Teagan.'

ME:
'It's too late for that. You've run out of sorry's, Tyce.'

TYCE:
'I wish you'd just talk to me.'

ME:
'I wish you cared enough to treat me with respect.'

Skype call. Rejected.

Phone off.

This time, I was serious.