Sugar Rush (Offensive Line #1) (15 page)

“Does he normally invite celebrities to stuff like this?”

“Every time.” She drifts down effortlessly into a corner of a long leather couch, leaving room for me to sit next to her. “But he held back tonight. Kept it small.”

“Why?”

She eyes me steadily. “Because of you.”

“Me?”

“He told me you’re not a fan of fame, so he kept it low key. To be honest, I don’t blame you. It’s some real bullshit. I see tabloids all the time telling me that Trey is out banging eight other women a week and that I’m home alone crying my eyes out. First of all, my man is faithful as the sun. Second, I don’t cry. It’s all lies and exaggerations.”

“Do they exaggerate Colt?”

She hesitates, her face blank, and I think that non-answer is a pretty big answer. “Yes and no,” she replies vaguely. “He’s out there, he’s a partier, women love him. None of that’s a lie. But it’s not the whole story, and right now it’s not the right narrative at all.”

“What’s his story now?”

Sloane smiles. “Right now his story is about you.”

I feel myself start to blush again. I wish I could make it stop. I wish I could be stronger than this, more controlled, but when it comes to Colt I can’t. The butterflies go into full swing where he’s concerned and I turn into a malleable mass of emotions and expressions. I’m reforming, reshaping, becoming something old and familiar on the inside. Something happy. Something sweet. I’m becoming
me
again. Me before the bakery hijacked my life. Before Cassie crushed us all under the weight of her shadow. Before my dad and I started to fall apart.

Me, a girl who could definitely see herself falling for a guy like Colt.

COLT

Kurtis is gone. He was here for all of twenty minutes, then he disappeared as mysteriously as he appeared, taking the raven haired girl with him.

Taking Rona.

“She left with him?” Lilly asks, shocked. She pulls out her phone to check it.

“That’s my guess. They vanished at the same time.”

“Wait, Kurtis was actually
talking
to someone?” Sloane asks in disbelief.

I turn my phone toward her. “I took pictures. I wanted to be able to prove it. Like when you see aliens or sasquatch.”

“Wait,
when
you see them?” Trey clarifies. “Not
if
?”

“Yeah.”

“Avery, do you think sasquatch is real?”

“Son of a bitch,” Lilly mutters. She’s reading a message. “She did. She left with him. She ditched me.”

“No fucking way,” Sloane breathes.

I shake my head. “This is blowing my mind.”

“What are you talking about?” Trey asks. “I’m happy for him. He should get some. It’s about time.” He cringes in Lilly’s direction. “Sorry, that’s your friend. I should have phrased that differently, but you know what I mean.”

She shrugs, stowing her phone. “If she wants to get some strange, she should get some strange. I’m not gonna hate.”

“Did you drive here?” I ask her.

She shakes her head. “No. We took a cab together.”

“You live together?”

“Since we moved out after high school.”

“Can I drive you home?”

“I’ll take a cab back. We’ve all been drinking.”

“I haven’t.”

She looks to my hands, somehow surprised to find them empty. They’ve been empty all night. “You haven’t, have you?”

“Not a drop.”

“But it’s your party.”

“I wanted to stay sober.”

“Why?”

“So I could drive you home,” I answer honestly.

She hesitates before smiling at me. It’s different than her bittersweet smile. It’s smoldering in a way that makes me anxious and agitated.

“Who says I’m going home?” she asks slyly.

That question fucks me up. It takes me by surprise and sends me into high gear where I want to pounce on her. Kiss her. Sex her. Marry her.

I settle for taking her hand, pulling her off her seat on the couch and onto my lap. She drapes her arm around my neck, smiling down at me as my arms go around her waist, and I can’t imagine a better feeling than this. Than being with her and that look in her eyes that’s unguarded in a way I unlocked the night I kissed her. The warmth on the other side of her frost that’s hotter than the sun in July.

“I thought we were going slow,” I remind her quietly, privately.

“We are. I was planning on stealing your bed. You can have your couch.”

“This isn’t my couch, and that’s not my bed.”

She blinks, confused. “What?”

“This isn’t my apartment.”

“Whose is it?”

“My mom’s. She rents it out to execs in town on business and families on vacation. I don’t live here.”

“Where do you live?”

“Upstairs.”

“Can I see it?”

I hesitate, not sure what to say here. I don’t show anyone my place. It’s why I hold parties down here. Only a handful of people have ever been up there and none of them after I’d known them for a few days.

Still, I find myself standing. Offering her my hand. Leading her up the stairs to my door and sliding in the key.

My place is dark. Vacant. Heavy in its silence compared to the noise that surrounded us downstairs. I can hear Lilly breathing next to my ear, her breaths somehow calmer than mine. 

I kick the door closed behind us. The apartment is plunged into almost total darkness.

Kat immediately comes bounding out to meet us. She skids to a halt when she sees Lilly, her head cocked and her nose anxiously sampling the air.

“Hey, Kat,” Lilly sings to her.

Kat’s ears go up, her tail flying behind her.

“This is the entryway,” I tell Lilly, feeling stiff. Awkward. I hit the lights with my elbow. “That’s the living room over there.”

She surveys the heavy furniture. The dark leather couches. “It’s manly.”

“That’s what I wanted. I asked for lumberjack chic.”

“Nailed it.”

“Thanks. This is the kitchen,” I tell her, guiding her to the other side of the loft. The layout is identical to downstairs, the kitchen included. Same cabinets, counters, and appliances.

“I’m surprised it’s not covered in a layer of dust,” Lilly comments.

“I have a housekeeper.”

“That does not surprise me.”

“It doesn’t surprise anyone. Ready for the bathroom? It’s impressive. A faucet and everything.”

I take her on a tour of the entire place. Every room. Even my bedroom.

I don’t tell her that I don’t let people up here. I don’t mention that even Nikki, who I dated for months, was rarely here, and she only saw it after we’d been together for nearly two months. I don’t tell her that I wanted her to see it. I wanted to share it with her the same way I wanted her to meet Kat and I wanted her to see the field. These things are important to me, close to me.

“This is fancy,” she comments, her voice echoing off the tiles of my shower.

This is the end of the tour. The tall, open, two headed shower surrounded by giant gray tiles and glass walls in my master bathroom.

I smile at her, taking hold of her hips. “You look good in my apartment.”

“I look good everywhere,” she boasts, adopting an arrogant tone that sounds funnily foreign from her.

I chuckle, my forehead dropping to hers. “Now you sound like me.”

“See how annoying it is?”

“It’s sexy. Do it again.”

“My shower gets all the girls wet,” she says, dropping her voice deep trying to match mine.

I laugh, the sound bouncing around us. “I would never say that. You think that sounds like me?”

“That is absolutely something you would say!”

“Maybe. Do it again.”

Lilly thinks for a second, her head rolling back and forth gently against mine. “Kiss me,” she finally whispers.

“That’s pretty tame. I’m more offensive than that, remember?”

“No, Colt, I’m serious.” She pulls at my shoulders, rising up on her toes. “Kiss me.”

I get the message. I close the meager distance between us to kiss her. To devour her. She holds on as I grab her ass to lift her up and pin her body against the wall. Her tongue dances in my mouth. It makes me crazy. Wild. Her legs wrap around me tightly, her hips rolling to grind against mine, and I groan into her mouth. I raise my hand to her hair, tangling my fingers in the cool strands. My elbow bumps the wall, the other knocking against the knob for the shower, pressing it down. Turning it on.

Cold water sprays down on top of us from every direction.

Lilly breaks away, shrieking in protest that turns to laughter. “You did that on purpose!”

“It was an accident.”

“Nothing you do is accidental.”

I lean my head back to let the water pour between us. She’s soaked in a second. Her tank top clings to her skin that glistens peaches and cream in color. Satin soft to the touch. I lean in to lick a line of water cascading down her neck, making her shiver.

“You can say it,” she whispers, her fingers combing through my wet hair. “I know you’re dying to say it.”

I smile against her skin, nipping at her neck. Kissing a line along her jaw to her ear where I whisper, “You’re so fucking wet.”

***

Did I have sex with Lilly in that shower?

No.

Did I want to?

Ask my blue balls. They have a lot to say on the matter.

Am I some kind of pussy? What guy backs out of a situation like that without sealing the deal, right?

A guy who is in deep with a girl. The answer is as that simple.

I turned the water to warm and kissed her under the spray until it ran cold again. I talked dirty to her. She shocked the shit out of me by talking even dirtier. We laughed and played and taunted each other until we hit a now or never moment when clothes needed to get the fuck out of the way and let nature take over. That’s when I backed off.  That’s when I killed the water, wrapped her shivering body inside a thick towel, and led her to the laundry room. She stripped down behind a closed door and tossed her clothes inside the dryer. When she walked out in nothing but that towel I almost lost my restraint. Her hair was smoothed back, stuck to her still wet skin in saturated, dark chunks. Her eyes looked larger than ever. Darker. Warmer.

She blushes when I stare at her in that towel. She does that a lot. It’s cute as shit and sexy in an innocent, reticent kind of way I’ve never seen before.

When we’re both dressed and waiting for our clothes to dry we sit down on the couch together, the TV turned to late night television. She huddles in deep under a thick gray blanket I’ve never used, her body pressed into my side.

“That is so stupid,” she grumbles quietly.

“The egg thing?”

“Who has that much trouble cracking an egg? Seriously?”

I smile at her disdain. “Not all of us are pros.”

“You might not be good at cooking but you can crack an egg.”

“I challenge that assumption.”

“Show me?” she demands fervently. “Do you have any eggs?”

“Yeah, but we’re not touching them. Maria needs them for my omelet in the morning.”

“Do you have another early practice?”

“No. Afternoon. And it’s a shorter one.”

“And you’ve got the Panthers on Sunday?”

“At two, yeah.” I look down at her. I can only see the top of her head where it’s laying against my chest. The curve of her body made indistinct by the blanket. I touch a section of her hair, running it slowly through my fingers. It’s impossibly cold and smooth. “Are you going to watch?”

“I think so. I’ll be at my parent’s house. Dad will have it on. I’ll watch with him.”

“Will you tell him you’ve showered with their star player?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she answers casually. “I barely know Trey.”

“Oh,” I laugh. “That’s cold.”

“It was funny though.”

“Yeah, you’re hilarious.”

She yawns, burrowing in deeper. “Watch. This is the best part. They’re going to tell you the price but if you act now you can get a second one for free. For when the first piece of shit breaks after a week.”

“I’m getting you one of these for Christmas.”

“What are you going to do with the other one?”

“I’ll give it to my mom. She’ll hate it.”

“We have that in common.”

“I think you have a lot in common.”

“Us and the Dragon Mother.”

I smile down at her, threading my fingers through her hair again and again. Slow and steady until I hear her breathing change, evening out in a way that only comes with sleep. I don’t bother waking her. I don’t move her or try to shimmy my way out from under her so I can get on with my night. I stay still and silent, watching the TV flicker quietly across the room, across her hair.

I’m not big on sitting still, but tonight it gets me high in a way I’ve never felt before. Different from the high of getting off, from playing ball, from beer and bars and clubs and the thrill of the chase. This high is blue eyes and pink lips. A rough voice and soft hair.

It’s a mellow roll in my blood that makes my apartment feel brighter than it ever has before, even in the dark.