I couldn’t sleep.
Of course, I couldn’t sleep.
Not a single part of me was surprised, not after the intense game against South Hartford, the one we pulled out only by a last-minute field goal. Not after going out until almost three in the morning with the team to celebrate.
And certainly not after having Julep pressed against me, her ass grinding against my cock as I slid my fingers between her legs and found proof of how much she wanted me, too.
When we’d made it back to the hotel, my roommates had passed out immediately. Leo was so drunk I had to carry him inside and throw his ass on our bed, and he sprawled out like a starfish. I’d somehow managed to make room for myself after I brushed my teeth, but then I’d only laid there wide awake for an hour, replaying every second and dissecting every word uttered between me and Julep.
It was just after four in the morning when I gave up on sleeping and changed into my Under Armour compression shorts — which was the closest thing I had to swim trunks — and headed to the indoor pool.
It was just late enough, or rather early enough in the morning, that it was open. I was the only one there, which was no surprise to me, and I tore off my t-shirt and hung it along with a towel over the back of one of the lounge chairs. Then, I dove in, and started swimming laps.
The first few did nothing to tame my mind. The water was warm, the pool heated, and I almost wished it was freezing so as to shock the anxiety right out of me.
Eventually, my breathing intensified, the muscles of my arms and legs and core firing to life. I was careful with my shoulder, making sure not to do anything that triggered it, but I was happily surprised to find it so unbothered.
I was ready to play.
I knew it, Coach knew it.
And yet still, he held me back.
For a brief moment, it was those thoughts that plagued me, and I swam a few laps mulling over how long it would be before I’d be back on the field. But eventually, my thoughts drifted back to Julep.
I didn’t know what we were doing. I didn’t know what had possessed me to follow her out onto that dance floor, to test the distance between us so carefully before jumping in so carelessly. We’d been surrounded by the team. Anyone could have seen, could have found just enough evidence to rat me out to Coach. Not that I thought any of them would, but it was still a dangerous game to play.
And yet, I couldn’t leave her alone.
No matter the risk involved, no matter how I tried to pretend like she didn’t exist — I craved her. Not in the way you crave a cigarette or a beer, either, but in the way you crave a tall glass of ice water after a grueling workout.
I didn’t just want to touch her.
I needed to.
And therefore, I couldn’t hold myself back.
I kicked off the wall hard on my next lap, grinding my teeth. Because the fact of the matter was that I had to hold myself back. I had to figure out a way to snuff this aching desire for her before it chewed me up and spit me out on the other side of my shattered dream.
Football was everything to me. It always had been.
I couldn’t throw that all away.
I tried to cement that into my thick skull as I swam, and finally, my arms and legs burned enough that I stopped and came up for air.
I was in the deep end, and I hung my arms over the edge of the pool, chest heaving with every breath I struggled to take. My heart was racing, body on fire with the intensity of the workout. But I felt good — sated in the way only a brutal cardio session could warrant.
“Impressive.”
I startled, whipping around at the unexpected voice that nearly made me jump out of my fucking skin.
And there she was, Julep Lee, sitting on the edge of the other end of the pool in a thong and sports bra with her bare feet swinging idly in the water.
I couldn’t help the way my eyes trailed slowly up the length of her, over her exposed thighs and abdomen, the lines of her collarbone, all the way up to her eyes that were watching me just as carefully. She held my gaze for a moment before quickly tying her hair up in a knot on top of her head, and then she pressed her palms into the tile on either side of her hips, carefully lifting.
And she slid inch by inch into the water.
I swallowed, watching her legs and waist disappear under the surface before she began walking toward me, her fingers skating along the top of the water as she did.
“How does your shoulder feel after that?”
I wiped a hand over my face, still holding on to the edge of the pool. “My shoulder isn’t an issue anymore.”
“Oh?” she asked, pausing at the edge of the pool once the water hit the top of her chest. She stretched her arms out over the side. “So, what’s the issue, then? What has you swimming laps at almost five in the morning?”
I let out a breath of a laugh, looking away from her. “I think we both know the answer to that.”
She didn’t respond, but when I looked back at her, all hints of a smile were gone. She swallowed under the weight of my gaze, her eyes flicking between mine.
I took a breath, disappearing under the water and kicking off the wall. I swam toward her, her legs and hips a blurred vision through the chlorine that burned my eyes until I stopped just a few feet away from where she stood. I popped up, inhaling a breath and running my hand over my hair to get it out of my face.
She tilted her chin a little higher, like she was trying to prove something, but I didn’t miss how her breath caught in her throat for a moment before she was able to exhale.
“Why are you here?”
“I couldn’t sleep either,” she confessed, her voice as low as a whisper.
I slowly walked toward her, and again, she angled her jaw up, chest puffing, fingertips pressing into the tile where she had her arms outstretched like everything inside her wanted to flee and they were the only thing rooting her in place.
“Why couldn’t you sleep?”
My voice was low, husky, a question and a dare all in one.
Julep swallowed. “You know why.”
I pressed in closer, her chest heaving more and more as that distance between us vanished. I paused right in front of her, less than an inch between us under the water. Her eyes fell to my lips, and I swore I could hear her heart beating even over the pounding of my own.
“I’m tired of us asking questions we already know the answer to.”
She just watched me, waiting.
“Say it,” I demanded. “Tell me why you couldn’t sleep.”
Her eyelids fluttered, but she held strong, held them open, her mouth clamped shut like she refused to give me any satisfaction.
So, I pushed over that pencil-thin line between us, one hand under the water skating along the line of her bottom rib.
“Holden,” she breathed on a warning, but her eyes closed, her lips parting as chills raced over her skin.
“Tell me why you couldn’t sleep, Julep,” I said again, finger sliding up that rib to the bottom edge of her sports bra. I traced that, too, staring down at her chest as it swelled and deflated in rapid succession. The tip of my nose found the bridge of hers, but then I stilled, not moving another centimeter as I waited for her response.
Something like a whimper slipped out of her, like she’d die if I didn’t touch her fully, if I didn’t take her the way every cell in my body yearned to.
She swallowed, her eyes popping open and connecting with mine.
“I couldn’t sleep because when I undressed and crawled under those sheets, my body burned from the memory of your hand between my legs.”
She said the words so confidently, without an ounce of shame, the challenge in her eyes meeting my own.
Julep pressed into me, her chest touching the bottom of my ribs, and she lifted her chin so that her lips brushed against mine when she spoke again.
“And I couldn’t relieve that ache,” she confessed. “Not even when I slid my own fingers inside me to try.”
My next exhale shuttered out of me, and I closed my eyes as my cock hardened at the thought of the picture she’d painted.
“Did it feel like me?” I asked, dipping my head and running the tip of my nose along her jaw. “When you touched yourself, did it feel like when I touched you?”
“No.”
“And so, you couldn’t sleep.”
“I couldn’t sleep.”
“And here you are.”
“And here I am,” she echoed.
The corner of my mouth twitched up in a half-smile, and I shook my head, biting my lower lip and willing myself to find some kind of restraint, some kind of tether to reality that would pull me away from her and remind me I was playing with fire.
“The truth is, it was so brief…” she said when I was quiet too long, and I felt the feather-light touch of her fingertips under the water as they walked along the ridges of my abdomen. “When you touched me tonight.”
I closed my eyes on a breath.
“I couldn’t quite remember what it felt like at all…”
That sentence was a lie.
That lie was bait.
And like the writhing fool that she’d reduced me to, I took it.
“Let me remind you,” I rasped.
Her breath caught when I closed the sliver of distance between us, my hands framing her face, body pressing her against the edge of the pool so hard I knew it had to sting. But she pushed back just as much, chin lifting, eyes narrowing with a taunting malice.
And I kissed her.
