Jaxson
The nicest hotel I could find us in Mt. Vernon, Illinois, in the middle of the night was the DoubleTree. I threw my card down for two rooms next to each other, scrubbing a hand over my face as my heart still raced in my chest.
I was pretty sure it would never beat the same again after kissing Grace Tanev.
I swallowed, internally groaning because fuck, I was a stupid sonofabitch. It was one thing to toe the line with her, to flirt and know she was flirting back, to shamelessly check her out knowing she did the same to me. We were attracted to each other. We had been since the first time we met.
But until tonight, we hadn’t acted on it.
Until tonight, we hadn’t known what we were missing.
It had all been fun and games.
Until tonight.
Grace had been unusually quiet on the hour car ride to the hotel. She’d put on a mellow playlist, a mix of artists like Tame Impala and The Alchemist, but she hadn’t sung along or danced in her seat like usual.
She’d sat there perfectly still, her hands folded in her lap.
That did nothing to ease my anxiety. I’d gripped the steering wheel like it was the desire I had pooling in my gut for her and I could somehow strangle it to death. My hands still ached from it, and I stretched them out before taking the key cards from the receptionist.
“And here are your cookies,” she said with a smile, taking two from the warmer and handing one to each of us.
Grace lit up like a fucking Christmas tree.
“Cookies! I forgot you did that!” She unwrapped hers instantly, inhaling deep before she took a ginormous bite. She moaned as she chewed it, eyes fluttering shut. “Hnggg, sho’guuud.”
She opened her eyes and smiled up at me next, chocolate in her teeth.
And I laughed.
It was the biggest relief, how my chest unlocked itself and let that sound through. Grace looked like she’d just won the lottery with that fucking cookie and my laugh that came with it, like she’d been dying to break the tension as much as I had.
It was fine.
We were fine.
I almost believed it, too, as we made our way to our rooms — me lugging Grace’s heavy suitcase as she carried my duffle bag on her shoulder.
It felt like maybe, just maybe, we could go right back to the way we’d been. We could forget what happened at the festival, chalk it up to being caught up in the moment.
But when I unlocked her room first, rolling her suitcase inside and propping it against the wall, that hope drained out of me. Because the door closed behind Grace with a quiet snick, and when I turned to face her, the silence fell over us like a shield.
We were alone.
In a hotel room.
With a bed just calling our fucking names.
My heart thundered in my chest again, and I cleared my throat, taking my hat off long enough to run my hand through my hair as I looked around at any and everything but the woman standing at the door.
“Alright, well. I’ll let you get settled,” I said. “Let’s try to head out by seven thirty tomorrow. We can grab breakfast on the way.”
I walked toward the door.
But Grace didn’t budge.
She stayed blocking my path, shrugging my bag off her shoulder and gently setting it on the floor. “You should stay for a while.”
“Grace…”
She hooked me by the elbow, not letting me argue as she dragged me back toward the bed.
Fuck.
Fuck, fuck, fuck.
She kicked out of her sneakers and peeled off her socks before falling back into the mattress, sprawling out like she was about to make a snow angel while I sat uneasily on the edge of it. She leaned up long enough to take off the pink cowgirl hat she’d bought at the festival, and then struggled out of her crossbody bag, tossing it on the bedside table.
The thing jangled every time she walked, a mess of keys attached to the clasp of it.
“Why do you have all those?” I asked, praying that if I got her talking, I could stop focusing on how her sundress just barely covered her when she laid out like that.
Grace looked at the keys with a smile, eyes lazy when they found mine. “Just collected them over the years, I guess.”
There had to be at least seven keys on the ring, along with two keychains — one that was a fuzzy yellow puff ball and the other a baby blue leather tassel.
“Boyfriends?” I guessed, arching a brow. The question burned my lips even as I tried to make my voice light with it.
Grace’s smile grew, and she bit her lip before turning onto her side to face me. “Since I’m on the go a lot, my parents wanted to make sure I had keys to all our homes.” She held up her hand and counted off on her fingers. “Michigan house, Colorado house, Florida house… but then there’s also my dorm room key that I forgot to turn in, a spare to Vince’s, and one to Dad’s wine cellar that I made a copy of without him knowing.”
“Scandalous,” I teased.
She made a little hum of agreement, but her smile was slipping in the next breath, heat glazing her eyes.
Fuck.
I have to get out of here.
I used what little willpower I had left to stand. “Alright, I—”
“Wait!” Grace rolled, her sundress riding up her thighs and showing the lower crease of her ass before she popped up out of bed. My perverted mind went straight back to the festival, to when I’d surrendered to the overwhelming need to touch her and felt that ass in one satisfying handful.
Jesus Christ.
I rolled my eyes up to the ceiling, fighting against a boner as she grabbed her phone and hopped back onto the bed. This time, she was on her knees, and she crawled over to where I stood, hitting record on her phone before holding it out so we both fit in the frame.
“July third. I succeeded in wrangling Jaxson Brittain not only into camping in a tent last night,” she said, holding up a victorious finger. “But into wearing an LED mask — at a rave, mind you — and into dancing the day away. Oh,” she added, reaching for her cowgirl hat and slapping it on her head. “And I got this hat, which looks amazing on me.”
I chuckled, which drew her attention. She whipped the camera around to face me.
“Tell me something good, Jaxson.”
Her eyes danced with a challenge, and I had to swallow down the flash of the festival that hit me like a freight train when she did. I could see the way her neck had arched for me, feel the heat of her thighs when I spread them with mine, hear the little gasp I elicited from her just before I lowered my mouth to hers…
There were plenty of good things about today.
And yet, every single one of them was bad.
“I’m sleeping in an actual bed tonight,” I grumbled, which earned me a roll of Grace’s eyes as she stuck her tongue out at the camera and cut the video. She set her phone down on the bedside table, and then crawled back over to me.
And I do mean she fucking crawled, on her hands and knees, long hair falling over her shoulders as she kept those emerald eyes locked on mine.
“That was the best thing you could think of?” she asked, and she kept crawling, knees pressing into the comforter each step of the way.
When she reached the edge, she stepped one foot down to the floor right in front of where I stood.
“Nothing… good about the festival?” she probed, and her other foot came down to meet the first.
She was standing less than half an inch from me, eyes glittering in the light as she looked up at me.
I had to shut this down.
Now.
But all I could do was stand there and stare back at her.
Grace waited for me to speak, her hands clasped behind her back as she swayed her shoulders side to side with an arched brow. When I didn’t respond, she blew out a breath, falling back onto the bed and making the comforter fluff around her.
“Ugh,” she groaned, covering her eyes with her forearm. She took a deep breath, and then…
The woman started listing planets.
“Jupiter, Mars, Saturn, Venus, Pluto — because yes, it is a planet — Uranus, Neptune—”
“What are you doing?” I asked on a smile.
Grace threw her arm from her face down to the mattress, leaning up on her elbows. “I’m trying not to be turned on.”
She said the words unapologetically, and my mouth dried up like the desert when she did.
Her eyes stayed glued to mine, chest rapidly rising and falling, the strap of her dress sliding off one shoulder and catching on her arm.
“You have any tricks that are better than this?” she asked, but the tease was fading, her voice breathy now — needy. “Because I am still turned all the way on.”
Possession rippled through me like the aftershock of an earthquake.
“I’m so wet for you right now, Jax,” she breathed.
Each word struck me like a bolt of white-hot lightning, zapping what little self-control I was holding onto.
She writhed in the bed with her admission, one hand running through her hair as the other palmed her breast like she didn’t even realize she was doing it — like it was the most natural reaction to the way she felt.
Fuck. Me.
Everything inside me wanted to catch those squirming legs of hers and spread them wide, to rake her dress up so I could investigate just how wet she was for myself. I wanted to hook my fingers under the band of her thong and rip it down her legs, wanted to hear the sounds she’d make the first time I slid my fingers inside her and tasted that sweet fucking pussy.
I shut my eyes tight, grinding my teeth.
Teammate’s. Little. Sister.
Eight. Years. Younger.
God, the words were like a shallow whisper at this point. I could barely hear them, and yet I had to.
Nothing about this was okay.
But everything about her drew me in, like she was Medusa and I was locked in her gaze. Except the only thing turning to stone right now was my cock.
“Grace…” I warned, my voice gruff.
“I know, I know,” she whined, huffing out a breath of air. “I read too much into that kiss, didn’t I?”
She peeked at me, and I willed myself to keep my mouth clamped shut.
“God, I did,” she said, letting her head fall as her eyes closed. “You don’t want me. How could you? You’re—”
“Don’t do that.”
The words shot out of me even though I didn’t want them to. I should let her believe that, let her think it was a mistake.
But I just couldn’t.
Her brows bent together as she leaned up on her elbows again, eyes on mine.
I took a step toward her, one that seemed to suck up all the oxygen in the room.
“You know damn well you don’t believe that,” I said. “You know damn well it isn’t true.”
She swallowed. “Then touch me.”
“I can’t,” I croaked. “And we both know why.”
The rejection on her face pummeled my heart like an iron fist.
Slowly, she laid back, eyes on the ceiling, those words hanging between us like the tentacles of a deadly jellyfish. My chest ached the longer I stared at her, and then my eyes flicked to the colorful keychains on her nightstand.
And a stupid, crazy idea bloomed before I could stop it.
I should leave.
I knew that to be truth even as my feet started carrying me in the opposite direction. I rounded the bed, walking over to her bedside table on the other side.
Go.
Now.
My brain tried again as I reached down and picked up her ring of keys.
And her keychains.
I smoothed a thumb over the fuzzy one first, excitement buzzing to life under my skin like the first purr of a Lexus LFA engine.
Drop the fucking keys and go to your room.
It was the last warning what was left of my common sense could manage.
I ignored it, fingering the tassel of the leather keychain next. The corner of my mouth ticked up, and I shut out what was left of my resolve before unclipping both of them and letting the keys drop back to the table.
Maybe I didn’t have to break the rules.
Maybe I could just… bend them.
I rounded the bed again, my eyes glued to where Grace was still laid out on her back. She stared up at the ceiling like she was about to cry.
Until I stood above her, blocking her view, and I held up the downy yellow keychain.
“I can’t touch you,” I repeated, swallowing around the thickness of those words.
Then, slowly, I dropped the keychain until it met her shoulder, dragging it along the line of her collarbone.
A satisfying wave of goosebumps rippled across her skin.
“But I don’t see why you can’t touch yourself.”
The words were a dare, a loophole.
A match strike.
Grace’s eyes heated, and I dragged the keychain up the slope of her neck, along her jaw, dusting her lips with the fur.
“Do you want to touch yourself right now, Nova?”
With her shaky exhale, we caught fire.
And all the rules went up in flames.
