Page 37 of The Triple Play

“Jesus, Colton,” I murmured. “That’s… that’s?—”

He cut me off by shifting forward, his mouth crashing into mine, hot and open and downright indecent. I didn’t know what had come over us both, but I let him, let the flavor of it invade my senses, shared it with him. A little salty, a little sweet, and a little bit of the taste of his mouth.

He kissed me long enough that it turned from heated to languid. Every part of him softened from his cock to his muscles to his touch, and slowly but surely, he lowered himself to the mattress beside me, finally breaking it to pull me into the side of his chest, his back flat on the comforter.

“Dammit, Annie,” he murmured, his voice like gravel as his palm splayed across my spine, broad and warm, his fingertips tracing lazy little circles. The space between my thighs feltemptywithout him in it, my body humming, his little breaths against the top of my head only amplifying it. “You’ve got no idea what you do to me.”

I blinked, lifting my head just enough to look up at him. His eyes were on the ceiling, but there was a hint of a smile pulling at the corner of his lips. A real one. Not a cocky smirk like usual.

Something in my chest twisted. “You’re going to give me whiplash going from rough to sweet like that.” I chuckled lightly, trying to keep myself from focusing on the storm that was beginning to rage in my head, but my voice was a little hoarse.

His grin deepened, his eyes fluttering down to meet mine. “That was barelyrough. I went easy on you.” His other hand came up to my cheek, his touch featherlight as he pushed a stray strand of hair back behind my ear, his fingers lingering for just a second before they trailed down the column of my neck. He settled them right at the base, his hand a loose C-shape, his thumb on one side and his fingers on the other — not a hint of pressure or squeezing, but a warning. “There are so many things I could have done with you, sweetheart. So many.”

His pupils blew wide as he watched me lay there, my breathing a little shallow, just letting him hold me like that.

“There’s always next time,” he smirked, that little dimple popping back out as he let his hand fall away. So annoyingly charming and infuriating in the same breath.

I should have felt satisfied from this, should have felt like I’d made a choice, like I’d gotten what I wanted, but watching him study me made my heart stumble.

I could still see the way Cole had looked at me right before he kissed me. I could still feel Xavi’s hands on my cheeks as he whispered to me, low and kind, to take deep breaths and calm down.

My cheek pressed back to Colton’s chest, his heartbeat steady against my ears, his body warm against mine, his arm around me like I belonged there. But I couldn’t stop the guilt that crawled up my spine.

Could they genuinely be okay with sharing me? Did I truly want that?

And more importantly, what did that make me?

Chapter16

Cole

Colton dropped onto the leather sectional like it was solely his and not something we’d picked out together, one arm slung over the back, his other hand tossing a hockey puck lazily up and down. The living room stretched wide and open, all high ceilings and exposed beams, the massive windows on the west side letting in the last of the evening sun across the dark tiling. The kitchen beyond sat in silence — usually, Xavi would be in there by now, cooking up something beneath the matte black cabinets, fiddling with the built-in espresso machine only he knew how to use. But he’d gone over to Smokey’s to help his dad with something, leaving me and Colton alone.

I stood in the doorway between the living room and the hall, freshly showered from my workout in the home gym, a towel slung over my shoulder. Colton didn’t look at me, but there was a heaviness there, something unsaid in the way he avoided my gaze.

But then I spotted it.

Just beneath his right ear, a red and purple, small but absolutely there. A hickey. Either he was still playing the field, or?—

He looked at me, finally, his eyes bright but his jaw set, a nervous tension rolling off him in waves. An easy answer. “You kissed her.” My voice didn’t rise, didn’t bend to the irritation rising in my blood.

Colton stopped spinning the puck. He didn’t say a word, but his Adam’s apple shifted, his mouth parted, something caught in his throat.

I just waited.

He took a deep breath in, releasing half of it through his nose. “I fucked her.”

Oh.Oh.

My nostrils flared, my hand curling into a fist around the towel over my shoulder, and I flung it at the wall, the fabric hitting it in a wet slap. “Great.”

“It wasn’t like?—”

“No, save it,” I cut in, my tongue running over my canines, my anger rising. I breathed through it, trying to calm myself down, trying to tuck everything away into neat little organized boxes and compartmentalize, but it was so difficult. Why was it so hard when it came to her?

“It just happened, Cole,” Colton said hesitantly, all of his cockiness draining as he sat forward, his elbows on his knees.

“Of course it did.” I let out a breath of hot air, my hands flexing, desperate to embed themselves in the drywall. The rush of emotions was coming too quick to process, my mind drifting back to Jenny, to the way it had felt when I’d walked in on her with a player from another team.

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