Page 46 of Off Court Fix

“I want a Grand Slam this year,” I admit. “I have two chances left. And I’m already on the outs because of my Achilles.” Involuntarily, I flex my ankle. But I won’t let it keep me down. “And I want you. I’m dying to figure out what it is about you that makes me tick.”

And figure out why I turn into a puddle whenever you’re around.

Crosby’s hazel eyes bounce between my mouth and eyes before he whispers, “I also want you.Justyou.”

The insinuation in his voice nearly makes me laugh. “Do you think there’s someone else I’ve got on the side?” I joke. “I barely have time for this.”

Crosby shakes his head. “I’m just saying it for the record. People regress after a certain age. Right now, I’m too old to share.”

I gasp into his mouth when Crosby lowers his body back to mine, pushing the bag of bagels out of the way so his forearms can flank the sides of my head as he sinks against me. I don’t know how it can feel like both the first and fiftieth time we’ve kissed, but it does. There’s familiarity in his taste—even behind the toothpaste—in the sounds of his lips smacking against mine, how he just barely turns his head.

But things are different too. For the first time, I find him clean-shaven, smooth skin on mine, and I now know that if I barely graze his bottom lip with my teeth, he’ll kiss me harder in a way I’m so lost I don’t know which way is east, even though the Atlantic Ocean is at my feet.

Like the night we met, I want to be lost in the excitement of uncertainty. But now I want Crosby differently because I know how right it can be when it feels so unbelievably wrong. That’s how it is—every part of my body finds him right apart from my head.

My legs? They part enough for Crosby to fit deliciously.

My arms? They coil around him, creating a cocoon.

My hands? They wind in his hair when he lowers his mouth to my neck, also proving that my voice is not afraid of letting Crosby know just how he makes me feel—elevated andsogood.

“If you make that sound again,” Crosby hisses, “I’m leaving.”

“What sound?”

Crosby nips at my ear, and I roll out a symphony composed of a whimper, whine, and moan all at once.

“That one,” he groans before capturing my mouth again at the same moment his hand sneaks beneath my sweater.

I wedge my legs open more and nearly howl when he rocks into me. But the noise I let out when Crosby lifts his body from mine is just a hair short of a cry.

“Let me make myself clear.” He lowers his nose to mine, smirking when I lift my mouth for his and he pulls it away. “If you make that sound again, you’re going to get fucked, right here on this towel.”

“What’s the threat here, exactly?”

Clenching his jaw for a moment, Crosby sits back, his cheeks puffing with air before he releases it. “Can I be honest about something?” he asks.

I close my eyes, trying to calm the tide of raging hormones. “I value honesty, but I’d let a lie slide if you got back on top of me.”

“You and me,” he says quietly, “in the car. How I was with you—”

“Don’t—”

“It shouldn’t have been that way.”

I cock my head. “What way?”

“Rough.” Crosby’s eyes fall to my knees where signs of the rug burn have vanished even though I can still feel it.

But it’s not the pain I remember flat out. It’s how the rubbing of my skin raw made everything else—Crosby pounding against me, the heat and hiss of his breath, his hand between my legs—even more pleasurable.

“You were vulnerable.”

“You were predatory.” I reach up to tug him back down. “And I wasn’t complaining. Not one bit.”

He raises an eyebrow in question. “Why didn’t you let me kiss you?”

I look off to the side. “Amy doesn’t kiss.”

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