Page 54 of Cocky Player

“Her new boyfriend,” Brenna said, curling her fingers around my wrists and tugging them from her cheeks.“But she doesn’t want to admit it yet.”

Oh, the irony.“Like someone else I know.Just how similar are you two?”

“I don’t splatter my face with homemade face masks if that’s what you’re asking.”

“It wouldn’t stop me from kissing you.Or thinking you’re beautiful.”I slid my lips against hers again and this time, parted them with my tongue, tasting the sweetness of her.She matched me stroke for stroke, sigh for sigh until her body was plastered to mine and my hand was tangled in her hair, angling her head so I could take her mouth deeper.

I pulled back, breathless with my hard dick demanding release from the confines of my jeans.“About that talking.”

Nineteen

Brenna

I’d spentall day waiting for a text to appear from Connor that I’d been a mess at work.I screwed up three orders Shelly gave me for promotional materials we were ordering for the stadium.Life-size cutouts of Oliver Powell, Beaux Hale, wide receiver Gage Bryant, and one of Connor that almost gave me heart palpitations when I imagined the real version of him pressed into his tight football pants.

Man, bring on football season.

Yet as the day went on and I didn’t hear from Connor, my mood soured further.He’d really meant it when he said a two-week break to step back and think about things and what we wanted.The problem was I didn’t need it, but it was my hesitation that caused it in the first place.Around lunchtime, I vowed to myself that if I was given a shot again with him, I wouldn’t hesitate.I’d throw it all out there on the table, cards face up, show him all the ugliness in my past and let the chips fall where they may.

I hadn’t expected him to show up at my apartment unannounced, fling sass right back at Gina with missing a beat, and kiss me until I was senseless, swaying on my feet, barely able to keep my wits about me.Every cell in my body felt alive for the first time in my life, stronger than any sensation I’d ever felt, making me dizzy on my feet.

Stumbling to the couch, I collapsed into it and settled.

“You should sit for this,” I said, and this time I watched as he hesitated.It was such an uncommon reaction from him.I was used to Connor being so sure of himself, directing every conversation we’d had from the beginning, pushing me to open up, to experience all the things I’d always desired and never had the guts to reach for, but I learned something valuable in the day I spent waiting for him to respond.

If I wanted a relationship to work with anyone, I had to give them all the parts of me, especially the ugliest and most traumatic pieces of me if there was any chance of them knowing me, why I reacted the way I did, why I fought against stability as much as wrapped myself in it.

“That bad, huh?”he joked, but there wasn’t humor in his words.

I patted the couch next to me, curling my knee under my lap and facing him as he sat.“Worse than you can imagine.”

He shook his head, drew his hand through his hair before letting his hand fall to his lap.“Brenna, you don’t have to.I can wait.”

“I think it’s safe to say you know me a lot better, and in more intimate ways than anyone else in my life.”I tried to smile.He did too.His looked as equally forced as one so I reached out, took his hand, and squeezed it, holding his hand against my lap while I inhaled a deep, preparatory breath.

“I was ten the day I was stolen from the bus stop.”

He sucked in a breath, hand squeezed mine reflexively and jaw dropped.A trifecta of shocked reactions.“What?Brenna, stop.”

“I can’t.Please, let me get this out.”Tears were already blurring my vision and I blinked rapidly trying to wash them away.Then his thumb was there, at my eyes, swiping beneath my eyelids.

“I’ve heard enough.”

“I wasn’t hurt.”I sniffed.“Not sexually.But please?Let me talk about this?Besides my family, no one knows but Gina and my therapist and I think, if I want to be healthy in any way, I have to find a way to talk about this.”

Was it selfish or wrong of me to use him as my sounding board?

He leaned forward and that hand at my eyes was now cupping my jaw, thumb running along my cheek, soothing me.I closed my eyes and inhaled the scent of him, all man, all strength and confidence somehow mixed with the soft scent of cedar or pine.“I told you last night, I think I’d be willing to give you anything you need.But I also feel like I’ve already pushed you too fast, I won’t do it.Not with this.”

“I want you to know.”

He closed his eyes and moved closer, kissing me gently before pulling back.Then he adjusted us, settled me closer to him with his arm around my shoulders, holding me tight to his body.The warmth of him, cocooned in his embrace gave me all the strength I needed.Plus his lip at my temple, both of my hands holding one of his in my lap.It was easier to focus on the strength in his hand, the veins on the back, the small amounts of hair at his knuckles than it was to look at him and see his expression.

“He came out of nowhere,” I continued.If I closed my eyes, the memories would wash back too quickly and I didn’t want to be living in them when I spoke.It helped if I could disassociate myself from them, even minutely.At least that was the large word Dr.Spanyard told me when I was little, too young to get it at the time.“He pulled up in a van, so typical, right?It’d been raining, so at first I thought it was a dad staying close until the bus came.He idled there and I ignored him, but he kept watching me and I started to feel that creepy crawling feeling, you know?The kind where it feels like pinpricks or ants?”

“I know, angel,” Connor murmured.His grip on my shoulder tightened.

“I didn’t know what to do.Sometimes there were other kids there, sometimes I was alone, but no one was at my house and I didn’t want to miss the bus.My parents had already left for work and it wasn’t like I had my own cell phone back then.So I stayed and he came so fast.Like he was waiting for me to get as scared as possible, or find the nerve to go home, but to do that I had to walk past his van anyway and when I did, he jumped out of the van, threw me in the back and I was shackled to a chain before I could think about kicking or screaming or doing anything to get away from him.”

---