Page 162 of Make the Play

Chase’s brow pulls tight as he watches me.

“I mean, I stillmight. But…” I force a little smile. “I don’t know. It’s just… creepy, y’know?”

His eyes don’t leave mine.

“Zoe.”

“I’m fine. It’s just…” My throat closes. “Sometimes it doesn’t feel like I can joke about it anymore.”

The second the words leave my mouth, they feel real. Heavier than I meant them to be now that I’ve voiced them.

Chase steps in and cups my jaw, eyes sweeping over my face, gentle in a way that doesn’t match the fury in his spine.

“You don’t have to be fine,” he says quietly. “You don’t have to joke and brush it off. Not with me.”

My mouth wobbles. “I didn’t want you to worry.”

He stares at me, eyes burning. “Sweetheart. You’re theonlything I want to worry about. We’ll deal with it, okay?”

I believe him, but that’s not what I need right now. Right now, I need to not feel watched. I need to not feel like my body, my joy, my name, have been turned into something someone else canown.

So I press my face to his neck and inhale the scent of him—salt and citrus and sleep.

“Touch me.”

He freezes. “Zoe…”

“I need to feel something else,” I whisper. “I need to feelyou.Not anything else, just you.”

He pulls back and studies me for a second, then nods. Wordlessly, he backs us toward the mirror. The light is still on, humming overhead, cool and white and unrelenting. I think that’s why he does it, why he doesn’t take me back to bed or the couch or somewhere dark.

He wants me to see.

He turns me gently until I’m facing the glass, then slides behind me, his eyes meeting mine in the reflection.

“You tell me to stop,” he says. “Any time. I mean it.”

I nod, facing the wide expanse of glass above the counter. My skin is flushed, hair wild, eyes soft in a way I don’t usually let them be. I look vulnerable, and I hate how easy it is to see.

Chase steps behind me, warm and bare and solid. His chest presses to my back, and his hands slide around my waist like they never want to let go.

“No one gets to see you like this,” he murmurs into the shell of my ear. “Just me.”

He kisses my shoulder, my neck, the curve of my spine, then one hand drops between my legs.

“You’re already wet for me.”

I watch his free hand splay over my stomach, holding me still as his fingers slide inside me. I arch instinctively, pressing back into him, and his mouth finds the side of my throat again.

“I want you towatch,” he growls. “Want you to see how good you look when you’re mine.”

I moan as he curls his fingers, dragging them deep, thumb circling just enough to make my thighs tremble. My breath hits the glass, fogging the reflection, and he grins behind me.

He withdraws and I whimper, already aching for more, but then I watch in the mirror as he strokes himself, eyes still on me.

“Lean forward,” he orders, voice hoarse.

I do, bracing my hands on the counter and tilting my hips toward him, and he slides in. One long, slow thrust that has both of us moaning. I clench around him automatically, and his fingers dig into my hips like he’s barely holding on.

---