Page 12 of The Worst Kind of Promise
Emptiness saws through me with jagged edges. My heart’s always been half-empty, and I used to fill that hole with booze and girls and hockey. But with Faye, just an arm’s length away from me, I think she could be the cure for my perpetual heartache. Except she doesn’t want this…me.
“Is that what you want? For nothing to happen?” I ask, my world giving out underneath me.
Please don’t say yes.
“If we complicate things between us, it could put a strain on our friendship—on the group. You don’t want that, do you? You couldn’t possibly want me.”
My heart blips in my chest, singing out for her. Except as loud as it sounds in my ears, it’s a noiseless mumble in hers.
I should be careful with what I say, but it’s like my brain short-circuits whenever I’m near her. “I could, and I do. Nothing has to change. We don’t have to let this thing between us uproot the friendship we’ve already built.”
Tears pool in her Bambi eyes, her entire body trembling, and even though I want to reach out and silence her tremors, she’ll just steer away from me. “I don’t do casual, Kit. I’m not some conquest you can just toss aside when you get bored. I’m not interested in fucking for the sake of fucking. I want to mean something to someone.”
Faye means more to me than she’ll ever know.
It feels like all I’ve ever known is chaos—having to deal with the aftermath of my parents’ divorce, trying to prove to the entire hockey world that I’m more than a trust fund baby, never letting myself grow close to someone because I don’t know if I could ever truly love them. I don’t know much, but I know one thing for certain: winning Faye Hollings’ heart isn’t a game. It’s the end of the line.
“I would never ask that of you.”
It dawns on me that Faye will never believe a word I say unless I prove it to her. So I do just that.
Adrenaline skyrockets through me, tipping me to Faye’s lips, and I swallow her in a kiss that seems to stop both time and my heart. She meets my mouth with hesitancy at first. I wait for her to pull away, but to my surprise, she retaliates with an intensity as blinding as volcanic lightning. Electricity pulses through me, and when my tongue finds hers, she lets out the most delicious moan.
That tiny taste of a sound—orgasmic in all the right ways—makes my cock strain painfully against my boxers, weeping at the mere idea of being inside of her. Just thinking about her tight pussy clenching around my girth, moving me deeper with her slick arousal, has me harder than I’ve ever been before. I’m pretty sure there’s pre-cum staining my underwear right now.
My hand comes up to root in her hair, and I bring her into my body with a forceful pull, loving the way she fits around me like we were made for one another. Her arms slink up my back, and I’m grateful for my lack of shirt, granting me full feeling of her fingernails scoring into my skin. She clings to me like she doesn’t want to let go, like breaking our connection will make the heavens themselves crumble to dust.
I don’t want to let go, either.
But eventually, one of us has to. And Faye does.
When she pulls back, her cheeks are splotchy, and her lips swollen. Then she starts whacking me on the arm.
“You kissed me!” she screeches, not ceasing her onslaught.
I wince and try to shoo her away like she’s a pesky fly. “Yeah, I was there! Why are you hitting me?”
“Because”—slap—“you”—slap—“kissed”—slap—“me!”
When I unfold from my standing fetal position, she’s huffing and puffing, red in the face from exertion.
“It seemed like the right thing to do at the time!”
“It wasn’t!”
“That’s not what your body was saying,” I argue, gesturing to the erect state of her nipples againstmyT-shirt. And yes, I’m fully aware that my dick’s at full mast right now.
She gasps and immediately covers her breasts.
“Oh, yeah? Well, you’re no better!” Still keeping her arm plastered to her chest, she waves at my engorged crotch with a stiff hand.
I don’t even bother looking down. “No shit, Faye. I’m so fucking hard right now that I can’t think straight.Youdo this to me. No other girl does, okay? All of the girls I’ve been with haven’t held a candle to you. You’re all I ever think about, and it kills me that I can’t have you.”
Faye’s expression drops like a stone in ice-cold water, the frustration leaching from her eyes. Her arms fall to her side, and I want to smooth the little crease between her brows.
Her voice is quiet and wobbly. I almost don’t hear it over the boisterous clamor of traffic outside.
“Do you really mean that?”
