Page 90 of Shut Up and Score
“Iknow.” He steps closer, hands clenched at his sides. “I know I don’t deserve a second chance. But I can’t stop wanting one. I can’t stop?—”
He reaches for me. I flinch.
But I don’t step away.
His hand lifts slowly, almost as if he’s afraid I’ll bolt. He brushes the backs of his fingers along my jaw. My breath catches.
“I can’t stop wantingyou.” His thumb grazes my bottom lip. “Even when I know I shouldn’t. You feel it too, I know you do.”
Then he kisses me.
It’s not tentative.
It’s fuckinghungry.
His lips crash into mine with a force that steals the air from my lungs. His hands cup my face, anchoring himself there, and my hands fist in his shirt before I can think better of it.
His mouth slants over mine again, rougher this time, tasting all the anger, all the longing we never said out loud. Daring me to pull away.
I don’t.
Ibitehis lower lip instead, just enough to make him groan into my mouth. He presses me back into the wall, and my towel shifts. Loosens. Hangs on by a thread.
Colton’s hands drop to my hips, holding me there, and his mouth trails to my jaw, teeth grazing before he sucks a spot just below it. His tongue flicks. My knees damn near buckle.
Fuuuck.
I gasp.My hips jerk. I’m hard, pressed against him, fully exposed now as the towel slips and hits the floor with a dull thud I barely register.
His palm slides to my bare hip, fingertips digging in, memorizing the shape of me. Like I’m someone he’s finally allowed to touch. His hips press against my hard shaft, and I groan as he rubs against me, my head falling back to the brick wall.
It’stoo much.
I tear away from him as though I’ve been scorched, shoving him back with both palms on his chest. Colton stumbles. His eyes are blown wide, mouth flushed and swollen. I snatch up my towel and wrap it around my waist with shaking hands.
“Don’t follow me,” I whisper, throat tight, heart slamming inside my chest, trying to serve itself up to him on a silver platter.
“Micah—”
I don’t wait. I leave him there, lips parted, chest rising and falling like he’s the one who just got his heart put in a blender. And I don’t look back.
Even though every cell in my body isbeggingme to.
TWENTY-THREE
COLTON
Micah is avoiding me.Completely and utterly. He doesn’t reply to my messages on Prism—hell, I’m not even sure he reads them. At practice, he gives me just enough to keep Coach off our backs. No more. And after? He grabs his duffel and ghosts, skipping the locker room entirely as if being in the same room as me might burn him alive.
I throw my bag over my shoulder and head for the bus for our six-hour drive across the state. Overnight trips are rare, and part of me’s been clinging to this one like a life raft. He can’t avoid me on a bus. Not really.
Caleb’s already sprawled in the aisle seat, earbuds dangling around his neck. He glances up when I approach. “Ready for this?”
“Ready as I’ll ever be,” I mutter, sliding past him into the window seat.
The bus smells of sweat, turf, and that faint rubber scent that clings to every football trip. My duffel is heavier than it should be when I sling it into the overhead.
Across the aisle, Micah already has his hood up, duffel underhis legs, as if he boarded early just to avoid me. His face is turned toward the window, watching raindrops chase each other down the glass. Headphones in. Shoulders tense.
