Page 62 of Hot Shot
“Bran.” Her arms are around me so fast I don’t have time to react. I’m drenched in sweat and stink worse than a skunk but Blake doesn’t care. She wraps me up and holds me tight.
At first I don’t move. I’m incapable of doing anything except soak up her warmth, but the longer she holds on to me, the harder it is to stop myself from returning the embrace.
And my dick isn’t oblivious to the situation.
We’ve managed to keep things between us platonic for the most part. I’ve had more than one hard on since Blake arrived back in my life but this is the first time I’ve had one with her plastered against me.
I’m not going to lie, I’d give anything to move us out of the friends zone except I can’t afford to fuck this up and pushing her to the floor and fucking her now would definitely be fucking this up.
“I want?—”
“I know, Bran. I do too but we can’t, it’s not our time.”
How she reads me, the situation, with ease makes my affection for her grow. I’m in love with her. Have always been in love with her. I just never had the balls to go after what we could have.
Hindsight is a wonderful thing for making you look like a fool. And I was the biggest fool of them all.
I had Blake Watts.
Could have had her since I was twenty and I chose ambition—mine and hers—the NHL, her Olympic success, over making our connection solid.
And for what?
Another woman to come along and blow up all the plans we’d talked about.
“You will never understand how sorry I am about what happened,” I whisper into her hair.
“Stop beating yourself up over things we can’t change.” She leans back and locks eyes with me. “And I say ‘we’ because we both did things, let things happen, that we should have pushed through together on. We could have made it work long distance. I know we could have, and yet neither of us pushed for that when we should have.”
“No more. From now on we tackle everything together. I don’t think I can do it without you anyway.”
“Good thing you don’t have to.”
“I’d give anything to kiss you right now but if I do I don’t think I can stop at a kiss.”
“We’ll save it for later. After the twins have gone back to New York.”
Loosening my hold, I move back and she lets her arms slip away from me. “If we’re waiting…” I glance down at my tented shorts.
Blake’s laughter lights up the room, lights up my insides.
“It’s not that funny.”
“I’m not laughing because it’s funny. I’m laughing because I’m happy. Seeing you, being with you, makes me happier than I’ve been in years. And I wasn’t even unhappy.”
With a last smile she leaves me to think about what just transpired and to get my dick under control. I’m not about to walk through her parents’ house with a blatant erection. And the hand towel I have in my fist isn’t going to give much coverage and would look more obvious than my crotch tent.
Shaking my head I think about the things we have to navigate before I can kiss Blake the way I want to.
The thought of her brothers is the ice bath my libido needs for instant deflation.
Blake
The noise my brothers make coming through the front door is enough to wake the whole house.
Good thing no one is sleeping. We’re in the living room, where we settled after dinner.
Bran didn’t hunt down Mom and Dad before we ate like he wanted. Instead he waited to tell them over dessert what he did for Laura, for the twins, for them.
