Page 26 of The Penalty Shot (Totally Pucked 5)

“Can I kiss you?”

He whispers it so softly and with so much conviction that I want to melt like putty right into his hands.

We shouldn’t.

We couldn’t.

Getting involved with my new roommate is the last thing I should be doing, but maybe it’s worth the cost of the consequences. Iwantto feel his lips on mine. I want to feel wanted and sexy. I may be a bit of a novice when it comes to this…but the way he lights me up with only a few simple words and a stare are causing my rational thoughts to fly out the window.

It’s what has me leaning closer, until he’s only a centimeter away, his breath hot and forbidden on my lips.

“Yes.”

The words leave my lips before I can second-guess them and talk myself out of it.

Asher wastes no time moving forward until his knees bump mine under the water, and his hands find my jaw, cradling it so tenderly that I could weep. I inhale sharply when he touches me, and I wonder for a moment if he can feel me tremble beneath his touch.

Would he feel differently if he found out how inexperienced I am? Would he change his mind? Better yet, would he even want someone as unsure and hesitant as I am?

“Stop thinking Auden,” he rasps, “be here with me, right now. Nowhere else.”

And then he kisses me. His lips are full and soft, and he’s holding me in his hands like something precious. It’s everything that I imagined it would be, but even more.

Kissing Asher Hart is like rain after a drought. I feel alive and replenished after being parched for so long.

I moan against his lips, and he swallows it hungrily, possessively. I feel his tongue slip into my mouth, and I realize that until this very moment, I have never truly been kissed. Never by aman,and never so thoroughly, so demanding.

Asher kisses me while simultaneously stealing the breath from my lungs. His hands move from my jaw down to my shoulders, dragging over my wet skin until they slide to the small of my back. I’m hauled against him, and my hands clutch his shoulders, our lips never separating. Teeth scrape against my bottom lip, and he pulls it between his, shooting a bolt of pleasure through me. I would clench my thighs together, but he’s settled between them, and my legs are now hooked around his waist.

Things are moving so quickly, it feels like any kind of control I once had is slipping through my fingers like sand. His hips rock, and I feel him against my core, hard and thick.

God, Auden, what are you doing?

Somehow, I tear away from his kiss, both of us panting. I can see the primal desire in his gaze as it washes over me, and I feel raw. Seen. Stripped bare with only his stare.

More vulnerable than I ever have, and it’s too much. Too much at once. Too fast. Too all consuming.

“I- I’m sorry, I can’t do this,” I say quietly, and then I turn and swim back to the stairs, pulling myself from the water.

“Auden,” he calls, but I don’t turn back. I grab my towel from the concrete and flee with my heart hammering in my chest. I run all the way to the elevator, taking it back to my room, and once I shut the door behind me, I sag heavily against it.

I was already doing things that I shouldn’t. That I couldn’t. Giving into desires that I had pushed away for so long, and that wasn’t good for either of us.

Especially not my heart… or my head.

Chapter Ten

Asher

I knewfrom the moment that my lips touched Auden’s, I was a goner. Kissing her was a revelation.

And I fucked it up. I pushed too hard, too fast, and she fled.

My fingers rap against the door lightly as I lean against the frame. I’m not letting her overthink this for the rest of the night. I need to talk to her, apologize, fuck do whatever it takes so I never have to see that look of panic in her eyes again.

A few seconds later, her door opens, and she stares back at me with her deep azure eyes.

“Can I come in? I promise I just want to talk.”

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