Page 51 of Playing to Win

“What are you even arguing about? I took a call.” I drag a hand through my hair. “Oh, I get it. You’re jealous.”

“I am not jealous.”

I close the space between us. It isn’t just me who gets hot under the collar. This gorgeous, infuriating, sexy-as-hell woman wants me too. “You want me,” I whisper close to her lips.

She swallows and runs her tongue over her lip, confirming what I have already worked out. She pushes my chest and storms out of the gym, leaving the reporters gaping. I follow her to the women’s changing rooms, where she knows I can’t follow. At the door, another woman comes out with her sports bag over her shoulder. “Is there anyone else in there?” I ask.

“Someone just came in. Just one.”

I nod because I can’t believe what I’m about to do. But I can’t take this anymore. I can’t hate her and be pent up with frustration because I want her all the damn time.

I pause, my hand on the door, knowing that if I go in there, this can only end one way. I push through the door and lock it behind me. I move through the changing area to the shower cubicles.

One shower is running. I lock the door out to the pool, kick off my cross trainers, pull my shirt over my head, and ditch it with my phone. Then I walk toward what has been stuck in my head for days.

“Izzy.”

She doesn’t speak, but the cubicle lock is pulled back. I nudge open the door to see her naked, standing beneath the hot steam of the shower.

We stay in the moment, both breathing heavily, both staring at each other.

“Yes, I’m jealous,” she croaks. “I hate myself for it but I am.”

Whether it’s the admission, or the water running down the smooth curves of her body, I’m done for. I step into the shower and lift her legs around my waist, pressing her back to the wall. She takes hold of my face and crashes her mouth against mine.

Kissing her is like an inferno. The slip of her tongue. Her soft, plump lip between my teeth. It sets off a blaze that I feel in every part of my body. It travels my limbs and explodes like a firestorm in my chest.

I lose myself in her; in lust, desire, desperation. The energy I’ve been missing for days is here now, taking her weight as I rid myself of my sports shorts. My erection springs up between us. Under the lube of the water, it rests between the lips of her bare pussy and glides between her folds as she writhes in my arms.

She groans into my mouth and pulls hard on my hair. It’s a crazy mix of desire and pain. That’s exactly how I feel. Conflicted. I’ve never wanted someone so much at the same time alarm bells scream in my mind to stay away.

I take my mouth from her lips to her earlobe, nipping the soft flesh. Water runs between us and clouds my eyes as I move my mouth down her neck, along the thin skin of her collarbone.

“Brooks, do it. Take me. Let me feel you.”

I raise my head at her vulnerability, her breathless begging. Her sass is gone and she’s just here, with me, stunning, wanting this as much as I do.

I hoist her higher and position myself under her. My eyes close as the tip of my cock finds her. In my darkness, I come to my senses a little.

“Fuck, Izzy, I don’t have anything.”

She leans forward and bites my pec, her teeth digging into my skin. “I’m on birth control and I’m clean.”

I break the contact of our upper bodies and drop my head back in frustration. “I can’t.”

“What?”

I lower her legs to the floor and run a hand over my wet face, trying to think with my head and not my hard-on. “You have no idea how much I want to, Izzy, but I can’t.”

“I just told you.”

“I know. And I’m clean too. I just can’t, Izzy. It’s double or nothing for me when it comes to this stuff.”

She turns off the shower, but her eyes still fill with water. I’ve hurt her. Or embarrassed her. Either way, I’m so fucking sorry. But, I tell her again, “I just can’t.”

She barges past me, leaving me standing alone in the cubicle. Fuck.

When I leave the shower, I find my wet shorts and pull them on before unlocking the door to the pool. The energy I had moments ago is gone. I retrieve my T-shirt and pull it over my head as I move into the main changing area.

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