Out of Bounds (The Summer Games #2)(61)

The longer we sat in silence, the more my body filled with anger. I shook with it. Rage bloomed in my stomach, though I tried hard to ignore it. I crossed my arms over my chest and tried to focus my attention through the front windshield, but every time he moved I nearly jumped out of my skin.

What was going on in that thick skull of his? How can he not be moved by what he just did? A normal, decent guy would reach across the front seat and hold my hand. He’d try to strike up a conversation and make me feel more comfortable. Erik might as well have been a ghost in the driver’s seat.

He pulled off onto the gravel drive in front of his house and I knew we only had another minute together.

I turned and narrowed my eyes on his sharp profile. “You didn’t touch Kira once back there. Why?”

She dripped sexuality, and if I were a guy, I would have picked her over me ten out of ten times, so why hadn’t Erik?

A slow-spreading smirk overtook the right side of his mouth as he turned to assess me coolly. “I’ve f*cked her before.”

Ice filled my veins.

“How many times?”

“Get out of the truck, Brie.”

We were right outside the guesthouse. I needed to get out and walk inside, strip off my clothes, and shower off the last thirty minutes. I needed to push the night to the back of my mind and focus on what was most important: Rio. Except, I didn’t get out of the truck. I leaned closer to Erik and got right in his face, so close he couldn’t ignore me.

“I’m not your plaything. I’m a real person with real feelings and real desires.”

His dark brow arched. “Are the two exclusive?”

I reared back, eyes wide. My mouth opened, but no sound came out.

His smirk spread wider as his gaze raked down my body, unabashed.

“No, Brie. You’re a little doll.” His hand reached out to push a few stray hairs behind my ear. I tilted into his touch on impulse, like my body was conditioned to respond to him. “You’re so easy to control,” he continued, bending low to whisper against my lips. “If I pushed you back on this seat right now, you’d spread your legs for me.”

I shook my head “No. I would never let you do that.”

My words sounded strong in my head, but in the front seat of the car, they came out weak and trembling.

He laughed and the sound nearly tore my heart in two. “You already have.”

I scraped my fingers across his hand and flung it away from me.

“You’re a manipulative pig,” I spat, shoving my door open and stumbling out of the car. “Do me a favor and erase tonight from your memory.”





Chapter Twenty-Four


Erik





The moment Brie stormed off, my confidence was replaced with self-loathing. It was too much, too fast, and I was reminded why she’d been off limits in the first place. I faced the facts: Brie was too young and too naive. She was mine to coach, not to f*ck. She’d trusted me and I’d put her in that situation, knowing full well it would end with me touching her—with Kira touching her. I couldn’t help myself. She was too tempting to ignore: her delicate lips, her glistening skin, her face full of longing.

Jesus, it was wrong.

If anyone had seen us in the yoga studio, my entire life would change in one clean swipe. The Olympic Committee would pull me from my position as coach, and my critics’ quiet doubts would solidify into public I-told-you-so’s. Parents would condemn my choices, pull their children out of classes at Seattle Flyers, and I’d be left with nothing to show for it—not even Brie. She and I weren’t forever. She was a beautiful little fantasy, the kind that kept you up at night, not the kind that extended into reality.

I’d coached for ten years and had never once come close to caring for one of my gymnasts the way I felt for Brie. She was under my skin; she’d burrowed there the first time she stepped out of that black SUV and opened her mouth. Maybe if she weren’t so sharp, maybe if her body weren’t so f*cking beautiful, maybe if she backed down instead of rising to every challenge I threw her direction it would have been easier to stay away.

If I could go back in time, I never would have touched her, simple as that. This was the most pivotal moment of my career. I had too much to prove to myself, to the world, and especially to my father.

While growing up, he had made it very clear that his time and attention were valuable. He’d moved from Sweden to coach women’s gymnastics and was prepared to dedicate his entire life to it. Even before I was born, he was in high demand, coaching the country’s top Olympic hopefuls and building up his training facility in Texas. During the week, my mom and I rarely saw him. On the weekends, he was around even less.

As soon as I was old enough to enroll, I begged my mom to take me up to the gym for a gymnastics class. It was there in that class that I remembered feeling my father’s love for the very first time. He dosed it out so rarely that when I did feel it, when his gaze was on me, I was blinded by it. At the time, I thought I’d fallen in love with gymnastics, but in reality, it was my father’s praise that had seduced me.

The next day, I pleaded with my mom to take me back for another class, and from then on, I lived at the gym. Every day after school, I joined my father and practiced under his direction. I completed high school by sixteen so I could focus on gymnastics full-time and my father had never been prouder.