Out of Bounds (The Summer Games #2)(73)
“Come for me, baby,” he whispered, hitting the exact spot that tilted my world.
“Erik…”
“I can f*cking feel you.” He groaned. “Jesus…”
I’d clenched around him, driving him insane, and he hadn’t slowed his fingers as I came. I’d let my head fall back with the intensity of it all. He’d had me there, legs wide, dress tugged down to my waist, body bared. I’d been vulnerable and shaking, completely under his thumb. He was destroying me and he loved it.
He wanted to rip my heart out for sport, to add it to his collection with all the others. I should have fought him more, but I liked it. I liked the way he ruined me. The game we were playing lit my life on fire—it was clearing out the old, dry portions to make way for new growth. Every morning, I woke up with him on my mind. I daydreamed about his mouth. I replayed the way it felt when he was deep inside me, how it felt to control him for those short moments.
I wasn’t stupid, though. I knew we weren’t in love in that dark alley—far from it. We were in a fantasy. As I rolled over and longed for sleep to take me, I tried to ignore the fact that after the sex, after the fights, after the blowups, he never once asked for more.
“Brie, you there?” my mom asked, drawing my attention back to our phone call.
I was standing in the bathroom the following evening, trying to rush and get ready to go out with Lexi.
“Yes, I’m here,” I said, rifling through my makeup bag. I usually kept a few bobby pins in there, but I couldn’t find any.
“You did so good today! I wish I could have been there to see it.”
I paused my search and stared up at the mirror, absorbing the guilt in her tone. “I know, Mom.”
“I’m so proud of you. No matter what happens at finals, you’ve already made me so proud.”
What about if she found out I was sleeping with my coach? Would she still be proud of me then? My stomach tightened.
“Did you get to watch the competition today?” I asked, forcing myself to meet my own eyes in the mirror.
“Oh sweetie, I couldn’t get off work until about midway through, but I watched the end and I’ve been looking up clips online since then. You were amazing, Brie. The top spot in all four events! I can’t believe it!”
I smiled at my reflection. She wasn’t exaggerating. Qualifications had been a breeze, almost too easy. I’d woken up at the sound of my alarm, refreshed and ready to tackle the day. The lines for the food court weren’t extraordinarily long, and I’d even managed to snag a seat on the shuttle to the arena that hadn’t yet begun to stink of other athletes’ BO.
I’d waltzed into the arena with my competition gear on and my bun so tightly secured to my head I feared my scalp would never be the same. There was a short opening ceremony and then each event flew by quicker than I could have imagined. I thought of how for the past thirteen years, the hours in the gym seemed to drag, yet now they whizzed by with each blink of an eye. Fortunately, my teammates and I had come in first during the qualification round and now we had two days to rest before team and individual finals started. Even just thinking the word gave me hives: finals. Fi-nals. Ugh. Qualifications were one thing. That day, the scores hadn’t counted beyond earning a spot for finals. No medals were handed out at the end, nor were any anthems played, so in a way, it hadn’t felt real.
Maybe that’s the only reason you competed as well as you did. Finals will be different.
I shivered and brushed the thought away, finally hearing my mom again on the other end of the phone line. She’d been rambling on about the highlight clips she’d watched from qualifications and I felt a little bad for tuning her out.
“When I get home, Mom, you should take some time off. We both deserve a vacation.”
“Oh Brie, don’t worry about that right now.”
Was she kidding? Making her life better was the only thing I cared about. And Erik. And alleyways. And Erik pushing me into alleyways…
“Promise me you’ll only worry about doing your best during team finals. Just go out there and have fun.”
I promised her I would and told her I loved her before I hung up, staring at my phone in my hands. My life back home in Texas was always there, lodged in the back of my mind…right beside Erik. I groaned, annoyed that my brain couldn’t filter the thoughts of him.
I had no clue what was going on between us. A normal relationship progressed rationally, with first dates and first kisses and first times staying the night. Erik and I had none of the above. We had whispered secrets and sweaty yoga studios and other memories that made my toes curl.
It was utter insanity, all of it. And yet, I wanted more.
Lexi wanted to celebrate the fact that we were finished with qualifications at a club downtown. I believe her exact words were, “LET ME DANCE, BITCH.” She swore it would be safe for us to go because the Brazilian soccer team had shut it down for the night, making it exclusive to Olympic athletes. Even still, we couldn’t convince the rest of the girls to tag along. They scampered off with lame excuses and I didn’t care to push them to come with us. If Molly wanted to giggle over the phone with Duncan, fine with me. I didn’t want to be held back. I wanted to get lost in the night, celebrate how well we’d done earlier that day, and forget about the stress that would greet me as soon as I woke up in the morning.