Block Shot (Hoops #2)(83)

See me.

The answer whispers from behind the wall I’ve built around myself, a drawbridge I’m ready to lower. Why him? Why Jared, the guy I’ve made sure to hate through the years? I think I made sure to hate Jared because I liked him so much, and if he did what Prescott said he did, then he couldn’t possibly have felt the same for me. My incredulity from that night in the laundromat when he kissed me, when he said he’d been thinking about it for a long time is only matched by my shock earlier when I told him about the blogger. I wondered how someone like Jared, with his parade of beauty queens and Cindy’s, would go so drastically “off brand” and choose someone like me. And tonight I heard the answer.

He sees me. Really sees me. Fifty pounds in either direction, and the look in his eyes—that intensity, the longing, the desire—never changed.

If I asked myself why I’m standing here, Jared’s curiosity is practically foaming at the mouth.

“That night was more traumatic for me than you probably realize,” I say, starting in the middle instead of the beginning, taking up a thought that had no precedence and hoping he’s following. “It was probably more traumatic than it should have been. I’m not the first girl caught naked in a room with a guy.”

I laugh, even though nothing is funny. Jared watches me intently through lingering clouds of steam.

“But I was already self-conscious,” I remind him.

“You wanted the lights out.”

“Right.” I lick my lips and fiddle with the belt of the fluffy white robe. “I had a boyfriend who was less than impressed with me when the lights were on and shared his opinion freely.”

Jared steps toward me, muffling a curse, but I put my hand up to stop him. With only scraps of clothing between the two of us, and all this steam and naked flesh just under surface, if he gets too close, this conversation will catch fire, and I need to get this out.

“Just . . . let me speak.”

He pauses, leaning one hip against the marble counter, eyes trained on my face.

“I’ve always had a contentious relationship with food.” I swallow the embarrassment that would choke this confession. “I’ve always struggled with my weight, and it got worse in college. I gained a lot in those years, but I was also in a relationship with a guy who used me. He pretended to be attracted to me so I could help him academically. He cheated on me.”

Iron streaks through my hollow chuckle.

“Another reason I swore I would never cheat on anyone,” I say. “I know how bad it feels. There were things he said that, even to this day, make me second and third guess myself. I hate that he and other people who didn’t mean me well have had that much power in my life, but they have.”

“Banner, you don’t have to tell me all of this,” Jared says, anger in his frown and the flat line of his mouth. “It makes me want to find them all and pound their faces in. They’re blind and dumb.”

A tiny smile lifts the corners of my mouth, lifts my heart.

“That’s why I want to tell you.” I break my own rule and walk over to him. I stop a few inches shy of sharing body heat, but our stares heat up, igniting the space left between us. “There’s no difference in the way you looked at me, ten years and over fifty pounds ago, and the way you looked at me by the pool.”

“No,” he agrees, the timber of his voice deeper and richer the closer I come. “You were incredible then, and you’re magnificent now. I’ve never met another woman like you, and I liked you from the first day of class.”

“I know.” I nod then shake my head. “It was impossible to believe at first, but I know. That’s why I bought Prescott’s prank so easily. It made more sense, when the truth didn’t. That you—”

“Wanted you,” he interrupts softly.

“Yes.” I hesitate and study the brick red polish on my toes for a second. “After the things my ex had said and done, things that had been said all my life, it was hard to believe someone like you wanted me.”

“But I did.” He bridges the space separating us, reaching over to push a swathe of wet hair over my shoulder and cupping my neck. “I do. A lot.”

He tugs me by my neck gently but firmly enough to pull me closer until my breasts, through the robe, brush his naked chest. I can’t resist touching him, tracing the hard muscles and brushing the stiff nipples with the tips of my fingers. His sharply indrawn breath doesn’t stop me now that I’ve started. I round my hands on his shoulders, caressing the taut skin with my palms.

“You’re so beautiful,” I whisper, my hands addicted to the feel of him.

“It’s only a shell,” Jared says, his words seductive, his breathing more erratic. “I’ll crack it open for you and pour everything out.”

He slides the hand at my neck down to my shoulder, caressing the nakedness inside the robe.

“See. This is what I was afraid of,” I say with a raspy chuckle. I step away from his hand, away from his perfectly sculpted chest and abs. “I had so many things I wanted to say.”

“And then can we fuck?” Jared asks, impatient passion nipping at his words.

His coarse words may as well be a couplet, a sonnet, an ode considering how they make me feel. The consistency of how he wants me, how it never fluctuates, makes me want him more. More than the ridged terrain of his torso. More than the water-darkened gold hair curling at his neck or the stormy-sea blue eyes and rugged masculine beauty of his face.