Heartache and Hope (Heartache Duet #1)(64)

He rolls his eyes. “Your boobs are fine, Ava.”

“Just fine?” I pout.

He kisses the top of each breast. “They’re perfect.”





“Tell me when you fell in love with basketball,” I ask him, my chest to his back while he piggybacks me through the water so we can explore what looks like a cave.

He shakes out his hair, flicking droplets all around him. “I don’t really know. There wasn’t a specific defining moment. I remember being around twelve and… I mean, I didn’t really know how well I’d played, but apparently one of the recruits from FSU was there, and he spoke to Dad after the game, told him that I had ‘real potential.’” He turns us around so I can climb onto the rocky embankment covered by a low cliff edge. I sit on the edge, listen to him speak. “I swear to God, Dad told everyone about that conversation, even the lady at the gas station on the way home. He was so damn proud.” He pulls himself up to sit next to me, his knees bent, elbows resting on them. The sun beats down, making his eyes as blue as the lake in front of us. He smiles when he turns to me, his shoulders lifting. “So… I don’t know. I think, for me, it was never about my love for basketball so much as it was about my dad’s love for me.”

I hold his arm to me, rest my head on his shoulder. “So… you do it all for your dad?”

He kisses the top of my head. “Kind of like how you do everything for your mom, right?”





We’re farther in the narrow cave, still exposed to anyone in the lake, but hidden away enough that we’d see them first. We spent the first few minutes exploring, finding rocks strong enough to carve our names on the underside of the cliff. I glance at him, at the way his brow dips in concentration as he works on the middle stroke of the letter A. So far, he’s written Connor 4 A, and it’s so sweet and innocent and brings to mind my own innocent insecurities. “Connor?”

“Ava?” he responds, not looking away from his task.

“Why don’t you want to have sex with me?”

He drops the rock he’d been using, then curses and picks it back up. He continues the middle stroke, digging deeper and deeper.

“It’s just, you’ve had the chance. You’ve had me in your bed, and me here, now, and you don’t really… touch me… like that, I guess…” I mumble, tripping over my words. I sit down, my back against the stone wall.

He rubs the heel of his palm against his eye, groaning.

“You don’t need to answer; it’s okay. I was just wondering, is all.”

He’s on the final A when he says, his voice low, “I’m scared.”

“Scared?” I repeat. “Of me?”

“No,” he shakes his head. “I’m just worried that I won’t perform, I guess. And you’re a lot more experienced than I am.”

“Not a lot,” I rush out.

He shrugs. “You’ve done more than I have. Hell, you’ve done all of it.”

I’m quiet a moment, wondering how he knows, but then… “Rhys told you?”

He nods, still refusing to look at me. “He wasn’t bragging or anything. I asked him why he cared about you so much and… yeah.”

I blow out a breath. “It didn’t mean anything. With him, I mean. It would mean something—everything—with you.”

He finishes our names, then runs a hand over it, blowing the loose dust off, his cheeks puffing with the force. Then he takes a step back, admiring his work. He looks over at what I’d written, a simple #3. His smile widens. After a moment, he slowly sits down next to me, his hand on my thigh. “I want to,” he says. “You have no idea how badly I want to. I think about it all the time.”

“Do you…” I smirk, do the hand signal for jerking off. “Like my future YouTube viewers?”

He chuckles. “I’m pretty sure you were partially present for one of the hundred times I’ve done exactly that thinking about you.”

I go back to that moment, to the bliss that followed. “What exactly do you think about?”

“You.”

“But what about me? Like, where am I? What am I doing?”

His eyes drift shut, his breaths coming out shorter, sharper. He adjusts himself quickly, licking his lips. “You’re on top,” he whispers.

I get on my knees, carefully, while his eyes stay closed. Then I straddle his lap, whimper when I feel him pressed against my center. His hands find my waist while mine settle on his shoulders. “Like this?” I ask, and he nods, licks his lips again. “And what else?” I ask, breathless as I shift, back and forth, slow, slow, slow.

He grasps my ass, hard, and I moan, feel the throb build in my core. Opening his eyes, his teeth clamp down on my shoulder, then bite down on my bra strap. “And this is gone.”

I swallow, reach behind me and unclasp my bra. “Like this?” I ask, releasing the straps and letting them fall to my elbows. He rears back, his lip caught between his teeth. His fingers stroke up my arms, and then down again, taking the straps with them. I’m exposed, in public, but right now, it’s just him and me and all the scandalous thoughts racing through my head.

His eyes are fixated on my breasts, first one, then the other. My chest heaves, lifting them, and his mouth opens, so close.