Player(33)

Sam leaned back, his face shadowed and eyes burning coals. “When you get a kiss better than that, you’ll know.”

And I knew for a fact that I never would.





13





For Science





Sam

The icy-cold shower stream hit my back like freezing cold nails. The tiles under my palm were warm by comparison, the frigid cold in my marrow, in my shaking bones, in my clattering teeth.

Even then, there was no banishing Val from my thoughts. There was no forgetting the impression of her body against mine. There was no denying the memory of her lips, of her hands, of the pleasure in her eyes or the flush in her cheeks when I’d kissed her like I’d been dreaming of for so long.

Just once.

I slammed the lever with the meat of my fist, stopping the water.

I’d fucked up. And I’d fucked up bad.

Girls like her are off-limits to guys like you, player.

I wasn’t even sure how it had happened. She had been there in my arms, just like she’d been so many times before, but this time?

I’d been dangerously close to kissing her long before she asked me to.

Begged me to.

I swiped the towel off the rack on the wall and scrubbed it over the length of my still-trembling body, clenching my jaw to stop the rattling in my skull, but it was no use.

I shouldn’t have done it. I shouldn’t have crossed that line. Because now I’d opened the door, and not walking through the fucking thing was going to be impossible. Impossible and absolutely imperative.

You can’t have this girl.

I hadn’t yet abandoned my objective—keep Val safe from me just as much as Ian. What I wanted should have been secondary to that. And I’d jeopardized the entire operation by agreeing to kiss her.

No, not agreeing. Surrendering. I’d yielded to my desire, submitted to my wishes, and in doing so, I’d put her in front of the firing squad and placed her last cigarette in her lips.

She deserved everything I wasn’t.

Just once.

I brushed my teeth, flipped off the bathroom light, padded through my apartment with goosebumps still prickling every square inch of my skin. I felt like I might be cold forever, wondered what it was like to ever feel warm. Even my sheets were cold, chilled, deserted.

I shivered as I threw the comforter over me, my hair soaking my pillow. My room was comprised of indistinct shades of blue, the ceiling dark. I searched it for answers all the same.

How didn’t she know what constituted something so simple as a good kiss? How could she have thought she needed any practice?

Val needed no practice. Val was a fucking expert.

I’d like to give a man a kiss that makes him fall in love with me.

Touché, Val. Tou-fucking-ché.

It was rare to have a first kiss be so perfect, without hesitation, our lips and mouths and bodies and minds in unexpected harmony. How she’d worried she’d be anything less than breathtaking was beyond me. That she didn’t know a good kiss from a bad one confounded me.

In fact, the realization that she’d been kissed so poorly made me want to find every incompetent fuck on that list and tell him to fix his life and do better.

The knowledge that she’d been sexualized as a child did nothing to cool my simmering anger. To know that she’d been punished for something she couldn’t control only fanned the flames.

I knew something had happened, that something had shaped how she saw herself, but I couldn’t have imagined just how cruel that something was.

But it didn’t change the fact that she was beautiful and bright and brilliant. Any man could see that—her scars were only visible on close inspection—and I just couldn’t comprehend how no one had snapped her up and laid claim on her.

I pushed away the thought that it could be me.

With a noisy exhale, I shoved my hand in the freezing mess of wet hair on my head and left it there. My fingertips curled against my scalp like I could pluck thoughts out of my brain and put them somewhere they couldn’t plague me. Like the way her breasts felt against my chest. The weight of her arms around my neck. The heat of her mouth and the sweet eagerness of her kiss.

I still felt that heat even now, after a full hour and a long, subzero shower.

Just like that, the chill in my bones was replaced with simmering warmth that pumped through my veins.

Goddamn, I was in so much trouble.

Just once.

I drew a heavy breath and let it out in a noisy huff. So I’d learn a lesson in willpower—it wouldn’t be the first time.

I frowned. Maybe it would be the first time. It wasn’t often that I didn’t go after exactly what—or whom—I wanted. But Val was different. I never wanted to hurt anyone, but with her, it was a directive I couldn’t ignore. I had to protect her. She was too innocent, too good not to.

She couldn’t possibly know what she was getting into with me. Not really.

But I did. And so the responsibility fell on me.

Just once.

And that would have to be enough.



Val

“Once is never going to be enough.”

Amelia’s face was stern. Well, stern for Amelia at least. Her face was pinched, her hands on her hips and her cheeks flushed in determination.

She looked about as menacing as a Precious Moments figurine—all she needed were some ill-fitting overalls and a cowlick to polish off the look.