The Locker Room(88)

“And yet, you still broke us up.”

“I protected you.” I push my hand against his chest, moving forward into his space. “I protected you from my weak heart. Do you really think I wanted to break up with you? I fucking loved you, Knox. You were the man who pieced me back together and showed me my worth.”

His eyes narrow, his chest heaves, and his hands pulse in and out at his sides, anger rolling off him in waves.

“I thought we weren’t allowed to say those words in anger,” he says, his jaw so tight his mouth barely moves when he talks. “We’ve never said them to each other and you choose now to say them, eight years later, when it doesn’t matter?”

“If it doesn’t matter, then why do you care? If none of this matters to you, why are you in here? Are you just trying to hurt me? Because if you are, job well done.”

“I’m hurting you?” He points to his chest. “Do you realize what I had to do to try to get over you? I almost lost my starting position. Coach often threatened to bench me because I couldn’t get my head out of my ass. My entire first year in the minors consisted of me struggling mentally, because I was hung up on you. You think you helped me? That you protected me? No, you took away the one thing that kept me sane. And I’m still damaged from it. I still think about you and dream about you.” He takes a step forward, closing the space between us, the air around us shrinking. “I still wonder about what it would be like to have your lips all over my body, to eat your pussy until you scream, to be buried so deep inside you I’d never want to leave.”

Hands shaking, I keep them firmly linked together, the temptation to reach for him too strong.

“But you don’t have those same feelings, the same thoughts, do you, Em? Because this relationship we had, I was always all in when you had one foot out.”

I grind my teeth together. “Stop insulting me.” I push my fingers against his chest. “Stop treating my feelings as meaningless.” I poke him again, but this time he clamps his hand over my fingers, sending a bolt of lust straight up my arm as he drags me closer to him. “Stop—” I suck in a deep breath when his other hand wraps around my waist.

“Stop what? Pushing you to admit the truth, that breaking up with me was the worst decision of your life?”

Because he stands at least a foot taller than I am, I glance up into his smoldering eyes as they search mine. The usual light pools of blue I memorized in my head are a dark, stormier color, casting a sense of warning over me. His face is sharper, his grip stronger, his voice deeper as he demands answers from me.

“Just admit it, Em.”

“Why? So you can tell yourself you were right?”

“Yes.”

“No,” I say while pushing him away, but he snags my wrist and spins me around so I’m pressed against the wall of the tiny office. His hand presses into my hips as his gaze roams my body, the heat between us crackling like fire embers, ready to ignite into something bigger.

“If you won’t admit to it, then tell me this . . . do you still have feelings for me?”

He moves his head closer, stilling the air around us as his heavenly scent spins and twists my stomach into knots. After eight years of barely any contact, of trying to avoid seeing this man, it’s as if his presence has unlocked a flood of emotions, and I’m slowly drowning in them, one breath at a time.

His question hangs between us as I try to comprehend what to say. Do I still have feelings for him? The truth is, I never lost them. Always in the back of my mind, in the back of my heart, I carried a gauntlet of feelings for this man. And no matter who I dated or how hard I tried to forget, he was always a part of my life, a piece of who I am.

“If I did . . . what would you do? Laugh in my face, tell me I told you so, and storm out of this room?”

If I didn’t think his eyes could narrow more, I was wrong.

“If you really think this is a trap to prove you wrong, you’re widely off base.” His grip tightens. “This isn’t a trap. This is a test.”

“A test?” I ask as his hips press against mine. I suck in a sharp breath as my body instantly melts into his, my wobbly legs barely holding me up. “What kind of test?”

His hands move up my arms, over my shoulders, to my neck where his calloused and rough fingers grip my jaw. Eyes intent on mine, electricity bouncing between us. The old flame that burned bright in college reigniting.

“This kind of test,” he says right before angling my mouth up and pressing his lips against mine. It’s a soft peck at first, as if he’s making sure I’m not about to run, but when I hold still, he deepens the kiss and the hold he has on me.

Soft, yet different, with a sense of desperation I’ve never felt from him before, his lips carefully move across mine before his tongue parts my lips and dives forward. My hands slink around his neck. My body presses into his. Flashbacks of our time together hit me square in the chest.

When I first truly met him on the quad. That smile when he peeled the map off his face.

That first kiss, in the dining hall when everyone around us faded away.

The night he held me when I had a migraine.

The parties.

The joking.

The lust-filled glances.

It’s like a memory reel on fast forward, spinning through my mind as I sink into the most delicious pair of lips I’ve ever tasted.