A Whole New Crowd(81)

“Taryn,” she started.
“No.” I moved further away from her. “You’re one of the worst kinds of people. You’re the kind that sees something horrible has happened and you sweep it under the rug. You want it to go away so your life isn’t interrupted.”
Tears were rolling down her face, but it was like she didn’t feel them. She stared back at me. Her eyes were unblinking. There was a glazed look in them.
“Look at me. I’m the one who survived not having a family and I’m schooling you how to fix yours.” I snorted, feeling an empty void open in me again. “I can’t undo how I feel about Mandy and Austin. I already love them, but I’m thankful now that no relationship was built between you and me, or Kevin and me. So thank you for being shitty adoptive parents. You did me a favor.”
I sat in my car after that and waited. Shelly stood there, pale as a zombie, for a few more minutes before her phone rang. As she answered it, I heard her words muffled through the window, “I’m coming, honey. No…” Then she turned and went to her own vehicle.
I sat there, even after she drove off. I couldn’t bring myself to leave.
*

I hit the punching bag. They lied to me. It barely moved so I hit it again. They didn’t care that they lied. I gritted my teeth. My fist tightened and I rolled my shoulder back, lifted my wrist again, and bent forward into the stance. One foot was in front, the other behind, and I was on my toes. I was ready to switch them, jab back and forth, and bounce back as the bag should’ve been swinging to me.
Nothing.
With a deep growl, I hit it as hard as I could. It moved an inch.
“You’re using your arm.”
“Duh.” I didn’t look as Tray came into the room. He left the lights off, so the only light on was the small lamp positioned over the punching bag. Sweat rolled down my back and I’d lost my shirt long ago. Standing in my black sports bra and a pair of boy shorts, I felt fine. I was heated, but not overheated with the air conditioner in the room.
He circled around me. I glanced down, saw he had kicked his shoes off as well. After another moment of studying me, he took his shirt off too. He tossed it to the corner, then tilted his head to the side, and his hazel eyes narrowed at me. A slight smirk lifted the corners of his lips. As he stood there, his muscles clenched. His chest lifted and he breathed in, his stomach muscles clenched in and then out. There was hardly an ounce of fat on him.
We’d been sharing a bed for two months now, but as I drank him in, it was as if I was seeing him for the first time. Hunger and lust slammed into me. My mouth opened and I swallowed.
His smirk widened and he gestured to my arm. “Use your shoulder. Hit with your body, not your arm. Your strength comes from your core. The hand is the weapon.”
“I want to bone you right now.” I frowned.
“You’re working out. Your adrenalin is pumping.” His hand gestured from his chest to his stomach. “I can’t blame you. I’m a prime specimen.”
I snorted. “You don’t need to work on that confidence. Your arrogance just sucked all the oxygen out of the room to inflate your ego.”
He laughed, but switched his body and punched the bag. It swung away and his hand lifted. It caught it as it swung back. “The shoulder. I leaned back and threw my body forward. You don’t have to be obvious about it. Twist your body. Let your feet help guide you.” He stopped and paused for a moment. “We’ve been sparring for the last month and a half. You know this.”
A single droplet of sweat rolled down the side of his face. It moved to his chin, settled on the cleft of his chin before it fell to his chest. I watched as it went all the way to his chest, making a smooth trail in its wake, all the way down, over his abdominals until it hit the waistband of his shorts. A heat that had been in me since I started, the fury from Shelly and Kevin, had been boiling, but now the flame lit up as if gasoline had been poured on it. I was burning up from the inside out and the need to take Tray and shove him against the wall was climbing. I wanted to push him to his knees, shove his pants down, and position myself over him. I could imagine the feel of him inside me, and my legs clenched. The ache was throbbing.
I started for him, wanting to feel him going in and out of me.
Tray’s smirk turned cautious, but he didn’t move. I stopped an inch from him. I could feel his body heat and moved my head to the side. I wasn’t trying to be seductive. I was trying to hold myself back. As his eyes held my mine, he saw what I wanted. His responded and darkened in lust, but he didn’t move. I wanted him to touch me. I wanted to feel the graze of his hand up my arm, over my shoulder. He would circle my throat, cup the back of my neck, and pull me the last inch to him. I would feel all of him against me. All his strength and power. I craved it.