Hook Shot (Hoops #3)(11)

“Tell me what I did,” he says, his voice and frown softening. “I know it was good for you, too, so why—”

“Chase, I just want something else right now.”

“Someone else?”

“If I did want someone else, that’d be my damn business, but I just want myself. I got shit to figure out. Me shit. Nothing to do with anybody else, and I don’t need attachments, even casual ones, complicating things.”

“Casual? Lo, we weren’t casual.”

“Yes, the hell we were, Chase. You could have fucked all of SoHo twice and started on Hell’s Kitchen—I wouldn’t have cared. We weren’t even casual. We were convenient. I wanted some dick. You wanted some pussy. I was willing and you got lucky, but luck’s run out.”

“And now I’m no longer convenient?”

I sigh, no patience for some needy boy sniffing in my pants tonight. “Don’t act like you haven’t had this conversation a hundred times with girls.”

“Yeah, but this is different.”

“Awwww, is rejection new for you and your dick?” I make a fake sad face. “I feel so bad for the two of you.”

“Is this temporary?” he asks.

Is it?

I have no idea. Chase was the domino that dropped and started this boycott . . . pun intended. That sense of emptiness and dissatisfaction, the ache for something more had been nagging whenever I had sex for a while, but that last time with Chase, fear crept in. He’d held my wrists together over my head, and something changed.

Snapped.

Broke.

He’d held me that way before. Other guys had, too, and it never bothered me. It actually turned me on, but that time was different. I forced myself not to struggle and claw for Chase to let me go. Rationally, I knew he wouldn’t hurt me, but the panic wouldn’t listen. When we were done, none the wiser, he lit his usual post-coital joint, but I ran into the bathroom and collapsed on his shower floor, sobbing uncontrollably.

I can’t do that again.

“I don’t know how long it will take me to sort this stuff in my head,” I finally answer Chase, forcing myself out of the troubling memories.

“Like . . . mental stuff?” he asks, his glance wary, like I may be hiding a butcher knife in my sundress.

“Wow, you make me want to pour my heart out,” I say, sarcasm dripping along with my hands. “I need that towel.”

He steps aside and watches while I dry the last of the water from my hands. Before he can continue the inquisition, I jerk open the door, only to stop short. Kenan leans against the wall in the small passageway, muscle-corded arms folded over that powerful chest. His long legs are crossed at the ankles.

It’s a big ship, and I’ve been able to avoid him for the most part tonight. He poses a threat, and doesn’t even know it. It’s like he’s walking around with a bomb strapped to his chest, completely oblivious that someone’s out there with a thumb hovering over the trigger. A six foot-seven-inch bomb of lean, explosive danger.

There’s something regal about his bearing that goes beyond height. Beyond the thick, slashing brows, mahogany skin and high-sculpted cheekbones. The strong chin, and the extravagance of lips so full in a face so lean and spare. It’s inside of him. An assurance. Confidence. Esteem. I felt the force of it each time we met, and I ignored it. I had to. His posture is indolent, but his eyes—dark, intelligent, alert—fix on Chase over my shoulder.

“Everything okay?” he asks, his voice a warning rumble.

I don’t know what he heard or how long he’s been here, but I do believe if I say no, he will knock Chase into next week. And as much as I kinda think Chase deserves it, we can’t have that.

“We’re cool,” I answer, glancing over my shoulder at my once-upon-a-fuck buddy. “Right, Chase?”

“Uh, yeah.” Chase’s pupils flare and he shifts like he’s grappling with his fight-or-flight instinct. With a man as big as Kenan, fighting really isn’t a smart move, so I’m guessing Chase is all flight right now. “We’re cool.”

He pushes past me quickly and heads back to the party without another word.

“You sure you’re okay?” Kenan asks, a frown puckering over probing eyes.

“Positive. Chase and I have an understanding.”

“You’re dating him?” he asks, his tone neutral, but not fooling me. He cares what I say next. I’ve never experienced such instant chemistry as I did with Kenan, but as vulnerable, as empty as I’ve been feeling lately, maybe as I’ve been feeling for a while, he’s not what I need. I need simple. Easy. And this man is neither of those things.

“We were never dating.”

“Oh, I thought—”

“We were fucking,” I correct. “But not anymore.”

A muscle ticks along the chiseled line of his jaw. “I see.”

He pushes off the wall, stepping closer. Everything in me wants to shrink back. Not because I fear him, but because I fear myself, my response to this man.

I stand my ground, enduring the intoxicating scent of him and the wash of warmth when he’s so close his massive body eclipses the world past his shoulders.

“So does that mean the way is clear if someone else wanted to take you out?” he asks, his voice a strong, gentle hand stroking my skin.