Page 89 of Dream Girl Drama

Was it her imagination or had he leaned closer? Was that his breath on her lips? “I’ve been thinking about it a lot longer than I’ve been talking about it.”

“Sig.”

“You brought it up.”

“Yes, I did. Sorry.”

Chest rumbling, he tore his gaze off her. “How is practice going?”

“Good,” Chloe said, feeling dazed from being blasted by so much intensity only to have it taken away... and struggling with the need to get it back. In an effort to distract herself, she looked down at her fingers, running the pad of her thumb across the blister that had formed yesterday on her middle finger. “I’m working as hard as I can. I’m grateful for the work, even if it’s grueling. The harder the better, actually. When I get into the zone...”

“You don’t have to think.”

“Yes.”

His throat worked. “I know, baby. I’m doing the same.”

Chloe dug her nails into her palms to prevent herself from crawling into his lap, clinging to him, absorbing his heat. “Have they offered you a contract yet?”

“I have a meeting with Reese tomorrow. Could be it.”

Her face lit up. “I hope so.”

“Yeah? I don’t feel a fucking thing anymore.”

Pulses started clamoring in her neck, wrists, and chest. “Sig.”

“I’m sorry,” he rasped, his knuckles turning white around the shower nozzle. “It’s painful to be this close to you.”

Chloe didn’t know what to say. What to do. On some level, she’d entertained the hope that they could stay friends. Authentic ones this time. But that obviously wouldn’t be the case. Because she couldn’t pretend, either, that she didn’t ache to be held by him, feel his hands skim her flesh, while his mouth fastened to her lips, her breasts. She’d have to completely let him go, wouldn’t she? They’d never had a chance to be anything but...

Apart.

“I’ll go see if I can find you a big T-shirt to wear,” she said, standing on legs made of gelatin. Trying and failing to ignore the way his eyes ran their full length, darkened when they reached the juncture of her thighs, his jaw popping. “Yours is covered in mud.”

“It’s okay.”

“No, I’ll find something,” she breathed, nearly tripping over the threshold saddle to escape the tension in the bathroom. Her options were to get away from it or run headfirst into it. Once inside her bedroom, she stripped off her sweatshirt, which was streaked in brown and probably needed delousing, hurriedly searching through her drawers to locate a shirt for herself, as wellas Sig. Her heartbeat was booming in her ears, hands clumsy. Of course, they were. She was separated by a wall from the man who ruled her senses.

The riot taking place throughout Chloe’s body and the concerted effort she put toward ignoring it were a distraction. And probably why she only realized absently the water had been turned off in the bathroom. But when the hair raised on her arms and the back of her neck, she knew he was there. Standing in the doorway of her bedroom with his shoulder propped against the jamb, hunger running rampant across his features.

“Sorry, still trying to find you a shirt.”

“It’s probably a good idea if you find one for yourself first.”

Heat clawed at her skin. “Okay. I just...” All the shirts looked the same. Nothing made sense. She couldn’t recall what a single one of them looked like or ever having seen them in her life. There was nothing but the magnetism and frustration radiating from the man in her doorway. “Um. Hold on.”

Sig pushed off the door and went to pace the hallway, arms crossed. And she hated herself for being swamped in disappointment by that. By the fact that he didn’t charge into the bedroom, swipe her off the floor, and throw her down on the bed. Take her like an animal. Her body craved that rough treatment. Craved release. For both of them. God, she wanted his almost as much as she needed her own.

Finally, she found a black tank top for herself, pulling it on over her head.

Down toward the bottom of the folded stack was a Bearcats shirt she’d bought at the first game she attended. Before she’d ordered her custom pink jersey. The only size they’d had left in her favorite design was a men’s XXL, so she’d resolved to sleep in it.

“Here,” she murmured, holding out the shirt to him on her journey into the dark hallway. Yes, dark. The overcast day lentlittle light to the apartment and they hadn’t bothered turning on any lights, apart from the one in the bathroom.

There was more than enough light, however, to see every muscle of Sig’s body flex, ripple, and snap when he stripped off his ruined shirt and dropped it on the ground, his heavy-lidded eyes fastened on her. When he looked ready to spring for her, he merely held out his hand for the shirt.

She handed it over, shivering when their fingers brushed.

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