Page 53 of Unsteady

There is a video out there of the game and the injury. I tried to watch it once, but got sick instead and didn’t make it past the first intermission. I couldn’t remember when it happened, the constant anticipation made me so nauseous, I gave up.

I wonder if Sadie’s seen it, but I’m too afraid to ask her. One Google search is all it would take.

Shaking my head, I step into the steamy warm shower, letting the hot water roll over my tightly coiled muscles, dipping my head under the spray and pushing my hair all off my forehead.

The change of temperature makes me dizzy for a moment, and I try to ground myself, placing both hands against the still-cold tile wall.

Sadie.

Sadie with freckles over bare shoulders with her messy waves, bare faced and looking up at me with her gray cat-like eyes.

It settles me immediately, just the thought of her, the image burned into my mind of her hovering me in the locker room, like a queen atop a throne. Does she know I’d kneel for her forever if it meant she’d look at me like that?

My cock hangs heavy between my thighs, pulsing as my thoughts take me past every moment I’ve touched her soft, supple skin. She’s burned into my every thought, like some sweet scent that brings back everygoodmemory I’ve locked away.

I picture her here, in my shower beneath the hot spray, because I want her in my space. To feel like she’s wholly mine even for a minute. She’s so fucking small, but larger than life to me.

“Rhys,” she breathes.

In my head, I press her against the tile and drop to my knees, picturing her above me as my hand glides up and down my shaft, slow. Steady.

With her, it’ll never be slow and steady.

No. I imagine her bucking wildly as I fight to hold her still, until I sling her legs over my shoulders. Her skin probably feels like silk here, too, even with the hard muscle beneath.

God, I know she tastes good, and just the thought of it has me gripping harder, faster. I imagine her climbing with me, her sighs and moans growing louder until the entire house can hear that she’s mine. ThatImake her feel like this, like a fucking man pleasing his woman until she can’t help but scream.

I chase the high with the Sadie in my head, just wanting to feel the euphoria that IknowI can make her feel. I’m desperate to please and worship her like this, but to control it—to have the wildcat figure skater atmymercy for once.

Her gray taunting eyes forever locked onto mine as I close my eyes and my legs shutter under the effect of the fantasy of her. I brace a hand on the tile, my head fuzzy but no pain.

In my head, she says my name again, that same light whispered moan and it sends me soaring over the edge as I come with her name etching out of my lips like a desperate plea.

My forehead presses into the tile as I nearly collapse under the relief.Fucking hell.

Maybe I should feel ashamed for thinking of her like that, but it’s hard not to when she’s everything good. For the first time since March, I feel… alive. Which is somehow more dangerous, because now, I don’t think Icanlet her go.

I want to cling to her, to prove that whatever is left of me is worth something.

I send one more text to her before plugging my phone into the charger.

RHYS

You look beautiful.

SIXTEEN

SADIE

My skate slides again, not catching the edge in the slightest, and I tumble onto my back and across the ice.

I close my eyes and it’s there again.

A flash of a dimple, eyes like chocolate, massive hands gripping my waist so hard I swear I can feel it even now. Rhys, using my body, tossing me around like I’m light as air, his voice a smooth tease in my ear. Calling me his “new favorite distraction” before he flips me over and takes me again from behind.

The same fucking fantasy that’s been haunting me for days.

The same fantasy I regrettably indulged in last night, alone in my bed, fingers fast between my thighs.

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