Page 101 of Candygrams

She nods and offers him a small smile. “Rip has excellent timing.”

I try my hardest not to puff out my chest and preen like a fucking peacock but I can tell by Coach’s face I fail. Damn right, I have excellent timing.

“Did you hit him?”

“No! I was a little too busy helping my girl. But, uh, I did threaten to beat the shit out of him.”

“Well, remember, don’t get caught. And take some of the boys with you. Just for help and alibis and stuff.” Coach sets his bowl in the sink after rinsing it out. “Oh, and there is a morality clause in your contract, even if it’s a loose one.”

“I remember signing it, Coach. But I also remember there being nothing in there saying I couldn’t date or marry either.”

Tandy gasps beside me.

It’s time we do some of that talking we should have been doing days ago. “If you’ll excuse me, Coach, I have some apologizing to do.”

“And that’s my cue to go. See you two soon, I’m sure.”

Once we walk Coach to the door and I flip the lock into place and set the alarm, I can finally breathe again. I have Tandy and she’s not going anywhere until we both admit what we feel to one another and agree that she’s mine. And I’m hers!

Chapter Twenty-Two

Tandy

I feel the echo of the closing door in my bones. It’s how I imagine an empty museum or library sounds when no one is in it with you. Yeah, it’s silent but that silence echoes throughout. And the look on Rip’s face has me wondering if I might be on the wrong side of the door.

But I’m not running anymore. This time, I’m asking all the questions and finding all the answers. This time, I’m staying until he tells me to leave.

“Come on, baby. Let’s…”

“We should stay down here and talk.”

“We should.” I give him a little tilt of my lips. We agree on something. Finally. Then arms wrap around me and lift me from the ground. “But you and me, we have never done what we should do, baby. You know that.”

He takes every step as he brings me back to his room, where all of this started this morning, not in any rush now. Memories of him making me cum, petting me, and coaxing it out of me until I screamed out his name. Even the thought has my cheeks burning with embarrassment.

“I thought we were going to make new rules and actually keep those.”

“Oh, we are. One of them is how we end fights and resolve conflict.”

“ ’Resolve conflict’ ?”

“Coach is doing this whole thing with channeling our anger so we can use it more productively on the field by resolving shit off the field. I think we should use it here, for this.”

He drops me to the bed and before I can even move, he is already over me. I try to use his own words to focus back in on what we need to do to fix us. “So, how do you think we should resolve this.”

“I think we should both get naked and show each other how much we need each other.”

My eyes narrow. “What happens if…I’m not ready for that?”

“Then we wait on the whole naked thing and spend the entire afternoon kissing.”

His head bows and he starts kissing down my neck and across my shoulder as he pulls my sweater over so he can reach more skin.

“You’re going to rip my clothes off me.”

“Mm, probably right. You should take it off before I ruin it.”

His hands burrow up under the edge of my tank under my sweater to run his hands up my bare skin. He brushes the tips of his fingers against the swell of my bare breasts. My breath halts for a second before coming quicker and in little pants. “Rip, we should…”

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