Page 69 of Just One Season
No one is watching. There’s no purpose to us touching right now. To whatever is about to happen. It’s pure want.
Kellen’s got tiny lines branching out from the corners of his eyes. Thick eyelashes. Those dark blue irises. The shadow of facial hair along his jaw. His lips. His mouth.
I don’t think any more, I just do it.
I go up on my tippy-toes and tug down on his tie, gently bringing him toward me.
I kiss him.
He’s expecting it, and I suspect that if I hadn’t done it, he would have.
The kiss is soft and sweet, our mouths coming together gently, lips closed. I savor the touch. The burning feeling it ignites inside me.
I want Kellen.
We lean back for a beat and lock eyes, but I need much more than what I just got. I need more than I got at the coffee shop a few weeks ago. This time, we come together more intensely, and I release the tie and slide my wrists out of his palms, moving my hands up and around his neck, pushing my fingers into the hair at the base of his neck. His hands drop and tiptoe around my waist, not pushing or pulling or grabbing. His mouth opens, his tongue swiping carefully between my lips. There’s a pulsing in my body. An ache deep inside.
I think I’ve been pushing the feeling away since I arrived. I’d admitted to myself he was hot and nice, but I truly didn’t think hewas interested in me in a way other than as his fake girlfriend. I’m just Atticus’s older sister. The PR person at work. But as I move my hips forward to meet his, and he breathes in sharply through his nose, I know he wants me back.
We kiss and it’s sweet and slow and hot. I could do this all day. His hands drift down but stop abruptly before they go below the curve of my waist.
His hands stopping is like pressing the pause button, and facts flash through my mind. The conference room door is unlocked. The lights on the ceiling are too bright. Kellen’s a hockey player. I’m working for the team. My little brother is his teammate. The Winchester FC job. My painful breakup with Ron.
How nothing I do is good enough.
How I have to get out of this place, this country, as far from my old life as possible.
I pull back, and in the split second before his eyes fly open, I see him. Cheeks flushed. Hair mussed. Swollen lips. Kellen in the raw.
He blinks and the rawness fades.
“Sorry. I got carried away.” Kellen steps back. I ignore his apology.
“Let me reschedule the shoot. Cell phone pictures are probably not going to be good enough.” I take a step back as well.
The spot between his eyes furrows and a flash of something—maybe hurt—crosses his face.
“Right. Okay.”
What would happen if I told him I liked him? And not just as a fake boyfriend? That everything feels right when he touches me?
But I know he’s not interested, even if his body is. He’s had trust issues with women—and everyone—in his past, and he doesn’t want a relationship. He wants to be a good dad. Keep his spot on the team. Stay in Fort Collins with his family. He’s so cautious about who he lets in.
Me liking him would change nothing and only complicate his life.
Idon’t want a relationship either.
“Let me know when it is.” He picks up the rest of his things from the table and heads to the conference room door, pulling it open. “Thanks, Lucy.”
“For what?” I ask, but he’s already gone.
Hasn’t he already let me in?
CHAPTER 20
The Right Jersey
KELLEN
