Page 31 of Dirty As Puck
I look down at her lips, wondering if she’s forgotten why she’s here with me.
Instead of responding, I kiss her. Hard, desperate, with weeks of frustration and denied attraction pouring out in the slide of lips and tongue. Rochelle goes rigid for half a second, then melts into me like she’s been waiting for this as much as I have.
Her hands fist in my shirt, pulling me closer, and I back her against her car, pressing my body against hers. She makes a sound that goes straight through me, and when I deepen the kiss, she meets me stroke for stroke.
Fuck. Finally.
My hands tangle in her hair, tilting her head so I can taste more of her, and she responds by pulling me even closer, like she can’tget enough. This is what I’ve been thinking about for weeks––how she feels against me, how she tastes, the soft sounds she makes when I’m touching her.
I break the kiss to trail my mouth along her jaw, and she gasps my name. The sound makes me harder than I’ve been in weeks, and when my lips find a sensitive spot, she arches against me.
“Kai,” she breathes, and hearing my name in her voice like that makes me lose whatever control I had left.
My hands slide down to her waist, then lower, and she presses into my touch like she’s starving for it. When I suck gently at her pulse point, she makes a sound that’s part moan, part whimper, and her nails dig into my shoulders.
She’s going to kill me.
Her hands slide under my shirt, fingers exploring the muscles of my chest and abs, and everywhere she touches feels like fire. When she traces the line of muscle just above my belt, I bite down gently on her neck, and she gasps.
When Rochelle’s hands slide lower, when she looks up at me with heat in her green eyes and her lips swollen from kissing, rational thought becomes impossible.
I capture her mouth again, kissing her with weeks of pent-up want, and she responds like she’s just as desperate. My hands find the hem of her blouse, slide underneath to touch warm skin, and she shivers against me.
She’s perfect. She feels perfect.
But the rational part of my brain that’s kept me alive this long chooses that moment to reassert itself.
Stop this. Now.
I pull back abruptly, breathing hard, and Rochelle stares up at me with her hair messed from my hands and her lips swollen from kissing.
“This is…” I say, stepping back, catching my breath. “You’re going to ruin me.”
She blinks, trying to focus, and I can see her trying to process what just happened. Her clothes are wrinkled, her professional composure is completely shattered, and she looks like a woman who was thirty seconds away from being debauched against a car.
And oh, I’d have had her thoroughly debauched.
“Maybe I want to be ruined first,” she says, and her voice is rough with want.
The admission nearly breaks my resolve completely, but I force myself to take another step back.
“This can’t happen again.”
“Why not?”
“Because I can’t hate you and want you at the same time. It’s better that I just hate you.”
I walk away before I can change my mind, leaving Rochelle looking like she wants to either follow me or scream in frustration.
Well, welcome to the club, Rochelle.
9
I slide into the driver’s seat of my beat-up Honda Civic, the worn leather creaking beneath me as I toss my bag onto the passenger seat. Seattle traffic hums through the windshield like a low, insistent heartbeat.
My fingers drum the steering wheel, restless, impatient. I can’t stop thinking about what I uncovered yesterday. Kai Morrison’s past doesn’t add up. Not the story the tabloids have been running. Not the narrative Marcus wants me to put out.
I pull onto the highway, letting the drizzle streak at my glass as I replay every interview, and every subtle reaction from players and staff. Coach Williams’s words keep looping in my head. “Morrison earned every opportunity he got. He’s deserving…a good heart…” And yet, it feels like reporters keep painting him as an entitled, hot-headed athlete. I know for certain that it’s deliberate. Someone is twisting the story, controlling the narrative. But who?
