Page 80 of Fair Catch
He offered a slight grin. “It was seventy-two here last week.”
“Ugh, why couldn’t we be here then?” I shook my head, biting off a chunk of pizza that left cheese hanging out of my mouth. I laughed at myself, which made Zeke’s eyebrow inch higher as I slurped that string of cheese up and ate it with a smile.
A smile that he couldn’t match.
Frowning, I took a sip of my water before I nodded toward his untouched slice. “You okay? You haven’t eaten and I know you’ve got to be starving after that game.”
He swallowed, his brows folding in.
“Zeke?”
With his jaw tight, he sat up, carefully setting his plate on the bedside table before grabbing mine and doing the same. The box between us was shut and plopped on the floor next.
“What’s wr—”
I didn’t get the question out before Zeke’s mouth was on mine, his arms pulling me into the sheets, into him, a heavy, trembling sigh leaving him as we melted together. He was almost… shaking as his fingers tangled in my hair, as one of his legs slid between mine and he tightened his grip like he couldn’t get close enough.
Everything about that kiss was new… different. I couldn’t name it, couldn’t put my finger on exactly what it was, but I knew one thing for sure.
He needed me.
Whatever was going on, whatever was plaguing him, he asked me with that kiss to burden it with him.
So I answered with a longing kiss of my own, pulling Zeke on top of me and opening my thighs for him to rest between them.
I met every desperate kiss he gave me with one of my own, and we became a frenzy of hands and mouths and wanting breaths until I yanked at his t-shirt, needing to feel him against me, to be skin to skin. He balanced on his hands long enough to help me pull it off him, but then he hovered over me on his elbows, his breaths heavy and baited as his eyes searched mine.
There was so much pain in those eyes, so much worry etched in the brows above them. He traced every line of my face like it might be the last time he had the chance to, his fingertips playing idly in my hair splayed out on the pillows.
“What is it?” I dared, reaching up to smooth my thumb over the line between his brows.
Zeke inhaled at the touch, his eyes shutting before he angled his head to catch my palm with a kiss. When his eyes found mine again, I saw the fear intensify, his nose flaring before he finally spoke.
“I want more.”
My heart stuttered in my chest before coming to a complete halt, though I somehow still heard it beating loud and foreign in my ears.
“I don’t want casual,” he continued. “I don’t want to pretend that I’m not yours in every way there is to belong to someone, that I don’t yearn for you to be mine in the same way. I don’t want to hide. I don’t want to keep having my heart fucking demolished at the thought of this all ending at any minute.”
He swallowed, shaking his head before he dropped his forehead to mine, his breath warm and minty where it met my senses.
“I want more, Riley. And I understand if you can’t give it to me, but I can’t…” He stopped, licking his lips with another shot of pain rolling through him, his brow furrowing against mine. “I can’t stay in this in-between anymore. So if you don’t feel the same, I understand. I can…” He swallowed again. “I can walk away now if that’s what you need. But if you want me, too… if even a small part of you feels like—”
“I do.”
The words were a breath, a longing, heartbreaking sigh that made Zeke lift his head so he could look me in the eyes. “You… do?”
I pulled my bottom lip between my teeth, eyes glossing as I nodded and pulled him back down into me. And I knew there were a thousand things that needed to be figured out — the team, our coaches, Gavin — but all of it could wait.
Right now, Zeke wanted me, and I wanted him, and I didn’t want to think about anything that might stand in the way of us having each other simply for those two facts alone.
My hands weaved into his hair, and I pushed up to press my mouth to his, to eagerly swallow the relieved sigh that came with that kiss. His entire body relaxed, but it still trembled in my grasp as he rolled his hips against my core, as I wrapped my ankles around the back of him and tugged him closer.
It was a ballet now, a moving work of art how we kissed and touched each other between shedding our clothes, never parting for more than the time it took to strip my shirt overhead or kick his sweatpants down to the floor. Piece by piece, we layered our laundry on the floor or the bed until we were skin to skin, chest to chest, the hard length of him pressing between my legs.
