Page 112 of False Start

“You aren’t. I am.”

I freed my ponytail as he got the shower going. He waited for the water to steam and added cold, having me check to make sure it wasn’t too hot.

Surprisingly, I slid my tank over my busted stump and worked it over my head, all on my own. But there was no way I’d be able to get the sports bra off. Not for lack of trying. Because I was totally bringing sexy back with the yank and tug until I had one boob out and the band twisted up my back like some backwoods, homemade bondage nightmare.

Kneeling down on one knee, he slid my shorts and underwear off in one swift glide, waiting for me to step out of them before tossing them in the hamper.

Did I mention I was still one tit out here?

Not that he noticed, because he’d taken keen interest in my hip all of a sudden, the look on his face making my mouth go dry.

He ran his fingers over the yellowing bruise from the last bout of the season.

The first time we saw one another.

“It never bothered me before,” he said quietly.

“What?” I asked, sliding my fingers into his thick, dark hair.

Maybe this was why we waited for so long to get to this point. Why we skirted the attraction. Once we got here, it all came so naturally to us. The closeness and intimacy.

Two broken halves of an imperfect whole.

“The bruises. I know you’ve got to be covered with them. It’s never bothered me before. My own players, I didn’t want to hear about it. Didn’t care. But seeing them on you…it’s different.”

He said so little yet revealed everything with his admission and I wondered if maybe, just maybe he’d come around to the idea that he could stay.

He could have his family.

He could have me.

Pressing a firm kiss against my skin, he pushed onto his feet, hooked his fingertips under my bra and took it with him, careful of my hand along the way.

Heart racing, the ground turned to quicksand underneath me and I reached for something, anything to get me on solid footing again.

Because I’d completely fallen for him. Not a single piece left of me to lose, I was silently giving him everything I had, even knowing the odds were stacked against us.

I needed funny.

Or I’d cry.

Shit.

“The first time you’re seeing me naked is to groom me. I don’t know how to feel about that.” Oooh, yes. That was good. Totally believable that I hadn’t just realized how utterly fucked I was—or would be when he left.

He didn’t look down. He could have. Most guys would, but he kept his eyes on mine before dropping a kiss on my lips. Curling both hands around the hem of his shirt, he tugged it over his head. “I have a solution for that.”

Him naked. Another nail in my coffin.

One brief moment became my undoing—the one where he still held his arms over his head, the black cotton having yet to drag over his face—where his muscles flexed, his abs stretching and contracting with his movements. The skin over his ribs shifting. Hard ridges and lickable valleys with a dusting of hair spread across his chest to funnel down his sternum, stomach, before finally disappearing behind the waistband of his shorts.

No ink.

Just pure, healthy, athletic man.

Watching him undress should come with a surgeon general warning.

The shorts dropped next and I’m pretty sure I swallowed my tongue at the sight of him, heavy and hard.

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