Page 40 of Shot Taker

He doesn’t clean me up first. The fabric sticks to my skin like a filthy secret.

He pulls me close, pressing his lips against my forehead.

“Whoever he is, I’ll always look better on you than he does.”

11

CLAY

“You gotta have a signature move,” Miles insists to Rookie. “The last three winners have a move. They get you votes.”

Rookie does a crossover, then flips the ball behind his back and up for a dunk.

“The fuck was that?!” Coach demands.

“I need a signature move. For Rookie of the Year.”

“Signature move is gonna be my foot in your ass.” Coach lowers his voice, but we can still hear him, and Jay buries his laugh in a cough. “You want gold statues, kid? Contribute on a team, you get paid. Then you buy all the gold you want.”

Coach blows his whistle, and a different group takes the floor, Jayden bringing the ball up from half court.

I’m distracted, but sue me.

Rookie rubs a towel over his head and comes over to me. “I can’t do this. Whenever I try to do something big, I get slapped down.”

“You gotta serve your time when you get drafted.”

“You didn’t. You were shot out of a cannon with a grudge.”

I shake my head because he’s not wrong. “This sport is a long game. Be smart about it.”

“Like last night with Nova?” he asks, and my head snaps around. “I went looking for y’all and heard you.”

Hooking up in the back room of the bar wasn’t planned, but fuck did I need it.

Watching her flirt with Miles broke my control, especially when Brooke informed me that Nova’s “I’m over you” act was exactly that.

When I dragged her back to the storeroom, I wasn’t sure if I wanted to curse her or take her over my knee.

What I needed most was to taste her. To make her moan my name. To prove to myself I still could.

She wants me. That much is clear.

The way she came on my face, the sounds she made, the way she tasted—it’s all gonna live rent free in my head a long damn time.

Jerking off to her, with her, was the only way I could keep from bending her over and fucking her right there while she was still trembling.

It was the hottest experience of my life.

Kicker is, it’s not enough.

Not nearly.

We run the next sequence, and I’m a step behind to defend, so I have to catch up.

I take Rookie out of the air, and he lands hard on his back.

“Fuck,” he grunts from the ground.

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