Reese

 

After the game, Cam stormed off the court without speaking to anyone. It was so unlike him to let his emotions get to him like that. I mean, what the hell had happened out there? What had Trey been doing or saying that’d gotten Cam so heated?

I was in no hurry to get anywhere near that locker room. I hung back and waited for my dad’s very brief interview to wrap up. Not that he was in a better mood himself, but I’d seen worse from him.

“Tough loss, Coach,” I said, sidling up next to him as we walked down the tunnel.

Following ritual, he tugged at his tie and unbuttoned his top two shirt buttons. “It always is against that school.” He sighed. “I don’t know what happened with Donovan out there. In all the years I’ve coached him, I’ve never seen him react that way, even when he’s played against Warren in the past.”

“The NCU-BelV game is always intense like that,” I pointed out, hoping my explanation was the right one. “Emotions are high. I’m sure it was just the atmosphere getting to him.”

My dad didn’t sound convinced. “I don’t know. He and Warren have always had it out for each other, but I’ve never seen it get physical like that.”

Curiosity piqued, I asked, “Do you know what caused the whole rivalry between them?”

He shook his head. “All I’ve ever heard is that it was an old childhood thing that evolved as they grew up and started competing against each other. But I do know that Warren was doing a lot of trash talking tonight. I mentioned something to the refs about it, but I guess they never heard it. It’s pretty obvious to me, though, that Warren said something that pushed Donovan to the breaking point.”

Oh, shit. I was beginning to get a very bad feeling.

I recalled how furious—and guilty—Cam had looked before booking it to the locker room. “If it’s any consolation, I think he’s punishing himself over the loss far worse than you ever could.”

He ran his hand through his hair. “I know. He cares more about this team than anyone understands. That’s when it becomes hard being a coach. What do you say to a player who’s already torturing himself over his mistake? How do you affect him enough to make him listen?”

I wasn’t sure if the question was rhetorical or not, but I decided to answer it, anyway.

“You alleviate the punishment for him. It’ll do no good to remind him of how he screwed up, so you just move on. Focus on the future. The sooner they can all put this game behind them, the better.”

He looked at me with a sheepish grin. “You know, you’d make a hell of a coach one day, Reese.”

I laughed. “Are you kidding? Have you forgotten the temper I have on the court? My players would all hate me.”

He shared in my laughter. “Trust me, I haven’t forgotten your temper. I’ve never seen a face get so red in my life.”

“If only you had a mirror with you during your games,” I mused. “Where do you think I got it from?”

He chuckled again and veered off to the locker room as I kept walking down to the training room. I knew Gus was already in with the guys, taking care of some icing and wrapping, so I probably wouldn’t have much to do.

Cam sitting on the exam table when I opened the door, legs dangling in front of him, hands loosely intertwined between his legs. At my entrance, he slowly raised his head and pinned me with such a fierce expression my breath caught in my throat. I may not have known everything about him, but I’d become fluent in his body language.

He was in a rage.

Apprehension froze me in my tracks, but I didn’t want him to see how his behavior was unnerving me.

“What happened out there?” I asked. “What was punching Trey all about?”

His smirk was full of derision. “I didn’t punch Warren. If I’d actually punched him, he would have walked away with a broken jaw and not just a bloody nose.”

I crossed my arms over my chest, feeling very exposed under his piercing gaze. “That still doesn’t answer my question.”

“I’m not interested in talking right now.”

His eyes slid down my body, stopping on my chest and legs. I couldn’t put my finger on it, but there was something off about the way he was looking at me. It wasn’t with his usual teasing, yet lustful flirtation. It was…colder, somehow.

He crooked his finger at me. “Come here.”

Becoming less certain of his mood, I shook my head. His devilish grin was both pleased and taunting.

“Playing hard to get now, Reese? Okay. I like a good challenge.”

Before I could react, he lunged forward, lightning fast, and grabbed my wrist, yanking me into him. “Somehow I don’t think this will be much of a challenge at all,” he whispered.

My spine stiffening at that unflattering implication, I pushed against his chest. “What the hell is that supposed to mean?”

“Stop trying to resist me,” he commanded. “Aren’t we past that point? I know you want this. You know you want this.”

I did not like how he was acting. It was as if he were under a spell. Even when we were fighting he was never this removed from his real self.

“Cam, what’s going on—?”

He slammed his lips against mine.

I didn’t react at first, refusing to move my mouth under his. But then, dammit, his arms wrapped around my back, his hands demanding and powerful as they pulled me closer. And when they lifted to cup the back of my head, angling my face in an effort to control the kiss, I gave in. I was a sucker for those rough hands and against my better judgment, I sank into his body and allowed the warm sensations to wash over me.

He grunted some noise of approval in his throat at my surrender and deepened the kiss. It wasn’t long before desire took over and our hungry mouths moved against each other in desperate need. Losing all sense of time, space, and location, our hands grappled at each other’s clothes. His mouth clung to my neck as I roughly pulled his jersey over his head. In that moment I didn’t care who could suddenly walk in here and catch us. I just needed to feel his bare skin, getting as close to him as I possibly could.

With his upper body now naked, he stood up and spun us around, grabbing my hips and hauling me onto the table. Stepping between my spread legs, he gripped both of my thighs and wrapped them tightly around his waist. We were stealing all the oxygen in the room with our heavy panting and strangled moans. And when he reached underneath my sweater dress and ripped my tights from my body, I swear I almost came on the spot.

Instead of also tearing my underwear to shreds, he simply pushed the material aside and shoved two fingers through my slick folds, lodging them deep inside me.

“Oh, God.”

“I haven’t been able to stop thinking about this body,” he said against my throat. “Or this pussy. It’s so damn good with you.”

“More.”

To my utter horror, I said the word not once but twice, whimpering between pleas. And then I practically begged him to get me off. While I was at work. Classy.

“Please, Cam.”

He chuckled against my skin, trailing kisses along my collarbone as his fingers continued to thrust in and out. “See, I told you. You’re no good at playing hard to get.”

I was hardly listening as he pushed me up that slope, about to crest the peak. He could keep talking all he wanted as long as he didn’t stop moving his fingers. I was…almost…there…

“I guess you weren’t good at it with Warren, either, were you?”

It took about two seconds for those clipped words to register. Then my eyes sprang open and every molecule in my body froze. My orgasm now felt like a million miles away.

“What did you say?”

“You heard me,” he bit out. “You spread your legs for him once. Now, you’re so willing to do it for me. Are we that interchangeable, he and I? Or is hooking up with me somehow a revenge plot against him?”

I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. Part of my brain had shut down immediately when I heard those words. The other part was so enraged that I was seconds away from slapping him in the face. Instead, I used every bit of strength in my body to shove him away.

“Excuse me?” I spat. “Where the hell do you get off saying that to me?”

The ticking muscle in his jaw told me he was ready for a fight. “Tell me I’m wrong. Tell me that you weren’t all over Warren back then.”

“Whether I was or I wasn’t is none of your business! It doesn’t matter. That was before you and frankly, it has nothing to do with you.”

“The hell it doesn’t,” he hissed. “It does when he’s shoving that shit in my face during a fucking game.”

Ah-ha. So, Trey had said something to him about the two of us from a thousand years ago. Probably lies, no doubt. Couldn’t Cam see that he was just saying those things to provoke him? To needle him? Get inside his head so he couldn’t play at his usual level?

And obviously, it had worked.

“What exactly did he say to you?”

“He told me enough,” he growled. “Enough to know that you’re the type of girl who would go after a guy like him. Clearly not the type of girl I thought you were.”

His sneer had turned into one of disgust and that’s when I lost all patience. He was not going to look at me like that over one past mistake when he had dozens of women floating around in his wake of one-night stands.

“You’ve got some nerve to judge me,” I snapped. “You don’t get to bring up stuff from my past and try to make me feel guilty for it. I tried to explain the situation between me and Trey that day at the lake and you didn’t want to hear it. You have no right demanding answers from me now, just because you heard things you didn’t like hearing.”

He paced around the room, looking more agitated by the second. “I can’t even handle hearing you say his fucking name! Thinking about the two of you together like that makes me sick to my stomach.”

If I’d had anything in my hands right then I would have thrown it at his stupid head without hesitation. I was that mad.

“What do you want me to say?” I yelled. “That I was fifteen and a little drunk at a party that I shouldn’t have been at because I was rebelling over my parents’ divorce? Or that I had to use force just to get Trey off me when he started taking things too far?”

He stopped his pacing, his whole body locking up as if he’d suddenly become chilled to the bone. His widening eyes met mine, questions brewing in them. The cat’s out of the bag now. He was going to hear the truth whether he wanted to or not. The problem was that my emotions were going haywire and I couldn’t tell the story the way I wanted to.

“Yeah, I’m guessing he left out that part,” I said bitterly. “At first, I was into it. He knew I didn’t want to have sex, and he acted like he understood. But when he pushed me back on the bed, I knew he wasn’t listening. By the time he had my jeans over my hips, I was practically shouting for him to stop. He kept telling me, ‘I know you want this, Reese.’”

I let those words resonate for a second since they were very similar to what he’d said to me only moments ago. He seemed to get the message.

“It wasn’t until I kneed him in the balls that I was actually able to get him off of me. I ran away and hated him from that moment on. Though, that didn’t stop him from trying for a repeat all throughout high school. I was the one girl who had ever rejected him and he couldn’t stand it.”

He didn’t say a word. He just stood there watching me in shock. So, of course, I was humiliated when I felt wetness coat my cheeks. Dammit, I never cried in front of anyone, least of all guys. And I did not want him to know how badly he’d just hurt me. My heart was an impenetrable fortress. After years of learning many lessons, I’d always guarded myself against getting hurt.

I would not accept that he had somehow breeched the fortress walls.

I sniffed as I wrapped my arms around myself for protection. “I guess you two are interchangeable. You both do whatever you need to do to get whatever you want, even if it means hurting others. And if you don’t get it, you turn into complete assholes.”

His lips parted, but I ignored the remorse I saw there. All I wanted from him in that moment was his absence.

He sucked in a breath. “Reese, I’m—”

“Get out.”

More tears fell. I tried to be discreet about wiping them away, but he noticed. He acted as if the sight pained him, but again, I didn’t care. There was nothing he could have said that would have erased the pain he’d caused in a few brief minutes.

“Reese, please.”

“I. Said. Get. Out.”

Reluctantly, he slowly made his way toward the door. I followed closely behind and waited until he was across the threshold. He turned back as if he were going to say something, but I slammed the door in his face.

This time, I didn’t bother trying to wipe the tears away.