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He nips and bites at me with his teeth, and then he’s pushing his tongue into my mouth, advancing and retreating in a headypush and pull that heightens the buzz travelling through me—an electrical current connecting from where his lips claim mine to where an intoxicating heat is gathering low in my stomach and dipping into my core.
I bury my hands in his sides, grasping his black sweatshirt, squeezing it tightly in my fists. I drag him closer. Kiss him deeper. Desperate to take every inch over the line he’s giving me.
His gravel-filled groan slips over my tongue, and I moan into his mouth, the desperate sound drowned out by another one of his, and I—
Addy barrels through the back door and into the alley with a loud shout of my name, shattering the moment into broken pieces that land at my feet. My sanity crashes back through the fog along with it. I take a stumbling step backward, adding at least a foot of space between Jude and me, but my breaths are short, and my lips feel bruised, and my movements are too quick, and it doesn’t go unnoticed.
Addy smiles, a knowing gleam of delight glittering in her gaze. It draws a direct line between Jude and me as it flits back and forth.
Maybe it’s all the alcohol she’s consumed,I lie to myself anyway. Maybe she doesn’t notice the heavy rise and fall of my chest or the way my lips feel swollen and utterly consumed. Her voicedidsound slurred as she shouted my name.
“There’s my best friend!” she announces—or more likescreams—to the world, her arms thrown up into the air above her. I can’t help but crack a smile through the rapid beats of my heart. Addy is toasted, well done and burnt to a crisp.
Boss trails her outside with a chuckle of his own, and a line of familiar faces follows. Landon, Parker, Jameson, Williams, along with everyone else, too.
“I think we should get Jude up onto that stage next. Might help lighten him up a bit,” Parker jokes as he leans against thewall next to him, accepting the joint from his offered hand and taking a hit.
Williams’ deep laugh pierces clear through the night. “I would love to see that.”
“Shit, with the heat he’s packing, there’d be no tucking,” Jameson chimes in, and then everyone busts up in an uproar of laughter, too.
Jude chuckles from where he leans against the wall, gifting me with a wink when he catches me staring, and the sight of it, after the kiss we just shared—my lips, and my heart, and my entire body still trembling with the aftershocks of it all—forces a swarm of butterflies to bloom to life beneath my ribcage, fluttering against my insides.
Addy’s arm wraps around me as she whispers a devious, “Why don’t you find out for the both of us and report back,” into my ear, and then I’m snorting out a laugh, too, cracking up along with her, my head tilted back as we manage to keep each other from falling to the floor.
The Oklahoma sky littered with stars winks back at us, and warmth fires through me, slinking through my veins, settling into a space that feels like it’s cushioning my heart.
It’s a light feeling—a pleasant feeling.
Instead of life spinning on around me, it finally feels like a spark of it is living inside me, too.
Chapter Fourteen
Jude
Resignation.The single word settles on my soul, shackling me to the ground. To Declan.
There’s been something from the start. Something about her I couldn’t ignore. And fuck, did I try—to be an asshole, to push her away, to be angry about how drawn to her I am, drawing lines in the sand I never intended to step over. But now that I just… am. Drawn to her. Stepping over those lines. There’s this baser desire to grasp onto whatever it is we share. Whatever it is this could potentially be. A thought I never imagined would be crossing my mind, and certainly not this summer.
It’s impossible to ignore the connection we’ve built over the past few weeks, though.
Impossible to ignore how much I’ve begun to feel forher.
And then the other night happened and, well, fuck me. Because as she stood in that alleyway, cheeks flushed and breaths heaving in her chest, begging me to kiss her, I knew my promise to Coach was done for—Iwas done for.
I needed to kiss her.
Needed to feel her mouth on mine.
Andfuckwas it worth it.
Simply put, I’m no longer seeing the downside. The consequences or repercussions coming my way. The hell Coach may or may not rain down on me as a result of my actions.
I kissed her, and the world didn’t end, our lives didn’t implode.
I kissed her, and it’s the only thing in the past four fucking years outside of football that’s felt…right.
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