Page 123 of Only Between Us

Siena leans in the bathroom doorway of our hotel suite with a towel wrapped around her, watching me fiddle with my watch.

I got her naked the moment the door swung shut behind us, which offered as good a distraction as they come, seeing as just the prospect of Siena’s body could lift me out of a ten-year coma. But then she went to have a shower, and I really should have just followed her in because all I’ve done in her absence is pace around the suite.

I’d have much preferred staying in the house I kept here, which only ever gets used by my sister, Josie, and her family when they visit LA. But the Rebels put us up in a hotel closer to their practice facility, and we’re making the drive out to my parents’ place right after camp, anyway.

Siena moves into the room, gaze lingering on the neat row in which I nervously organized all her shoes. She reaches for me, straightening out the hem of my T-shirt just to slide her hands underneath.

“Talk, Brooks. You’re worried about tomorrow. Seeing your ex?” What a role reversal. Siena getting me to talk about my feelings.

“Yeah,” I admit. “It’s one thing to be on a field playing against McDaniels, or in the same stadium as her with thousands of other people. I’m a professional and I could have handled that. But having to make nice? Trying to convince this team to sign me over him? Siena, you’ll be sitting in the stands with her.”

“Don’t worry about me. I can hold my own.”

“I know you can. But they don’t deserve to breathe the same air as you.”

She combs her fingers through my hair and I inhale the sweet scent of her. “You’re the one she screwed over. I think you meant that the other way around.”

“No, I didn’t. You’re a queen. Too good to trifle with someone like her.” I sigh into her bare shoulder. “I’m worried I’ll do something stupid.”

“Like what?”

“Break his face, for starters.”

“He’d deserve it. But you won’t do that. Because if I’m a queen, you know what that makes you?”

I bite the crook of her neck, soothe it with a lick. “Your peasant. Your court jester. I’m at my best when I make you laugh.”

She does then, this soft laugh against my cheek. “If I’m a queen, that means you’re a king. And you’re better than either of them. There are much more important things than the temporary satisfaction of giving him a bloody nose. You deserve to play for whichever team you want. To win the championship you worked your whole career to have.”

“And if I choke?”

The question hangs in the air, revealing the other, more pressing reason for my nerves. I don’t want to disappoint her. Humiliate myself. Prove once and for all that I’d been stupid to think I could nail this comeback, after two years retired.

With a hand on my cheek, Siena forces me to surface from the coverage of her shoulder. Her face is soft, dripping love and compassion.

“Choke or don’t choke. I’m with you regardless.”

Just like that, the weight lifts off my chest. But then that voice in my head does its best to drag me back down.

She’s only with you if you do choke.

Because succeeding, leaving here with a contract, could mean saying goodbye.

Siena tucks her fingers into the waistband of my sweats and tugs. “Let’s get some sleep. You have an early morning.”

“Not sure I’m gonna get much sleep tonight.”

She scrunches up her nose in sympathy. “Then let’s do something fun. Get your mind off it.” She smirks when I open my mouth, and adds, “Something that doesn’t involve your dick rearranging my insides, Brooks.”

I drop into an armchair, swiveling it from side to side. “Then I don’t want it.”

She laughs like I was kidding. Siena moves toward her suitcase and throws me a coy look over her shoulder as she pulls out a pair of overalls.

“I have an idea.”

Chapter42Brooks

I grunt, stumbling on the sand as I attempt to hop out of my boxers while hurrying down the deserted beach.