Page 52 of Anatomy of Us
Her fingers trail down my back to my ass. Then her right hand slips between us, under my pajama pants, finding how wet I am before she presses two fingers inside me. I ride them, hands around her neck, hissing her name until control slips through my fingers.
Pleasure hits in waves. I don’t have thoughts anymore. Only muffled sounds, ripped breaths, the tremble of my hips as I clench around her.
“You’re going to ruin me,” I whisper.
Maybe that’s the plan, because she sinks back into the couch and guides me until I’m over her, our legs tangling until my heat presses against hers. I roll my eyes at her satisfied look, but then we find the rhythm together, hips moving in perfect sync, wet friction building until it turns sharp and unbearable.
She scratches my back. Her legs shake. Heat rises inside me and breaks like a wave hitting rock.
Tessa follows not long after, pushing and sliding against me, sweat gleaming on her skin until every grind is a wordless plea, a silent scream she tries to swallow.
I collapse on top of her. I stroke her chest, feel the frantic beat of her heart, and an “I love you” slips from her mouth so quiet I almost miss it.
Chapter 18
Tessa
In Portland, the stands roar with twenty-two thousand people, and most of them want to watch us lose.
I stay with the team trainers at one end of the bench in case we’re needed, but my pulse runs too high for someone who isn’t playing. My hands feel hot. My mouth tastes like metal.
Our fans are clearly outnumbered, maybe three thousand, Hades says, but you’d never guess it from the noise they make. Their chants cut through the hate like a blade.
The starters walk out, and Zoe flicks me a look that says everything. She isn’t used to sitting. In her whole career she's been a locked-in starter, and she looks wrong in that yellow sub bib over her game jersey. Like someone puts a muzzle on a wolf.
The whistle blows.
The first half is trench warfare.
Portland controls possession. Sixty percent, the official stats say, but they can’t crack us. Lucía and Jamie build a wall that doesn’t bend. In midfield, Jade runs like she has three lungs. She organizes, covers space so the back line can breathe, picks off passes like she reads minds. She doesn’t make Zoe’s return to the starting eleven easy.
Hades loses her mind on the sideline. She shouts, throws her arms, points, claps, curses. We aren’t creating chances. Every counterattack dies before it even gets teeth. Iris is alone up top, isolated, getting more and more pissed every time the ball doesn’t reach her feet.
0–0 at halftime.
Hades gathers the team in the locker room. From where I stand near the door, I see Zoe on a bench, listening hard. Not so much listening as taking the full-volume rant Hades delivers to everyone.
“I need more depth!” Hades yells. “More risk. Iris, you’re getting more balls in the second half even if I have to throw them to you myself.”
Iris nods like that’s a real plan.
“Zoe, warm up. You’re going in,” Hades announces as we head back through the tunnel.
Minute fifty-five, Portland finally breaks our line. Their forward gets the ball at the top of the box, turns, shoots. The ball bends, takes a weird bounce off the turf, skims our keeper’s fingertips, kisses the inside of the post—
and goes in.
1–0.
The stadium explodes. Claps. Chants. That smug Portland roar. My heart launches into my throat.
“Zoe, in!” Hades barks.
She shouts adjustments from the sideline. We reshuffle. But Portland smells blood now. They press higher, harder, hunting the second goal that ends it.
Jade looks over from midfield and shakes her head, blowing out a long breath, thinking she’s the one coming off. But Hades pulls a defender.
“Zoe plays holding mid,” Hades tells her when she steps close. “Organize from deep. Jade, you’re the ten now. I want you running like your life depends on it.”