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25

Lennon

C oach Holloway shows up to our workout the next morning with a backwards hat and a bad attitude. Both set my heart racing, but for different reasons.

We were reckless last night, getting that close to each other, moments away from kissing, in the same building as not only a crowd of people, but Coach Maver and the dean. Stupid. Absolutely stupid.

And yet it doesn’t make me want to stop. But seemingly, it’s had the opposite effect on him.

“Pull-ups, let’s go.” He crosses his arms, muscles bulging, and waits for me expectantly.

Sweat already drips down my back, my legs wobble as I walk over to the bar. “Are you trying to kill me today?”

He says nothing.

I brush the flyaways out of my face and reach for the bar. It’s cool beneath my fingertips. Three, two, one…I hoist myself up, pushing off my feet, and my arms nearly buckle under the strain of my full-body weight. My chin reaches the top of the bar once, twice, but my arms shake like two wet noodles on the third, and I drop to the floor.

“You could do five last week,” Luke states behind me.

I glare over my shoulder at him. “That was at the beginning of the workout. Not after you’ve already tortured me for nearly an hour.”

He stares with a cool indifference, and it sets my teeth on edge. He surely wasn’t looking at me like that last night. And I’m starting to get sick of his hot-and-cold attitude toward me.

“Two more,” he demands.

I turn around and put my hands on my hips. “I can’t.”

“Can’t or won’t?”

“Literally can’t.”

His jaw clicks. “Fine. Grab your weights. Shoulder presses.” He adjusts the weight bench and waits expectantly.

I grab the dumbbells off the rack, and they practically drag my entire body down. “Coach…” I’m getting close to the point where I’m not above begging. “I don’t know if I can. I’m exhausted.”

“Going to quit out on me?”

Exasperation strangles me. “It’s not quitting. I’ve done everything you’ve asked—no, demanded —today, but I’m reaching my limit. Are you trying to punish me for something?”

He lifts his hat and runs an angered hand through his hair before settling it back on his head. His curls peek out from underneath it, and the strap sits just above his pointed brow. Fuck, it looks so goddamn good on him that it slightly eases my annoyance toward him.

Slightly .

“And what exactly would I be punishing you for?”

For tempting him to cross a line. For us almost crossing it together.

“You tell me.”

“I don’t answer to you.” He points to the bench. “Now, shoulder presses. Four sets of eight. Move it.”

Fuck this. I drop the weights with a heavy thud and take off toward the door.

“Where do you think you’re going?” Luke barks at my turned back.

I don’t bother responding. I storm out of the weightroom and straight to the locker room. The hallway is dark, and there are no signs of life besides the automated lights that flick on one by one as I walk past. In the locker room, I pass by my locker and head straight to the showers.

I turn the water on in one of the stalls, testing the temperature with my hand and keeping the rest of my clothed body out of reach. I’ll strip in a second; just gotta wait until the water?—

The air is knocked out of my chest as I’m suddenly slammed against the back of the shower. Before I can blink, I’m flipped around, and suddenly all I see is Luke.

“What the hell are you doing?” I cry.

Water cascades down his back, soaking his white T-shirt to his body, and drops splash onto me. He doesn’t seem bothered by it, though. It’s as if the water doesn’t even exist right now.

“Coach—”

My words are cut off as one of his hands clamps around my throat, and the other slams against the wall by my head. He pins me with his body, his hand, his smell, his stare, everything. I wouldn’t move even if I could.

His chest heaves against mine. I open my mouth to speak again, but he cuts me off.

“What do you want from me?” It sounds equally like a plea and a demand. His breath coasts over my cheek and ignites a familiar spark inside of me I’ve been trying to extinguish. I swallow around the powerful hand that’s gripped around my throat.

“I want you to be my coach.”

His eyes darken, fingers tightening.

“Lies,” he spits. “What do you want?”

I stare him down, his heartbeat rattling against my own, both racing as if they’re fighting to see whose can beat faster, a dangerous dance between the two of us.

“What do you fucking want, Lennon?” he grits out between clenched teeth. His nostrils flare, and his pupils are completely blown.

The fingers around my neck pulse, not letting up or letting go, and I relish in it. In his reaction. It brings a sick smile to my lips. I don’t want him to let go. Don’t want him to stop. Don’t want his chest away from mine or the fire in his eyes to stop fueling my own.

Despite the rules, despite the potential fallout, I finally admit it out loud.

“I want you.” And he’s the one thing I can’t have.

But there’s no going back. We both know it the moment the words hit the air, and the truth of them settles into our bones. What we’ve been fighting.

“Say it again,” he says with lethal, barely contained control.

I swallow around his grip and lock my eyes with his as I repeat, “I want you.”

Our entire world pauses as we stare at each other, locked in this final battle of wills that neither of us want to win anymore.

Surrender washes over his entire body, and in a flash, I’m flipped around, and he presses my chest into the tiles. He pulls me closer, my back flush to his front, our wet clothes an aggravating barrier between the two.

One hand keeps its grip on my throat while the other traces a teasing line from my breasts to my leggings’ waistband. He slips inside easily and dives right beneath my underwear, causing me to I shiver. His fingers find my clit, and I buck against him. A guttural moan sounds against my back, as if he’s in pain at what he finds.

“Fuck, you’re soaked,” he whispers. “That all for me?”

I clamp my mouth shut. He knows damn well it is, and I can feel his smile against my cheek.

“That’s okay,” he says. “You don’t have to say it. I know it is. For your coach .” He pinches my clit and I whimper.

“Please,” I gasp as he rolls it between his fingers.

“Please what?”

God, I don’t even know at this point. I just know I need more .

“Keep going,” I beg and latch onto his forearm. My nails dig into his skin, but he doesn’t complain. It almost spurs him on.

His fingers dip down toward my entrance, and he thrusts one in, pumping shallowly in a steady rhythm. The hand around my neck keeps its firm grip, and he grinds into my back, completely overwhelming me. I can feel the evidence of his arousal through the layers between us, and my hands itch to touch him. His hold is all-consuming, almost as if he’s scared I’m going to try to run away.

Away from this, from him. But there’s no going back for me. I want it more than my next breath, and I’m not going anywhere.

“I can take more,” I tell him as he continues to thrust only one finger.

His teeth nip my ear, and I shudder. “I’ll tell you what you can take.” But he adds a second and pushes deeper before curling them and hitting a spot that buckles my knees. I would collapse to the shower floor if it wasn’t for his hold.

Our clothes are completely soaked as the shower continues to rain over us, but he doesn’t stop to turn it off or strip us. Instead, he adds a third finger, and I slam my forehead against the tile, eyes shutting as pleasure wracks through my body at the stretch.

“That’s it,” he grits, and I can hear the smile in his voice. “Take my fingers and don’t fucking stop.”

I ride his hand and reach behind me to grab onto whatever part of him I can. His hat falls to the floor, and I tangle my fingers in his wet hair, pulling at the strands in desperation.

“I’m almost there,” I gasp as his thumb flicks my clit in maddening synchronicity with his fingers still plunging into me.

His chest rumbles against my back, and his teeth clamp into the hollow between my neck and shoulder. I cry out at the sharp jolt it sends through my body and to my core.

“Luke,” I whimper, so fucking close I can taste it. Just one more swipe of his thumb and I’ll?—

Suddenly, water falls down my back, and the hand that was once between my legs is gone, replaced with an aching frustration and devastating chill. My clit throbs at the brutal way it was left on edge, and I whip around.

Luke is halfway out of the shower stall, chest heaving, fists clenched, staring at the floor as if he wished it would crack open and swallow him whole.

As if hearing his name on my lips, so close to the edge of damning us both, snapped him out of it.

“Luke,” I say, refusing to call him Coach at this moment. “What just?—”

He holds his hands up, shaking his head, as he takes a few slow steps backwards. Each bit of distance he creates sends my heart sinking further and further. When he finally flicks his eyes to mine, I just about shatter at the tortured look in them.

“I—” He bites his knuckle then throws his head back with an agonized groan. “I can’t have this. Can’t have you. You make me feel something when I’ve spent so long feeling nothing, and yet, I can’t fucking have you.”

I inch forward. “You can have me. You do.”

He shakes his head at me, a silent plea not to say anything more. Then he turns and stalks out of the locker room, leaving me under the cold, relentless stream of the shower.