Page 29 of Half-Court Heat (Hoops & Heartstrings #2)

Chapter

Twenty

T he next morning, I woke to the slow drag of fingertips across my stomach.

Not urgent. Not insistent. Just present. A gentle awareness that someone was touching me, holding me close, keeping me tethered to the warmth of the bed even as daylight filtered through the bedroom’s sheer curtains.

Eva’s leg was slung over mine. She must have shifted in the night—her thigh now pressed firmly between mine, her chest against my back, her breath warm at the nape of my neck.

I didn’t open my eyes just yet. Didn’t move. But she knew I was awake. I could feel her smile against my skin before she spoke.

“The alarm’s going off soon,” she murmured. Her fingers traced a lazy pattern just beneath the waistband of my sleep shorts.

I hummed, noncommittal. “Pretty sure I’m still dreaming.”

She kissed my shoulder—a soft press of lips followed by a long, slow exhale that stirred the fine hairs along my neck. Her hand stilled, resting flat over my stomach.

I finally rolled toward her, our legs tangling instinctively. Her face was close to mine, her eyes still sleep-heavy, her cheek creased faintly from the pillow. A braid had slipped loose from her bonnet overnight. I reached up and tucked it behind her ear, letting my fingers linger along her jaw.

“This beats morning shoot-around,” I husked.

“Don’t tempt me,” she said. “I’ll make us late.”

I let my thumb drift over her full, bottom lip. She gently took the tip into her mouth and kissed it, slow and soft.

“We have to get up,” I murmured, although that was the last thing I wanted to do.

“I know,” she whispered back. “But not just yet.”

She eased me onto my back and settled half on top of me, her head pillowed against my chest. I held her, stroking a hand up and down her back in time with our breathing.

Her fingers returned to my abdomen and crept up the bottom hem of my tank top. Her touch wasn’t teasing. It was patient. Confident. The kind of touch that said she knew exactly where this was going and exactly how to get me there.

Her palm slid up my stomach and between my braless breasts.

Her fingertips skimmed first over my clavicle and then across the top swell of my breasts.

I breathed out a noisy sigh when her short nails flicked against my nipples, coaxing them to life.

She firmly pinched my right nipple, pulling another sound from my mouth.

The morning alarm chimed faintly from the bedside table, but neither of us reached for it.

Eva leaned down and kissed my stomach, just above the top of my shorts. “Can I take these off?”

I nodded, already breathless.

She didn’t pull off my shorts all at once. She peeled them down, inch by inch; I lifted my hips to help her. The moment the fabric cleared my thighs, she slid her hands back up, parting my legs with an easy, practiced confidence.

She kissed the inside of my knee, and then the dip where thigh meets hip. Her mouth brushed every part of me. When her fingers finally slid between my legs, slick and knowing, my whole body jerked toward her.

“There you are,” she whispered, smiling against my skin.

Her fingers circled my clit slowly, exactly the way I liked it—light pressure, no friction. Just heat and rhythm and the unbearable tenderness of being wanted by someone who understood all of me.

I let out a broken breath. My hips rolled into the motion before I could think to stop them.

“You’re already so wet,” she said, her voice low and dark with delight. “I haven’t even really touched you yet.”

“I know,” I gasped, arching again. “Fuck. Eva?—”

She slid two fingers lower, not to enter, just to press the flat of her hand against me. Her mouth replaced her fingers on my clit, and I nearly came undone right then—her tongue soft, slow, fucking perfect , while her hand grounded me exactly the way I needed.

She stayed like that, alternating between her tongue and the steady, relentless rhythm of her fingers.

It was overwhelming. She was overwhelming.

I fisted the sheets with one hand and clenched the top of her shoulder with the other, holding her to me.

My thighs trembled on either side of her shoulders.

“I’ve got you,” she quietly encouraged. “Let go, baby. I’ve got you.”

And I did.

My orgasm hit like a warm wave, crashing and receding and crashing again. I cried out, not caring how loud I was. Eva never stopped, not until I was limp and half-laughing, half-sobbing into the pillow.

“Jesus.” I breathed out. “If I pull a hamstring today, it’s all your fault. You and that damn overachieving tongue.”

She dragged her nails across my inner thighs, leaving raised pink trails in their wake. “Better start hydrating.”

Waking up in the same bed, eating breakfast in the same kitchen, picking out coordinating fits, Eva pulling my hair into a tidy French braid—our game day rituals couldn’t have been more in sync.

I didn’t take any of it for granted either.

I knew all too well how quickly it could be taken away.

Back in Boston, I’d only just started to enjoy the small idiosyncrasies of dating Eva before she’d unexpectedly been traded to Chicago.

My favorite part of the Miami mornings, however, was showing up to the arena together.

When I’d first entered the league, I used to dread the walk from the team bus to the locker room.

Photographers from various media outlets, especially those connected to social media accounts, would be camped out in the tunnel beneath the stadium, awaiting our arrival.

Before, I’d duck my head and speed walk to the locker room. Now, I took my time.

Eva and I arrived together and walked the concrete runway hand-in-hand. We posed separately and together, a basketball power couple, fierce in our streetwear and just as dangerous on the court.

Eva gave me a quick kiss on the cheek and a wink when I finished the pre-game obligation.

“I think you’re starting to like that.”

That night was our first scheduled matchup against Briana’s team, the Inferno. Her squad wasn’t just good—they were stacked. Three All-Stars, one Finals MVP, every one of them an Olympian, with the kind of chemistry that made every possession feel like a highlight reel waiting to happen.

We’d kept the score tight for the most part.

We were only three points down with time running low before halftime.

The sweat was slick on my lower back as I tracked the bounce of the ball, quick pivots echoing against the arena walls.

League games moved fast—a smaller court but with less players, sharp elbows, and a relentless pace.

“Switch!” I shouted, calling the screen, but Eva was already anticipating it, sliding around the pick like it wasn’t even there. She read the floor better than anyone I’d ever played with. Her body was poetry in motion.

And then it wasn’t.

She leapt for the defensive rebound, her hands snatching the ball cleanly out of the air. Dominant. Determined.

But she landed awkwardly—just off-balance enough that something went wrong.

I watched, nearly in slow motion, as her right leg buckled under her.

“No,” I breathed.

She hit the court hard, the ball slipping from her hands and bouncing free. Her mouth opened, but no sound came out—just the horror on her face.

“No. No, no, no, no.” The words tumbled out of my mouth, automatic and without my permission.

Eva rolled onto her side, grabbing at her right knee like she was trying to hold it together with her bare hands.

Everything else faded away. The fans in the arena. The other players. Even the ball. I was at her side in seconds, skidding onto my knees.

“My knee,” she gasped. “Something popped! It popped! ”

Her eyes were wide and wild, her breath coming in fast, shallow gasps.

“I can’t breathe. I can’t … I—” She wasn’t out of breath from gameplay; she was panicking.

“Baby, it’s okay. I’ve got you.” I tried to keep my voice low and soothing despite how my heart was hammering.

“I can’t—. Lex , my knee ? — ”

“I know.” I touched her cheek, trying to calm her down and not let her spiral out. “Don’t move, okay? Just hold on. I’ve got you.”

I slipped one arm under her back and the other behind her knees. She was taller than me, heavier too, but none of that mattered. I could squat the weight of someone twice my size if I had to—and right now, I had to.

“Hang on,” I told her, gritting my teeth.

As I stood, she latched on. Her arms wrapped tight around my neck. She pressed her face into the crook of my neck, wet with tears and sweat.

The whole court was frozen. Someone shouted for a medic. My legs started churning, and I didn’t look back.

“Call an ambulance,” I said tightly as I carried her off the court. “ Now. ”

I watched helplessly as the EMTs loaded Eva into the back of a white ambulance. Her right leg had been stabilized in a bulky brace. She didn’t cry, didn’t scream—her face was a stony statue.

This was bad. This was very bad.

I moved to climb into the back of the emergency vehicle with her, but one of the EMTs stopped me short.

“You can’t ride in here, Miss,” he told me. “You can follow behind and meet us at the hospital.”

I opened my mouth to protest, but Briana’s voice cut in.

“I’ll drive. Come on, Lex.”

I stared beyond the EMT to catch Eva’s attention, but she wasn’t looking. She seemed to have withdrawn into her own body, disassociating from the chaos around her.

People barked out orders, sirens shrieked, and gawkers with their phones out were corralled and shooed away.

“I’ll be right behind you,” I vowed.

The ambulance doors shut with no assurances that she ever heard me.

“Are you going to fucking merge, buddy?! Move! Get out of the fucking way!”