Page 38 of Half-Court Heat (Hoops & Heartstrings #2)

Chapter

Twenty-Five

W hen I unlocked my apartment door in Miami later that night, it didn’t feel like coming home.

My duffel bag dropped with a hollow thud, and the sound echoed in the stillness.

There was no clatter from the kitchen, no sneakers tossed in a careless heap by the door.

Only the faint hum of the fridge greeted me and the stale air of a place that had been shut up for too long.

I went through the motions—unpacking, throwing a load of laundry into the washing machine—but every few minutes I was checking my phone. Eva and I hadn’t set a time to talk, but I couldn’t shake the twitchy habit of waiting for her name to light up the screen.

It was just after midnight when my phone finally buzzed.

Still awake?

Just barely.

A few seconds later, my screen lit up with her name. I answered and rolled onto my side, voice rough from the late hour. “Hey.”

“Hey, baby.” Her voice was lower than usual. Thicker. “Sorry if I woke you.”

“You didn’t.”

She was quiet for a moment. “I miss you.”

Something in me tightened. “Miss you more.”

“I’ve been thinking about you. A lot.”

“Is that so?”

“Mmhm.” I heard the rustle of sheets. “Lying in this cold-ass bed. Wishing you were in it.”

I closed my eyes and smiled, letting her voice roll over me like heat. “Oh yeah?”

“Yeah,” she confirmed. “What are you wearing?”

I huffed out a laugh. “Shorts and a tank top.”

“That’s it?”

“Underwear.”

“What kind?”

“Black. Cotton. Boring.”

“There is no version of you in underwear that’s boring.”

I swallowed, my heart thumping a little faster. “What about you?”

“Nothing,” she said.

Her admission pulled a soft sound from me.

“I just got out of the shower,” she went on. “I was thinking about the way you touch me when we shower together. Your hands on my hips. The way you kiss me.”

Her voice dropped. “Tell me what you’d be doing if I was there.”

I hesitated. My cheeks flushed despite being completely alone. But then I pictured her—bare and still damp from the shower, stretched across her bed, one hand on the phone and the other maybe not so idle.

“I’d start slow,” I murmured. “Kissing your neck, your collarbone. Just ... easing you down.”

“Would you touch me?”

“Uh huh.” I licked my lips. “Fingertips down your sides. Over your hips. You always shiver when I do that.”

“I’m already shivering,” she rasped.

I could hear the faint shift of fabric on her end of the line. I imagined her curling her painted toes, her skin warm from her own palm. I pressed my thighs together and exhaled.

“Tell me more,” she commanded.

“I’d straddle your thigh and grind against you,” I said. “Slow. Lazy. Until I couldn’t anymore.”

Eva groaned softly, and I felt it in my bones.

“What about you?” I asked.

“I’d let you take whatever you wanted,” she breathed. “But I’d be touching you, too. Just the way you like. My fingers between your legs, teasing. Never too much. Just enough.”

I bit my lip. “God, Eva …”

“I love how wet you get for me,” she murmured. “I miss the way your body reacts—how honest you are when it’s just us.”

Her voice was pure liquid now, and I could hear her breathing shift to become more shallow, more focused. I slid my hand beneath the waistband of my underwear, already aching.

“Are you touching yourself?” she asked.

“Uh huh.”

“Me, too,” she husked. “I’m pretending you’re here, guiding my hand.”

I closed my eyes and listened to her—the uneven breath, the soft curses, the way she moaned my name.

“Talk to me, Lex. Tell me what you’d do to me.”

Fuck . I bit down hard on my bottom lip.

“Sure your knee can take it?” I was genuine in my concern.

“I’ll be careful,” she vowed. “Please, Lex. I need you.”

I clenched my phone tighter and lowered my tone. “I’d start with your breasts. I’d tongue around each nipple until they were so sensitive you’d try to squirm away—but I’d hold you there. I’d say your name in that low voice you like. The one that makes your thighs fall open.”

Eva moaned softly, the sound cutting straight through me.

“You’d be dripping for me, wouldn’t you?”

“Yes,” she gasped. “God, yes.”

“I’d kiss down your stomach, slow as hell. Make you wait. Make you beg.”

“I am begging,” she said, breath catching.

I smiled into the dark. “Good.”

I let my hand move lower, slick and aching already. My fingers slipped through heat as I pictured her—spread out and panting, eyes closed, lips parted.

“I’d use my mouth,” I continued. “The pressure, the rhythm. My tongue steady against your clit, over and over, until you were shaking.”

Eva made a noise like she couldn’t help it.

“And then I’d slip two fingers inside you—slow and deep. I’d hook them just right , the way you like, and I wouldn’t stop until you were grabbing at the sheets, trying to come.”

“Lex,” she moaned. “Fuck.”

I bit my lip. “You’d be soaked, baby. Your thighs slick, your back arching. You’d say my name like it’s the only word you know.”

Eva groaned again—high and helpless. “Tell me what you’re doing right now. Are you still touching yourself?”

I let my eyes flutter shut and slipped my fingers lower, easing through slick heat. “Uh huh.”

She whimpered. “Tell me, Lex.”

My hips tilted off the mattress instinctively. “I’m already so wet for you, Eva. You get me there just by saying my name.”

“I want it in my mouth,” she moaned. “I want to taste how much you miss me.”

God .

I let my legs fall open and imagined her between them—her braids falling forward, her tongue slow and greedy, her hands gripping my thighs to keep me from moving. I let that image live behind my eyelids as my fingers circled and pressed my clit.

“Are you picturing it?” she asked breathlessly. “Me sucking on you, slow at first—then deeper. Until you’re shaking.”

“Yes,” I gasped. “Fuck, yes.”

I could hear her shifting again, her own hand moving in rhythm with mine. There was a muffled moan, the kind she only made when she was past the point of no return.

“I’d hold your thighs open,” she said, her voice trembling. “I’d kiss you like I’m starved. Like you’re all I’ve ever wanted.”

I bit down on a soft moan, trying not to be too loud even though no one could hear me.

“Eva—” Her name broke from me, helpless and real. “I’m so close.”

“I know, baby. I can hear it in your voice.” Her words were a tremble. “Come for me, Lex. I want to hear what I do to you even from a thousand miles away.”

The last of my composure unraveled with her voice in my ear.

My stomach clenched and my thighs shook as I slipped over the edge.

My back arched as I chased my orgasm. Eva’s voice became the only thing tethering me to the present.

And then, with a soft gasp and a rush of heat, I came—quiet, shuddering, completely hers.

I heard her fall apart seconds later, my name slipping from her lips.

For a long moment, we didn’t speak. We breathed together in the dark.

When Eva eventually spoke, her voice was soft and raw. “God, I needed that.”

A slow smile curved my lips. “You aren’t the only one.”

I shifted onto my back, heart still thudding, skin buzzing. My hand found the edge of the sheet and pulled it up, not for warmth but for comfort. Like it could substitute for her.

“I wish I could curl up next to you,” she sighed. “I’d be out in ten seconds.”

“Same,” I murmured.

“I hate that I can’t touch you.”

The ache in her words mirrored the one settling in my chest. “I know. Me, too.”

“I keep reaching for you in my sleep,” she admitted. “My hands just—” She exhaled. “It’s muscle memory at this point.”

I blinked at the ceiling, willing myself not to get choked up. “We’ll be back together soon enough.”

She didn’t respond right away. When she did, her voice was softer than ever. “Sometimes I worry you’re going to get used to not having me around.”

I turned onto my side and clutched the phone like it could get me closer to her. “There is no version of this where I get used to not having you around.”

I heard her quiet inhalation. “Say it again.”

“I want you here,” I said. “I want your loud-ass laugh. I want your makeup and lotions and hair products all over the bathroom. I want your shoes messy in the foyer. I even want your ice cold feet under the covers. I want all of it.”

My soliloquy produced a little laugh from her—soft and real.

“I love you, Eva.”

“I love you, too, Lex,” she whispered.

I didn’t want to hang up. But eventually, our voices started to fade, edges softening with sleep.

“I’ll stay on the line,” she said. “Just until you fall asleep.”

“I was going to say the same thing,” I smiled.

There were no goodnights this time. No goodbyes.

I woke to the soft sound of breathing.

For a second, I thought it was coming from the room—that Eva was curled behind me, hand on my hip, chest warm against my back.

But then I turned and saw the phone still on the pillow beside me, the screen gone dark, but the call still connected.

“Eva?”

There was a sleepy inhale and then a rustle of sheets. “Mm?”

I smiled into the quiet. “You stayed on the line.”

“I said I would,” she mumbled, voice thick with sleep. “Did you sleep okay?”

I nodded, even though she couldn’t see it. “Better than I have in a while.”

She yawned. “What time is it?”

I rolled onto my back and checked. “Almost seven.”

“Practice today?”

“Yeah.” I rubbed my eyes, already thinking about the day ahead. “Coach D said something about full-speed scrimmages.”

Eva clucked sympathetically. “Meanwhile, I get to limp back and forth across a weight room while a physical therapist tells me to activate my glutes.”

I laughed. “Sexy.”

“You joke, but the resistance band they gave me at the hospital is purple , which I feel like you’d appreciate.”

I snickered. “That feels very appropriate.”

“You should have seen me blush when I first got it. I think you’ve ruined that color for me.”

“You’ve ruined me for other girls,” I readily quipped, “so that seems fair.”

There was a pause. The kind that didn’t feel empty or awkward—just soft.

“I like waking up like this,” she said after a moment. “With you in my ear.”

“Me, too.”

There was another pause, longer this time.

“I’m nervous about rehabbing my knee,” she said. “What if I can’t do it?”

The fear in her voice wasn’t loud, but it was present.

“You can do it,” I encouraged. “And you will.”

“But what if I can’t come back the way I was?” she openly worried. “What if I’m slower, or weaker, or?—”

“Eva.”

She fell silent.

“You’re the most explosive, smartest, scariest player I’ve ever faced,” I said. “One knee isn’t going to change that.”

“You haven’t seen me try to get out of bed lately.”

“Okay, fair,” I said, smiling gently. “But that’s temporary. You’re built for this. You’ve come back from hard shit before. You just haven’t had to do it this slowly.”

She let out a long breath. “That’s the part that’s messing with me—how long this is going to take. I want to be back already.”

“I know,” I appeased. “But rushing won’t make it better. It’ll just make it worse.”

Another quiet moment passed between us.

“Thank you,” she said finally.

“For what?”

“For knowing what to say without making it a pep talk.”

I smiled warmly. “You’d see right through a pep talk.”

“Exactly.”

“You’ve got this,” I encouraged. “Even if it’s hard. Even if it takes a while. I’m here.”

“I know,” she said in a hushed tone brimming with emotions. “And I’m so glad you’re mine.”

Her words stopped me for a second. I blinked hard at the ceiling and rapidly swallowed.

“Text me after practice?” she requested.

“Text me after PT,” I managed to choke out.

“Deal,” she agreed.

For a second, neither of us said anything. I didn’t want to hang up. Even though we’d talked all night. Even though I’d slept better with her voice in my ear than I had in days.

“I love you,” I said.

“I love you more.”

“Not possible.”

Her smile was in her voice. “Go play. Be great. Have fun.”

“You go heal,” I told her. “And be patient .”

“Ugh.”

When we finally hung up, I stared at the darkened screen for a second before tossing the phone onto the bed. The day had already started. But somehow, it didn’t feel quite as unmanageable.