Page 27 of Make Me Yours (Chicago Railers Hockey #1)

LILAH

U nsure how to respond, I take a deep gulp of my wine.

“Holy shit,” he says with even more amusement. “Does this conversation really call for liquid courage?”

“Maybe,” I mutter, lowering the glass. “This is so embarrassing. I don’t want to tell you, okay? Can we just drop it? Please?”

He shakes his head. “No way. Spill.”

I glance at the wine, watching the deep red swirl in the glass. “Ugh.” It takes several seconds to work up the nerve to speak again. “So, I told you I walked in on Devon and Marissa while they were…”

“Fucking,” he supplies, the humor in his voice vanishing like smoke.

I swallow hard and take another drink, finishing it off. “Yeah. That.”

The memory presses in, hot and sharp. “He had her bent over his desk and his hand was in her hair, gripping her ponytail. He slapped her ass a few times, all the while talking dirty.”

I finally dare a glance at him from beneath my lashes. His face gives nothing away, but the intensity in his eyes is palpable, as if he’s absorbing every single word.

“It felt like I was staring at someone I didn’t even recognize,” I whisper. “Like she was able to unlock a part of him that I couldn’t.” I glance down at my empty glass. “I need a refill.”

He takes it gently from my hand and sets it on the console table. “No, you don’t.”

The way he looks at me sends a jolt straight through my body. His gaze flickers to my mouth and then back to my eyes.

I blurt out the one thought I haven’t been able to make sense of. “He was never like that with me.”

A taut silence stretches between us until it’s on the verge of snapping.

“Is that what you wanted from him?” he asks.

I freeze as he moves closer, invading my personal space.

Unable to hold his gaze, I look away.

His fingers slip beneath my chin, coaxing my attention back to him. “Is that what you wanted from him?” he repeats, gentler this time.

My tongue darts out to moisten my lips as I force myself to answer the question. Talking to Steele about this is so much more embarrassing than I imagined. “I don’t know. I mean… maybe? I guess I just…” I trail off, unsure how to express the tangled thoughts running rampant through my head.

“Hey, it’s me, Lilah,” he says. “We can talk about anything.”

I exhale.

He’s right.

We can.

“Yes. I think… I wanted something more . But Devon never saw me that way.”

Steele’s jaw flexes.

“I guess I don’t understand why,” I add, eyes falling shut. “Why her and not me? What was it about her that made him so uninhibited?”

Steele swears, and when my lashes flutter open, I find his hands balled at his sides.

“Don’t do that. Don’t compare yourself to her. You’re… Jesus, Lilah. You have no idea.” He drags a hand through his hair. “The way you’re wired, the things you want, they’re not wrong. Wanting to feel that kind of passion, that connection? It’s not something you should be ashamed of.”

I don’t realize I’m trembling until he reaches out and places a hand on my waist to steady me. His eyes search mine, like he’s trying to read everything I’m holding back. All the things I’m unwilling to put into words.

Steele exhales slowly, like he’s barely holding himself together.

“You think you weren’t enough for him. But that asshole couldn’t even begin to understand what he had.

Or what you needed and deserved.” His voice is a husky whisper when he speaks again.

“If I were him, I never would’ve left your bed.

I’d have worshipped every damn inch of you.

I would have touched you in all the ways you craved until I learned how to read your body like it was the only language I understood. ”

Heat blooms beneath my skin.

It’s hard to make sense of what’s shifting between us.

Or maybe I already know exactly what it is.

And that’s the part that terrifies me most.

“Steele…”

He lifts a hand, brushing a strand of hair away from my cheek. “Is that what you want, Lilah? To experience that kind of passion? To have someone take you like an animal, to make you feel like your brain can finally click off and you can stop thinking for a change?”

The arousal that slams into me at those words is almost enough to knock me off my feet.

Because the answer is there.

On the tip of my tongue.

Fighting to break free.