Then, those lips were touching hers, and everything went cloudy in the most perfect way. Never had she imagined their conversation would lead here. She had imagined arguing, fighting, a whole lot of yelling, and storming out the door. But his kisses were intoxicating, and she was awash with the drunken feeling.
He grabbed her hand. “Come with me.” Then, he pulled her away.
A protest rose up in her throat, but he didn’t stop as he wove her through the hallways and into a back locker room. It was dark and deserted. No one came back here this early in the season, and even if the football players did, they wouldn’t be done for another couple of hours. But that didn’t explain why Eric was here…
She opened her mouth to ask him, but he pressed his lips to hers, and all coherent thought vanished once more. How did he do that?
He pushed her back against a locker, and his hands slid under her tank top to touch her skin. She gasped into his mouth, every nerve responding to him, to this. She hadn’t been touched in over a month, but it wasn’t just that. She knew it. It terrified her. She should stop. But his tongue was massaging hers, his hands were on her skin, and his body was covering hers. This was Eric. Her body was screaming to let it happen.
“E…”
“Please,” he breathed against her lips. “Tell me to stop, and I will, but you want this. I want this.”
“I…” She didn’t have the words.
She didn’t know what she wanted. Everything was so confusing, but this right here made perfect sense. Eric made perfect sense.
His hands slipped all the way under her shirt. His thumb flicked against the soft unlined bra she was wearing, and her body arched into him.
“I’ve thought about doing this for months.” He kissed her throat, and his other hand grabbed her ass. “I’ve thought about how you would taste, how your skin would feel against mine, what this would feel like.” He grabbed her leg, hoisted it around his hip, and pressed against her.
Her body responded like a lit match.
“Tell me you’ve thought about it, too.”
She had. She most definitely had fantasized about what he would do to her if he weren’t gay. But she had kept herself from getting too lost in a fantasy that would never come true. She hadn’t wanted to feel, and now, it seemed all she was able to do.
“I’ve thought about it,” she admitted.
He sighed as if he hadn’t been sure, and she had confirmed everything for him. He continued with renewed purpose. He lifted her shirt over her head and tossed it to the floor. His hands traveled the length of her body, admiring every inch of it. His fingers ran teasingly along the inside of her shorts, and she squirmed against him.
She couldn’t take it any longer. Her fingers found the hem of his shirt and yanked him closer. She wrenched his shirt off next, exposing his chiseled chest, and she reclaimed his lips.
The energy crackled between them. In seconds, her shorts were in a pile on the floor. Then, she tugged down his zipper, and his pants slid over his hips. Eric grabbed her other leg and forced her body back hard against the locker digging into her back. She ignored the feeling. There was so much pent-up energy between them that she couldn’t stop this train ride even if she wanted to, and her body was absolutely saying not to stop.
Their breath mingled, and their eyes met. Something passed between them that she couldn’t even begin to explain. But it was powerful and terrifying. Her heart constricted as she opened herself to him in a way she never had to anyone else before.
He filled her in one swift motion, claiming her body. When he moved, she closed her eyes and slammed her head back into the locker. Their bodies melded together fiercely, desperately. It was perfection. Her nails clawed into his skin. His grip on her hips tightened. She was sure there would be bruises. But neither of them stopped.
Bodies smacked together. Eric picked up the pace, and sweat beaded on his forehead. She could feel it slicking her own back in the hot locker room, undoing the shower she had just indulged in. Her body didn’t care what she was giving up for this, and she was giving up much. She knew it.
As he hit the right spot with her yells filling the space and his orgasm following right after, she knew that something had truly cracked inside her. And she couldn’t go back to not feeling. Yet emotions like this only brought pain, not the joy and happiness she had been feeling for the past month.
Eric dropped her legs back to the ground and rested his forehead on her shoulder. “Fuck, Bri.”
Her heart was still racing in her chest, but she didn’t say anything. She didn’t know what to say. She was shaking, actually terrified of what this was. It wasn’t supposed to be like this—hot and cold and full of extremes and heartbreak. It was supposed to be effortless, and things with Eric had always been complicated.
She reached for her clothes and righted herself. “I should go,” she murmured.
“Wait, what?” he asked.
He touched for her, and she spun away from him.
“What’s wrong?”
“Everything.” She covered her face, heaving in a deep breath.
“That was incredible. There was nothing wrong with that,” he said.
She could hear the pain in his voice.
“I can’t do this! Don’t you understand? We can’t be together!” she yelled. It made no sense with what she had just done, but she was pushing all of that aside and giving in to this terror welling inside of her.
“We can. We can be together. We just were.” He gestured around the locker room.
“No.” She shook her head. “This isn’t how this works.”
“Why?” he yelled right back. “Why can’t it work? You wanted this. You wanted this to happen between us. Can you look me in the eye and say you don’t have feelings for me?”
She stared at him and clenched her jaw. “That’s the point, Eric. I do. I do have feelings for you. And I shouldn’t. It scares the shit out of me. You’re dangerous, and you are only going to break my heart. I…I don’t trust myself when I’m with you.”
“You can’t really mean that,” he said, uncertain, his voice losing its edge.
“I do. I mean it wholeheartedly.”
She swallowed hard and then brushed past him, leaving the locker room. Her whole body was humming from what had happened, yet she had tears falling out of her eyes, tears she couldn’t control or explain.
This is the right thing. That was what she kept telling herself through the tears.
THE HOUSE WAS EMPTY.
Cold.
Lifeless.
What had once brought her so much happiness left her with a bad taste of desperate materialism. Everything from the hardwood floors to the Swarovski chandelier to the pool out back and the rich furnishings within made her feel slightly nauseated.
Every day, all it did was bring back memories of Barcelona. The look on Hugh’s face when she’d asked about his wife. His very dead wife. His anger and rather valid accusations. The ease with which he had thrown that necklace over the balcony just to show how little money meant to him. She could still recall exactly what he had looked like when she said she didn’t love him. It made her cringe all over again.
She couldn’t change it now. She didn’t love him. She had cared for him, but she had been selfish from the start.
Young, selfish, and stupid.
Just like she had been with Eric. Her heart constricted, and she stumbled up the stairs to her bedroom. It was immaculate, all classic whites and blacks, just as she had left it. Yet it didn’t even feel like hers. It felt like a version of the person she had contrived for Hugh out of the person she had become after Jude left her. Looking around, she didn’t even know why she had ever thought she wanted this.
She shivered at the depressing chill that wracked her body. She hated feeling like this. Vulnerability was not her norm. But she couldn’t bring back the self-assurance she wore like a second skin.