Strike: Bases Series (Book Two)

by Grace, Hazel

  “Step out,” he orders me. I do what he says, letting him remove them from my body. I feel like a live sacrifice, one that’s going to be put up for slaughter for Colson’s desire. But if it gets us both what we want, I’ll forfeit everything and do it.

  Colson lays another lingering kiss and stands, towering over me. His regard is something I can’t describe, and it makes me nervous. He was and is always a surprise, before, during, and after the mistake that tore us apart. But he kept me on my toes, pushed me to my limits, and supported me.

  A decade ago, he would’ve done anything for me. He stood up for me, made me feel like I was the only thing in his vision, that he was going to be with me forever. And right now, if he needs to use my body for him to cure himself, I love him enough to let him do it.

  Because I’m still enraptured with Colson Hayes, the bad, the ugly, and the broken. The man who couldn’t deal with his emotions so he’d lash out and hide away anything he didn’t want people to see.

  “You’re too fucking beautiful.” Colson abrades like he’s displeased. His index finger brushes my cheek, curving down to round the bottom of my chin. “You’re still mine, do you know that?”

  My body warms at his words, all the way down between my legs again. My chest feels heavy as his features soak me in like he’s doing it for the first time. He leans down, his lips inching toward mine.

  “Tell me you know,” he murmurs. “I want to make sure you understand.” I give him a curt nod, mesmerized by his closeness. The way I want him to take me again with his mouth, his fingers, his words, everything. “Say it.”

  “I’m yours.”

  He lets out a retained breath. “I’m yours, what? So that you know exactly who you’re talking to.”

  “I’m completely yours, Colson Hayes.”

  “Fuck, yes, you are, Bases.” His lips smash into mine, and I immediately mold into him. His hand cups the back of my head so I don’t bang it on the brick, as he crushes me against him. I’m so high on his taste, his lips that suck delicately on mine, that it feels like home.

  My world is back on its axis, and I can conquer it.

  He breaks our kiss, our hot air mingling together, while his fingers find my pussy again. He strokes it once, letting a cold shiver tear through my skin.

  I love how he looks at me when I’m turned on, it does the same for him because he’s looking at me like he wants to eat me alive in both pleasure and pain.

  And I’ll take any of it.

  “You taste like forever,” he extolls, inhaling me to memory. “And I can’t wait to end it.”

  Present day

  Trepidation and realization lace in Sawyer’s eyes the moment my words leave my lips. I don’t regret them, nor do I feel sorry for how they make her feel. She did all this to herself again, letting Abercrombie take her body in a dirty ass bathroom in a bar when I was only yards away.

  Why she thought that would be okay with me, she must’ve read the language wrong because I’ve been saying it for a while now. She owes it to me, one fucking night, so I can rid the damn memories and pain away. I want to eradicate myself altogether from the grasp Sawyer has on me. I noticed it again after things changed between Annabelle and me. No way could I go through with marrying her when I hadn’t fully gotten over what Sawyer did to me. It was an ugly truth that I tried to bury, but it resurfaced its ugly head the night I found Sawyer on my sidewalk looking into my future.

  My Annabelle.

  She didn’t deserve to be chained to someone like me. I was still fucked up, had been for years, ignoring the actuality of where I sat with everything. In summary form, not over it, not done with Sawyer, not done with getting what I wanted.

  So, the rational side of me arose to break it off with Annabelle, but I didn’t expect to be going home to Freemont. I just prayed that one day I’d feel whole because who in their right mind gets hung up over a high school crush for over a fucking decade?

  I just wanted to finally fuck mine.

  Now, here we are, and the fact that I have to deal with another guy between Sawyer and I for the second time is grating. The fucked-up thing is that we’re not even a “thing,” but my body believes we still are. My mind, however, has been ripping her apart the whole time she’s been molded and pressed up against me. Her softness is intoxicating, begging me to just do it already.

  Sawyer lifts her chin, the slit of her eyes start to narrow in on me, preparing for a verbal beating that I’m sure she’s ready to spill. Seems like we both have the same damn problem, our bodies didn’t get the memo that we’re no longer a fucking item anymore.

  “Alright,” she simply states. “You do what you have to do.” Her acceptance ticks annoyance down my jaw, making it lock in place.

  She just admitted that she was mine as she stands pinned between me and a wall while I have her pussy in my hands. Like a free offering that doesn’t sound good anymore now that it's tainted.

  But I knew from the beginning that it wouldn’t be easy. Sawyer wasn’t going to literally lay down, take my cock and make me feel better. She had to be broken, left out bare without abandon for me to fuck her, make her come, and leave her behind to rot.

  “You sounded so thrilled about it before,” I reply, letting another finger graze the piece of anatomy of her that I always wanted.

  A smirk plays off her face as she pulls my hand away from her clit. Slowly, she brings it up to her lips and licks herself off me. Her mouth wraps around my index finger, and I fight back a groan that wants to sound off between us.

  I’m surprised, but I shouldn’t be. This is the woman who spread herself open on a vacant desk while fingering her pussy in front of me.

  She releases my hand, letting it fall to her hips but keeps her eyes locked on mine.

  “How do you want to do this?” she implores, twirling around slowly, letting my fingers graze around her flat stomach and get a great view of her ass. She props her elbows on the brick siding, letting me admire the way her blue panties rise up her ass cheeks. My cock twitches, wanting to place it between those two handfuls just to see what it’d look like.

  “Or,” she says, turning back around to face me. “We can do it another way.” Her hands find my jeans and start undoing the button there.

  “Oh, Bases, you don’t know what you’re doing again,” I convey, watching her work at my zipper.

  “I thought you said I was good at sucking dick?” I roll my eyes and press my teeth together.

  She was phenomenal at sucking dick.

  Problem was, both of my heads were always fighting it out.

  “I did say you were good at sucking cock,” I reply with an edge to each word. “Doesn’t mean you have to.”

  “It’s part of the plan, right?” Her cocky attitude and the way that she thinks she can play me ticks my last calm nerve.

  “The plan was to fuck you,” I ground out.

  Her brows raise. “Oh.” She begins to twirl around. “Well, if you wanted option A, you should’ve just—” I clench her arms and straighten her.

  “Do you want to suck my cock, Bases?” Her emerald eyes have lightened, I can see them glistening from the small amount of sun that is setting at the end of the alley. “Because this smart-ass submissive thing is a turnoff.”

  She shrugs me off. “Then what do you want me to do? You want to openly and honestly hurt me. You want to tear me apart and watch me pick up every last piece. Well, here I am, in a dark fucking alley with my pants off, waiting and ready for you to fuck my brains out.”

  I press into her, our chests laminated together. “Why did you do that?” I sneer. “Why the fuck did you come to my house in Cali? I was happy. I was going to fucking marry her. You showed up and surfaced everything I wanted to leave behind. So, twice now, Bases, you’ve fucked up my life, royally. I never wanted to ever see you again. And here I am, drawn to you like a fly to shit, wanting to fuck you until I can’t breathe or see anymore.” I push her farther into the wall, wanting to suffocate both
of us in this bullshit so I’m not alone. “So, why is it that I can’t get you out of my damn head? That after a damn decade you’re still here and I still want you.”

  Her lips tremble and eyes glaze over in tears, but I don’t register them with compassion or apologize. They make me irate. She, who was supposed to be my forever, but foreverly fucked me over and is still always in my damn headspace.

  “It’s because you still love me, Colson,” she spouts, gripping my forearms. “You loved me when we were kids, you tried to fight against it, I did too. We were two forces that were opposites and attracted, then we ended up together, and shit happened. You couldn’t deal with it, so I stayed behind and didn’t chase you. I always thought you’d—” I step back from her, halting her next words from tumbling off her lips.

  She’s utterly fucking insane.

  Her hoping for me to come back, that my lust will turn to love again, it’ll never happen.

  It’s not there.

  It’s burnt and fizzled out, lacerated and tattered from one night that scarred me for any sort of redemption.

  “I don’t love you, Sawyer,” I pledge. “Not anymore. Not when you wouldn’t let Gavin go and you strung me behind as a replacement. I was there when shit went down, I fought for you—us. I just wasn’t good enough or what you wanted. But it must be some fucked-up competition that I have for a motherfucker I don't even speak to anymore. Maybe it’s because I want what he had. What I should’ve had.”

  She strides forward, trying to keep a front up, to prove that I’m not hurting her when I know my words do. I never had a problem being blunt and truthful when I had no other choice. I tried to hide it with her before, but that was because of my then best friend. The respect I had for him and the brotherhood we formed, I kept my distance as much as I could. Even though it eventually came with threats of fucking her, it was to scare her because she was creeping up on me, and she wasn’t something I wanted to keep.

  Or for her to keep me.

  “That’s fine, Hayes,” she consents. “You keep lying to yourself. Maintain your victim card and that I purposely hurt you when you know that it was a mistake, that I didn’t know. Keep preserving that shit in your mind, and let it burn you alive so that I don’t have to deal with you anymore. Because after today, we’re done, I’m done. I showed up to Cali to talk to you, it was a stupid move, I know that now, and I knew it then. It was my last resort.”

  “You were never my last resort. I gave you up, I had to give you up.” She reaches down for her shorts, snatching them from the ground, and straightens.

  “Then give me up, ignore me, bitch me out, or fuck me. You don’t have many options, Hayes.” She begins to round me, but I’m not ready to let her go yet.

  “Put your shorts on, Bases,” I scold.

  She crinkles her freckled nose and scoffs. “Fuck you, and don’t pretend to care. Maybe I’ll just let Jake pick up where you left off.”

  I move toward her, but she recoils away from me. “Man, it's like a damn game of repeat around here with you. My shit still stands. You’re mine, we’ve already made that perfectly clear. Screw around with it, Bases, and, well, you already know what I’m capable of.”

  Her mouth twists, and she pulls her legs through each hole of her shorts, slamming her feet on the ground as she does it like a two-year-old who didn’t get a cookie.

  “I look forward to it, Hayes,” she counters. This time, I let her go so she can cool off.

  Sawyer should be so stupid as to tempt me again. That spunk and grit is starting to show under her collected veneer. But if I discovered anything about her, it's that she’ll fight me back. That may have been the only thing I did adore about her. She gave me a run for my money.

  And this time, I wouldn’t stop until I was bankrupt and living on the streets.

  Shit still stands, my wants are still vividly present, and if Sawyer thinks I’m going to duck and dodge, she doesn’t remember how much of a douchebag I could be.

  Ten years ago

  Hushed tones and murmurs envelop me everywhere I go in school. I get long stares through the hallways, sudden silence when I walk into classrooms because people were just talking about me and what happened between Colson and Gavin at our away game on Friday.

  Exactly what I didn’t want to happen, did anyways, and now, I’m the talk of the school once again. The new girl at Freemont High who separated two best friends since Kindergarten, and I didn’t even lead Colson on.

  I led him off.

  I was dodging him everywhere I went, moved my seat in Mr. B’s class, studied his routes to his classes so that I knew when I could go to my locker without running into him. I’ve ignored his text messages, and I eat my lunch in the library now. But ever since that day, everything stopped. I haven’t heard a word from him since his last text.

  Colson: Your boyfriend isn’t going to be able to use his dick for a while. His balls are somewhere in his throat.

  Well, he found out, and I knew it was because of Gavin and his big mouth. We got into a fight about it after his throwdown. Taylor and I were at the food trucks getting hot dogs when it had happened. I didn’t even realize until we came back and Gavin had a ziplock bag of ice plastered to his face.

  Gavin preached it’s what guys talk about. They have big mouths, spreading it throughout the team, and I was over being gossiped about. Not only did I get scowled at by the whole student body, but Coach Anderson has been sending me side glares from the baseball field. Today, I tossed my bat, grabbed my backpack, and walked off the field.

  Today is only Tuesday, and I can’t stand it any longer.

  I didn’t do anything. I didn’t ask for anything. I did what I was supposed to do in a relationship and was faithful to the person I was dating.

  What did I do wrong here?

  And what’s worse, is that Gavin isn’t defending me, he’s bragging about me. The whole school knows I lost my virginity on the cold floor of the movie theatre covered in sticky soda and popcorn. That Gavin got me off before the previews were even done.

  That was a lie.

  All I felt was discomfort, embarrassment from being naked in front of a boy for the first time, and a little bit of pain. I didn’t mind doing it again, Taylor told me it gets better and more comfortable, but after all this, I don’t want Gavin anywhere near me right now.

  Nor anyone else, for that matter.

  The warm sun beams on my face trailed by a cool spring breeze that sends small goosebumps over my arms. I’m just going to head to the locker room, grab my stuff, and ride home on my bike. Tomorrow, I’ll bring my portable CD player and just blare it in my ears all day so I don’t have to hear the loud screech of desks when kids sit down to make it look like they weren’t talking shit about me seconds before.

  “Bases!” I outwardly cringe.

  It’s the last voice I want to hear bellowing from behind me. All it’s going to do is cause more grief and another gabfest about me.

  So, I pick up my pace.

  Not now.

  I’m not going to do this with him. We have nothing to talk about. I don’t want to hear that he told me so or that Gavin isn’t right for me. I just want to become invisible.

  Or develop some sort of force field that keeps him three hundred yards away from me at all times.

  “Bases!”

  “Fuck off, Colson,” I snap, surprising myself with my vocabulary.

  It wasn’t that I was against swear words, it was that I didn’t want to get used to saying them. Mom would freak, and I’d rather not hear about how ladies are supposed to talk, dress, and walk. It’s the 1950’s edition of what she believes women should be and what we should accept from men.

  And I’m not welcoming one fiber of disrespect from the man walking behind me.

  “Hey!” I hear the rustle of grass behind me, and I get ready to fight. Like a Mortal Kombat fatality to his head. “Wait!”

  I spin around, his body almost colliding with mine, before he takes an intel
ligent step back.

  “What in God’s given name could you possibly want from me, Colson? I don’t want to talk to you. I don’t want to see you. I don’t even want to breathe the same air as you, but that would require me to be removed from this planet. And since we’re not there yet, what couldn’t wait till forever that you just had to say to me?”

  Colson frowns, his hands shoved into the pockets of his grey sweatpants, and I watch him inhale a deep breath. “I’m not sorry for what I did to Gavin for you.”

  I cock my head, my brows arching with it. “For me?”

  “And I already told you that—”

  “Shut the hell up, Hayes,” I seize, balling my hands into fists. “If you’re here to say ‘I told you so,’ you can march your ass right back to your team.” He holds his ground, staring at me with an impassive look on his face.

  “I’m not sorry,” he repeats.

  “You’re not sorry?” I throw my hands up. “That’s great! Take care, Hayes.” I begin to turn around, but I see his hand come up to stop me, and I flinch back. “Don’t ever touch me again. I swear to God, I will make it so you never can get hard again.”

  “Okay.” He combs his hair with his fingers in frustration or restlessness, I’m not sure nor do I put any effort into figuring it out. “I am sorry for the stuff you’ve had to endure in the last few days.”

  “Thanks to you,” I gripe, pointing my index finger at him. “You made me look like I was a whore, playing you two against each other while I got my sick giggles for it. All I wanted to do was graduate and go to college, play some softball, and make something of myself. But now…” I feel tears burn the back of my eyes, and I will scream if one escapes. “Now, I get to be known as the girl who took two popular guys down with her pureness and seduction like Anne Boleyn! So, just behead me, Hayes, because there is no way I’m going to be known as anything else around here.”