Cross Crease (On The Edge Book 3)

by Elizabeth Hartey

  “Sorry.” She shakes her head. “But I need you to stop touching me.” I understand. Now more than ever. Every time we touch, I never want to stop touching her. I want to run my hands down her body and light her on fire with every stroke.

  “If you didn’t come here to help me retire my V-card why did you come?” she asks in a frustrated voice.

  “We’re friends, Pip. I don’t want things to be weird between us.”

  “I don’t want things to be weird either.” She shrugs and grabs a throw pillow, clutching it to her chest. It has the words If it swells, ride it printed on it. Jesus. I know it’s in reference to surfing, but I have to reach down and subtly adjust my very hard, resolute cock at the double entendre.

  “We’ve always been able to talk about everything and help each other figure things out. Right?” This is nuts. We’re both still sizzling from my foolish actions. How the hell am I going to explain this to her in a non-hormonal, non-crazed way?

  “I guess.” She puffs out another big breath.

  “I can’t…you know…we can’t…” I wave my hand back and forth between us, but I can’t bring myself to say the words. Just the thought makes me harder.

  “Fuck?” Pippa doesn’t haven’t any problem spitting the word out. I close my eyes and bite my lip at her straightforward question. “What? You said we have no problem talking about things. Why should this be any different? I get it. You don’t want to fuck me because you’re not attracted to me in that way.”

  “No…I mean yes…I mean…I think you’re really cute. I…”

  “Cute! Like a puppy? Gee thanks.” She pouts.

  “No. Not like a…fuck. I’m not good at talking about this stuff.”

  “No. I suppose not. I never heard anyone accuse you of being an amazing talker when it comes to this stuff.” She’s right. Talking has never been my forté when it comes to this stuff.

  I scratch my head to give myself a minute to think about how to say what I need to. “You’re beautiful, Pip. The most beautiful girl I’ve ever seen. If things were different…I mean any guy would be lucky to…to…”

  “To fuck me?” She tilts her head, bats her lashes, and flashes a devilish grin, driving me wild. She’s not so innocent, after all. She knows exactly what she’s doing to me.

  “Yeah. That. Even though you’re being a little jerk right now.”

  “I’m being the jerk?” She quirks a brow.

  Before I have a chance to respond, a grey scraggy fluff ball pounces onto my lap and scares the shit out of me. I jump about a foot into the air and stretch my arms out in either direction, so I don’t touch the bizarre looking creature.

  Yet another relationship I’ve never indulged in—owning a pet. Who the fuck wants to be saddled with the commitment pets require?

  The cat—at least I think it’s a cat—is pretty nimble for only having three legs and he’s purring so loud he’s vibrating against my chest like a lawnmower. The thing keeps rubbing against me and has apparently decided I’m his new best friend.

  “Uh, who and what is this?” I shift from side to side to keep the thing from licking my face without having to use my hands to touch it.

  “Stop it, Hal.” Pippa scoops Hal—I’m thinking Quasimodo would be a more fitting name—off my lap. “You picked the wrong person to fall in love with. This guy doesn’t like to be cuddled,” she informs the creature in baby speak while pouting her lips. The way he’s rubbing against her tits, and she’s nuzzling her nose into him while scratching his belly, I’m getting ready to yell, “yes I do. I love being cuddled.” Maybe in my next life, I’ll come back as a cat.

  “What the hell happened to him?” I ignore her remark and brush off the fur gifts Quasi deposited all over my shirt.

  “He was hit by a car. I found him by the side of the road and took him right to the vet. Dr. Sharon managed to save him, but couldn’t save his leg.” She plants a kiss on the top of his head and I’m captivated by her tenderness.

  “Hmm. That’s…uh…that sucks.” Christ. I’m jealous of a fucking mutant cat.

  “It’s okay. He’s adapted. I don’t think he even notices he’s missing a leg anymore.” She bends and gingerly places him on the floor. “Okay, baby. Go find Sheldon and snuggle with him.”

  “Sheldon?” Who the hell is Sheldon?

  Pippa doesn’t have time to explain before another malformed being lumbers into the room. This one appears to be a dog—a one-eyed dog. The beast looks to be a mixed breed Pug with a hair wisp growing from the top of his head. And it has to be the ugliest damn dog I’ve ever seen.

  “This, I take it, is Sheldon? Interesting name.”

  “I named him after the Sponge Bob character. You know, because he has one eye,” she whispers, as if Sheldon can understand what she’s saying and would be devastated to find out he’s disfigured.

  Fuck knows why, but I whisper, “Did Sheldon get hit by a car too?”

  “Oh no. He was an abused rescue baby. I got him at the shelter where I was volunteering.” She bends over and scratches Sheldon’s head, running her fingers through the bizarre wispy, disheveled fur. This girl is pure love. Now I know for sure what I have to do. I have to make sure she finds the right man to share it with.

  “You volunteer at a shelter?” I glance around, expecting to see a menagerie of aberrant animals.

  “I used to. I had to give it up because of my classes and internship. There just isn’t enough time.” She shrugs a shoulder. “It’s probably for the best, anyway,” she adds, like she’s trying to convince herself. But the sadness in her voice is obvious. “I wanted to adopt all the abandoned fur babies, and I don’t have enough space for them here.”

  “Are…are there more?” I give another nervous glance around the room.

  “Just one. Would you like to meet him?” Her eyes are sparkling again with excited anticipation.

  “Sure.” I’m not about to disappoint her one more time or take the twinkle from those beautiful eyes again. The least I can do is take a few minutes to meet her adopted beasts.

  She stands up and reaches her hand out to me. I wrap my hand around hers. The instant warmth which flames through me is startling. She stands still for a moment, gazing first at our entwined hands, and then up into my eyes. She was right. It’s better if we don’t touch each other. But somehow, I can’t let go of her hand. It’s so…good.

  After the brief silence, she leads me down the hall toward what I assume are the bedrooms. I’m actually shaking like it’s the first time I’ve been led to a woman’s bed. I know if she brings me to her bedroom, I won’t be able to stop myself this time.

  She stops at a door, pushing it open and leading me inside. The warm air in the room in contrast to the cool temperature in the hall is like a punch in the face.

  “I have to keep it warm in here. He likes it around eighty degrees.”

  “He?”

  She drops my hand and walks over to an aquarium. Even in the heated room, I’m left with the cold loss of her warm touch.

  “Come here. He won’t bite. He’s very sweet.” She gestures for me to look into the huge glass encasement. The aquarium is on a long table and is about five feet in length. “He’s a box turtle. I’m helping to rehab him. Since I can’t go to the shelter, I’m doing it here.”

  When I look into the aquarium, I almost want to laugh at the pathetic site. I mean I’m not a cruel SOB…well, maybe I am. But in this case, the reason I’m holding back a chuckle is because the poor guy has what appears to be a modified sanitary napkin taped to his shell. Other than the humiliating circumstance, he seems to be living in luxury in his glass condo. He even has his own gray pottery mini pond.

  “What happened here?” I bite back a smile.

  “He was also found on the side of the road. We think a dog got to him. But he’s been all cleaned up and taped. He’s healing, really coming along.” She takes a banana from a bowl next to the tank, peels it, and breaks off a piece. Reaching down into the aquarium,
she holds the banana out. The turtle lumbers over and grabs it from her fingers.

  “Yes. you’re doing great now, aren’t you, Wolfe?” Apparently, smooshy baby talk is the only language pets understand. Wait. What did she say?

  “Did…did you just call him Wolfe?” No way she named this pitiful turtle after me.

  “Oh. I…um…well…yes.” She doesn’t look up at me when she answers, and she doesn’t offer any further explanation.

  I push for one. “Why?”

  “I…I just did. What difference does it make? Let’s go. It’s too hot in here.” She turns and leaves me standing there staring down at my absurd namesake.

  I follow her back into the living room, but she’s not sitting on the sofa. She’s standing in the middle of the room, her back to me. She brushes her hand across her face. Fucking hell. Is she crying?

  “Hey. Are you okay?” I come up behind her. When I touch her shoulder, she jumps as if I hit her with a branding iron.

  “I’m fine.” She moves a few steps away from me. “I’m just tired. I think you better go.” She turns and slowly brings her gaze up to mine. I see all the sadness and disappointment I assume this Wolfe and not Wolfe, the turtle, is responsible for.

  “Listen to me.” I close the space between us. Putting one finger under her chin, I tilt her head up so she’ll look at me while I talk to her.

  As soon as I look into her glistening eyes, I know I’ve made another mistake, and I pull my hand away. I’ll never be able to explain anything if I’m this close to her. I take a step back, and she lets out a shuddering sigh.

  This is fucking killing me. I want to push her to the floor and rip her t-shirt off her body, give her everything she needs and take what I want. I want to taste her, devour her, pound balls deep inside her. But this isn’t about what I want.

  “I know you think I’m being an asshole, but I’m doing my best not to be. You deserve a guy who can commit, fall in love with you, be devoted. I can’t give you that. I have the life I want, the one that suits me, doing what I want when I want. No commitment, no answering to anyone, or having to be responsible for someone else’s feelings.”

  “I didn’t ask you to marry me, D. Just devirginize me.” I’m sorry I made her look at me. I can’t handle the gleam in her eyes.

  “Jesus, Pip.” I grip my neck and tug in frustration. “I can’t fuck you and walk out. I care too much about you.”

  “So, don’t walk out.” She lifts one shoulder like it’s simple.

  I shake my head at her naivete. “I’m the wrong guy for you, Pip. The things you need? I don’t have them to give.”

  “Hmm. I’d say your feelings are showing. I thought you said you don’t do feelings.”

  “This is different. You’re my friend, for chrissakes! And I want to see you find the guy you deserve. Maybe I can…I thought…maybe I can help you find him.”

  “You…what now?” The quizzical pinched look taking over her face suggests she’s thinking the same thing I am. I’ve lost my mind. I can’t give her what she needs, so I’m going to help her find another guy and hand her over?

  “You’re not the kind of girl who sleeps around with random assholes.” Including me. “You’ve always said you’re saving yourself for the right person. And I think it’s a good plan, a smart plan. I’m going to help you find him.”

  “Are…are you kidding me right now?”

  “No. I get it. You need…I don’t know…to experience…ah…”

  “Sex.”

  “Yeah. That.” I continue to rub my neck. “But you also need a good guy. Not some dickhole. I can introduce you to some good dudes.”

  “You want to introduce me to other guys.” She says it like I just told her I want to introduce her to the male residents at Folsom State prison. “Other guys for me to have sex with?”

  “Not guys. Just one guy to have sex…to date. But you might have to meet a few before you find the right one.”

  I don’t even know what I’m saying anymore. Can your brain freeze along with your balls? Because I think I’m in some kind of blue-balled stupefied state. I’m spewing these bullshit words from my mouth, but my stomach is in knots thinking about my Pippa with another guy.

  No. This is right. I look down at myself. I can’t hurt her. I have to step aside and let it happen for her. Christ. I have officially lost my mind. I’m reprimanding my own cock.

  Pip cartoon shakes her head like she’s trying to clear it. She’s staring at me in wide-eyed confusion. But not because she noticed me staring at my crotch. “You really want me to sleep…to go out with someone else?”

  This. Is. Fucking. Killing. Me. But it’s the right thing for her. I’m not. It takes all my resolve to answer her. “I would prefer you wait another ten or twenty years before you sleep…go out with someone. But since we both know it isn’t going to happen…yeah. That’s what I want.” The hell you do, you fucking dumb ass. I’m pretty sure that’s my frustrated cock reprimanding me right back.

  Pippa sucks her full top lip between her teeth. For a moment I think she’s going to burst into tears, and if she does, I’m going to wrap her in my arms to soothe her. And if I do, I’m going to comfort and soothe her every way I know. And I know lots of ways to soothe a woman. I’m a professional. Or at least I was.

  But she doesn’t cry. In fact, she doesn’t shed one goddamn tear. What she does is stand straight, brush her hair behind her shoulders, and fuckin’ smile.

  “Okay. Sounds like a plan.”

  “It…it does?” She could have at least argued with me a little.

  “Abso-frigin-lutely! You know a lot of hot hockey players. How ’bout Sanders? He’s so hot he melts the ice when he’s on it. Jesus. I saw him walk out of the locker room without his shirt on the other day and I almost got pregnant. He’d be per…”

  “Fuck that shit. He’s a bigger whore than me. And since when do you ogle shirtless guys?”

  “Since I’ve been hanging around outside your locker room.” She plops down onto the sofa with a frisky bounce. For chrissakes, this girl has more mood swings than Tiger Woods’ golf club. “I never appreciated the testosterone levels swirling around all those hockey boys, but I do now. And I think your plan is fantastic. If not Sanders, how about Carson? His biceps alone are enough to make me come in my pants.” She fucking sighs.

  “Okay. Enough. I’m not fixing you up with any manwhore hockey players. If I wanted you to fuck some dickhole I’d…”

  “You’d what?” She purses her lips.

  “I’d nothing. Forget it. And forget hockey players.”

  “Really? Darn.” She pouts those luscious lips. I’m about to say fuck it and suck her teasing lips into my mouth and face fuck her with my tongue until she forgets every other hockey player on the planet. “I hear hockey guys have amazing stamina and enormous…”

  “Forget fucking hockey players!”

  “I wasn’t planning on fucking every hockey player, just one particularly well-endowed specimen.” She blinks her long dark lashes again and smirks.

  “Stop fucking with me.” I run both hands back through my hair. Little monster.

  She’s trying to make me jealous talking about getting it on with some other guy. And it’s working. Thinking about any one of my teammates getting close enough to her just to breathe in her scent makes me crazy.

  “I’m not fucking with you, D,” she sing-songs, taunting me. “Exactly the problem.”

  Fucking hell! I begin pacing the floor. I should take her in my arms and give her what we both want.

  Instead, I stop and turn to her. She has to see how crazy this is. “I can’t do it. I can’t risk hurting you.”

  “Why would you be hurting me? It’s just one friend helping out another. No big deal.”

  “No big deal? You don’t believe that. If it wasn’t a big deal to you, you would have slept with someone a long time ago. You wouldn’t have thought twice about waiting for the right freaking guy. And I’m not him. Think a
bout it. You don’t know…I mean think about how I am. You’ve known me long enough to know my MO. What happens when I pop your cherry, get up, stick my dick back in my pants and walk out? Are you going to want to go have a pizza with me the next day? And what are you going to do when I fuck some other chick afterward? Will you want to hang out on the beach with me? Go surfing like nothing ever happened? You don’t want this, Pip. I’m not a good guy. And I don’t do the whole virginal chick thing because it can get too complicated. It requires sensitivity I don’t have to give.” She doesn’t say a word through my rant. She’s staring at me through narrowed eyes like she’s trying to process everything I’m saying.

  “I think you’re more sensitive than you realize,” she says in a soft voice.

  “I’m not. You just see what you want to see. You only see the good in people.”

  “I see the good in you.” She blinks back the unshed tears glazing her eyes.

  “No. There is no good to see!” My words come out harsher than I intend, causing her to jump. I sit down next to her again, but I don’t touch her. I can’t touch her without losing the determination to protect her from me. “Sorry. But you have to understand. The only good thing about me is my friendship with you.”

  “That’s not true. You’re a good friend to your teammates, an amazing goalie, and you read computer code like it’s your first language. Those are good things.”

  “Right, and the only reason I have those skills is because Batt’s dad rescued me from the streets and took the time to help me. There’s nothing deeper in me waiting to be discovered or saved. Everything else is toxic waste, and I’m not going to contaminate you with my noxious existence.”

  There’s complete silence for an uncomfortable moment. Then Pippa clears her throat and says, “Okay.” She blows out a big breath.

  “Okay?”

  “Yes. I already told you, I won’t beg you for what you think you can’t give me.” Standing up, she walks across the room and opens the front door. “But you do realize you’re being ridiculous, right? You’ll never be able to fix me up with another guy.” She holds the door open.

  I stand and walk toward the open invitation for me to leave, stopping in front of her.