I stared into Teagan's eyes, but I couldn't make my lips form the words.
Yes. Yes, I did. I cared too much about you, but all I can care about is football. I have to make something of myself. I didn't want to trap you, Teagan. I didn't want to trap us.
“I see,” she said, licking her lips and moving away, turning around to stare into the navy blue waters of the Willamette. “Well, you can rest easy then, Tyce Winship, because I didn't come here for you. As I'm sure you remember, I don't have any family other than my mom and now, she's dead. It might come as a surprise to you, but selling movie tickets at the local theater doesn't exactly leave a lot of room for life insurance or trust funds. I got a scholarship at the U of O, so I followed the money, okay? I didn't come here for you.”
“What happened to Venus?” I asked, because I was starting to wonder if words were going to fail me completely. I wanted to shake Teagan at the same time I wanted to hug her, pull her small wild frame against me and tell her everything was going to be okay. But screw that. Screw it. No. I didn't sign up for any of this crap.
“Doesn't matter,” Teagan said, leaning over and putting her forehead against her arms. “She's dead now, so who cares? You weren't there when we needed you most. You took what you wanted from us and then you blew us off like we were nothing.” She raised her head and sent a piercing gaze my way, one that struck me right through the chest, made me feel like I was bleeding out. “And the worst part of it all is that you don't seem to give a crap.”
“That's where you're wrong,” I said, reaching out and taking her elbow in my hand. Teagan pulled away from me again, rubbing her hands down the moss green lycra fabric of her running jacket. “I'm sorry that I left, Tea.”
“Don't call me that.”
“I'm sorry that I left and that I didn't call, I wanted to.”
“Bullshit.”
I grabbed her arm again and squeezed hard, pulling her towards me.
“I did. I thought about going home so many times, about calling. But things got in the way.”
“You mean football?” she asked, lifting her chin proudly to glare at me. “Or girls. Because you seem to be having plenty of both.”
This time when Teagan pulled away from me, she turned and took off down the path.
Last time I fucked up, I let her jog away from me. Somehow, I found her anyway. That was fate or God or karma or whatever you want to call it. But fate only gives you so many chances. If I didn't fix this thing, or at least find some sort of resolution for us both, I was going to get back what I'd sown three times over.
I started running.
When I caught up to Teagan again, I grabbed her elbow again and tried to get her to stop.
“Tea, talk to me,” I said as I dragged my heels to a stop and she spun around to face me, her expression broken up with lines of hatred, frustration, but mostly sadness. Sad. She was so fucking sad. “I didn't come after you to make you cry.”
“I wish you'd just kept pretending not to know me,” she said, reaching up and rubbing her eyes. With a low growl in her throat, she dropped them back by her sides and continued to glare at me, breath coming in panting gasps. “Maybe if I'd let you fuck me, you'd be a little nicer?”
“Don't talk like that, Tea,” I growled back at her. “That's ridiculous.”
“Why did you kiss me yesterday?” she asked suddenly, looking back at me with dry eyes and a tight line for a mouth. I kept thinking she would cry again, but I guess I'd seen all there was to see of that. “You never tried before, not once. I mean, you kissed all my friends. You fucked all of my friends. But not me, never me. Why is that?”
“I have no idea,” I whispered harshly, my voice tight and my eyes flicking across her face, searching for something more. What I was looking for, I really had no clue, but I couldn't stop searching for it. “To any of the above. I don't fucking know. I'm sorry I teased you like that. I was so … God, I was fucking shocked as hell to see you. I didn't know what to do, so I said some shit. I didn't mean any of it. I'm not sure what came over me. I'd never say those things to you normally.”
“Of course you wouldn't,” she murmured, shaking her head and looking down at the forest floor beneath our feet. It was a blanket of red, yellow, and orange leaves with a sprinkling of pine needles. Night was falling quick and the orange streetlights around us were starting to pop on, drawing flurries of moths to their pale glow.
Teagan looked up at me again and then took a sudden step forward, leaning her full chest against the hard planes of my abs, putting her small hands softly on either side of my face. She pressed her fingers against my cheeks and teased my lower lip with the gentlest of kisses, like a breath of wind against my mouth.
I wasn't used to that. I was used to hard, heavy bursts of tongue and groping hands, the taste of beer and weed and desperation. This wasn't like that, not at all.
Before I could stop myself, I was wrapping my arms around Teagan's waist and pushing her back, pressing her tight against the trunk of a tree. Her mouth opened to my demands, welcoming me with a small moan of either pleasure or pain, I'm not sure. Either way, she accepted me by tilting her head back, dropping her arms to my shoulders.
I kissed Teagan back the only way I knew how, returning that gentle press of lips with a firm, fierce insistence that even I didn't understand. I ran from this girl; I was still running from this girl. If I didn't stay away from her, she'd become an obsession. Instinctively, I knew that. In that moment, with my rigid cock pressed tight against her body, her panting breaths filling my mouth, I couldn't stop.
My tattooed right hand dove into her black leggings, finding her hot and wet and ready for me. I slicked a finger along her swollen heat, feeling the stiff, tender flesh of her clit at the top. I teased Teagan with that hand while I kissed her fucking face off, my tongue annihilating hers in a kiss that was too personal, too intimate. Teagan could reminisce all she wanted about our childhood together, but right now, we were strangers to each other, as foreign and far apart as me and any of the girls I spent the night with.
Deep down though, I knew this was different. I didn't accept it, refused to accept it. But I knew.
I cupped Teagan's face with my left hand, holding her gingerly with my fingers while I kept her body pressed into the rough bark of the tree with my own. Thrusting my hips against her, I rubbed my cock between us, moaning into her mouth as I finally slipped a pair of fingers into her pussy. Holy shit, she's tight, I thought as I struggled to push in, all the way to my knuckles, forcing her legs apart with my hand. I ended up having to move my left hand back down to take her thigh, keep her balanced while I slid in and out, slow and deliberate, careful.
The wind picked up, whipping my dark hair around my face, mixing her red-orange strands with my own as we continued to kiss. I opened my eyes then and looked at her, at her shuttered lashes and rosy cheeks, at the wind chill turning her forehead and nose a pale pink color. Or maybe that was the motion of my hand, working her tight muscles into the fluttering pulse of a butterfly, one that cupped my hand with each beat of its wings.
When I moved my hand to my own jeans in a deliberate move, Teagan didn't stop me. I bit her lower lip as I dragged the zipper down and freed my dick, holding the heavy length in my hand as I stroked some pre-ejac down the shaft, getting myself ready for her. It didn't cross my mind then that I didn't have a condom. Should've maybe, but didn't. With other girls, hell yeah. It was the first thought on my mind when I smiled at them across the room. With Teagan … it didn't seem to matter so much. I just wanted her, all of her, as close to me as I could get.
I pulled back, enjoying the moist swell of Teagan's lower lip, the flutter of her lashes as she opened those jade green eyes of hers and looked back at me. Her pupils were dark and dilated, thick and black with desire, as I withdrew my hand and curled my fingers around the waistband of her leggings.
No protests.
I knew this was a stupid idea, that we were standing in the middle of a publi
c park, but I didn't care. I dragged her leggings down her hips and tore off her left tennis shoe so I could free the fabric from her body. I left it hanging on the other side and stood back up, lifting her small frame like it was nothing. She might not have weighed much, but she felt like the world in my hands.
Teagan spread her legs wide, wrapped them as tight around me as she could get and looked me straight in the eyes as I slid into her. It happened so quick, just one smooth thrust and I was as far inside as I could get. She cried out and squeezed me hard, dropping her forehead to my shoulder and making a sound in her throat that I couldn't interpret.
It was hard for me to breathe, to move. Warm, wet heat surrounded me on all sides, bore down on me with enough pressure that I found it hard to think, to realize what any of this meant. It didn't matter. I started to move, using the sounds Teagan was making to judge the speed, the strength of my thrusts. I pushed into her, melded our bodies together, fucked her slow but hard, purposefully. Her soft body yielded to mine, pulled me in and reassured me with the thumping pulse of her heart. I could feel it there, circling my cock, beating against me with her panting breaths.
“It hurts, Tyce,” Teagan whispered, her voice hoarse and rough. “It really hurts.”
“What hurts?” I asked, turning my face, breathing hot against her cheek as she raised her head. I could barely get the words out. I was hardly even myself in that moment, succumbing to the wants of my body, to basic desires and needs and feelings I'd been carrying with me for years. “The tree?” In the scrambled state my brain was in, I really thought that was a logical response.
“All of it,” Teagan gasped as I pulled back, my hands tight on her ass, her legs still firmly wrapped around me. “Everything.”
“Do you want me to stop?” I whispered against her ear, enjoying the shudder that passed through her body and back into mine. When she didn't answer, I thrust in again, feeling the connection of our hips straight up my spine and into my brain. “Do you?”
“No,” she stated quietly but firmly. With a small growl, I adjusted her weight and started to move faster, deeper, more. I moved our sweaty bodies together in a blur of wetness and heat and flickering white pulses of pleasure.
When I came, it was with an earth shattering amount of power, enough to thoroughly knock the sense from my brain as I sagged against Teagan and held her tight. Half of me wanted to stay like that forever. The other half, the angry, twisted dirty half, he wanted to drop her and run like hell. What I was so scared of, I wasn't sure. It was stupid and irrational and it didn't make any sense, but it was there.
“Could you put me down, please?” Teagan asked after a moment, and I slid out with a groan, realizing as I reached down to adjust my pants that there was blood. Not a lot, but a little. I looked back up at her as she struggled to fix her leggings. “Could you grab my shoe?” she whispered hoarsely, refusing to look at me.
I felt sick to my stomach as I finished buttoning my pants and squatted down to grab her sneaker.
“Teagan,” I began as I stood back up, but she didn't let me finish, snatching the shoe away from me and stumbling a bit as she tried to slip it back on. When I reached out to help her, she pulled back from me.
“I should go,” she told me, but she stayed right where she was, leaning against the tree with her breath coming in heavy gasps and her hands quivering by her sides. When she finally looked over at me, her lips were swollen from our kisses and her eyes looked like they were ringed in liner, lit up by desire but also by confusion. Surprise. A lack of surety.
“Are you a virgin?” I asked, still trying to figure out what was going on. I mean, I'd known Teagan was a virgin when I'd left, but I'd assumed … I'd assumed. That was the problem. I'd just assumed. My heart started to pound against my ribcage and my hands squeezed into fists. What the fuck did I just do?
“Could you walk me home, maybe?” Teagan asked suddenly, sweeping some stray strands of red hair away from her lips. “I just … I feel a little unsteady right now.”
“Yeah,” I said, the hot embers of desire in my blood fading to ash. I could feel it cooling, clogging my veins and arteries. What just happened? I came out here to talk, not to take my childhood friend's virginity. The worst part of it all, was that I knew I fucked up. That I couldn't be the man she needed me to be. “Yeah I can do that.”
I crossed my arms over my chest and pretended like my legs weren't shaky, like I wasn't at all fazed by what'd just happened between us. The aching pulse between my thighs begged to differ, but I ignored it, clenching my upper arms with my orange fingernails.
The park was deserted, the sky thoroughly inked in black by this point. How stupid was that? I know better, I do. Tyce and I could've been caught; we could've gone to jail. If we'd been arrested, I could've been charged as a … Never mind. Didn't matter. We didn't get caught, and all I had to deal with now was this sticky weirdness between us.
I stared down at the tips of my sneakers, some ratty old thrift store finds that had definitely seen better days. They looked ridiculous striding next to Tyce's perfect black Nikes. I raised my gaze and stared straight ahead, at the spots of light from the lamps above our heads, the gentle swaying of the trees as they picked up an incoming breeze. A storm is coming, I thought absently as we continued to walk in silence.
Tyce kept glancing over at me like he wanted to say something, but then he just looked away and ran a hand over his face. I studied him, the way the wind picked up the espresso dark strands of his hair, tousled it messily around his strong face. His full lower lip was stiff with anger as his blue eyes scanned the horizon and then flicked back my way.
Our gazes met and a warm flush flickered through my body. I could still feel the strange sensation of sharing my body, feel the wetness between my legs. Some of it was blood, I knew. I saw. I reached up and brushed some russet red strands away from my face as we reached the wooden bridge. Across the street from us, Autzen Stadium loomed in the winking twilight, reminding me that Tyce had a game coming up on Saturday.
Saturday.
Today was Friday.
I spun to face him, pausing in the middle of the bridge.
“You have a game tomorrow?” I asked, wondering what he was doing out here, running around on dark forest trails and … screwing girls against the trunks of trees. I ran my fingers through my hair as he studied my face with a guarded expression. For the life of me, I couldn't figure out what he was thinking, so I just stared back, right into those blue eyes of his. But … blue wasn't the right word. No, Tyce's eyes defied description. They were the color of a deep breath, a heavy sigh. Rimmed in gold, flecked with shards of hazel. And his lashes, they were dark and long, curving up against his bronzed skin.
“Yeah,” he said, pushing his fingers into the pockets on his sweatpants. His gaze was penetrating, like his body was not five minutes ago. I dropped my gaze to the skull tattoo on the center of his chest. With the black tank he was wearing, I couldn't see much more than the eyes above the neckline.
I waited a moment, but I wasn't sure exactly what it was that I was waiting for, so I turned and started walking again. I noticed Tyce didn't invite me to the game or even ask if I was already planning on going. That hurt, really hurt.
I pretended it didn't.
“Should you really be out running the night before a big game?”
“Not exactly,” he admitted, reaching up to run his fingers through the back of his short cropped hair. “But Kai's my roommate, so I know he won't say anything.”
“He seems like a nice guy,” I said as my Fitbit started beeping again, like my own personal little lie detector. Your heart rate is up, it warned me. Whatever you're doing, bring it down a notch. Except I couldn't just walk off this strange feeling in my chest. First kiss. Check. Virginity. Check. Two things off my bucket list that I hadn't expected to check off so quickly.
“You should stay away from him,” Tyce said, irritating me with his know-it-all tone. “You should stay away from the
whole team. They're nothing but a bunch of man whores.” Tyce paused and the awkwardness between us grew in leaps and bounds, like a canyon opening up in the earth. There was no bridge, no crossing this divide.
I felt sick to my stomach.
“This is good enough,” I said as we paused at the end of the block, across the street from my apartment complex. “You can let me off here.” I made myself smile a smile I didn't feel. “You should get home and rest for the big game.”
I started to turn away, wishing he'd reach out and take my arm, hold me close for a minute.
The seconds ticked by as I waited for the light to change, so I could cross. There weren't any cars, but I waited anyway. When I heard his footsteps moving in the opposite direction, it took everything I had inside of me not to cry.
To my credit, I made it home with two dry eyes.
According to a quick Google search, the game tonight started at seven-thirty on ESPN. There was a part of me that wanted to watch, see Tyce in his element. The other part of me just wanted to curl up into a ball and sleep it all away.
I decided on a compromise, pulling up the ebook versions of my class texts and diving into homework. That computer and information science degree wasn't going to earn itself. In my heart of hearts, I wanted to be a makeup artist, but that was about as likely as my mother becoming a dancer, something she'd talked about right up until the day she died. As much as I wanted to toss my laptop aside, trade out my keyboard for a palette of color, I wasn't about to walk away from this opportunity.
I shifted in my chair, feeling an uncomfortable ache between my legs. Ouch. Last night … that had hurt more than I wanted to admit. I wasn't thinking clearly in that moment. I was so desperate for Tyce to finally see me, to look at me like a woman instead of a little girl. And then he held me so close, and he kissed me so fiercely, like a promise. I felt that protective instinct in him that had made me feel so safe when I was younger.
I should've asked him to stop.
Kicked: A Bad Boy Sports Romance Page 5
