He groans, gripping my forearms tight and pulling me to stand again. Then, his mouth is devouring mine hungrily, like his last breath exists somewhere inside me and he’s on a mission to steal it back.
“We can revisit that another time,” he breathes. “Right now, I need you.”
He reaches behind him to kill the water, thrusting the shower curtain back and hastily wrapping a towel around him. He pulls one out for me, but when he turns to face me again, it’s as if time completely stops.
Adam pauses, holding my towel in his hand, and our eyes stay connected without either of us taking another step. Water drips from his hair down his jaw, to his chest, and I know he’s watching the same waterfall over my own body. He swallows, as if he’s just realized what we’re about to do, and then slowly, carefully, he wraps me in the towel and helps me out of the shower.
I’m still dripping as Adam lowers me into his bed, my wet hair splaying out over his pillow, hands clutching the towel over my chest. I was just naked and on my knees for him, but suddenly, I’m more exposed. Suddenly, it’s not just his fingers inside me, or me going down on him. It’s not just a shower. It’s not just sex.
It’s me, and Adam, for the first time.
It’s years of wanting, of never knowing, of always hoping. It’s an immeasurable time of hurt, of pain, of broken promises — and an equal amount of time making that right. It’s late nights eating pizza, him being there for me when Grayson wasn’t. It’s our first kiss on a dark beach in Key West, his hands on me when they shouldn’t have been. It’s him knowing better than I did what I needed this semester, and holding back on what he wanted just to make sure I was okay.
It’s love.
And that’s more intimate than the touches, the kisses, the feel of his body against mine. It’s what makes this time different than any other.
It’s what makes tonight more.
Adam swallows from where he towers above me, balancing on his forearms. He shifts his weight to one of them, kissing my hands where they clutch my towel before slowly peeling them back. I fist them in the sheets, instead, as he drops the edges of my towel to each side, and then his eyes are on me, his mouth descending.
He kisses my neck, my collarbone, the swell of my breast. His hands grip my ribs, my waist, my hips and my thighs. It’s like he can’t kiss everywhere he wants, can’t grab me tight enough, and when his hips settle between mine, the slick, hard tip of him pressing against the wet, swollen entrance of me — we both stop.
Kissing. Breathing. Feeling.
For that one moment, we’re suspended in time, and nothing or no one else exists.
Adam’s hand shakes as he reaches past my left shoulder and into his bedside table drawer for a condom. I just hold onto his shoulders, watching the mix of nerves and desire play across his face as he slips it on. When his weight is back on his forearms, his hips pressed against mine again, and his eyes float to mine, we both inhale a deep breath together.
“I love you,” he whispers, and his entire body trembles with the words.
“I love you, too.”
The laughter is gone. The playfulness? Left behind in the shower. It’s all heat and love and wonder as Adam presses his lips to mine, and slowly, with intent and care and purpose — he pushes inside me for the first time.
He fills me with our mouths fused together, stretching me inch by blissful inch with each withdrawal and flex of his hips. My nails dig into his shoulders, his back, my toes curling under the sheets. When it’s too much, I gasp for air from our kiss, eyes closing as he plants gentle kisses down my neck.
It’s nothing like I expected, feeling the weight of him between my legs. It’s more — so much more. It’s the love behind his eyes as he watches me, the tenderness of his shaking hands as they cradle my face, the careful way he enters me each and every time, pressing deep, but not too hard, letting us each feel every single centimeter. It’s everything I’ve always wanted sex to be, and everything I thought it never could be.
“Are you okay?” Adam asks, eyes finding mine.
I nod, kissing him again, my heels digging into his behind to press him deeper inside me. When he fills me again, I gasp, a rush of heat warming my entire body. “Yes,” I breathe. “More.”
And he delivers.
More and more, flex after flex, moan after moan, until I’m so ready to come I almost don’t want to. This feeling — this rush of pleasure right before it all ends — this is what I love the most.
Adam shifts his weight to one arm, wrapping the other around my thigh and lifting it until one leg is on his shoulder. In the new position, I’m even tighter than before, and both of us groan at the sensation.
“Adam…” I breathe, nails dragging down his back. He thrusts a little harder, the friction catching my clit in the perfect way, and I pull him closer, down into me, like I can’t come until we’re seamed together. “Yes. Oh, God, yes.”
Moans I’ve never heard before somehow spill from me, my cries loud and unabashed as I come harder than ever before. My vision goes black, a rush of blood flowing from every vein in my body straight to the pulsing need between my legs. I shudder, gripping Adam tight as I spiral out into space, and my moans drive him over his edge, taking him down with me.
He buries his head between my neck and my shoulder, his breath hot on my skin as we find our releases together. My name leaves his lips in a sigh, his falls from mine in a prayer, and when we emerge on the other side, in a new time, a new place, a new existence.
It’s the after, the now, the impossible that somehow slipped within our reach.
And we take our first breaths together.
The next night, I’m ridiculously happy and deliciously sore, crowded into Erin’s bed with her, Jess, and Ashlei as we FaceTime Skyler in Vegas. She just wrapped up the first day of the tournament, but we’re all more focused on what she just told us about Kip.
None of us knew what happened with Skyler and Kip after the cruise. We all thought everything was smooth sailing once the Erin drama was out in the open. But, they had a big blow out, and now that she’s revealed why, none of us can wrap our heads around it.
Kip’s dad sent him to PSU specifically to meet Skyler, to get to know her — to get to know her game. He wanted Kip to beat her at the tournament in Vegas, and Skyler found a file on his computer detailing the whole thing. It makes complete sense to us now that she blew him off and wanted nothing to do with him, but as soon as she dropped that bomb on us, she dropped another.
And this one has more kick.
Kip’s father has cancer.
So, what started as a deal between them, as a way for Kip to get the tuition money he needed for his dream school, turned into his father’s dying wish. And suddenly, nothing is black and white.
I’m beginning to learn that nothing in life is.
“Not to sound like your mother,” I say after a while, the subject changed. “But you look too thin. Are you eating out there in Vegas?”
Skyler laughs a little, bringing color to her ashen face. Her eyes are tired, hair in a messy bun, and I can tell she hasn’t been sleeping as much as she needs to to win a tournament.
“Trust me,” she says. “It’s just the camera. I’ve eaten at like five buffets already.”
“Sounds like heaven to me,” Jess pipes in. She takes a swig of the bottle of wine we snuck in and passes it to Erin. Skyler salutes us with a drink from her own bottle on the other end.
“I just wish we could be there,” Ashlei says, her face falling. “You should have someone there to cheer you on.”
“I know you girls will cheer me on at the watch party tomorrow, and honestly that will probably be more fun than the viewing section here. Send me pictures! I want to see everyone.”
“You know we will,” Ashlei says.
My phone lights up with a text from Adam and I blush, smiling as I tuck it under the covers.
“Bear has been planning this thing for months. I’m pretty sure he bought
enough kegs for the entire city instead of just the school. Which, by the way, literally the entire school will be there.” Ashlei smiles, shaking her head. “We are all so fucking proud of you.”
“Thanks.” Skyler says with a small smile, but it falls a bit when her eyes land on Erin. “What are you thinking so hard about, Big?”
Every time Skyler addresses Erin, or the other way around, we can’t help but all get a little stiff. Things are still tense between them after everything that happened. I’m glad they apologized to each other and agreed to make amends, but something tells me it won’t be anything they can resolve overnight. Or even over a summer.
Erin sighs. “I just can’t get over what you told us about Kip’s dad.”
Jess and Ashlei exchange glances, their eyes wide. Why is she bringing up Kip again? We just moved past this.
“What do you mean?”
Erin shakes her head. “They were just so close when I knew him back in high school. His dad was everything to him. He was so afraid to be who he was because he wanted to be everything his dad wanted him to be. I was in the process of finding myself that summer, but Kip couldn’t join me in that because he was trying to find how he fit in his father’s picture.” Erin pauses, her brows pinching together, eyes on her hands. “I know he’s come a long way from that, but I also know this can’t be easy for him. I just can’t believe he’s even there.”
“Well, isn’t that precisely why he’s there?” I point out. “I don’t think he would be if this wouldn’t have happened.”
“Can we not talk about this?” Skyler pinches the bridge of her nose, her eyes closing on the other end of the video call.
Jess gives Erin a pointed look before jumping up from the bed, pulling the wine bottle with her.
“Whatever,” she says. “Forget all that. To you, Skyler Fucking Thorne.” She lifts the bottle to the screen. “Kick ass tomorrow and then get back here so we can throw a huge rager with all that money.”
We all laugh and Jess takes a pull of her bottle as Skyler lifts hers, too. “I love you girls. Thank you.”
Ashlei shrugs. “That’s what we’re here for.”
“Do you guys mind if I talk to Little alone?”
Skyler’s eyes find mine in the screen, a silence falling over us as the other girls nod in understanding. They all blow kisses at the screen and offer various forms of advice before leaving the room. Then, it’s just me and Skyler.
She inhales a shaky breath, her eyes watering, and I immediately shake my head.
“Do not cry on me, Big.”
She blows out the breath. “I’m trying not to. Little, I don’t know what the hell I’m doing. This tournament means everything to me, or it did, anyway. But now, I’m not sure what matters most to me anymore.” She buries her face in her hands, as if admitting that out loud scares her more than anything ever has in her life.
“I think you do know.”
I offer Skyler a soft smile as she looks back up, wishing more than anything that I could say what I’m about to say to her in person.
“Skyler, you were going to pretty much be done with tournaments after this, right?” I ask, remembering what she’d told us last semester. She just wanted to get enough to finish paying off her tuition for her remaining time at PSU, and to set her family up a little more. After that, she wanted to focus on her future — on what that looked like.
Skyler nods, blinking against the tears pooling in her eyes.
“You want this more than anything not for the title, but for your family. You want to pay off school at Palm South and help your parents out. I get that, I totally do,” I say. “But, Sky, it’s not up to you to set your parents up for life. And you and I both know that it wouldn’t take first place for you to be able to pay off your tuition. Don’t let the pressure of winning get to you. Just play like I know you know how to and let the cards fall where they’re meant to fall.”
Skyler bites her lower lip, considering my advice. Maybe she hasn’t thought of that before, how winning at almost any point now would give her a great pot of cash to come home with. Or, maybe she’s known all along, but she doesn’t know how to handle her new feelings. Poker has been everything to her for so long. She’s never put a boy above it.
Sometimes, love makes us forget who we are. But others? It shows us who we’ve wanted to be all along. I’ve felt that with Adam, and just by looking at my Big, I know she feels it, too.
Poor girl. Here’s hoping she doesn’t have to go through what we did.
“What are you going to do about Kip?” I ask her after a moment.
She shrugs. “What is there to do? It’s over.”
“I call bullshit.”
Huffing, Skyler takes a long drink from the bottle of wine. “It is! How could I ever forgive him for what he did? How do I know what’s been real and what was just a game?”
I roll my eyes, because I remember those exact same excuses coming from my own mouth. “Oh, please. Every single moment between the two of you has been one-hundred percent real and you know it.” I lean in toward the screen. “Look at me, Big. I have known you for two years now and I’ve never seen you like this with a guy. Ever. You may not be sure about what’s happening between you and Kip, but I am. When he says he loves you, he means it — and I think you know that, too.”
“I don’t though, that’s what’s so hard!” Skyler practically yells, slamming the wine bottle down on her bedside table in frustration. “I would never have guessed he was playing this game, Little. Never. Everything with him felt so real, so genuine, so unlike anything I’ve ever had before. If it was so easy for him to pull off this whole scheme without me knowing the difference, wouldn’t it be just as easy for him to make me believe he loved me when he didn’t?”
I shake my head. “But then why would he still be trying to convince you? If it was all just a game, why would he bother?”
Skyler scoffs. “He’s probably trying to get under my skin for tomorrow.”
“You and I both know that’s complete crap,” I say firmly. Leaning in more, I make sure her eyes are on mine when I say my next sentence. “You’re scared, Skyler. I know you are and it’s okay to be scared. But remember, some of life’s best experiences are masked as terrifying leaps of faith.”
Her face softens at that.
“Just please, please — think about what you want before tomorrow,” I beg her. “Think about what matters to you. What really matters.”
Skyler nods, and I can only imagine how she must feel with all the thoughts in her head warring against each other. Poker used to be simple for her, it used to be the only sure thing. Now, everything she thought she knew about what she wanted, about who mattered in her life, has been flipped upside down.
But she can do this, she can make her way out. She just has to decide what result she wants in the end.
“I love you, Big,” I tell her. “We’ll all be watching tomorrow. Just know you have a team rooting for you, no matter what happens.”
And with that, we end the call, and all eyes at Palm South University are watching Vegas.
“COME ON, SKY. Come on.”
I press my fingertips into the bridge of my nose, my hands steepled around my mouth as I pray. It’s the final table in Vegas, and at almost eleven our time — about eight o’clock theirs — Skyler just went all in.
There are three players left — her, Kip, and some douchebag named Brandon who just stood up to challenge her. Honestly, Brandon probably isn’t a douchebag. For all I know, he could be a sweet country boy from Missouri trying to win money for his high school sweetheart to go to college or to get his sick grandma the care she needs.
But right now, he’s up against my best friend.
Therefore: douchebag.
“Is this how you get during football season?” Becca teases from beside me, popping a Dorito in her mouth. “If so, I might be busy for like all of fall.”
I smirk, blowing out a breath and leaning back on the couch. I
throw my arm around her, pulling her into me.
“It’s just Skyler. She’s like a little sister to me, and I know how bad she wants this.”
“Well, from what you told me, the guy she’s been dating all semester wants it just as bad. Wonder what she’ll do about that.”
I frown, eyes flicking to Kip as his face fills the screen. Then, the camera is back on the cards, and I don’t have time to think about how I’m torn between ripping Kip a new asshole and giving him a Bear Hug. My parents are shit humans, but I’ve seen what good family can look like. It looks like Mac and his family, like Skyler and hers. And I can’t imagine being in Kip’s shoes after what Erin told me about his dad.
Luckily, it’s none of my business, and I’m completely content in staying the hell out of it.
The dealer reveals a Jack of spades, and everyone in the room groans. At least, everyone who’s paying attention. The rager ended up being bigger than even I expected, and half of the crowd is gathered around the various TVs in the house while the other half plays drinking games, dances, and parties outside.
“Fuck,” I murmur, running my free hand back over my head.
“So, what does that mean?” Becca asks. “Is she done?”
“Not yet, but he has three Jacks now. She needs a heart on this last card or she’s fucked.”
Becca turns back toward the screen just in time for the dealer to turn the river, and when I see it’s a nine of hearts, I jump up from the couch at the same time Skyler thrusts her fist in the air. The entire house cheers, even people not paying attention knowing something good must have happened. It’s a deafening roar, one I hope Skyler can hear from Vegas.
“Atta fucking girl, Sky!” I holler, and Becca holds up both hands for a high ten.
“That’s so crazy!” she says, running her hands through her hair, eyes wide. “So now it’s just her and that guy? Like, one of them is walking away the winner of this whole thing?”
“Yep,” I say, still buzzing off the win. Skyler shakes hands with Brandon, but then her eyes focus on Kip, and I can see her jaw tighten on the screen. My stomach falls. “It all comes down to this.”
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