by Maya Hughes
I rounded the corner to the entrance as he hit the metal cross bar for the door. The rain came down fast, but I didn’t even think of grabbing my umbrella. Standing at the top of the steps, I shouted out his name as he hit the last step. Droplets clung to my eyelashes as I shielded them.
He stopped like my voice had frozen him solid.
Racing down the steps to the one he was standing on, I stepped around him. Staring up at him, I panted and tried to get him to meet my eyes. Something was way wrong.
“Heath.” I reached for him, and he jerked away. A sharp pain sliced through my heart. “Heath, what’s going on?”
The rain soaked through my clothes. I shivered in the freezing air and crossed my arms over my chest.
He was pelted with water but stood completely still. “I had to see you.” It was so low I could barely hear him.
“We have our session tomorrow.”
His gaze shot to mine. “Not like that. Not sitting across from you and not able to touch you. I needed to see you. To touch you, and then I saw you in there with that guy and remembered all the reasons I said I’d stay away. What me showing up like this could do to you.”
“Heath. I don’t give a shit. Tell me what the hell is wrong.” I reached out again, slowly this time. Gingerly, I wrapped my hand around his arm. He was frozen solid like he’d been outside in this weather for hours.
He moved so quickly I didn’t even know what was happening. One second I was standing at the bottom of the steps, and the next I was pressed against the tall brick columns that sat at the either end of the staircase. My touch broke him out of his trance.
His body shielded me from the rain that soaked through his clothes. He traced my jaw with the back of his hand. It trembled, and my heart hadn’t stopped racing. Something was wrong. So, so wrong. Was this about hockey? I knew they hadn’t been doing well this season. They still had a chance at the playoffs from what people told me, but it hadn’t been like their other seasons.
“Heath, you’re scaring me. Tell me what happened. Tell me what’s wrong.”
“I needed to touch you. And I needed to do this.” His lips pressed against mine. They were hungry, greedily drinking down my kisses. I parted my lips, and the freezing rain melted away into nothing but background noise.
He shot his fingers into my hair, dragging his frozen digits along my scalp and wrapping the strands around his hand. He was drinking me down. Gulping so hard and fast it made my head spin.
I hadn’t forgotten how he felt, but my memories didn’t compare to the real thing. Hard and gentle at the same time, his touch made me light-headed. A shiver that had nothing to do with the rain shot through my body, and I needed to be closer to him. So much closer.
I fisted my hands around his wet shirt. The hard planes of his muscles were tight under my hands. Breaking his hold on my mouth, I stared into his eyes. They were no longer in the shadow of the building, but lit up from the lights from the lampposts. Pain radiated off him.
“Heath.” I skimmed my fingers over his cheeks. The freezing temperature of his skin sent my worry into overdrive. My fear ratcheted up. Whatever it was, we could fix it.
“Tell me what’s wrong.” I closed my hand around his forearm and the other along his jaw.
He leaned down and rested his forehead against mine. Pain radiated off him. We needed to get somewhere warm. His lips were blue, and a tremor shot through his body. I was soaked, but he was shaking from more than the cold. What I needed was for him to tell me what was going on.
“Heath, please.” My voice walked the fine line between soothing and panic.
A tear joined the water cresting down his face.
“Preston…” He took a shuddering breath, and his shoulders shook. His arms wrapped tightly around me, so tightly it was hard fill my lungs. “Preston, he’s…he died.”
26
Heath
I got the message from Preston that he wanted to see me minutes after the team got onto the bus. I’d shown up at the hospital ready to get my ass chewed out, dragged myself down there with a gnawing in my chest. I was losing it. Losing my grip on things, and I didn’t know how to fix it.
Stepping into his hallway, I pressed myself against the wall. A flurry of activity greeted me. Doctors and nurses blew past, pushing carts of medical equipment. Imo stood in the hallway with her hands pressed up against her mouth and her eyes wide.
“What’s happening?”
Her gaze darted from the room to me. “He…I don’t know. He was having headaches all day. His legs were hurting him. And then his speech got slurred. I called in the doctors, and his eyes rolled back in his head.” She’d dissolved into tears by the end. I wrapped my arm around her shoulder, and her whole body trembled.
The team of people rushed him out of the room and into surgery. We were left there, staring after him, and the waiting began. It was almost worse to not know what was going on, but confirmation of our worst nightmares was something we’d gladly put off.
“I need to call his parents. I need to call Becca.” Imogen’s words were stilted and stunned.
“I’ll do it.” With trembling fingers, I called and texted everyone.
We stood out there as more people arrived. Preston’s parents burst through the doors. Imogen jumped up from her spot on the floor. They wrapped her in their arms as she explained what had happened.
I couldn’t stop moving. I couldn’t sit down, like the second I did something bad would happen.
The guys showed up. Declan with Mak and everyone else on the team. After more than three hours the doctor came in, dragging the hat from his scrubs off. He opened his mouth, but the look on his face told us everything we needed to know.
He started the we-did-everything-we-could speech, and I stopped. My brain shut off, trying to protect me. Insulate me from the crushing devastation of knowing one of my friends was gone.
The numbness replaced it. Shell-shock. Everyone stood there in silence as the doctor talked. And then there was a sound, a wailing from beside me. I don’t know if it came from Imo or Preston’s mom, but I couldn’t look. I’d break.
Preston’s dad and the guys all stood there around them, hugging them tight. Mak and Declan’s fingers were tightly woven together. I’d been coming to get chewed out by him, not looking forward to it, but I’d give anything to have heard it now. Have him give me shit about losing my cool at the game and listen to his sage advice on how to handle things going forward. The last memory he’d have of me was getting thrown out of the game and letting the team down. The disappointment dug that hollow spot in my chest even deeper. The crushing disappointment he’d have felt at me losing my shit and now there was nothing.
The sharp shock of freezing rain registered that I was outside, but other than that my brain wasn’t working properly. The universe had betrayed me once again. I had one goal. Only one person could keep me from losing my mind. I needed more than a text from her or a stolen glance when we were alone. The thought of another second without her when time could snatch someone away in an instant. It made my palm sweat and my vision tunnel like I was dropped down a well I couldn’t escape.
I needed to feel the life pumping through her veins and touch her skin, because I was coming apart. Slowly shattering and becoming nothing. I needed the roaring pounding of blood in my ears to be replaced by her gentle words telling me it would be okay. Someday soon my chest wouldn’t be so tight and I’d be able to not feel like someone was slowly plunging a knife in between my ribs.
On autopilot, I went to her class. I had her schedule memorized and I’d been tempted to have our paths cross accidentally, but I’d kept away, trying my best to stick to the plan we’d decided on. The blast of heat when I opened the doors to the building on the far end of campus did nothing but send the shivers even deeper.
I opened the door to her classroom and saw her standing there with the other guy in her program, and it all came rushing back. The warnings I’d repeated over and over in my he
ad. Preston’s words to me. If you care about someone, you protect them. The guy recovered from his shock and looked at me and then at Kara. I literally couldn’t think of an excuse to be there. Selfish asshole, that’s what I was. I shouldn’t have been there. My muscles ached unlike any workout before, like my body was willing me to stop. Stop and deal with what had happened, but I couldn’t.
She turned her head, and I took off back out into the elements. The shock of the freezing rain barely made a dent as my feet pounded against the stone steps.
“Heath!” Her sharp and frantic voice froze me on the spot. Shoving my hands into my soaked pockets like that would protect them against the biting cold, I willed her to leave me with my living nightmare and slicing pain. My throat was tight, and I tried to swallow past the choking pressure. I didn’t need to bring her down. I shouldn’t have come. Go back inside, Kara. You don’t need to deal with this.
She didn’t, and I couldn’t hold back. Rain poured down over the two of us. The faint rolling boom of thunder in the distance snapped me into action. She was there, standing in front of me. Flesh and blood and alive and I needed to feel that.
Her chocolaty eyes were filled with so much worry. I needed to push that away. My lips were demanding on hers. I was drinking her down, letting her warm, full lips soothe and comfort the burning ache in my chest. I needed to feel her. Her touch kept me grounded and from being torn away into the unknown as I tried to make sense of what had happened. It didn’t make sense and it would never make sense, but I needed to hold onto the one real thing I’d needed since the day I’d decided I couldn’t see her anymore. I’d sworn it would be as long as it took to protect her, but I was a selfish asshole.
She stared up at me trying to figure out what was going on. Her warm fingers trailed against my numb skin, nearly frozen from the pelting rain.
“Tell me what’s wrong.”
The pleading tone in her voice broke me. I rested my forehead against hers and tried to shield her from the rain with my body. A single trail of warmth cascaded down my cheek. I didn’t want to say the words out loud, but I had to.
Her eyes searched mine, and the worry hit me hard.
I wrapped my arms tightly around her and said the words I’d been running from since I’d left the hospital. A shudder shot through me, and her arms crisscrossed my back.
“Come on, we need to get back inside.” She tried to drag me back toward the building, but I couldn’t go in there.
“There’s somewhere we can go.” I threaded my fingers through hers and walked even farther into campus. She didn’t say a word and kept tight to me. Her fingers interlaced with mine, and her other hand wrapped around my bicep.
The rolling thunder gave way to a streaking bolt of lightning, and she jumped, pulling herself in tighter against me. Some of the lights flickered, and the building that would be our refuge came into view. The large glass panels were covered in condensation from inside.
Pushing the doors open, I seized up even tighter as a blast of heat slammed into us. Warmth and a strong earthy scent hit me as we stepped inside. Some of the rough edges were smoothed down a little as her hands tightened on me. The outlines of pots of plants and flowers in rows on tables and hanging from the posts on the columns were cast in long shadows as the lightning increased. The crack and rumble of the thunder traveled through me.
Kara shivered beside me, the tremors a reminder that I was fucking this up, but the pain inside didn’t give a shit. We stood in the humid, glass-enclosed greenhouse.
“Heath?” She touched my chest tentatively as she stood in front of me. My gaze locked onto hers. It was hard to see through the shimmer of tears in my eyes. No longer hidden by the pelting rain, I blinked them back.
“What happened?” She ran her thumb along my cheek, and I held on to her hand, pressed her flesh even tighter against my face and soaked up her warmth.
I shook my head, trying to block out those words I’d heard back in the hospital. My wet hair sprayed droplets of water all around us. Sucking in a shuddering breath, I squeezed my eyes shut.
The words came out stilted and hollow, like someone else was saying them. “They said something about a blood clot. It made it to his brain.” A streak of lightning lit up her face.
Her eyes were wide, and she stepped in closer. She held my gaze with eyes full of sorrow and compassion. It was hard to look at her face and into those eyes, knowing in a split-second any of us could be taken. Her other hand came to the side of my face. We could stay in this embrace forever, where her touch soothed the raw ache, and I could pretend that one of my best friends wasn’t gone. It was me and Kara in the greenhouse in a thunderstorm.
Blocking out the rest of the world, I stared into her eyes. Her pulse thrummed against the side of my face through her touch.
“I need you, Kara.” I slipped my fingers under the strap of her bag and lifted it up and over her head. It hit the floor with a thud. My fingers trembled as I skimmed the hem of her shirt. She stepped back and unbuttoned her shirt, exposing her breasts to me, her beating heart under them, pumping hard.
I folded her into my arms and walked her back against the wide white column farther inside. My mouth was pressed against hers. She opened her mouth and whispered against my lips.
“I’m here.” Her voice was a balm to the open wounds I’d been living with. Every touch was more than I could have hoped for. Reaching between us, she fumbled with my drenched jeans and unbuttoned them.
I sucked in a sharp breath as the warm air hit my bare flesh.
She peered up at me, and I wrapped my arm around her waist. Shoving my hand under the waistband of her pants, I yanked them down. The power between us and the driving need to feel her everywhere compelled me forward. How much time did we have left? Stolen moments might be all we got, and I couldn’t let this get away. She shoved her hands up under my shirt and whipped it off, up and over my head. The hints of color had almost faded completely from her hair now, proof that time was passing too fast while we were apart. I struggled to make the days make sense anymore. There was only a yawning void in her absence. She made quick work of her shoes, toeing them off.
Her wet pants pooled at her feet, and I lifted her. The cool skin of her bare legs wrapped around my waist. The crown of my cock slid against her hot and slick core. She was the salve. She was the light I’d tried to close out of my life to protect her flame. But I needed that light now. I needed her now more than I’d ever need her.
She wrapped her arms around my neck and moved her hips forward.
I braced us against the column and powered into her in one hard, smooth thrust. Her legs tightened around me, and she hissed into my ear as her body curled in on me. Worry prickled the back of my mind that I’d hurt her, but she moved her hips against me.
“Don’t stop.”
That was all I needed. I unleashed all the pent-up frustration at not being able to touch her into right now. The pleasure coursed through me and pushed away the anger, sadness, and anything else that didn’t revolve around her words in my ears, her body pressed against me, and her pussy gripping me so hard I could barely move.
“I missed you so much.” My words were clipped and strained.
Life was about choices, and I’d made one that might ruin everything, but there were times when nothing else mattered other than being with the person you loved. I tightened my arms around her and sent up a silent prayer that I hadn’t undone us.
27
Kara
Staring into Heath’s eyes, I’d seen the pain there. His words took so long to process, it wasn’t until we were in the greenhouse that it truly hit me. Not until the warmth of that space brought my numb limbs back to life that I realized what had happened.
His keen need was so sharp and clear, I couldn’t stop. My own selfishness at relishing the touch I’d craved since the second his lips left mine nearly a more than two months ago didn’t escape me. Texting wasn’t enough. What if something happened to Heath? If I�
�d never be able to feel him against me like this. Touch him. Feel him. I held on and give him everything he needed. Everything I didn’t want to live without.
“I missed you so much.” His hot breath skirted across the curve of my neck. Every word was filled with so much more than the word itself. For all the words we’d held back over the past weeks that separated us, he was making up for them, painting them onto my flesh with his touch and steady strokes.
“I missed you too.” My voice trembled.
I hitched my legs higher on his hips, keeping them firmly against his trim waist as he thrust into me. The pulsing pleasure rolled through me so fast and sharp I couldn’t move. His lips were on mine, hard and demanding as he drank down the sizzling energy between us.
I clung to him, holding on as his dick stretched and filled me. His short, hard thrusts sent shocks of pleasure through my system. It was like he never wanted to leave me, never pull all the way out, but jerked his hips back enough for the friction of our bodies together to rub my clit. The raw, fierce perfection of it sent me over the edge. Still shaking in the midst of my climax, he lifted me. Moving through the space with him still embedded in me, I was trembling around him, my fingers clawing at his back.
The humid air of the greenhouse sizzled with the energy between us. His arms bracketed mine as he bent me over the potting table along one of the glass walls. My hands slid across the scattered potting soil covering the surface. His hand dipped down between my legs and found the bundle of nerves at the top of my pussy
He rolled and tapped my clit, sending shivers down my spine so hard and fast only his unyielding grip held me up so tightly it was hard to breathe. A crack of lightning lit up the space and my reflection in the glass.
His lips and teeth working together, pressed against my neck as his hips kept up their rolling and grinding. I clawed at the wooden surface as he lifted me higher and pinched my clit, setting off the rocket of sensations that had been building since the second we’d stepped through the doors.
