My eyes drifted closed again. They were gritty with a lack of sleep. I’d finally coasted off somewhere in the wee hours with Aunt Cam’s notebook still on my chest. While I felt slightly guilty about reading it, it had been calling for me to pick it back up. It was full of words she’d basically written to Uncle Jake. For him. Through it, I’d gotten a good sense of him. He’d definitely been more Southern knight than I ever could stand to be. He’d been her protector. Her left arm. Her world.
It made me think a lot about Stephen and Khiley. How they’d been each other’s whole worlds since before they could talk.
The pounding on my door repeated.
“What?!” I yelled out, not bothering to move.
When the doorknob started to turn, I yelled, “I didn’t say to come in.”
The sun glared behind the person entering, but even cast in shadows, I knew who it was. The sun had turned her blonde hair into a glorious halo. Like the halo around the Madonna in all those paintings in Art 101. Maleena was a blonde-haired comet with eyes the color of golden stars, especially when she was eyeballing me—whether that eyeballing occurred while we were taking our clothes off or while fuming at me because I’d ticked her off.
As soon as it registered who it was, I wanted to jump up and haul her beautiful curves up against mine. I wanted to devour her lips until they were battered and bruised as punishment for ghosting me. But as she came farther into the room, I knew I didn’t dare.
She was full of fire and brimstone. Anger in her eyes that I knew she wanted to work out on me. Work out with me. That made me smile. My lazy smile, which just caused those eyes of hers to ignite more.
“You’re even a jerk to your family, I see,” she said.
“Close the door and get your ass over here,” I growled.
She did close the door, but she didn’t join me on the bed. Instead, she went to the desk chair. She sat in it, eyeing me as if I’d done something more than be my normal, arrogant self. Like I’d hurt her best friend or cheated on her, which I’d never do.
Ever since I’d seen her my freshman year, there hadn’t been anyone else. I hadn’t dicked around on her no matter how many panties had come flying my way. Just like my dad had never dicked around on my mom, even though he had wild fans stalking him at every concert and leaving PlayBabe-style notes at our front gate because of Dad’s past, growing up in the PlayBabe mansion.
I stared back at Maleena, languidly sliding my eyes over her tight sweater and skinny jeans accentuating every curve. She had plenty of them. Curves I liked to hold on to. The thought of them made my morning wood solidify, and I didn’t try to hide it.
“You’ve been ignoring me,” I told her.
She nodded, arms across her full chest. Like her father. Like me. Blocking the world. Putting a barrier between them and the us that could be broken if we let the world see the cracks.
“I needed a break from…well…you,” she tossed back.
“But not anymore?” I tried not to get my expectations up too high. She’d told me we were done, so I wasn’t exactly sure why she was here.
“I’m not here for us.”
I looked down at the notebook on my chest. The loss Aunt Cam had felt at losing Jake, it had rippled off the pages and into my heart. It had been a waste. His life cut short because he hadn’t taken care of himself. Because they’d both been blind to what the short term did to the long term.
Looking at Maleena, her golden curls twirling about her face, the red lipstick that I wanted to wash off with my tongue and my lips, and I wondered if there was anything worth giving her up for. When my football career was over—because let’s face it, it would be over in a flash, bursting like a finale at a fireworks show—what would I have left? If Dad never made another album again, if his fans were to drop him like a hot potato for something newer and better, it would stab him in the gut, but not the heart, because his heart was protected. His heart belonged to Mom.
I tossed the notebook aside and moved to the edge of the bed. I’d fallen asleep in sweats when I normally slept in just my underwear, but I was still shirtless, and I watched as Maleena took me in as I moved. There was both determination and uncertainty mixed in her eyes, which gave me a shred of hope.
I stood, stretched, and tried to shake off the hard-on before it got in the way of the words I needed to say. She licked her lips, and it made it impossible. I took two steps, placed both my hands on the arms of the chair, and bent so my face was inches from hers. Her eyes went to my lips and then back up. A bottled up mix of energy always seemed to overflow from the two of us when we were together, like a Coke that had been shaken.
“Why are you here, Maleena?” My voice was thick with emotions and lust.
Her eyes met mine defiantly. “For Dad.”
This surprised me and pissed me off. I wanted her to be here for me and only me. I wanted her to say, like Aunt Cam had said about Jake, that she’d never wished anything else for herself. That I’d been her only wish come true. Except, I knew that wasn’t the case for Maleena. It wasn’t the case for me, either. We both had dreams beyond one person.
But I also knew Maleena. I knew how to get her body to react to mine, so I slid my hand in the neck of her thin, button-up sweater, pulled aside her bra, and ran my thumb over her nipple. I was rewarded with a gasp and a moan.
“Your dad, huh?” I smirked before taking her lips into mine. And she let me. She let me kiss her with a force I’d been too afraid to use on any other person before. Too afraid I’d be accused of something I hadn’t done. But I needed force. I needed passion. I bit at her lip and thumbed her nipple again, and she moaned.
Then she pushed me hard against my chest, and the wheels on the desk chair moved her in the opposite direction from me. She fixed her bra and her sweater and glared at me.
“I’m not here to have sex with you, Tiras.”
She knew my full name pissed me off. I crossed my arms over my chest, no longer caring that my dick was all but poking a hole through my sweats. She needed to know exactly what she’d done to me.
“Your body doesn’t agree with that statement,” I said, because I could still see her nipples through her clothes. Her body very much wanted me.
She stood, crossing her arms over her chest once more in a mirror image of me. Then, she was moving toward the door. “I should have known this was futile.”
She was leaving. Panic filled me, and I moved so fast it startled her. I slammed the door shut with my hand and caged her. We’d been in this position many times. Our passion getting to both of us. “Shit. Don’t leave.”
She turned, leaning on the door, and looking up at me. “Why should I stay?”
I wanted to say it was because I loved her. Because goddamn it, I did. I wanted this woman, who knew more about football than I did, to be by my side for every fucking step of my career. I wanted her guidance and her kicking my ass into shape, but more than that, I wanted her love.
But I wasn’t good at showing emotion or saying what I felt. I was good at grunts and throws and snark. That was it.