Clay’s hand drags down, his length throbbing against his merciless grip.
Holy.
Again.
It’s the hottest thing I’ve ever seen.
Again.
“Don’t move,” he rasps.
I couldn’t if the room was on fire.
A few hard strokes and he’s grunting in time with his motions.
It’s the same way he moves on the court, only sexier. He’s private and ruthless, chasing his own pleasure inches from where he made me come harder than I ever have moments ago.
His dark eyes capture mine, and I can’t breathe. I feel the battle raging inside him.
“Nova…”
His jaw works, and I breathe along with him. I reach up, my fingers stroking the side of his face.
“Don’t stop,” I whisper.
He comes on a groan, coating my thighs and stomach.
It’s beyond sexy, watching this man who’s sacrificed everything his entire life for a single purpose lose control with me. On me.
Clay straightens his clothes, then turns to mine. He’s careful with me, tugging up my thong, my jeans.
He doesn’t clean me up first. The fabric sticks to my skin like a filthy secret.
He pulls me close, pressing his lips against my forehead.
“Whoever he is, I’ll always look better on you than he does.”
11
CLAY
“You gotta have a signature move,” Miles insists to Rookie. “The last three winners have a move. They get you votes.”
Rookie does a crossover, then flips the ball behind his back and up for a dunk.
“The fuck was that?!” Coach demands.
“I need a signature move. For Rookie of the Year.”
“Signature move is gonna be my foot in your ass.” Coach lowers his voice, but we can still hear him, and Jay buries his laugh in a cough. “You want gold statues, kid? Contribute on a team, you get paid. Then you buy all the gold you want.”
Coach blows his whistle, and a different group takes the floor, Jayden bringing the ball up from half court.
I’m distracted, but sue me.
Rookie rubs a towel over his head and comes over to me. “I can’t do this. Whenever I try to do something big, I get slapped down.”
“You gotta serve your time when you get drafted.”
“You didn’t. You were shot out of a cannon with a grudge.”
I shake my head because he’s not wrong. “This sport is a long game. Be smart about it.”
“Like last night with Nova?” he asks, and my head snaps around. “I went looking for y’all and heard you.”
Hooking up in the back room of the bar wasn’t planned, but fuck did I need it.
Watching her flirt with Miles broke my control, especially when Brooke informed me that Nova’s “I’m over you” act was exactly that.
When I dragged her back to the storeroom, I wasn’t sure if I wanted to curse her or take her over my knee.
What I needed most was to taste her. To make her moan my name. To prove to myself I still could.
She wants me. That much is clear.
The way she came on my face, the sounds she made, the way she tasted—it’s all gonna live rent free in my head a long damn time.
Jerking off to her, with her, was the only way I could keep from bending her over and fucking her right there while she was still trembling.
It was the hottest experience of my life.
Kicker is, it’s not enough.
Not nearly.
We run the next sequence, and I’m a step behind to defend, so I have to catch up.
I take Rookie out of the air, and he lands hard on his back.
“Fuck,” he grunts from the ground.
“My bad,” I murmur as I hold out a hand and help him up after.
I glance up to see Harlan waiting in the wings, watching silently, hands in the pockets of his suit pants.
“You ever ditch the suit?” I cross to him, tugging on my shorts. “These things might put a little swing back in your step.”
“You think you don’t have a stick up your ass? Anyone tried to get up in your routine, they’d face the same kind of resistance. We’re not as dissimilar as you like to think.”
I’m trying not to think too hard on that when he goes on.
“He’s good,” Harlan says, nodding to Rookie. “It’s one thing for you to demand a trade, but don’t burn the place down on your way out.”
I stiffen. “You don’t see me helping him out?”
“I see you taking him out at the knees, giving him the same injury as you.”
My hands ball into fists. I’ve been working with Rookie all the time, but Harlan takes one look and decides he knows what’s up.
“For a man who thinks he sees everything, you don’t see shit.” This is why we can’t work together. I grimace. “I want an update on our deal.”
“LA’s got some issues, and we’ve had complications on this end too.”
“My stock is up. I’m averaging twenty-eight a night. We have a winning record.”
He rocks back on his heels. “Wins and losses aren’t the only complication around here. Tenth anniversary’s a big deal.” He shakes his head. “James is richer than God, and he's decided this is his time to put his mark on the organization whether it needs it or not, which means we’re all tasked with making it happen. The regular operations of the team are second to the spectacle.” Harlan clears his throat. “I know it’s not easy keeping up your end of the deal.”
The digging in my stomach could be guilt.
I return to my seat, turning over the fact he thinks I’m still keeping my distance from Nova.
Pretty sure he would agree that making his sister-in-law scream in the back room of Mile High is not within the terms of our agreement.
If I got any closer to her than I was last night, we’d be made of the same damn atoms.
But what kind of fucked-up deal dictates relationships between people?
He shouldn’t have asked me to do it. I shouldn’t have said yes. It’s that simple.
“Hey, Rookie,” I mutter, and he glances over. “Don’t say anything about Nova.”
“To the guys?”
“To anyone.”
Rookie starts to open his mouth, then closes it again.
NOVA
I’m curled up in a chair at Brooke’s place working on a sketch of Clay using my last drawing as a reference. But every time I start, I’m distracted by what happened between us.
"Bet you’re aching for me to fill you up right now."
"I’ll always look better on you than he does."
My throat is drier than a desert.
I jump up to get a soda from the kitchen, setting my sketchpad and the original drawing on the coffee table and ignoring the tingling between my thighs. I’m trying to make progress on this new section of the mural. Touching myself in the shower and picturing Clayton Wade while I do it doesn’t help.
When the phone rings, I change direction, grateful for the interruption.
Mari.
“I’m sorry if the date thing the other night was weird,” my sister says when I answer the phone.