Long Shot (Hoops 1)

She doesn’t mean it like that.

She isn’t saying … shit. Who am I kidding?

“Girlfriend?” I can’t resist asking. “Are you gonna be my girl, Iris?”

I’m still cupping her face, and her thick hair is falling across my fingers. She smells like paradise, and I’m not sure I can do this—can make it out of this room without kissing her. Without lifting her onto the conference room table, shoving that dress over her legs, and eating the hell out of her pussy. Because that’s pretty much all I can think about now that we’re this close. It’s like I haven’t had a meal since the last time I had her, and my mouth is watering imagining that clit, those lips, her juices. Her coming for me—coming in my mouth, dripping down my chin.

“I need to take it slow, August,” she whispers.

Slow.

That would be in direct contrast to my right-now fantasy. I struggle to command my body. I haven’t had sex in a really long time. Jared was right. I need to fuck, but the only girl I want is telling me she needs to go slow. And though my body is raging and burning and yearning to bury every inch I got inside of her, slow we will go.

“We can do that,” I tell her. “However long it takes.”

My voice sounds even. You’d never know there’s a rocket in my pants ready for lift-off. Rehabbing my leg, getting back on the court in less than a year, coming back stronger—that took Herculean effort. If I can be that disciplined for a game, I can control myself for Iris. I’ve waited for her, and I’ll wait some more until she says we’ve waited long enough.

“I wasn’t prepared for this,” she says, her voice almost an apology. “For any of this. I thought … I know I’ve been out of the loop, but last I heard you were being traded to Houston. I didn’t even know you’d be living in the same city.”

That’s when an awful thought occurs to me. Have I had things that wrong?

“So did you accept the job because you thought I’d be gone?” Disappointment and embarrassment drive me to my feet. I miss her warmth immediately, but maybe I need to get used to the idea that she moved here because she thought I was leaving.

“Wow. Now I feel like a fool.” My laugh is a three-dollar bill. Fake. Counterfeit. “I didn’t even think … yeah, I guess I didn’t think this all the way through. I assumed you felt …”

I swallow down the emotion burning my throat. Jared’s voice comes back to haunt me—his warning that I would regret staying with the Waves if things with Iris didn’t pan out. The flower I brought her lies on the floor by her knees, and that’s how I feel. Clipped at the stem. Discarded.

“I did.” She stands, her head only coming to the middle of my chest. “I do … feel it, I mean.”

She reaches for my hand, winding her fingers through mine and looking at me the way I imagined she would, a mixture of possibility and want and hope in her eyes. “I feel it, too, August. I always have,” she says softly, tucking her full bottom lip into her mouth for a second before going on. “I’ve just … been through a lot, I guess, and I’m still sorting some things out.”

Been through a lot? What the fuck does that mean? What’s she been through? Who hurt her? Caleb? That dude is dead if I find out he hurt her.

“What does that mean?” I ask, hoping my voice sounds more civilized than I feel. “What have you been through, Iris?”

I feel it immediately, the wall erected between us. Her eyes go distant, looking inside herself. “I can’t … I mean …” Her eyes beg, and I’m willing to do whatever she wants. To give her whatever she needs. “Can we just not talk about that right now?”

Frustration strangles me for a second, but I force myself to calm down. She’ll tell me eventually who I need to maim.

What happened to her?

I nod, twisting our fingers tighter, letting her know I’m not going anywhere.

“Oh.” She shakes her head, confusion back on her face. “Wait. So what happened with the Houston deal? Last I heard, it was all but done.”

Do I tell her the truth? If I tell her what I did, all that I gave up on the off chance she’d be with me, that’s a lot of pressure. On her. On me. On this relationship, once it becomes an actual relationship with dates and daily conversations like normal couples have, and sex …

Shit. I’m probably gonna break my dick jerking off so hard before I leave this building.

“August?” she asks again. “What happened with the Houston deal?”

Sneaking around trying to help her, not being completely upfront got us off to a rocky start. I won’t risk that again being anything less than honest.

“When Jared told me you were moving here, I passed on the deal.” My words fall into this chasm of stunned silence. She rears back as if I’ve struck her. Her fingers start loosening from mine, but I don’t let her go.

“No.” I squeeze her hand gently, lifting my other hand to cup her face. “Listen to me.”

“August, that contract was forty …” She draws a deep breath before charging on. “Like, forty million dollars.”