Long Shot (Hoops 1)

“I handled it for him,” Caleb says. “But, of course, he owed me. Idiot confessed and ratted me out.”

“I’m sorry.” I assemble my features into concern. “Has there been much backlash?”

Maybe it was the wrong thing to ask. The adrenaline coursing through me is muddling my thoughts and has my fight-or flight instinct in overdrive. There is no “sit down for banal chatter with your predator” instinct, but that’s the route I take because in a physical fight with Caleb, I’d have no chance.

Taking flight from him, I’d have no chance.

The longer I delay a physical confrontation, the closer August comes.

“Backlash?” He barks out a laugh like the rabid dog he is. “I’ve been cut from the Stingers, lost all my endorsements in a matter of hours, and my father has basically disowned me.”

“Your father?” I ask, shocked because Mr. Bradley has always navigated any rough waters for Caleb.

“Too damning, I guess.” Caleb shakes his head. “The league is taking a very hard line on this, and my father can’t be seen on the wrong side of it. Probably making me an example.”

“I’m so sorry,” I lie.

“Sorry?” he spits, sitting forward suddenly and shrinking the space separating us. “This is your fault.”

“No. I kept my end of the bargain.”

My mind hums like a machine, thinking on overdrive of a plan to escape as I watch his skin mottle, his eyes narrow, and his fists open and close, like he’s itching for something to pummel.

“So you did,” he admits. “But unfortunately for you, all of my … incentives, shall we say, for letting you go and leaving you alone …” His handsome faces creases with a half-grin. “Are gone.”

I don’t know if he moves first or if I do. I don’t know if the predator and prey are somehow psychically linked and we move in harmony, but it becomes a hunting party. He’s the hound and I’m the rabbit. I rush past him to the kitchen. Heavy, rapid steps eat up the floor behind me.

If I can just get to my purse on the counter.

It’s in sight when he circles my waist from behind and lifts me off the ground. My arms windmill and I flail, kicking at his legs, a dervish of flying, fighting limbs. He hurls me to the floor. I skid across the linoleum and land in front of the sink. I’m scrambling to my knees when he grabs a fistful of my hair and rams my head into the cabinet.

I haven’t felt this kind of pain in a long time, but you never forget it—the hurt that blossoms from one single spot and infects your whole body. The room tilts, and blood runs into my eyes.

“Caleb, please.” I force my tongue to move. “I can explain.”

“Explain!” he screams, squatting so his breath blows over my face. “Can you explain why you fucked him, Iris?”

Oh, God.

He wipes the blood from my face tenderly but then grips my jaw in one large hand until I’m afraid it will crack.

“And you gave my daughter to him,” he hisses.

“No, I—”

The back of his hand sends my head swiveling on my neck, a flower on a fragile stem. The swelling has already started. My forehead and my cheek throb to the familiar beat of my racing pulse. He touches my thigh, just below August’s shirt. I scuttle away from his touch, but he drags me back by my ankle, quickly pinning me to the floor and planting himself between my thighs. He gathers my wrists in one large hand.

“I’ve missed you, Iris.” He breathes the words into my neck, his dick pressing through my panties. I squirm my hips, trying to dislodge him.

“No. Caleb.” My breath heaves with fruitless exertion. “Don’t.”

“Is that what you say to West?” he screams in my ear. “Do you say don’t to West, Iris?”

“Mommy!” Sarai’s voice reaches us from behind the locked bedroom door.

“It’s okay, baby,” I call back, fighting the tears that would make her more anxious. “We’re playing a game, okay? Mommy will be there soon.”

“Is that what you think?” he asks. “That we’ll just go back to business as usual? After this?”