Total pages in book: 54
Estimated words: 51484 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 257(@200wpm)___ 206(@250wpm)___ 172(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 51484 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 257(@200wpm)___ 206(@250wpm)___ 172(@300wpm)
I can’t outrun that reality, no matter how hard I try. I can’t outrun the old feelings battling for attention, either. They’re still right there. They’ve always been right fucking there.
I crank the treadmill up a notch and try anyway.
My lungs burn. My side twinges.
Her face flashes through my mind, haunting me just like it has for the last five years.
I grit my teeth and run harder.
My phone vibrates in the tray with an incoming text.
I always felt the same way about you.
“Fuck,” I mutter, stabbing the button to stop the treadmill as I stumble. She still has the same number.
I’ve had to talk myself out of calling her a thousand times over the years just to hear her voice. Just to remind myself that there was still something beautiful out in the world, something worth climbing out of the pit for. Didn’t matter if she ever knew it or not. Didn’t even matter that she hated me. I clawed my way back to the top for her. Because of her.
Because I couldn’t spend the rest of my life as someone she pitied on top of everything else. I hoped like hell that I’d see her in the stands one day, even if it was only a glimpse. I never have, though. Doesn’t matter how many times we’ve played the Bucks over the years. She’s never in the stands.
I look for her anyway.
Sutton: When Jamison told me that you were in love with Vanessa, it broke my heart.
Sutton: Maybe I should have been pissed that you put him in the hospital, but I was devastated that you were in love with my best friend when I was crazy about you.
Sutton: Just thought you should know.
“Jesus Christ,” I mutter. Is that why she slapped me? Because her heart was broken?
All this fucking time…
I battle the urge to pick up the phone and call her.
What would it solve?
What would it change?
Maybe she was in love with me then. But that was another life. Any dreams I had crumbled when I attacked her brother. The only reason she’s here now is because she thinks I can help her with him.
I can’t.
I won’t.
Not even for her.
I shove the phone into my pocket, shut off the music, and haul myself up to the shower. But as the hot water beats down on me, I can’t get her out of my head. She’s stuck like the notes of a song playing on repeat.
Her fiery brown eyes. The way strands of her hair always wave around her face. Those full lips wrapped around my name.
“Fuck,” I groan, wrapping my fist around my cock. I squeeze my eyes closed and imagine she’s in front of me again. She’s in my arms like she was today. But I don’t haul her away from the truck. I haul her to it, bend her over the tailgate.
She moans and squirms, grinding against my cock as I take a taste of her, tormenting both of us. I already know she’ll taste sweet. So fucking sweet. Like sugar and cinnamon.
My cock throbs in my hand, my balls drawing up.
My fist flies up and down, twisting, pulling…imagining she’s the one wrapped around it. Her hand. Her lips. Her hot little body.
“Sutton,” I groan, ropes of cum painting the shower wall. I slap my free hand against the tiles to hold myself upright, working out every last drop. My heart pounds. My goddamn legs shake.
Jesus.
I suck in a lungful of air, rattled. Unsteady. She’s wrecking me all over again, pulling me apart piece by piece.
I think maybe she’s putting me back together again, too.
She was in love with me back then. It shouldn’t matter now. But who the fuck am I kidding? She never stopped mattering. I doubt she ever will.
Jamison wanted to take everything from me, and he did. He thought taking my career and reputation was his grand revenge for daring to call him on his shit. For humiliating him in front of the world. For whatever bullshit lies he told himself about me and Vanessa to justify the shit he did to her. He was wrong. Turning Sutton against me was what destroyed me.
I’ve fucking hated him for it for five years. As far as I could tell, his life continued like nothing ever happened. He was treated like a hero, an innocent victim. And I spent mine in hell.
But maybe that isn’t entirely true. If she’s telling the truth, it isn’t. He’s…what? Gone off the deep end again? Hurt someone else?
I won’t help him. Not when I’m beginning to think that Sutton has spent the last five years in hell, too. That she’s here right now because she never got over it, either.
And that’s his goddamn fault.
It’s mine, too.
I scrub up quickly and then climb from the shower. My phone on the counter taunts me, screaming at me to respond, but I ignore it as I brush my teeth and then drag on a pair of boxers.