I steal a glance at Torres and he seems calm. Composed. How is he not freaking out about what we just did? We just kissed. I had my tongue down his fucking throat and he returned the favor.
The boat comes to a stop, the operator chains the boat to the steel latch in the wall to steady it, and then opens the door and I don’t even hesitate to get out. I climb over Torres to get off the boat and hurry toward the exit.
When I’m away from the boat ride, I’m consumed by the scent of funnel cakes and popcorn and beer and even though the air isn’t pure, I draw in a much-needed breath.
I take my phone out of my back pocket and that’s when I realize my hands are shaking. I’m fucking shaking. What did I just do? This is going to change so much with Torres, with practice, with training. Everything. What was I thinking?
“Lakes,” someone calls, and the voice is familiar. I turn halfway, watching Torres walk in my direction with my dragon in hand. He hands it to me.
“Thanks,” I whisper.
“Sure thing. See you at practice Monday.” With those words, he walks away, his back to me and his stride casual. He disappears amongst the carnival crowd and it takes me a while to process what just happened.
He’s pretending nothing happened on the boat, meanwhile I’m freaking out about it. Practice won’t be the same and I know it…but damn, his lips on mine were everything, and as I run the pads of my fingers over my bottom lip, I can’t deny it.
Torres is a damn good kisser, and if he weren’t my coach, I probably wouldn’t feel so regretful about what just happened on that boat.
TWENTY-THREE
I’ve always been the kind of guy who makes bad choices. After my papa died, it seemed my whole life spiraled. He died the start of my junior year of college. I was once an outgoing, fun, rambunctious college kid who was looking to live life to the fullest.
Then I got the call that changed my life.
I went back home and found my mother weeping in the living room. She was alone. She had no other family. She only had me and my papa, but he was gone.
Everything changed that day. I became bitter, and resented the world I lived in. I felt deep in my heart that I didn’t deserve to be alive while he’d passed—that I didn’t deserve to have fun or live a good college life, and I became miserable.
I made bad choices with the way I spoke to people, and the way I reacted. I finished college just fine, focused on my grades, and helped train a kiddie running league, but outside of that, I was useless. My choices were poor when it came to women, to partying, to drinking and smoking.
Kissing Amber felt just like that—like a bad choice. I didn’t deserve to kiss her. I wasn’t even supposed to kiss her. I knew in my gut it wasn’t wise to get on that boat with her. What kind of coach willingly agrees to ride a boat with one of his athletes during his time off—an athlete he’s attracted to at that?
I fed into the shit I tried so hard to avoid. I fed into my need to touch her, to hold her, to have her. I went after her when she walked away from the carnival to be alone, knowing damn well it could either stay the same between us, or change everything.
And just like that, in one dark tunnel with flashing lights, everything changed. I stuck my tongue in her mouth, palmed her ass, clutched her thick hair, and it was even better than I had imagined. She climbed on top of me and I almost lost control. I wanted to rip her pants off in that very moment and have her ride my cock on that boat. When we came to, and realized that we’d fucked up, it took me a while to gather my composure. My cock was hard as hell and my mind was reeling.
“Fuck,” I mutter, dragging my palms over my face. I’m sitting in my car, staring at the attraction lights of the carnival. The Ferris Wheel spins round and round and I hear laughter, but nothing about this is funny.
This is serious. I saw the guilt in her eyes after she realized what we’d done—how far we had taken this. But she loved it and, hell, I loved it too. But it was wrong. Every single second of that deeply passionate, erotic-as-hell kiss was wrong. She never should have been on my lap. I should have denied her petty dare the moment she stated it because I knew what it would lead to on that boat.