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“I’ve done that, haven’t I, bug? I’d do that again and again and again. For you. Only you, sweetness. You really think this is me doing something to hold on to our friendship? No, baby girl.” I shook my head, and before I knew it, I was licking her neck again. Pressing my lips beneath her ear and then down to her shoulder, wishing like hell she were wearing something sleeveless.
“Red.” She trembled like the least leaf on a tree in the fall, but I didn’t stop. My control had shattered on the ground beneath us, and with every breath she took, it crunched to smaller dust-like bits.
“You wanted this. You came here knowing you drew the gauntlet.”
“I didn’t know?—"
“Shh…” I hushed as our eyes met. “Hands up.”
“What?”
“Hands up,” I clipped a little too roughly. Impatient for her to do as I’d asked. She watched me for a quiet beat. Kait could have easily pushed me away, and I would have taken a step back. I would have let her run out of my office if that’s what she wanted.
But she didn’t do that.
She simply stared at me. Those dark eyes behind those dark rimmed glasses seemed to sparkle and smolder all at the same time.
My knees threatened to buckle beneath me when she did as I asked. I watched on bated breath as her arms rose above her head, and without skipping a beat, I covered both her wrists with one hand. “You want a baby, I’ll give you a baby.”
“Red…” She licked her lips, and I picked her up. Her hands rested on my shoulders as her back pressed against the wall as my body caged her in. “I’ll give you all the fucking babies you want, bug.”
“We… you and I, what if this…” Her lips, fuck me, those perfect plush lips hovered right over mine. I could smell the sweet scent of the cinnamon gum she tended to chew when she drove. Sweet and spicy, just like the woman I loved.
“What?” I found myself asking instead of stealing our first kiss. Her last first kiss, if I had anything to say about it.
“What if it messes everything up? Our friendship and?—"
“I don’t want to be friends anymore, Kait,” I confessed, and I knew I wasn’t making sense by the way she was looking at me. “I never wanted to be friends with you.” Her body froze, and I realized I wasn’t making a lick of sense.
“What? Red?—"
“You have any idea what it’s like to meet the girl of your dreams?” I blurted out.
Kaitlyn and I’d had millions of conversations throughout our friendship. Endless late-night talks, quick little chats. But never, not once, had I told her how I felt. How this whole thing had all but blown up in my face. The girl I hadn’t known I went to high school with had ended up being the girl who gave my life hope, time and time again.
And what had I done?
Wasted the one thing I could never get back. Time.
“This good girl with a shy smile, one that somehow becomes brighter every time she points it in your direction. This good girl who deserves everything life could ever give her. Money. A home. A future.” My voice cracked as she simply watched me.
“I was a twenty-two-year-old kid about to have everything, everything you could ever want. A kid who had always struggled with money, and I was about to have the kind of life where that would no longer be an issue. A life I would be able to hand over to you, and then…” I shook my head. We both knew what happened that last game. “After my knee, you helped me get out of that bad head space. You were the one who encouraged me. Not only helped me graduate but find a new career. Now, I know I wasn’t a great teacher, but coaching? I would have never stepped foot onto another football field had it not been for you.”
“Red—"
“Shut it. You wanted this. You asked for this. So, you got it. Kaity, I work and work and work because I want to give you more.”
“I never asked for more!” she blurted.
“I know that! That’s why! And when Ryan asked me about coaching here, I jumped at it.”
“To get away from me?” My girl was incapable of just sitting and listening to me.
“No!” I hissed and sighed. “Not even close. Leaving you was like ripping my heart out of my chest and dumping it in the middle of a goddamn freeway during rush hour, bug. Leaving you was a means to an end because I’d make a hell of a lot more money coaching college football than I did at the high school level. I’d be able to offer you?—"
“Put me down,” she whispered, and I blinked.
That’s when I noticed it.
