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“Which side do you prefer?” he asked, already sprawled in his huge bed.
I couldn’t answer. My voice was trapped inside me, along with a ton of longing and what-ifs. I just stopped beside the bed and stared at him.
Those strong shoulders. His lickable abs. His boxer briefs and the impressiveness it barely contained. All of Champion was delectable, a feast for the senses, but only for a few hours more.
He set his phone on his nightstand. The device looked too small in his large and capable hands.
“I’m not sure.” I nibbled my lip. “I usually sleep alone.”
Suddenly self-conscious, which was ridiculous after all we’d done, I shifted my weight from one bare foot to the other. I knew why I was feeling shy and unsure, and it wasn’t because of his question or sleeping with him for the first time in his bed. It wasn’t even us having sex without a condom—something I’d never done and an experience that bore repeating.
It was because I wasn’t going to have the opportunity to repeat any of those things. It was because I was going to have to go back to just being Electra in the morning. That was going to be difficult to do after giving him both sides of me, the girl with hopes and dreams from before the accident, and the woman I was after it.
“In Saint Croix, you passed out on me before you could indicate a preference.” He moved to the center of his platform bed.
Champion with a white sheet puddled around his waist. Yum.
“Pick,” he said.
I choose any side so long as it comes with you.
I swallowed hard because he wasn’t a choice. He was the quarterback of the Texas Lonestars. He was talented, successful, and much older than me. He didn’t belong with a stripper, no matter how accepting of my profession he seemed.
Maybe if my life were different, and we had met backstage somewhere respectable.
But that wasn’t the case, and he deserved better. He deserved an unbroken woman who could give him the family he wanted. Even if that dream didn’t gel with what Ally had been told by her mother, I knew now it was what he wanted.
Ally. My throat closed and my eyes burned. It wasn’t okay to have sex with my best friend’s father and keep it from her.
I curled my fingers into fists, my arms stiff at my sides.
What I did with Champion—the chemistry, the connection—it wasn’t sustainable away from Saint Croix or the walls of Fantasy. I could leave right now, and I should. But I wouldn’t. Not when I could have a few hours more.
“This side.” Pointing, I went to the side that had been empty when I came out.
I didn’t look at him, but I felt his eyes following me. I felt him in all those Champion-susceptible areas, including disturbingly my heart. I’d been crushing on him since Ally first showed me his photo. Now that crush was crushing me for real.
“I like you here in my house,” he said as I climbed in. “It doesn’t feel so empty.”
He scooted close and drew me into him, my backside to his front, and I relaxed into him. I didn’t feel so empty either, or as sad.
With him understanding me so well, it was far too easy to let down my defenses, let him be my wall, provide my protection. Even knowing it would soon be over, I craved all that ... his strength, his warmth, and the feeling of completion that washed over me when he held me.
“I like being with you.” My eyes stung as I stared straight ahead. The future didn’t seem as bleak with him in my present.
“We’re in agreement then. I like you, Electra. A lot.” He gathered a length of my hair. As he pulled it over my shoulder, the rough pads of his fingers grazed my skin.
“I like you a lot too, Champion.”
My Champion for just a little while longer, and I could be his, the bits and broken pieces of me from another lifetime and the reimagined one who had risen from the ashes.
Reaching back, I found his hand and intertwined our fingers. I brought his hand to my mouth and pressed my lips to his skin.
“You aiming to get fucked again, baby?” he asked.
I liked when he talked dirty. And getting fucked again was certainly a temptation with his cock thick, hard, and hot against my ass. But it didn’t feel like just fucking what we did together. It didn’t feel like an end right now either, but it was, the beginning pangs. I couldn’t have sex with him again and not bleed telling emotion all over him.
“In the morning,” I whispered. “Fuck me in the morning, please.”
