by Tessa Bailey
That was what his faith was supposed to do. Not a woman. Routine, planning, maintaining focus had always been where he found comfort.
The very things that had ruined his marriage.
And yet, here he was now, risking it all for a girl, when he’d held everything back from his actual family. The shame of that, the shame of being absent when he was needed, was a ten-ton weight, pressing him down every minute of the day. It would vanish around Peggy, but his guilt wasn’t her responsibility. He shouldn’t be there, wanting to give it all over to her for safekeeping. Just for an hour.
Only two days had passed since they’d met on the jogging path. Already the receptors she’d sent firing off in his brain were dimming, giving off no more sparks. He needed. Needed. Her. Despite knowing their relationship was wrong. She called to him like a siren, crumbling his resolve until it was nothing but rubble on the ground. He couldn’t get warm, couldn’t feel his pulse unless she was making it pound.
With the craving to feel alive blazing in his blood, Elliott entered the dorm, recalling the number Peggy had whispered in his ear on the mostly empty field that afternoon.
His knock was light out of necessity, although she answered almost immediately. Had she been expecting him? Her sleep-wrinkled tank top, panties, and messy curls weren’t in keeping with that notion. But they were in keeping with making him so fucking hot, he swayed under the inundation of heat. “Elliott,” she whispered, moving more fully into the doorway and giving him an even better view, as if being provocative came as naturally as breathing to her. “You’re here.”
“I’m here,” he repeated, not recognizing his own voice. Still, the words were true in so many alarming ways. He was there. More there, more present, than he’d been in ages. Just since she’d opened the door. “Are you alone?”
“Yes. My roommate is spending the night with her boyfriend.” She stepped back, an invitation to enter, but Elliott remained in place. “We can just talk, you know.” He watched the column of her throat as she swallowed. “If you don’t want to touch me.”
The words touch me stopped his breath. Made him think of lithe thighs climbing his waist, her young breasts bouncing beneath her cheerleading uniform. Wrong on so many levels. He should be locked in church, repenting for slipping, for being swayed from the righteous life he’d promised to live. Instead, here he was, being choked by the urgency to do it a second time. A third. A fourth.
It was more than that, though. The way standing in front of her made his heart lurch proved it. He came for her acceptance. Her honesty.
“I came here to tell you it couldn’t happen again.” He stepped into the room, his need rising with the way her eyelashes fluttered, her mouth fell open to suck in air. “I was lying to myself, wasn’t I?”
Peggy straightened her shoulders and put up her chin in a way that said she was gathering courage. The move endeared her to him, made him picture her in a football helmet and cleats, ready to take on his offensive line. God, she was so full of light, she glowed. Dammit, he couldn’t afford to feel anything for this girl on top of wanting to fuck her, but it was no use. She was pulling him into the glow and it felt so damn good. “Yes, you were lying to yourself,” Peggy said finally. “But I’m glad you did, because it brought you here.” Her upper lip curled. “It saves me having to bust my other knee to get rescued again.”
“I rescued you. Is that what you think?” With an effort, he broke their stare to scan the room, taking in the candles, the frilly pink rug, scattered textbooks. “I think you’ve been the one rescuing me for months. No one can look me in the eye since it happened. Just you.” His attention landed back on her. “I depend on those eyes of yours most days.”
Her breath came faster. “How hard was that for you to say out loud?”
A curt nod. “Hard.”
She smiled, two perfect rows of white teeth showing.
“The other day…” Elliott moved closer, his tongue heavy in his mouth. “You told me I deserve to forget everything. To find you when I’m ready to be convinced.” His pulse was heading toward haywire. “I shouldn’t ask. I’m not your responsibility—”
“Stop.” Peggy tilted her head, coming forward. Reaching up, she slid off his baseball cap and ran her fingers through his hair, releasing bliss straight down his limbs. “Talk to me.”
“I can’t focus.” The confession fell from his mouth like a stone, his forehead dropping down to hers. “I blew a play call today during a scrimmage. I forgot to send lunch to school with my kid. Everyone looks at me like I’m going to blow up. Maybe I am.” He clasped the sides of her face and tugged her closer, as if it were possible. “Stop telling me I deserve to forget everything. You’re making it too easy. It’s supposed to be hard. I earned hard.”
Challenging her, making it harder to give him what she’d so freely offered, wasn’t fair. He knew it deep down. But this was the price people paid for getting involved with him, wasn’t it? Before this was over, she would probably be glad to never lay eyes on him again. “I won’t stop. You didn’t come here hoping I would stop,” Peggy said, pushing back with her forehead. “Tell me something good you did today.”
“No.”
“Yes.” She rubbed their lips together and hunger riddled his gut. Maybe even some resentment toward Peggy for making him feel so much. “Elliott.”
“I…” He shook his head. “I left practice to bring her a happy meal.”
Her lips curved. “Chicken nuggets?” He grunted a yes and her laugh tickled his mouth. “Start making her lunch at night, so it’ll be there waiting in the morning. That’s what my mother used to do. Mornings are a bitch, even for the Kingmaker.” With a groan, Elliott watched her teeth worry that plump bottom lip. “As for everyone looking at you like you might blow up? They’re right.” Slowly, she untangled from him and stepped back, whipped the tank top over her head, leaving herself in nothing but bikini underwear. “So do it here with me where I can put your pieces back together.”
Elliott surged forward like a tidal wave, stopping just short of her, hands poised just above her hips, biting back the urge to crush them in his grip. He could feel the heat of her waist, her belly…knew she would be soft to the touch. Warm. Everywhere. His cock stood at attention, dying to slip into the tightness hidden beneath those sheer panties.
In his pants pocket, the weight of the rosary beads heated like a reminder.
“A man shouldn’t receive pleasure for his penance, Peggy.” His hands finally fell to her hips, tightening until she whimpered. “He shouldn’t get to knock on a door, knowing there’s a gorgeous girl with a wet pussy waiting on the other side.” Starving beyond the bounds of his control, he turned her around, walked them the final few feet to the twin bed and pressed her upper half down, bracing his lap against the curve of her gorgeous bottom, growing dizzy at the perfect way his erection wedged between her cheeks. “A misbehaving student who whispers in the coach’s ear when she damn well shouldn’t.” His hand lifted and dropped hard, smacking her right ass cheek, the sharp, unfamiliar sound filling him to the brim with lust. More so, when Peggy sagged with a moan. “Christ. This is going to have consequences for us both. Giving in to temptation this satisfying can’t come for free.”
“I say it does,” Peggy whispered, arching her back and sliding her feet apart, ripping a strangled growl from Elliott. She looked back over her shoulder, so courageous and vulnerable and seductive. Sweat began sliding down his temples, his hands fisting at the small of her back. She doesn’t realize yet that I have nothing to give in return. She will soon enough. “We’re the only ones here, Elliott,” Peggy continued, her voice dreamlike. “You’re the ruler of your own world right now.” She dipped her bottom, sliding it back up the fullness his pulsing cock. “Wield your power.”
His breath wheezed in and out as he unhooked his belt and yanked down his zipper with shaking hands. “God help me. Who could resist you? Who?” He tore off his sweatshirt and tee, knowing if he didn’t press every av
ailable inch of their skin together, he would regret the oversight. As if he wasn’t already in the eye of the lust storm, Peggy’s wide-eyed perusal of his chest and abdomen sucked him into the twisting eddy. “You have something to say, little girl?”
“You’re what a man looks like,” she breathed. “You’re…beautiful.”
Elliott reeled under the generosity of her words. Her body. But Lord, if he allowed an ounce of what she inspired in him to escape, it would all come rushing out and he’d never patch the damage. Never regain his equilibrium. Worse, she might expect more from him and more…more meant loss. More could mean failing her.
Giving Peggy more would mean…all. The all he hadn’t been capable of giving before.
The sound of his rosary beads rattling in his hand echoed in his mind. No choice but to ignore them and the guilt they represented for now, Elliott shoved Peggy’s panties down to her knees and tested her wetness with a rough finger. Finding her soaked, he slammed his erection home, growling behind his teeth at the utter blanking of his mind to anything but their joined bodies, the slope of her arched back. “Our father, who art in heaven…”
* * *
There was a bee in Elliott’s collar, buzzing around, stinging him at will. During a game, when something wasn’t quite right on the field, but he couldn’t put his finger on the issue, the same damn bee always showed up, the vibrating hum of its wings growing louder and louder until he swatted it away by coming up with the solution. He didn’t have an explanation for what bothered him about the conversation in his office with Peggy. Only knew this particular bee was the queen and it stung twice as hard.
Like you hate me. I deserve it.
Those words stampeded like a bull over his concentration, the pencil in his hand having remained stationary going on half an hour. Sex between him and Peggy had always been rough and angry, yes. No denying it. But hate had never entered the equation. He would have remembered. Hell, he remembered everything about those months with Peggy—that was his life’s struggle.
I deserve it. What the hell had she meant by that? Even though ending his relationship with Peggy had been the right thing to do, if anyone deserved to be hated, it was Elliott. He owned up to that fact. The only way to make her see reason all those years ago had been to be an outright prick.
Words they’d spoken in the heat of the moment tried to infiltrate his mind, but his throat started to feel strained, so he shoved those memories to the side. Not today. Not ever. This was what happened when a man allowed his psyche to be rearranged. He never got it back the way he liked it.
She’d tried so hard, too. Pulling him into her glow. Urging him to look for the silver lining in everything. She’d almost succeeded in making him human, but there had been too many reminders of how he’d neglected his past responsibilities to give the future over to her. As much as he’d hungered to.
Giving his neck a quick twist to crack it, Elliott jerked open his desk drawer, the rosary beads inside slithering to a stop against the wood panel. Surprised he only felt a passing urge to pick them up, Elliott bypassed them and removed one of the uniform black notebooks and flipped to the first page—
His phone rang.
“For the love of God,” he muttered, picking up the receiver. “Coach Brooks.”
“Coach B-Brooks,” a woman’s voice squeaked on the other end. “I’m sorry to bother you. I’m so sorry. We’ve got that big game with Temple coming up and—”
“Start with your name.” Elliott sighed, well used to people shitting their pants when the need to communicate directly with him arose. Everyone but Peggy anyway. She talked to him like no one else dared.
“Oh! Oh, this is Alice’s drama teacher, Mrs. Hughes. I should have said that up front.” A groaning laugh. “Um, we have a slight problem down here at the school. I wouldn’t call you if it was something I could handle on my own.”
Elliott shot forward in his chair, panic dropping like cement on his shoulders. “What’s wrong?” He slapped a hand over the receiver, so Mrs. Hughes wouldn’t hear his overworked breathing. A flash of memory sliced into view; receiving a phone call while at the stadium, just as he was now. Not being the man his family needed. Not living up to the responsibilities he’d taken on. “Is Alice okay?” When the woman sucked in a breath, Elliott realized he’d shouted the question, so he repeated it in a more reasonable voice. “Is Alice okay, Mrs. Hughes?”
“Yes, yes. Physically, she is fine.” The murmuring of excited voices kicked up in the background. “But she has locked herself in the auditorium bathroom. I think it’s a case of stage fright, bless her soul.” A nervous laugh. “But alas, the rehearsal must go on and Monday night’s performance is almost upon us…so we need to get her out, or find a replacement.”
Elliott wasn’t exactly clued in on the mysterious world of his daughter, but he gathered she would be devastated if the part was given to someone else. And the possibility of Alice crying was undesirable. It made his chest pull tight, right at the center. So…what? He needed to leave his job in the middle of the workday and negotiate a teenager out of a bathroom? Mrs. Hughes had overestimated him if she thought he had those capabilities. He tried to think of one of his players locking themselves in a bathroom and refusing to come out. The ridicule would be endless.
It would be worse among a pack of teenagers, wouldn’t it? Shit.
“Coach Brooks? Are you still there?”
“Yes.” Lord, he didn’t have a choice, did he? “I’m on my way.”
The jog to the parking lot did nothing to increase Elliott’s confidence in the task ahead. Students and faculty saw him coming and promptly feigned fascination with their cell phone or flat out changed direction. No one said hello. No one asked why he was moving even faster than usual. And maybe the conversation with Peggy earlier was still bothering him in the form of a queen bee in his collar, but for the first time in years, everyone’s fear of him seemed amplified. Loud and impossible to ignore. Normally, he was grateful he didn’t have to stop and make small talk—and he still was—but now all he could hear was Peggy’s voice. Like you hate me. Like I deserve.
Peggy was so prominent in Elliott’s mind as he reached the parking lot and unlocked his truck, it took him a moment to believe she was there, just across the aisle. Even though he was in a rush, he couldn’t seem to move, his hand frozen in the act of opening the driver’s side door. None the wiser that he was watching, Peggy lowered the back gate of the rusted Suburban, picked up a gear bag, and attempted to heave it inside, forehead pinching with the effort. Elliott lunged, thinking to help her with the clearly heavy duffel before she hurt her back. A ridiculous notion by the laws of physics, since he was so far away and couldn’t reach her in time. But something happened before he could try, cementing Elliott in place once again, at the rear bumper of his truck.
Another man caught the bag in midair and tossed it into the Suburban.
Peggy looked at the newcomer a moment—no expression to speak of—before face-planting in his chest, arms limp at her sides.
The bee in Elliott’s collar went crazy, stinging him beneath the hairline, before traveling around to his jugular and sinking its spiky tail in there. Again and again. Before Elliott knew he was moving, he’d stepped out into the aisle. A vehicle to his left laid on its horn, breaks squealing, stopping short of hitting Elliott by mere inches. The force of the wind sailing past finally brought Elliott back to the present.
“Elliott,” Peggy shouted, stepping away from the dark-haired man, hands flying to her mouth. “What are you doing?”
He couldn’t respond. Couldn’t take his eyes off Peggy and the man comforting her. Had she lied about being single? Dizziness accompanied his next thought.
Was that man her fucking husband?
Peggy’s hands fell away from her face. “You could have been hit!”
“Coach Brooks,” the male driver was saying. “I’m sorry. I—I didn’t see you there. Oh Jesus…right before the Temple game…”
Confusion replaced Peggy’s worry. “Excuse me?”
Elliott strode toward the pair, no idea what he’d do once he reached them. He never found out, though, because the dark-haired man stepped into his path, his features arranged in the quietest fury Elliott had ever seen. The singular layers of curiosity, rage, and calm might have fascinated Elliott on a different day, but all he could think of was making blood run through the center of them.
“Are you the one?” the dark-haired man asked.
“I was just going to ask you the same thing,” Elliott returned, surging into the intruder’s personal space, hands fisting in preparation to swing.
“Bel,” Peggy said, attempting to wedge herself between them. “Elliott. Stop.”
Bel. He’d heard that name before. Somewhere in the dark with Peggy’s fingers combing through the hair on his chest, her voice dreamy as she talked about her family, San Diego. Relief and yearning kicked in at the same time, making his voice emerge like gravel. “Your brother. This is your brother.”