Please let him be okay.
Because as crazy as he drove me, I couldn’t stand to see his dreams disappear in an instant.
21
Cam
This was the longest Reese and I had been around each other…alone.
I felt so strung-out, it was like I was coming down off a five-day bender.
At this point, I couldn’t smell anything but cherry vanilla. She was wearing this blue dress that clung to her ass like Saran wrap, and I hadn’t been able to look anywhere else for the last hour and a half. Plus, she had on these black tights that made her legs look impossibly longer and were quite possibly the sexiest things I’d ever seen.
I’d been hard from the minute she’d gotten me onto her exam table. They say that when someone has severe hypothermia their body eventually goes totally numb until they die. That was exactly what I’d been feeling like, only my numbness was concentrated in my dick. Severe arousal had caused my member to become so hard that I’d lost all feeling from the waist down about an hour ago. The thing could have fallen off by now for all I knew.
“It looks like the tendon hasn’t been further torn,” Dr. Kowalski said, looking down at his clipboard. “You’re in the clear for now, Cam.”
I could finally breathe again. I hadn’t been lying to Reese earlier about the sharp pain I’d felt when I’d landed. It’d been bad for a few seconds, but it started going away pretty quickly. And I also hadn’t been lying when I’d said it’d freaked me out.
Well, I sort of lied.
In truth, it had scared the shit out of me.
Even after the pain had stopped, I was afraid to stand up and walk on it. I was just waiting to hear that sickening pop I remember so well from four years ago. In a matter of seconds, I saw my entire basketball career flash before my eyes and a panic like I’d never known consumed me. It was only after Reese did those stretches in the training room that I really began to calm down and determined it wasn’t what I feared.
“I’m sorry, did you say ‘further torn’?” Reese asked.
I’d introduced her to Dr. Kowalski as my trainer, and he was more than happy to let her stay and be involved in the process.
But hearing the disbelief in her voice as she asked that question, I was starting to think that had been a bad idea. Saran-wrap-ass-dress or not.
Dr. Kowalski looked from her, to me, and back to her again, uncertainty growing in his eyes. “Cam has a partial tear in his right patella tendon. This injury occurred back in October. Luckily, the pain he experienced tonight was not the tendon rupturing. He likely just tweaked something in the muscle.”
Reese’s head whipped around to me. “Are you serious? You’ve been playing all these months with a partial tear and didn’t think to tell me or Gus? Or my dad?”
“And get benched?” I retorted. “Your dad wouldn’t let me play if he found out and you know it. I wasn’t about to throw away my entire senior year before it even got started. Besides, it’s been feeling fine, and I think even you can agree it hasn’t affected my game.”
She stepped closer. “Cam, playing on it like this is dangerous. You’re overworking it, weakening it. And the weaker it is, the more susceptible it is to injury.”
She was acting like she was the first person to ever tell me these things.
“You think I don’t know that?” I cursed myself when she winced at my harsh tone. “I know all the risks, Reese. But you don’t understand. I didn’t have a choice.”
She must have heard the desperation in my voice because she didn’t respond. Having been watching our heated exchange, Dr. Kowalski cleared his throat. “Well, I’ll go ahead and give you the all-clear for now. But I really think you should start wearing an actual knee brace during practices and games, rather than just the sleeve.”
I opened my mouth to protest but Reese beat me to the punch. “Agreed.”
Her expression dared me to refuse. I didn’t.
I liked my balls too much.
“Have you been doing those physical therapy exercises I gave you?” the doc asked.
I lowered my head in guilt. “Sometimes.”
“I’ll take that as a no,” he said disapprovingly. “I’d still be happy to put you in contact with one of our therapists here at the hospital, but I thought you said you had a guy.”
“He’s got a girl now,” Reese interjected. My eyes snapped up to hers, my heart pounding at the double entendre in those words. “I can help him with a regular therapy routine from here on out.”
Tension filled the room as our gazes clashed. That meant we would be spending more one-on-one time together. Did she know what she was doing? Shit, did I? Could I really handle it? I thought I’d been making progress with wearing her down since the party, but the girl was so hard to read. At the party, she’d acted like it wouldn’t have made a difference to her one way or another if we ever spoke again. But then we had these other moments when it felt like we were both about to combust if we didn’t get our hands on each other.
At least, that’s what her body language said.
She did a hell of a job acting aloof around me. But there were other times when she just couldn’t hide it. You couldn’t bury attraction like ours. The question was, what were we going to do about it? I was past the point of caring what Coach thought about it. Being around her was too much torture for any man to endure. And I wasn’t a fucking masochist.
“I’ll leave you two to figure out the specifics, then,” Dr. Kowalski said. “Just make sure to come back and see me immediately if anything changes, Cam. Or if the pain gets worse.”
I kept my gaze on Reese as I said, “Will do, Doc. Thanks.”
After he quietly left the room, Reese went on the attack. “What the hell, Cam? Do you not trust me at all? Why didn’t you tell me about this?”
“It wasn’t about not trusting you,” I shot back. “The fewer people who know about this, the better.” I climbed off the table and approached her, moving slowly. “Which is why you can’t say anything to anyone about this. Especially your dad.”
Looking conflicted, she shook her head. “I don’t like this. It goes against all of my training and every ethical principle I’m supposed to stand for.”
I took both of her hands in mine and squeezed, imploring her to understand. “Please. I need you to keep this between us. It’s already January, which means we have two months of the season left. Just keep this secret for me for two months. That’s all I’m asking.”
Her eyebrows knitted. “And what if you hurt yourself again? I don’t know if I could live with myself if something happened that I could have helped prevent.”
“Which is why you’re going to help me with my physical therapy exercises. You tell me what to do and I’ll do it. As long as you don’t tell anyone.”
She was quiet for several seconds, clearly fighting with herself.
“I need this, sweetheart.” I think that was the first time I’d ever used the term as an actual endearment, rather than a condescending moniker. I think she noticed, too. “I’ll never ask anything else of you ever again. Just do this one thing for me.”
She bit her lip in thought. “You’ll wear the knee brace?”
I grinned. “Every practice and every game.”
“And you’ll take the exercises seriously?”
“As a heart attack.”
She hesitated. “I’m just worried about you.”
She acted as though that was a heavy confession for her. And I had to admit, the words cut me deep. Because I knew she was being sincere and quite frankly, I didn’t know how to react to that.
“Reese Bradley actually cares about me?” I teased. “Did I hit my head, too, when I fell? Is this the concussion imagining this?”
She laughed under her breath. “Smart ass. I meant that in a strictly platonic, friends type of way.”
I quirked an eyebrow. “Are we friends?”
Her eyes sparked with amusement. “I figure we should be something, seeing as
how we’ve had our tongues down each other’s throats on two separate occasions.”
Something twitched in my shorts. Oh, there’s my dick. Long time no feel, buddy.
I lowered my voice. “Want to make it three?”
She smiled reluctantly as she put a hand on my chest, pushing me away. “Be at the training room tomorrow morning at ten. Will that be enough beauty sleep for you?”
“Sweetheart, I don’t know if you’re aware of this. But I don’t need beauty sleep.” I waved down at my body. “This is all natural.”
“Yeah, well.” She mimicked me and drew my attention to her luscious little body. “This isn’t. So, I’ll see you at ten.”
My hungry eyes raked down her dress-clad body, zeroing in on those damn tights. I almost asked if she could turn around so I commit her backside to memory. She looked a little flushed when my gaze lifted back to hers.
“I highly doubt that. I have a feeling that every part of you is natural.” My gaze dropped to her breasts. “I know for a fact that at least some parts of you are.”
There was the full blush I loved to see. I wondered how far down that pink color spread…
“How do you make the raunchiest stuff sound charming?”
“Just using the tools I have,” I answered, repeating her own words back to her.
She scoffed, though it wasn’t in anger. “Tool is right.”
“Oh, don’t act like you don’t love it.”
I swear those hazel eyes of hers pierced right through me. “I’m finding it more and more tolerable.”
I threw my head back and laughed. “See? I’m not the only charming one.”
And damn it if I didn’t spend the entire time lying in bed that night thinking about all the different ways Reese could use my tool.
I just had to convince her that it wouldn’t be the worst idea in the world.
Right after I convinced myself.
22
Cam
Just to prove to Reese how seriously I was taking these therapy sessions with her, I showed up to the training room ten minutes early. Of course, she was already there and ready to go, which didn’t really surprise me.
The mistake I made was not announcing my presence when I arrived.
I stood in the doorway, watching her like a stalker. She had her back to me, rummaging through some cabinets that she had to stand on tip-toe to reach. Which lifted her T-shirt up to expose enough of her tiny waist and creamy skin that I automatically pitched a tent in my shorts. That wasn’t even the best part, though. That honor belonged to the way her snug jeans shaped her glorious ass.
I was beginning to think that agreeing to these sessions with her was the equivalent of making a deal with the devil.
But at least the sight helped improve my mood, which had been sour since the moment I found out that we’d lost the game last night, destroying our undefeated record. I tried not to feel responsible, but that was like trying to tell the sun not to rise each morning.
Before I could offer any form of greeting, she turned around to face me, screamed, and threw everything she had in her hands up in the air in shock. She looked like a human popcorn machine.
“Holy shit!”
I told myself not to laugh. She was breathing hard and clutching her chest like I’d really scared the bejeezus out of her. But she made it doubly hard when I got a good look at her tank top that read “Hide and Seek Champion” in black letters with a picture of Bigfoot below them.
I put my hands up. “I’m sorry. It’s just me.”
“A little warning next time, please?” she said breathlessly. “This place is creepy when you’re all alone.”
That’s right. We were alone. I was finally alone with Reese. Oh, the images that sprang to mind…
Get that out of your head. You don’t know where you stand with her.
True. But I could sure find out.
“Miss Badass Bradley scared?” I goaded, walking into the room. “I didn’t think anything could penetrate that tough-as-nails exterior of yours.”
She squatted and started gathering everything she’d dropped. “Well, don’t flatter yourself. I tend to be a little unnerved by any hulking figure staring at me from a darkened doorway.”
I chuckled as I bent down to help her. “So, no staring at you from open doorways. Noted.”
“I’d prefer you not stare at me at all,” she murmured. Turning her back to me, she placed everything on the countertop and began sorting it.
“Sorry, sweetheart, but that’s not going to happen.”
When she turned around and clocked my arms crossed over my chest, feet spread wide—my go-to “I take no shits” stance—she seemed to swallow whatever sarcastic quip was about to shoot out of her mouth. Instead, she sighed and leaned her hands back on the counter, facing me.
“Can we just, like, hit the reset button on us?”
I frowned, not liking the sound of that.
If she wanted to erase everything that had happened between us, she was about to severely disappointed. Because that damn sure wasn’t going to happen. I could no sooner wipe her kisses from my mind than I could land a spacecraft on Jupiter.
“What do you mean?”
“I don’t know. Can we just play nice? No fighting or sparring or whatever the hell it is we’ve been doing these past few months?”
I took a step closer, immensely pleased when she didn’t retreat. “Can’t keep up anymore?”
Her spine straightened in her typical stubborn fashion. I would never admit how much I appreciated that stubbornness, even when it drove me insane.
“Trust me, your clever banter isn’t hard to follow.” I grinned. “It’s just…” Her body deflated, as if all the energy had left it. “This is a serious situation, Cam. And I think these therapy sessions would go a lot smoother if we at least pretended to get along.”
If I’d ever been worried about her making more out of that heated make-out session at the party than what it really was, she just officially quashed every bit of concern. She hadn’t been the least bit weird or awkward after that night. And she definitely hadn’t walked into the gym fluttering her eyelashes at me, thinking we were now a couple since I’d gotten her off with my fingers.
No. That wasn’t Reese.
In fact, you’d think it never even happened by the way she was acting. We had this explosive sexual chemistry going on that was almost volatile, and all she was focused on was us being friendly toward one another. Was I ever going to figure this girl out?
I watched her throat muscles bob up and down as she waited for my answer, the sight shooting blood right into my dick.
“I’ve never been known to ‘play nice’—”
“I’m sure.”
“But I can manage it if you can. Let’s get one thing straight, though, sweetheart.” She raised an eyebrow. “There is no reset button for us.” I silenced her with my finger when she opened her mouth. “I’m not going to pretend that I haven’t touched you, and you’re not going to pretend that you didn’t enjoy every second of it. There’s something between us. And I think this whole process would go smoother if we didn’t ignore it. I don’t think I’d be capable of it, anyway.”
She looked taken aback, though she quickly recovered. “Fine. But no playing grab-ass during these sessions, either.”
My smile was devious. “Would after the sessions be better?”
She shoved me away. “Let’s just get to work, shall we? Despite what you think, my entire world does not revolve around you.”
I winked. “Only a matter of time, sweetheart.”
***
An hour and a half later, I was drenched in sweat and my knee was throbbing. Reese sure hadn’t taken it easy on me, that’s for sure. Between the squats, lunges, leg press, stationary bike, four-way leg lifts, and numerous exercises using resistance bands, I was really having to push myself at the end of our workout.
“One more set and we can call it a day,” she said as she stood in fr
ont of the leg extension machine I was on, watching me closely.
We’d had the team weight room to ourselves all morning. It was a little strange being in here without the usual sounds of masculine grunts and hardcore rock music filling the air. That wasn’t necessarily a bad thing, though. Especially since half of the exercises I did, she had to touch me in some way. Either instructing me of the proper technique or placing my foot in the correct spot on the resistance bands.
And resistance was right.
Every time her dainty fingers glided over my skin I had to physically restrain myself from doing the same to her. It had been a constant battle all morning to hide my growing erection from her. I would take the knee pain over sexual frustration any damn day of the week.
“Slave driver,” I replied through gritted teeth.
These last few reps were a real bitch.
“Wuss.” She handed me my towel and water bottle as I finished up. “Let’s get your knee into a twenty minute ice bath and then you’ll be good to go.”
“Just can’t wait to get me naked, huh?”
Her gaze shot down to my dick. In response, the damn thing perked right up and saluted her.
“I don’t think there’s going to be much there for me to see after a twenty minute ice bath. Even for a guy of your size.”
First of all, I couldn’t put into words how much I fucking loved that she’d noticed my size. Second of all…
“You’d be surprised what I could endure.”
Her expression looked both chiding and fascinated. “You are so…”
“I think the word you’re looking for is cocky.”
Fascination turned to amusement. “Emphasis on the cock?”
“You tell me.”
I stood up, unabashedly displaying my semi-erection, which her eyes instantly zoned in on. If she needed proof of my attraction to her, there was no better evidence.
“Oh, shit,” she said on a long exhale, her cheeks flushing. When she licked those juicy pink lips of hers, I about tackled her onto the bench press. She broke the spell before I could, though, blinking a million times. “Nope. Not here. Not now, not ever. Put it away, Donovan.”
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