Page 205 of Forever Relentless

“It is.”

Her fingers caught the hem of my shirt again, but this time the gesture was smaller. Less demanding. More of a question.

“So,” she said quietly, “are you in this with me?”

I tilted my head slightly. “You make it sound so dramatic.” I teased. “You could just as easily ask me out.”

Briar laughed loudly. “Fine. I want to date you, Noah. Do you want to date me?”

“Absolutely.” I kissed her again, and this time, my shirt came off along with her jacket. Her knees bumped the edge of my bed as I followed her down with a low laugh.

I hadn’t been pushing everyone away.

I’d been waiting for her to come back.

“And how does dating you look?” I murmured against her skin, pushing her shirt up so my lips could follow the warm line of her stomach. “Do I need to buy a car just to get to Chattanooga?”

Briar giggled, her fingers sliding into my hair. “My rent’s paid for the year. I could just . . . stay, if you like.”

“Yeah?” I popped the button on her jeans, pulling the zipper down slowly. “I like you being close.”

Her breath caught as I eased her jeans down her hips. She lifted slightly to help, the movement natural, unhurried. A second later, she was stretched out beneath me, her hair spread over my pillow like a halo of darkness, her eyes bright and a little uncertain but full of the same heat as was building in my chest.

She was gorgeous. She was everything I wanted.

“I want you close,” I said quietly. “I want you.” My fingers caught the elastic of her underwear, and with another rise of her hips, I pulled them down too. She was wet and ready, and I pushed my own pants down.

Her hands wrapped around my shoulders, pulling me back down to her mouth. Our kiss grew deeper, slower now, less frantic but equally intense. The world outside the room faded away — in here, it was just us.

I moved closer to her, and we moved together, eliminating any distance that was between us, and everything felt right.

She was mine, and I spent the afternoon reminding her that I was hers.

Chapter 38

Noah

Practice didn’t feel the same.

I’d half expected it to be different. Turns out, the machine doesn’t care about locker-room drama. Not because the world revolves around whatever storm has passed through the locker room, but because everything had felt so explosive a week ago. Like something somewhere had to break.

Only nothing did.

The machine kept moving.

Monday morning was film review.

Coach Sutherland stood at the front of the room like he always did, remote in hand, the laptop humming softly behind him. The lights were low, the screen bright with the frozen frame of our last game.

No mention of the posts.

No mention of the rumors.

No mention of anything except missed tackles.

“Pause it there,” he said, pointing at the screen.

The footage froze with our defensive line half a second late on the snap.