Page 46

“I don’t want to.” Not by a long shot.

“We can’t do this,” Rhodes said softly. The anger disappeared from his voice, and somehow that made everything worse. He didn’t sound like a man who didn’t want me. He sounded like a man trying desperately to convince himself we couldn’t.

Laughter exploded somewhere down the hall, and both of us froze. Reality crashed back into the room. There were people everywhere. All it’d take was one person walking in to catch us. The risk should’ve sent me immediately toward the door. Instead, it only turned me on more. My dick throbbed against the zipper in my jeans, desperate for more from him.

Neither of us moved until the laughter faded.

“Can’t or don’t want to?” I challenged. Rhodes had been adamant about the importance of intention and using the right words, especially between us. He’d always been meticulous about making sure I said what I meant and understood exactly what he meant in return—to keep me safe in everything we did.

I wasn't about to let him hide behind the wrong word now. If he didn’t want me anymore, he had to say the words. I’d hate every single one, and they might wreck me, but I’d believe him.

That tortured expression on his face wrapped violently around my heart. Why did he have to fight us so hard? We’d already been keeping this secret. Nothing about that part had changed. Nobody had known before he became Coach Kennedy, and they certainly didn’t need to know now. Maybe that wasn’t enough of a reason—maybe I was being selfish—but standing there with him looking at me like that, I couldn’t understand why wanting each other suddenly had to mean losing each other completely.

“Rhodes—”

“Don’t,” he snapped, cutting me off. His body shifted forward by barely an inch, so little I might have imagined it if I hadn’t been paying such painfully close attention. He was drawn to me as much as I was to him. I reached for him on instinct, desperate to touch him.

“Palms to the wall, little wolf,” Rhodes barked. I listened without hesitation, all too ready to do whatever the hell he asked. My palms flattened against the wall, and I remained impossibly still as he ran his nose along the line of my neck. His breathing picked up, harsh and uneven.

His struggle was tangible—a barrier I wanted him to climb. Every part of him seemed divided between moving closer and putting as much space between us as possible. For one stupid, hopeful second, I thought closer might win. Instead, his hand squeezed once before he stepped back, putting as much distance between us as he could.

“Get out of here, McLaughlin,” Rhodes ordered. Before I could respond, he disappeared and slammed the door hard enough to make me flinch.

I stayed against the wall for another second, staring at the door. My pulse was still racing, and every frustrated feeling I’d walked into this room with was worse, amplified by how badly I wanted to storm into that bathroom after him.

CHAPTER 17

Rhodes

WOLF: Do you know how hard you make me?

WOLF: Just your hand on my throat is almost enough to make me come.

WOLF: You have me hiding in the other bathroom with my dick in my hand, Rhodes.

Fuck, fuck, fuck. I shouldn’t have touched him. The way his pulse pounded under my fingers was intoxicating—a drug I desperately wanted to drown in. The memory of it stayed with me, even after I’d let him go.

I braced my back against the bathroom door and stared at nothing, listening to my own breathing as I fought every instinct that screamed at me to go after him.

And those texts, because apparently Theo had decided tempting me in person wasn’t enough? Knowing what he was doing had been bad enough. Imagining it had already destroyed my concentration. But then he’d had the audacity to send a fucking picture. I should’ve deleted it immediately, but I didn’t. I should’ve looked away, but I couldn’t do that either.

The picture was simple—no face and just the barest hint of the bathroom around him. It was just his hand and the length of his dick, the head swollen dark and his slit leaking with precum. His veins stood out along the shaft in the cheap bathroom light. He’d held it up for me like an offering, and I stared until the image burned itself in my mind.

My head hit the bathroom door, and I closed my eyes. Maybe I really was a masochist because this was torture. A house full of people separated me from exactly what I wanted, and some reckless part of me resented every single one of them.

I wanted the house empty and for responsibility to disappear. I wanted one night where I didn’t have to think about coaching ethics. I wanted not to have to make the smart decision.

I pressed my palm over my aching cock, willing it to go away and knowing full well it wouldn’t. I didn’t want to want Theo like this. It would’ve been easier if this was only sex. Sex I understood. Sex could have rules and boundaries. It had an obvious beginning and an end.

I’d wanted plenty of people in my life, but never like this. He was burrowed so deep inside me that I didn’t know how to get him out.

I didn’t want to either. I wanted boundaries and distance, but I wanted Theo too. All three things couldn’t exist at once. How fucked up did that make me?

Lord help me, I caved. I couldn’t help it. Undoing my jeans, I freed my cock. A deep groan escaped me as I stroked my hard length base-to-tip once.

Fucking hell. I was a goddamn masochist, but I grabbed my phone. There was no denying that. And I was a little too far gone and riled up even to care as I texted him back.

Are you stroking yourself, little wolf?