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Using her braid, I tip her head back beneath the spray and squeeze a dollop of shampoo onto her scalp. I could leave it there. I have no explanation for why I don’t. Discarding the bottle, my hands are back on her in an instant, unbraiding the matted mess. On the first pass through, grit, tangles, and stubborn clumps of mud cause me to tug too hard, yet Meg doesn’t make a single sound. Once the dirt has finally surrendered, I go back in far more gently, working through the strands with fingers that usually sculpt, draw and paint.

The lather builds and Meg’s shoulders loosen. A flicker of irritation rises because old habits die hard. How dare she find comfort in my touch. Yet, combing the strands through my hands chips away at my restraint. Before me, the masterpiece is drawn out of the wreckage. She would be stunning to paint this way, all dark silky hair and soap suds dripping along her delicate arched spine.

My hands keep moving, and the irritation drains with each pass until all that remains is awareness. Her warmth under the water. The trust she hasn’t admitted to giving. The fact she could stop this at any second and doesn’t. Then there’s how my own body is reacting to her pushing back against me, the slippery brush of skin, the way her breathing catches when I shift closer. Desire presses in, hot and unwelcome, but beneath it, something worse begins to stir. Not jealousy. Not the ache I carry for Everest. Something quieter, rooted lower, and so dangerous I have no understanding of it. I need to be very careful here.

Reaching forward, I adjust the temperature dial, dousing us in a hotter stream of water. Anything to try and match the heat growing in my core and the blood heading south to my cock. My hands return to her head, but they don’t seem intent on scrubbing now. Taking on a mind of their own, my thumbs rub small circles at her temples, fingertips spreading to deepen the apparent massage. Suds slip down the curve of her neck, and whether Meg is aware or not, another soft moan escapes her.

I’m a huge believer in karma. I trust that bad will be punished eventually, in whatever form that takes. I’ve done unforgivable things to Meg. I’ve blasted music through her walls to hinder her sleep. I’ve set her locker room on fire. I’ve faked a kidnapping to trigger her fight or flight response, hoping for the latter. I’ve drawn her in so many ugly forms, stripping her of dignity and strength. Yet here we are. Somehow drawn together into a moment that should have never existed, but my mind and body isn’t actively rejecting.

My hand moves again, drifting from her hair to her throat, resting lightly around the front of it. I’m careful not to close my grip, and not to lay claim to something that isn’t mine. I simply hold her steady as I guide her head beneath the stream. She responds too fucking beautifully. Arching against me, following my lead, tilting her face up to greet the spray. Water rinses the shampoo down her face in white rivers, my fingers against her pulse feeling every erratic beat. I wonder if this is how she’d look covered in my cum. If she’d have the hint of a smile then too.

Swallowing, I quickly retract my hand, but I can’t seem to stop touching her now I’ve started. Landing on her shoulders, I begin to knead at the brutal knots beneath her skin. Hard ropes of tension gathered from the cold, the competition, and whatever fight Everest dragged out of her on that pitch. I press my thumbs into each one of them, slowly and firmly working the muscles until she exhales in surrender. Meg has completely submitted to me, just like she did at the Fresher’s Party. She was languid in my hold then too, although for other reasons. Now, she is sound of mind, and she’s still here with me. My breath catches against the damp skin near her ear.

This is the girl I tried to drive out of Hollowbrook. The woman I thought I could scare into disappearing. The person I saw as an obstacle because loving Everest has come at the cost of my humanity. Yet here she stands, trusting me with her throat, her hair, the bruised map of her back. Guilt twists through me so sharply that I step away, forcing distance between us. I’m a complete and utter fucking asshole.

Cold air washes over me from the lack of Meg’s warmth and the water no longer touches me. She turns slowly, hair clinging to her shoulders and cheeks flushed. I struggle to stay rooted in place, unsure if I want to lunge for the door or lunge at her. As if the water has washed away all of her anger, she’s a clean slate, all plump lips and hooded eyes. I have the strongest urge to kiss her, to feel those lips skate over mine, to sink my fingers into her hair for a totally different reason.

“Well,” Meg mutters breathlessly, “that was⁠—”

“Shh,” I quickly cut her off. If she mutters one more word, I’m going to lose the control I live my life by. I’m going to tongue fuck her face and make her whimper my name until her throat is raw. Instead, I grab the conditioner, squeezing far too much into her hair. Cool coconut-scented cream slides through my fingers and I start working faster this time. For whatever reason, I’m determined to see this through.

This time, though, my arms are tense, veins pulling beneath inked skin as I fight the urge to step closer. Her blue eyes catch mine and hold, ice meeting stone, both as hard-headed as the other, but it’s me who’s going to crack first. The faint curve of her mouth doesn’t help. Not. One. Bit.

Keeping my focus on the task, I condition and rinse, a breath I was holding punching out of me. There, done. Except Meg seems to have other ideas. Water catches on her lashes as she blinks up at me. She doesn’t know I’m the monster of her nightmares. I’m the puppet master holding all the strings. I’m the man who paints her in distorted fragments, coated in bruises, built from pain and suffering.

Up until this very moment, I’ve been content with being all of those things, but now? I suddenly wish I could go back and start over. The way she’s blinking up at me, her expression open and her naked body close, I realize I could have approached this so differently. I suppose I just thought no one except Everest would ever want me. That I wasn’t worth wanting.

Guided by instinct alone, my hand curls lightly around her throat one final time, tipping her head back beneath the spray until the conditioner loosens and trails down her body into the drain. Meg doesn’t rush me, nor does she try to cover herself. Whilst her eyes are closed, I drink in her form. Her perfectly pink nipples are pointed, her areolas pebbled against full, rounded breasts. Meg wasn’t born to be an athlete, she was born to be an artist’s muse.

My gaze skates over her tight stomach and further south where she’s completely hairless. My dick strains against the wet cotton of my boxers, a groan becoming locked in my throat. The water overhead starts to cool, thin threads of cold slipping through the heat, and I let my hands fall away before I hunt for another excuse to touch her. God, is this what Everest feels when he’s near her? A draw to stay in her orbit, to find any excuse to hold her attention. Swallowing, I remind myself what that draw has done to us, to me, and I take a small step back.

“Are we done here?” I ask, my voice hoarse. Meg smiles, dragging her drenched hair over one shoulder and wringing it directly onto my feet.

“Yeah, we’re done.” As she steps out of the cubicle, I manage to keep my mouth from dropping open. How does she do that? Even in her most vulnerable state, she switches up the situation and makes me feel like the one who’s out of control.

Watching her wrap my towel around herself as if my sanity isn’t scrambling to catch up, I step beneath the spray to be drenched with ice cold water. A sound tears out of me before I can stop it, undignified enough for Meg’s laugh to filter from beyond the cubicle. Whilst I was distracted by her body, she changed the temperature dial.

I lunge for the controls, cursing under my breath, but the damage is already done. Meg has been washed and worshipped by my hands, stolen my towel, and left me standing beneath freezing water with my body still aching from the memory of her.

I brace both hands against the tile, bowing my head beneath the cold spray until the shock drags my pulse back down to a reasonable pace. Fair play, Meg O’Connor. You owed me that one.

Chapter Twenty Six

Well, today was a clusterfuck of misjudged intentions. Whatever I thought would be achieved from our match with Radley, whatever I thought I might prove, I failed miserably. Instead, I’ve got a split lip from the rival captain, a burst ear drum from where Meg screamed at me, and a huge dose of wounded pride from where I went after the match. To seek out Thiago, of all people, and convince him our agendas may be more aligned than he thinks.

Right on cue, there’s a knock at the front door. It’s as obnoxious as the man behind it, a flutter that trails up and down the wood until I rip the door open to glare at the offender standing on my porch.

“Are you done?” I seethe. Thiago stands frozen, blue eyes wide against his tanned skin, a baggy gray sweatsuit on his long limbs as he holds his fist raised in midair. The moment stretches as I silently deliver a threat with my eyes and Thiago decides to completely ignore it. Knocking his knuckles on the wood twice more, he beams and pushes his way inside.

“Yep, I’m done. Nice pad you’ve got here,” he whistles loudly, spinning in a circle as if to chase the echo around the entrance hall. I roll my eyes and slam the door closed, thankful I kicked everyone out before he arrived. I don’t need anyone witnessing how little patience I have tonight, especially not after the day I’ve had.

After the game, Coach escorted me through the pouring rain, directly to the Dean’s office for reprimanding. The least of my grievances was how I’d pleaded for a co-ed team and only put two females into our first on-site match. The worst being that the captain of Radley will need surgery to repair his jaw, and my father will be covering the medical bills. I can’t wait for his lecture on appearances, not.

Jerking my chin, I lead Thiago upstairs to my study, where he continues to speak without any kind of filter.

“Why does a college jock need an old man’s whiskey bar and a home office? Are you secretly a mobster with erectile dysfunction? This desk is definitely compensating for something.” He glides his hand over the mahogany surface, and I slap it away.

“Don’t touch what you can’t afford,” I tsk, sounding more like my father than I’d like. Slipping around the back of the desk, I drop into my highbacked chair and steeple my fingers as Thiago makes himself at home on the leather sofa against the wall. “So, how are we going to do this?”