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“I’m saying I have to break up with you.”
“Because I punched someone?” This was bloody absurd. I felt the pang of desperation twist in my chest.
“No, because I wanted you to. Because I liked it. Because you protected me. Because I felt like a girlfriend being honored and defended by her boyfriend. And then I had to go into optics mode instead of falling into your arms like I wanted to. I can’t do the deal anymore. It’s too real. If I let it go on for another two weeks, I’m going to leave here without my heart. I know it’s selfish. I know it wasn’t supposed to happen. But—”
I couldn’t let her utter another word. I couldn’t let her think for another second that she was alone in this.
I leaned over, dragging her lips against mine with urgent pressure. She sighed as her lips parted and I slipped my tongue along hers, dancing and twisting.
“I want to take you back to the hotel.”
“I feel like an idiot. I just made this huge confession and nothing has changed. You want sex. And God help me, I don’t want to tell you no.”
“You need rest for the game tomorrow,” she protested.
“You think I’m going to play like anything but shit if I don’t have you?”
She giggled. “Maybe it will make your game better if I resist.”
“Don’t even think about it, love.” I slid my hand up her skirt, strumming my fingers between her legs until she opened them for me.
“Ohh,” she murmured as I stroked her gently. The no panties rule had been in effect since our first dinner date and it was fucking hot.
I was scared as hell to say it, but if I didn’t, she wouldn’t know the truth. She wouldn’t know what the last week with her had done to me. She wouldn’t know that she had silenced my demons. She had made me a better man. A man who defended the woman he wanted. I wasn’t lashing out anymore, and drinking the darkness away.
“Aspen…” I cradled her head in my hands as my lips trailed over her throat.
“Mmmhmm.”
“It’s real for me too. I can’t believe I’m fucking saying it. But it’s real.”
She opened her eyes. “Are you screwing with me?”
“No, love. I want more than Rio. I want more than two more weeks with you. After the Olympics are over and the torch goes out, I want you.”
Her eyes widened. “Holy shit.”
I laughed. “You could say that.”
Chapter Twenty
Aspen
I looked into the dark, mysterious eyes of Lachlan Kenzie in disbelief. Did he say what I thought he said? Was he falling just as hard as I was?
“I can’t believe this.”
He kissed me tenderly. “Believe it.”
I don’t know why the driver took the long route to the hotel—maybe he thought it would be fun to torture us in the backseat—but it felt as if an eternity passed before he deposited us outside.
Lachlan led me inside, racing to the elevator with a big grin on his face. We couldn’t get there fast enough.
I don’t know when the moment was for him, or if there was even a moment when everything came into focus. I think it had been collecting and layering in front of my eyes since the first night I met Lachlan in the athletes’ village.
He had been rough and angry. Gorgeous and sexy with a dark past and a dim future. I did everything I thought I was supposed to do to protect my heart, but looking back, I didn’t try hard. I didn’t stand a chance. The minute I let him kiss me and take my body I was his. I was lost without him. I was only good with him and now he was telling me he was only good with me.
He fumbled with the key, throwing the door open.
