“Luck,” he says, catching the ball when I bounce-pass it back to him. “You ever played HORSE?”
A disdainful breath is my only answer.
“Alright then.” He laughs and tosses the ball back to me. “Ladies first.”
For the next twenty minutes, he kicks my ass at HORSE so bad that by the end, I’m waving my arms in front of him when it’s his turn to shoot. Anything so he won’t keep making the shots.
“You don’t guard in HORSE,” he reminds me with a one-sided grin that has my heart double-dutching in my chest. “There’s no defense.”
“No defense, huh?” I ask. “No wonder you’re so good at it.”
“Ohhhh.” He sticks an imaginary dagger in his heart. “Still busting my balls about playing D. I’ve gotten better. At least gimme that.”
“There’s always room for improvement.” I laugh at the look on his face. He was the Rookie of the Year. His ego can withstand a little ball-busting.
He goes to shoot, and I grab his arm, making the ball fly wildly across the gym. I’m laughing, feeling freer than I have in months, maybe since before Sarai was born, when his hands land at my hips and he pulls me into him.
My smile vanishes. So does his. His broad palms burn through the thin material of my pants. My lungs feel shrunken because my breaths are so shallow; quick, urgent pulls that lift my breasts against his broad chest. The air around us heats and caramelizes until it’s thick and rich and sweet and dark—until I can almost taste it.
“I’ve been wearing this cast a long time,” he whispers, inching his fingers up my neck and into my hair. “There’s this one spot that itches so bad, but it’s in a place that I can never quite reach.”
With his eyes, he follows the line his thumb strokes down my neck, and every breath I draw tastes like him. The scent of him this close is inescapable, infiltrating. His body, hardened and towering over me, is all I can see. He bends to press our foreheads together.
“Have you ever had an itch you couldn’t scratch?” he asks. The question hovers over my lips, and I shudder. His hands tighten on me, and our breaths clash between our open mouths.
I shake my head no, my eyes so heavy with desire, I want to close them, but I can’t look away.
“It itches so bad, it starts to burn.” His fingers spread over me, his hands so big he covers the space just under my breasts to my hips.
“That itch becomes the center of everything,” August continues. “You can’t focus on anything except the way it burns and that you can’t reach it, can’t touch it.”
I lean into him, limp and seduced by his words, by the scorching intensity of this moment.
“You’re my itch, Iris,” he confesses. His breath labored, he tips up my chin, so I see the desperation in his eyes. “And if you don’t step back right now, I have to scratch.”
Do it.
The dare bounces around inside my head like the ball I’m supposed to be chasing. I want it—want his kiss hard against my lips, and his hands gentle and persuasive on my body, but I have too much to lose.
Sarai.
My life.
Everything.
And as alive as I feel, as on fire as I am for what his eyes promise, I can’t risk it all. I can’t risk any of it.
Wordlessly, I step back, staring at him for a few seconds before I turn to retrieve the ball, breaking the heated current flowing from me to him.
When I return, he’s massaging his knee. Guilt stabs me. As if I haven’t cost him enough already, I was this close to jeopardizing him even more. I dribble back to the center of the floor where he stands, watching me unsmilingly. I toss him the ball, which he catches, palms with one hand, and tucks under his arm.
“I should go,” I say, but I don’t head for the gym exit.
He steps closer, leaving a few inches between us.
“You probably should,” he agrees, taking my wrist between his fingers and pulling me closer. “But you won’t. Not yet. You have another twenty minutes before you have to pick up Sarai.”
I don’t speak, but remain quiet while we study one another. He brushes hair behind my ear, and it reminds me of how Caleb likes to do that with his pistol. I shiver at the memory of Caleb’s cruelty. I shiver with the pleasure of August’s touch.
