Clutched (Wild Riders) (17 page)

“Just dance with him, please,”
Nora had pleaded.
“I don't have another bridesmaid and the picture will look terrible if he's standing out there by himself.”

It was her day after all. And she was damn near the nicest person on the planet. I could at least make things a little less stressful for one person.

When his hands rested on my hips and slowly made their way around my waist, I told my body to ignore the way it made my heart race. I thought that we'd turned a corner in our relationship. I apparently didn't hate him anymore and I thought that maybe he was feeling more amicable toward me as well. On the track, I was listening to him. I was taking his suggestions seriously. Most of them, anyway. I was taking my career seriously for the first time in my life. Off the track, we were getting closer, learning to trust one another a little more each day.

When he'd asked me to join him for the weekend in his hometown, I had assumed it was his idea. Clearly it wasn't.

He didn't have a choice.

I felt so stupid that I was literally having a physical response to my personal shame. The heat in my body wasn't just because I was angry at him for not being honest about why he wanted me here. I was angry because I'd made the painfully incorrect assumption, when, after a lifetime of my dad letting me down, I knew better by now. Or I thought I did. But Hoyt Travers had majorly messed with my hardwiring. I’d started to let myself fall for him. It was infuriating that I enjoyed the way I felt in his arms. That I felt alive looking up into his eyes. That I craved being close enough to him that I could smell his cologne. But I’d heard him after the ceremony. Heard those painful words I couldn’t un-hear.

Thank God. Otherwise I might have humiliated myself even more this weekend. It was bad enough that I'd actually let myself enjoy the car ride we'd shared. Even worse that for a split second I actually enjoyed myself at Nora's the night before. I even let myself imagine what it would be like to be to be there with him. Officially. Like as his girlfriend. It was stupid and a wasted thought. 

The look on his face made it clear that he had no idea I'd overheard him. Until now.

“Chayse. I—” he began after I called him out mid-dance.

“I don't need you to make excuses,” I said, pulling myself from the warmth of his arms. “I don't need you doing me any favors. This was all just part of the coaching job, right? Make sure I don't cause a scene or drink too much. I'm not an idiot.”

I actually was an idiot, but there was no need to admit it right this moment. Leave a girl with some shred of integrity, why don’t you. I stalked off the dance floor and made my way as far from Hoyt Travers as I could get.

This is exactly what I need
, I thought to myself as I swiped a bottle of whiskey from behind the bar in the corner. The Travers' wedding reception was well underway. No one would notice if I disappeared. I just needed a few minutes to myself. And a drink. Or ten.

The whiskey in my hand was going to help numb the ache of pressure that I constantly felt in my chest. God bless it.

I found an open door and walked into the dimly lit changing room that Nora and Georgia must have used to get ready. Clothes and makeup were scattered around every surface and even in little landmines on the floor. I locked the door behind me before plopping down on an empty bench. Letting out a deep breath, I willed myself not to cry. I’d hold my breath if I had to.

I never cried. Not when I crashed. Not when I lost. And never, ever over a guy.

My reflection taunted me from the mirror across the room. My dark hair was beautifully curled and my makeup was more demure than the heavy charcoal liner and sweep of color I usually applied when I was going somewhere “fancy.” Any other day, dirt would have been the only thing on my face.

I despised everything about this damn day.

I hated that I actually felt pretty. I abhorred the fact that I liked the simple red dress that someone had picked out for me. The fact that I’d relaxed while being pampered at a salon that morning and wanted to know all of the tips that the hairstylist and makeup artist were doling out? In-fucking-sufferable.

Something was happening to me in this Godforsaken place and I needed to get out of it. Soon.

“It will be good for your image,”
Nick Pilsner, the head of Throttled Energy's PR department had said when he cornered me before the wedding and told me to make sure I was in some of the photographs that were taken today.
“Reid is your teammate and we’re a family. You should show your support.”
What the hell was I supposed to know about family?

My chest felt tight as I thought about how I'd let Hoyt finally convince me to join him in Podunkville, and how I'd read way too much into going to Nora's last night. He obviously only took me there to keep an eye on me. What did he think I was going to do? Run a muck in a town I wasn't familiar with. Did he really think I was that much of a mess or that desperate for a drink and attention that I'd act like a complete idiot?

If I would have just used my head and said
hell no
like I’d originally thought about saying, then maybe I wouldn't be sitting in an empty room feeling sorry for myself. But I’d pictured myself on his arm and I’d liked what I saw. It felt like a promise of... something more. But like bones, promises could be more than broken. They could be shattered. I knew about both all too well.

Damn it all, my eyes had even threatened to water when Reid and Nora exchanged vows. A part of me—a part that I promptly told to shut the fuck up—decided that I, too, wanted a beautiful wedding and a man to pour his heart and soul out to me in a room full of friends and family. One day.

Most of all, I loathed the fact that the second I saw Hoyt Travers in a three piece suit, I wanted him to see me as more than just the pain in the ass he thought I was. And I wanted badly to see the body under that suit. It appeared as if his eyes had widened when he’d seen me in this dress, but maybe I’d been hallucinating.

Of course I had been.

I twisted the cap off the whiskey bottle and let it fall to the floor. As the sweet burn coated my throat, I fought the constant turmoil that was brewing inside of me. The battle of good versus evil. Should I suck it up and prove that I was actually worth the trouble Hoyt and Throttled Energy were going to, or say to hell with the whole thing and catch the next bus out of Dodge, or wherever in the hell I was currently located?

I was leaning toward buying a bus ticket when a sharp sound startled me.

Knock, knock
.

“Just a second!” I answered quickly before cursing silently under my breath. My eyes scrambled to find somewhere to stash my stolen bottle.

“Chayse,” Hoyt's voice called out gently. “Can we talk?”

I scooted over to the edge of the bench and pushed the clutter in the top of the trashcan to the side before burying the bottle on the bottom. I felt the panic start to subside the second I covered the bottle and pulled a piece of gum from my small leather clutch.

“Please,” Hoyt said again.

I had no desire to listen to his apology. No matter what I'd let my head dream up about us, it wasn't going to happen. I had to mentally close that door completely before I could open the literal one he was on the other side of. He could wait out there for a few more minutes while I got my shit together.

When I attempted to move the trashcan back a little, it tipped over and a few of the contents fell out onto the floor. I practically growled at them. Slipping the bottle back into the wastebasket to hide the evidence of my failure to obey the rules, I realized that maybe my life wasn't all that bad. So I had a dark past, a stressful career, and man trouble in the form of a smoking hot coach who would never want me. At least I wasn’t in here covering up a pregnancy test like the last person who must’ve been looking to hide something in this very same trashcan.

Despite the ick factor and the fact that it was none of my business, I took a second glance at the long, slender test that lay on the floor and thanked the Lord that I had enough common sense to get an IUD a couple years ago.

Two lines were visible in the little window.

It was positive.

“O
pen the door,” I pleaded. My stomach was in knots over what she thought she'd heard. What she'd actually heard. I did say to Brett that I didn't have much of a choice about being there with her, but I hadn't meant them. I was just trying to pretend like I did. That was apparently what I did now. I lied to myself and her. If she'd just open the door and let me explain.

When I finally heard the latch click, I reached down and felt relief that the knob finally turned.

“I didn't mean it,” I said as I pushed through the door, locking it behind me. I wanted her to talk to me and we didn't need to be interrupted. “What you heard—”

“It doesn't matter,” she said, her back to me.

“It does,” I argued, walking over to her. I reached out and placed my hand on her shoulder. She shrugged away from my touch. “It matters because I was lying. I would never do anything to hurt you.”

“You didn't,” she said defensively, but I could tell she was lying. Why else would she have stormed off the dance floor the way she did?

“I only said it to convince myself that it was true.”

She finally turned to face me. Her arms crossed over her chest. I could tell that she was wrestling with whether or not to believe me. I knew she had trust issues, thanks to Rick, and the last thing I wanted was for her to put me on her shit list with him.

“I did... I do want to be here with you. But you know that we can't be. Not the way we want to be.” Looking in her eye, I could see her frustrations. They were the same as mine. I'd lied to myself for the last time. “It's killing me and I hate it. All of it,” I confessed as I walked over and placed my hands on her shoulders. I held her in place as I spoke. “I think about you all the fucking time. Every day I that I have to see you I'm constantly reminding myself that I can't be with you the way I want to be.” I could see her eyes welling with tears. “I don't know what to do. It's driving me insane.” A single tear rolled down her cheek and I couldn't stop myself from wiping it away. “What do you want me to do, Chayse? What the hell am I supposed to do?”

“I don't know,” she whispered and dropped her head.

As she looked down, I looked up and let out a frustrated sigh. I hated not being in control of myself. I hated feeling like I was careening out of control and headed straight toward the ground.  I sat down on the leather bench in the center of the room and let my head fall into my hands and tried to slow my racing heart.

“It doesn't have to be this way,” she finally said. “Denying and pretending isn't going to work anymore.”

“We can't,” I reminded her. If ever there was a rock and hard place we were smack-fucking-dab in the middle of them. And they were closing in on us quick—trying to get us to break. I could feel myself cracking as I looked into her eye.

“I know,” she said. “But I can't make myself just turn it off. I can't make myself not want you. Believe me, I've tried.”

“Neither can I.”

I was just as frustrated as she was. Yet she stood there, looking at me like I had the answers, which I usually did. For the first time in my entire life, I didn't know what to do. The only thing I knew for sure was that I was tired of pretending that I didn't have feelings for her.

“I want to be able to dance with you and tell you that you're beautiful without feeling like I'm doing something wrong. I want to actually be able to take you to a wedding as my date and not worry about contracts. Or whether or not we’re going to get fired.” Her lips parted and she took in a breath, like she was taking my words inside of her. The anger on her face had faded into something that I couldn't quite put my finger on. Confusion. Relief. I had no idea, but whatever it was, I felt the same damn way. I stood slowly and shrugged out of my jacket. I felt like I was being suffocated by my emotions and the extra layer of clothing wasn't helping. I loosened my tie and took a step toward her. “I want to be able to touch you.” I closed the distance between us. “To hold you. To kiss you.”

“I want that too,” she confessed. “Badly.” We stood there in silence for a moment, neither of us moving an inch. I watched the rise and fall of her chest stop as she inched closer. “I wish that things weren't so complicated. I wish that we could act on it,” she said, biting at her lip.

“Maybe just once,” I suggested. For once in my life, I was willing to say to hell with consequences if that meant having her in my arms. Having my lips on hers. Feeling myself inside of her. “Just once we could...”

“Just once,” she agreed, a soft smile touched her lips and it was all the motivation I needed to give in to the urge I'd been trying too hard to control.

Sweeping her into my arms, I crushed my lips to hers. The fire that we'd somehow managed to tame down to just a glowing pile of embers reignited into a full blown blaze. I swept my tongue into her mouth and I dipped her slightly in my arms. Her hands were on my arms and then around my neck as she held herself against me.

“I want this,” I told her as I backed her toward the wall, even if it was just a one time thing. I'd take her any way I could get her. I felt animalistic as I stared down in to her eyes. Desire was all I could see. Desire and the need to alleviate the pain not being together was causing it by any means necessary. I pinned her between my arms and pressed my lips back to hers. “And this,” I said, letting my hand trail down her body, I slipped it underneath her dress and moved my mouth to her neck. She moaned softly against my lips as I moved it up the inside of her thigh. Her soft skin fueled my advances. “And this.” I let my fingers slip beneath the edge of her panties and through her warm, slick center. “All of it.” Pressing two fingers into her, I felt her body tremble with pleasure. She was drenched as I worked my fingers against her most sensitive spot. When I felt her on the verge of breaking apart, I withdrew my fingers and grabbed onto her panties. With one flick of my wrist, I ripped them from her body. “I want all of it.”