Fair Catch

by Kandi Steiner

“Come on, Novo. You don’t have to pretend anymore. Just tell me you’re in love with me and have been since we were kids.”

You were already planning to fail tonight, because life has taught you that any time things are going great, the other shoe will drop and everything will crash down around you.

Going to tell Novo you love her by the end of the season or what?”

I’d never felt my heart beat like that before, never felt that… possessive.

His heavy footsteps echoed in the chambers of my heart. His hot breath silenced any attempt of me telling him to stop. His hands slipped into my hair, tugging tight and tilting my chin up. And then his mouth claimed mine in a kiss of thunder that beckoned the storm inside me to rage.

“Because I am scarred by the fire you started in me. Because you have reduced me to fucking ashes.”

“Because I ache for you,” he breathed against my lips next. “And I’ll end anyone who touches what’s mine.”

She didn’t want more, but I couldn’t stomach the thought of not having her at all.

There was no way to avoid the cold, hard truth of it all. I was addicted.

“I love it, and I feel guilty for loving it, like it’s not mine to love, like I’m in an affair with someone already promised to another.”

I didn’t recognize it at first, how fast I fell, how hard I jumped without even a thought of looking back. I went from loathing Zeke one moment and wishing he had never been born to aching for him any second we weren’t together.