Page 76 of Trusting You
No surprise, but the after became a hell of a lot more complicated. Not because women no longer wanted me, although, with no lucrative contract or pro football moniker to my name, some ladies probably wandered away. It was more because I didn’t want to. My swagger was crushed. My cravings all but disappeared. A quick fuck with a hot chick wouldn’t fix my leg.
I tried—hell if I tried—but my goddamned knee was a constant goddamned reminder I wasn’t the same anymore. The first time I tried, it was like I was a virgin all over again. I bucked, in all the wrong ways, on top of a girl with perky tits and a great ass…and that’s all I remember because I blacked the fuck out after her thigh rammed into my knee.
These days, I fucked more out of habit. A twisted maintenance of what I once was. It took a lot of practice and patience to get close to where I once was in the sack. After the injury, I could be summed up like this:
Sleep.
Drink.
Fuck.
Repeat.
Only to be sidelined by a baby. My baby.
I wasn’t a player anymore, in either sense of the word.
Since Lily, I’ve denied myself all sins. Alcohol, fucking, anything that could derive chemical pleasure in my brain was rendered null. But that’s what it was, wasn’t it—chemically induced. But because of her, my actual baby, I’m experiencing natural highs previously unknown. No touchdown gave me the rush of seeing her grin. No championship game lightened my heart like the sweetness of her laugh tickling my ears.
But…with Lily’s laughter comes Carter’s answering smile. With her cries, comes Carter’s comfort. With Lily’s presence in my life, comes Carter.
And here Carter is, one shoulder bared from her dress going crooked, the exposed skin gleaming from the window behind her.
“I shouldn’t say something like that to you,” she says, and that has me giving a hard blink back into the present. “Especially after what Astor and I talked about.”
“What did you and my sister talk about?” I ask in a low tone.
“You.”
“Yeah, I got that much.”
“Me.”
“That’s also unsurprising.”
“How there can never be a you and me.”
I go still in the darkness. “I can understand that, too, because that would require you wanting me.”
She snorts. Actually snorts. “You’re not that dense, Locke.”
I cock my head.
Carter covers her face with her hands. “I’m an idiot. Make me stop talking, please.”
I inch closer because fuck if it’s taking everything in me to keep my hands off her. “Don’t stop talking.”
She pulls her hands away from her face, carefully, shakily, before she looks at me again. “What I have to say could get us both in deep trouble.”
I can’t. Can’t fucking do it anymore. I have to touch her. I lay my hand on her bare thigh and squeeze. She gasps, and I lock my jaw before moving my hand farther—under.
“I’m pretty sure we’ve already crossed that line,” I say.
“Locke…”
“If you tell me to stop, I will.” And I would. But shit, it’ll take all the reserve I have left to walk away from this vision, pooled on my floor, tousled like I’ve already had her.
“I don’t want you to stop,” she whispers. “And that’s what scares me so much.”