Chapter 2: A Desperate Confession in the Rain
The roar of the bar was a physical thing, a wall of sound that vibrated in Harry’s teeth.He’d been nursing a beer, watching her. Always watching her. The purple of her curls under the cheap neon, the way she threw her head back when Marcus said something stupid.It was a performance, he knew it. Her laughter was a little too loud, her touch on Marcus’s arm a little too deliberate. It was all for his benefit, a fucked-up piece of theater staged after the catastrophic victory kiss on the pitch, after Tasha’s venomous lies had slithered between them.His own doing. He’d brought Tasha in as a shield, and now he was bleeding out from the shrapnel.
When she stood, grabbing her bag and letting Marcus guide her toward the door with a hand on the small of her back, something in Harry snapped.A cold, clean break.He didn’t think. He shoved his way through the crowd, ignoring a teammate’s shout, his world narrowing to the retreating shape of his hoodie—his hoodie—on Nikki’s back.
The night air was a slap, thick with the promise of rain. She was a few paces ahead, Marcus leaning in to say something.Harry moved, his body operating on a primitive protocol. He didn’t hear his own voice, just saw his hand close around her forearm.
“Harry, what the fuck—” she gasped, whirling.Marcus stepped forward, a protective, possessive shift. “Hey, man—”
“Piss off, Marcus,” Harry growled, the words low and graveled. He didn’t even look at him. His entire focus was on Nikki, on the shock in her brown eyes, on the frantic pulse he could feel beating under his thumb. He pulled, not hard, but with an undeniable force, steering her away from the bright mouth of the bar and into the dark gullet of the adjacent alley.“Let go of me! Are you insane?” Her protests were sharp, laced with real fear now. The alley was narrow, walls of stained brick closing in, the ground slick with oily puddles that reflected a sliver of sickly yellow from a distant streetlamp.The smells here were raw: rotting garbage, piss, wet concrete.He ignored her. He just walked her back, deeper into the gloom, until her shoulder blades hit the rough brick. Only then did he release her arm, but only to cage her in, planting his hands flat against the wall on either side of her head. His body pressed against hers, eliminating the space, the cold, the lies.She was trapped.He was trapping her. The knowledge was a hot coal in his gut.“Why him?” His voice was ragged. “To punish me?”
“You don’t get to ask me that,” she spat, shoving at his chest. It was like pushing a statue.“You lost that right.Get off me.”
He didn’t move. He looked down at her, at the fury twisting her beautiful face, at the tear tracks he hadn’t noticed before, glistening in the faint light.All the words he’d rehearsed vanished. There was only the want, a raw, screaming need that eclipsed every caution, every consequence. He lowered his head.His mouth crushed down on hers.It wasn’t a kiss. It was a claim.It was desperate and angry and tasted of cheap whiskey and the salt of her tears. She went rigid, her hands flying up to claw at his shoulders, a muffled cry lost against his lips.She struggled, her hips twisting, her knee coming up. He grunted, absorbing the half-hearted blow, not relenting. He poured every fucked-up thing he felt into that kiss—the jealousy, the guilt, the years of wanting, the terror of the empty future Tasha had painted for him.And then, a fracture.A shudder ran through her. The fight bled out of her muscles, replaced by a terrible, pliant softness. A sob broke from her throat, a raw, wounded sound that tore at him more effectively than any scratch. Her mouth opened under his, and she was kissing him back, a hungry, answering desperation that matched his own. Her hands unfurled from their fists, sliding into his damp curls, pulling him closer, deeper.
He broke the kiss, breathing raggedly. “Nikki,” he whispered, the name a prayer and a curse.“I’m sorry. Christ, I’m so fucking sorry.” He dropped his forehead against hers, their breath mingling in white clouds.“She lied. Everything she told you was a lie.”
“I don’t care,” she choked out, her voice thick. “I don’t care about her.”
His hands moved from the wall, sliding down her sides, finding the hem of the hoodie—his hoodie. He pushed the fabric up, his chilled fingers finding the warm, smooth plane of her stomach. She flinched at the touch, then arched into it with a gasp. He skimmed higher, palming the soft weight of her breast through her thin t-shirt, his thumb brushing over a hardened nipple. She moaned, a low, helpless sound that went straight to his cock.It was all the permission he needed. The dam broke.
He dropped to his knees in the cold, grimy puddle, the water soaking through his jeans. He looked up at her, her face a pale, stricken mask above him, her lips swollen from his kiss. He hooked his fingers into the waistband of her leggings and her underwear, yanking them down in one rough motion. The cool air hit her skin, and she trembled.“Harry—” she whispered, a thread of uncertainty in her voice.
He didn’t answer with words.He answered with his mouth. He buried his face between her thighs, his tongue finding her, licking a broad, wet stripe through her folds. She cried out, her hands scrambling against the brick for purchase. She was already slick, hot, an addictive flavor that was purely Nikki—musky, sweet, perfect. He ate at her with a frantic, starving intensity, his tongue circling her clit, lapping at her, diving inside her. Sloppy, noisy, desperate strokes.
“Oh, god,” she gasped, her head falling back against the wall with a soft thud. Her fingers tangled violently in his hair, not pushing him away, but holding him there, grinding herself against his mouth.“Fuck.Right there. Don’t stop.”
He obeyed.He devoured her. The world shrank to this: the taste of her, the scent of her skin and the alley’s decay, the shaky gasps and whimpers falling from her lips. He fucked her with his tongue, feeling her tighten around him, her thighs starting to shake where they framed his head. He focused on her clit, sucking it hard, flicking it with the tip of his tongue until her breathing became a ` series of sobs.
Her orgasm hit her suddenly, a breaking wave. She convulsed, a sharp, silent scream stretching her mouth before a long, keening moan ripped itself free. Her hips bucked wildly against his anchoring grip, against his relentless mouth, as he rode her through it, drinking every pulse and shudder until she was boneless, sagging against the brick, whimpering.
He gentled, kissing her inner thighs, nuzzling the damp, tangled hair. Slowly, he stood, his knees protesting.She was watching him, her eyes huge and dark, her chest heaving. The haze of pleasure in her gaze slowly cleared, replaced by a dawning, horrified understanding. Of where they were.Of what they’d just done.The victory from minutes before was ash in his mouth. This was different.This was real.
He fumbled with his belt buckle, his own need a painful, urgent throb. “Nikki,” he breathed, leaning in to kiss her again, softer now.“Please.”
She stared at him, her breathing still uneven. Then, without a word, she gave a slight, almost imperceptible nod.It was enough.
He freed himself, his cock hard and aching. He spit into his palm, slicking himself roughly before guiding his tip to her opening.He pushed inside her in one slow, inexorable thrust.
She was so tight, so impossibly hot and wet. She gasped, her nails digging into his shoulders through his shirt, her body accepting him with a soft, internal shudder. He buried himself to the hilt, their bodies pressed together, the hoodie between them. He stayed there for a moment, forehead against hers, overwhelmed.He was inside Nikki.His best friend.The only thing that had ever truly mattered.
Then he moved.It was raw and filthy and perfect. He fucked her against the cold brick wall, each thrust a jolt that shook her body. The sounds were obscene: the wet slap of their joining, his ragged grunts, her broken little cries. He gripped her ass, lifting her slightly to deepen the angle, and she hooked her legs around his waist, her heels digging into the back of his thighs.“Fuck, Nikki,” he groaned, his control fraying. “You feel so goddamn good. So fucking perfect.”
“Harder,” she panted into his ear, her voice stripped of everything but need. “Don’t you dare hold back.”
He obeyed, slamming into her with a force that made her cry out, a sound of pure pleasure-pain.He could feel his own end coiling tight in his gut. He reached between them, his thumb finding her clit again, rubbing in frantic circles. She shattered almost instantly, her second orgasm seizing her with a violence that made her scream into his shoulder, her walls clenching around him like a vise.It ripped his own climax from him. He drove deep and held there, pulsing into her with a hoarse shout, his vision whiting out at the edges. For a few eternal seconds, there was nothing but the feel of her, the union, the rightness of it.Slowly, the world leaked back in.The cold.The stench of the alley. The distant thump of bass from the bar.
He softened inside her, but didn’t pull out, just stayed there, holding her up, their breath crashing together. He pressed soft kisses to her temple, her cheek, the corner of her mouth. “Nikki,” he murmured, the word full of a reverence that scared him.She was silent.Her face was buried in his neck. He could feel the wetness of fresh tears on his skin
Her face was buried in his neck. He could feel the wetness of fresh tears on his skin.He didn’t ask why she was crying.He knew. The shuddering intimacy of what they’d just done was already curdling in the cold air, the brick digging into her back, his softening cock still nestled inside her. It was a violation and a homecoming, all at once. “We can’t stay here,” he murmured, his lips moving against her hair.She nodded, a barely perceptible movement. He withdrew carefully, and she winced, a sharp intake of breath hissed between her teeth.The reality of their situation rushed in. He fumbled with his jeans, buckling them with clumsy fingers while she pulled her leggings up over her hips, the material damp and stained from the alley floor.She avoided his eyes. The hoodie—his hoodie—was a wrinkled barrier between her skin and the world.
“My place,” he said.It wasn’t a question.
She just stared at the opposite wall, her arms wrapped around herself.He took her hand, his own grip tentative.She didn’t pull away. They walked out of the alley like that, connected by that fragile point of contact, stepping from the shadows into the sodium glow of the streetlight. The rain had softened to a mist that caught in her purple curls like diamonds.
The fifteen-minute walk to his off-campus apartment was silent except for the click of her boot heels and the distant wail of a siren.Every step felt monumental. He unlocked the door to the studio, the familiar scent of laundry detergent and old pizza boxes washing over them. He’d left a lamp on, and it cast a weak, yellow pool of light over the chaotic bed and the football trophies cluttering his desk.She stepped inside, her body rigid. She shrugged off the hoodie and let it fall to the floor, a heap of worn fabric on the scuffed hardwood. Standing there in her thin t-shirt and leggings, she looked smaller than he’d ever seen her.“Say something,” he whispered, closing the door behind them. The click of the lock was deafening.
“You fucked me in an alley,” she said, her voice flat.She turned to face him. Her eyes were red-rimmed but dry now, blazing with a clarity that scared him. “You put me on my back in the dirt and fucked me like you hated me.”
“I don’t hate you.” He took a step toward her.“I’ve never hated you.I was…”
“You were what?Punishing me? For Marcus? For believing Tasha’s bullshit?” She laughed, a brittle, ugly sound.“Congratulations. Mission accomplished.”
He crossed the space between them in two strides, cupping her face.She flinched, but didn’t retreat. “I was claiming you,” he growled, the truth of it raw in his throat. “I was so fucking jealous I couldn’t see straight.Seeing you with him… it made me animalsick.”
Her gaze searched his face. “You don’t get to claim me.”
“I already did.” His thumb stroked her cheekbone.“And you let me.”
A tremor ran through her. The anger seemed to drain from her all at once, leaving behind a profound exhaustion.She leaned into his touch, just slightly. He saw the pulse hammering at the base of her throat.He lowered his mouth to hers. This kiss was different.It was slow.Deliberate. A deep, searching exploration that held all the unsaid words of the last two years.
He tasted the salt of her earlier tears and the ghost of the alley’s whiskey.Her hands came up to his chest, not pushing, but anchoring. He walked her backward until her calves hit the edge of his bed. They sank onto the mattress together, a slow collapse.
He peeled her t-shirt over her head, revealing the warm brown skin of her stomach, the delicate lace of her bra. He unhooked it with practiced ease, and she arched, helping him. He took her breast into his mouth, sucking her nipple to a hard peak, his tongue circling the taut flesh until she gasped. Her fingers scrabbled at the hem of his shirt, yanking it up. He pulled it off himself and threw it aside, the tattoos on his chest and arms a familiar map under her tentative touch.
He stripped her leggings and underwear down her legs, his movements reverent now. She lay back on the disheveled sheets, watching him as he kicked free of his own jeans and boxers.His cock sprang back to full, aching hardness. He crawled over her, settling between her thighs. He rubbed the head of his cock through her wet folds, back and forth, coating himself in her.She was so open, so ready for him. “Look at me,” he demanded, holding himself above her.She did. Her brown eyes were dark, wide, terrified, and hungry. “You’re mine, Nikki,” he whispered, and then he pushed inside.
He filled her completely, a smooth, deep penetration that made her cry out, her back bowing off the bed.He stilled, buried to the root, letting her adjust. The feeling was transcendent.Warm, silken friction.Her hips tilted, accepting him deeper. He began to move.This wasn’t the alley’s frantic, punishing rhythm. This was something else.Long, deep strokes that connected them at the core. He braced himself on his forearms, his face inches from hers, watching every flicker of sensation cross her features. The slap of skin was a soft, wet percussion in the quiet room. He fucked her with a relentless, focused intensity, each thrust a deliberate punctuation in a sentence they were finally writing together.
“Touch yourself,” he groaned.“Let me watch you come.”
Her hand slid between their bodies. He saw her fingers work in his peripheral vision, circling her clit.Her breaths came in short, sharp pants. “Oh, god, Harry… right there.Don’t stop.”
He didn’t. He drilled into her, hitting a spot that made her eyes roll back. Her inner muscles began to flutter around him, a frantic, rhythmic clenching. “That’s it,” he urged, his own control fraying.“Come on my cock. Do it.”
She shattered with a choked scream, her body seizing under his. Her orgasm pulsed around him, a hot, liquid ripple that pulled his own climax violently from the base of his spine. He drove deep and held there as he came, his own groan a raw, guttural sound lost against her neck. He spilled into her, pulse after pulse, his vision swimming.
He collapsed onto her, his weight a familiar, crushing comfort.They were both slick with sweat, breathing in ragged unison. He nuzzled the hollow of her throat, his lips against her frantic pulse.He didn’t move. He didn’t want to break the seal.
The weight of him was solid, real, the sweat cooling between their stomachs. Her fingers traced the script inked over his ribs, a familiar psalm she’d watched him get sophomore year. Outside, a car alarm wailed then died, leaving a ringing silence in the dim room.
“I can feel you thinking,” he murmured into her skin. His breath was warm against her collarbone.
“That’s because my brain didn’t just get fucked out of my skull in a disgusting alley.” Her voice was hoarse, stripped. She said it to the ceiling. “Twice.”
He pushed up on his elbows to look at her. The lamplight caught the green of his eyes, the worry in them. “Regret is a shitty look on you, Martinez.”
“It’s not regret.” She finally met his gaze. “It’s confusion. You let her poison me. For weeks. You saw me believing her and you just… let me drown.”
He rolled off her, the loss of contact immediate and cold. He sat on the edge of the bed, his back a tense landscape of muscle and ink. “I was scared. I brought her in to stop this. To stop wanting you. It fucking backfired and I didn’t know how to fix it without…”
“Without what?”
“Without doing exactly what I just did.” He glanced back at her, his expression raw. “And ruining everything.”
She sat up, the sheet pooling at her waist. The ache between her legs was a persistent, truthful throb. She reached out and pressed her palm flat against the knotted muscles of his back. He shuddered.
“You ruined it when you didn’t tell me the truth,” she said softly. Her hand slid down his spine. “The kiss on the field… that was the truth. This is the truth. Tasha was the lie.”
He turned suddenly, capturing her hand, his grip almost painful. “So what now? We just… are this now?”
“I don’t know.” She leaned forward and kissed him, a slow, searching kiss that tasted of sleep and salt and him. “But I’m not ready for you to stop.”
That was all the permission he needed. A low growl rumbled in his chest. He pushed her back down, not with gentleness, but with a focused hunger that made her blood thump. He kissed a burning path down her sternum, over the curve of her breast, taking her nipple into the hot, rough cave of his mouth. She arched, a sharp gasp escaping her.
His hand slid between her thighs, fingers parting her. She was still swollen, sensitive from before. He rubbed two fingers through her slickness, circling her clit with a torturous, knowing pressure. “Still so fucking wet for me,” he muttered, his voice thick with awe and possession. “Even after all that.”
“Shut up,” she breathed, her hips lifting off the mattress. “Don’t talk. Just…”
He replaced his fingers with his mouth. He ate her with a luxurious, devastating patience that was somehow more intense than the alley’s frenzy. Long, flat strokes of his tongue that built a deep, coiling tension. He hooked her legs over his shoulders, opening her wider, and lapped at her with a obscene, focused rhythm. The sounds were vulgarly intimate in the quiet room.
She came with a broken cry, her body bowing off the bed, her hands fisted in the sheets. He didn’t let up, drinking down her climax until she was pushing at his head, overstimulated and trembling.
Before the last pulse had faded, he was moving up her body. He gripped his cock, guiding the broad head through her soaked folds, notching it at her entrance. He looked her in the eye. “Tell me you want it.”
“I want it.” No hesitation.
“Tell me whose it is.”
“Yours.” The word was a surrender and a victory. “It’s yours, Harry.”
He slammed home. The force drove the air from her lungs. He set a brutal, pounding pace from the first stroke, the bedframe knocking a dull rhythm against the wall. This was claiming, yes, but it was also an exorcism. Every thrust was meant to purge the ghost of Tasha’s words, the image of Marcus’s hand on her back. He fucked her like he was trying to reach her soul.
“You feel that?” he grunted, his voice strained. “That’s me. Nothing else. Just me.”
“I feel it,” she sobbed, her nails raking down his back. She met every drive, her hips rising to crash into his. The slap of skin was loud, animal. “Fuck! Right there. Don’t stop.”
He shifted, angling deeper, and the new friction was blinding. Her second climax tore through her, a raw, screaming thing that clenched around him like a fist. It tipped him over the edge. With a choked roar, he buried himself to the root and pulsed, jetting his release deep inside her in hot, endless waves.
He collapsed, his body spent and heavy. They were a tangled, sticky mess. The room smelled of sex and sweat and them.
Long minutes passed. The digital clock on his nightstand glowed 4:17 AM. The world outside was utterly still.
“She texted me,” Nikki said quietly into the dark. “Tasha. After the game. She said you told her the kiss was a mistake. A publicity thing for the team.”
Harry went rigid beside her. “I never said that. I told her it was the only real thing that had happened to me in years.”
“I know that now.” She turned onto her side, facing him. Her eyes were serious. “But I believed her then. It felt like proof. That I’d made a fool of myself.”
He touched her face. “The only fool here is me.”
She caught his hand, held it. “What happens tomorrow?”
“Tomorrow,” he said, his thumb stroking her lower lip, “I find Tasha. And I end it. Publicly. Then I spend the day proving to you that I’m not the coward you thought I was.”
“And if I say I need space? After… all this?” She gestured vaguely between their bodies.
A flash of pain crossed his face. It was honest. “Then you take it. And I’ll wait. But I’m not letting go, Nikki. Not after this.”
Dawn was a faint gray line at the edges of his cheap blinds. The sanctuary of the night was crumbling. The complications of daylight loomed. She nestled closer, fitting her body against his, her head on his chest. She listened to the steady, strong beat of his heart.
It was a mess. A beautiful, terrifying, raw mess.
But for the first time in weeks, it felt like the truth.