Ashley James

comes out of me.

Breaking apart, he rests his forehead on mine as we both catch our breath. His deep green eyes peer into mine, and the connection causes a chill to roll through me.

“Weston’s going to find us,” I whisper.

“You mean, again?”

Cupping his jaw with both my hands, I lean in for another quick kiss. “Yes, again.

They say everything happens for a reason. That you’re never given more than you can handle. To trust the process. Well, I don’t know who ‘they’ are, but disrespectfully, they can go fuck themselves.
Without lube.

“I could never sit for one tattoo, let alone do all this,” I said, running my hands over his wet skin. “You know I get queasy at the sight of blood.”
“Like the time I fell off my skateboard and cut my leg open?” He grinned darkly.
I groaned. “Why did you have to bring that up?”
“Because I was the one bleeding all over the driveway and yet you were the one who got to ride in the ambulance!”

“What happened to taking things one day at a time?”
“Fuck it.”
“Fuck it?”
“Fuck it,” he repeated with a smile.
“I like it,” I grinned, kissing him softly. “But, next year—” The scowl on his face stopped me in my tracks.
“If you ask me to be your fucking Valentine, I’m going to punch you in the face.”

When I cost us a victory, I got the brunt of the backlash. When I won us a match, I got a slight nod as though Beckett approved of me doing precisely what I was supposed to do. As if I’d done the minimum and won.

He didn’t say I was his only. He said I was his favorite.