Kicked: A Bad Boy Sports Romance (4 page)

Lifting my fist, I slammed it into the wood several more times before I heard the click of a lock.

“What the hell?” Teagan asked, sounding more like her old self. She was a firecracker, a wild card, the girl who dragged me out of school to swim in the river naked, but the woman I ran into in the park was quiet, more reserved.

Good.

I wanted to hash this out with someone who would scream, yell, fight with me.

I pushed the door open and Teagan stumbled back, looking shocked, her red hair straight and perfect around her shoulders. Her eyes were ringed in dark liner and her makeup was flawless.
Fuck.
She'd changed so much since I'd left, really grown into her looks. I was having a hard time looking away.

“Going out somewhere?” I asked, sounding like an asshole. We both knew in the back of our minds that we had a history, that once upon a time we'd meant something to each other. But those days were long gone and right now, I was just some strange dude shoving his way into her apartment. I knew I was making so many mistakes, handling this situation in the worst way possible, but I couldn't stop myself. When I didn't know what to do, I deflected to what I knew best. Sarcasm, anger, flirtation. Those were the three things that had gotten me through the last four years.

“What are you doing here?” Teagan asked, reaching up and pulling her ruby red hair over one shoulder. She looked so out of place in that sterile apartment, like an ember plucked from a fire and dropped in a bucket of ashes. I stared back at her, at those eyes that had always captivated me. If I'd let myself once upon a time, I would've made her mine. Instead, I ran away.

I took a deep breath and shoved my hands in the pockets of my black sweatpants, looking her five foot two frame over from head to toe. She was dressed in these raggedy old jeans and a plain purple top, but she couldn't have looked anymore beautiful. Her body was curved in all the right places, generously full in the chest, ripe in the hips.

“What are
you
doing here?” I asked back, trying to keep my voice cool, calm. It wasn't working. My body was riled up from my workout, from the frustration that'd been brewing for far too long. And Teagan was so goddamn hot. I could feel my cock responding to her, giving me this ache that just begged me to fill her up, take her hot and heavy right now.

“Um, I live here?” she asked, taking a step back from me, like she could sense the turmoil twisting up my insides. I looked away from her, surveying the sterile white couches, the glass and metal side tables, the modern art hung sparsely across the gray walls. It was so not Teagan. Teagan painted murals on her walls and sang southern gospel songs she didn't believe in. “What do you want, Tyce?”

I turned back to look at her, my eyes drawn. I couldn't stay away if I tried. I took another step towards her.

“You remember your name yet?” I asked, as I reached up and let my fingers brush some of that red hair from her face. The rose on my hand was inked in the same color, a little nod, a memory of Teagan Fletcher that I thought I might need. Honestly, I didn't think I'd ever see her again.

“I think you should go,” Teagan said, trying to move around me towards the front door. I stepped back and put my shoulder against it, looking her straight in the face, trying to find the right words to say what needed to be said. Nothing rational would come to me. I ran my tongue over my lower lip and watched her follow the movement. “Seriously, Tyce. Please, go, before my roommate gets back. She isn't exactly a football fan.”

“Why did you come here?” I asked again, watching as those eyes of hers, like two sideways teardrops, pulled away from me and focused purposefully on a blank spot on the wall. She still had that faint scar on her forehead from that time she fell on the playground. I remembered leaning forward and kissing the blood away, not knowing or caring at age ten that I shouldn't be doing something like that.

I slid a hand over my face, tasting the metallic tang of blood on my lips. But it wasn't just a memory of Teagan's, it was mine. I was biting my lip—
hard.

“You
really
need to go,” Teagan said again, leaning forward and wrapping her hand around mine, which was locked tight around the nickel finish of the doorknob. “Tyce,” she said again as I grabbed her wrist with my other hand, pushing her back into the wall. I let go of the handle and reached up, curling my fingers under her chin and tilting her face to mine.

My mouth closed the gap between us as I bent and pressed my mouth hard against hers, tasted her with my tongue and felt the sudden collapse of her body. With my left hand, I held Teagan up around the waist, pulling her tight against me.

Kissing her was like
fucking fire.

I felt an adrenaline rush like nothing else, a sense of mental and physical obliteration that had me fumbling at the button on Teagan's jeans, pressing myself tight against the hot heat of her body like I had nowhere else to go.

“Tyce,” she moaned, breaking the kiss, putting her hands on either side of my face. She caught my gaze and held it tight, making me look at her. “Tyce, it's me,” Teagan whispered, her voice hoarse and broken, like this moment was sheer hell.

“I know,” I said, still holding her, my body still aching, my cock hard and insistent, straining against the confines of my sweatpants. “Do you think I wouldn't recognize you, Teagan Fletcher? I might be an asshole, but I'm not stupid.”

There was a second there where things looked like they might be okay, like we could do this, figure this weirdness out. My thoughts would calm, my sudden obsession would retreat, and I could pound the Washington Huskies into the ground on Saturday.

“Wait … what?” Teagan asked, putting her palms on my chest, making space between us. Her small mouth rounded in shock, and she shoved with all of her might, forcing me to take a step back. “What did you just say?”

I kept my grip on her waist, holding her at arm's length as we stared at each other and I narrowed my eyes. I could feel sweat dripping down my spine, the warmth and heat of the moment this strange mixture between lust and want and anger and rage.

“Why are you here, Teagan? Did you come here for me?” I asked, searching her face for the truth. Inside, I waged a war against my own hopes and desires. Half of me wanted it to be true, to know that she'd come all this way for me. The other half wished she'd never shown up, that she'd faded away into a distant memory.

“You …” she sputtered for a moment, twisting out of my arms and pacing a quick circle into the boring beige carpet. Thin fingers raked through that red hair of hers as she whipped around to face me, pale cheeks coloring underneath a thin sprinkling of freckles. “You knew it was me all along?” she said slowly, moss green eyes narrowing.

I didn't say anything, letting my mouth thin into a narrow line.

“I was surprised,” I said, which was a stupid fucking excuse.

“You
knew
it was me, and you … asked me to
sleep with you
?” Teagan continued, the pitch of her voice rising with each syllable. With the sunlight streaming through the blinds and hitting her hair, she looked like she was on fire. “Why … why would you do something like that?”

“What was I supposed to do? You show up here out of the blue and then just 'bump' into me in the park? You caught me off guard, okay? What was I supposed to do? Start off down memory fucking lane?”

Teagan's mouth dropped open and she took a quick step back, her face flaming with color, whether from anger or embarrassment or both I wasn't sure. Her right hand fisted in her purple top, the bright orange color of her nails digging into the fabric with a trembling rage.

“Are you
kidding
me? Follow you? Why would I ever want to follow you, Tyce? You disappeared and left me all alone with
nothing!
” Teagan's voice raised up another notch, the righteous indignation in her words putting me on the defensive. I almost felt vulnerable there for a second, shirtless and sweaty and stupid in her living room. “All we had was each other, Tyce! You used to tell me that all the time.”

“You had your mom, didn't you?” I snapped back, my heart slamming violently into my ribcage. I wouldn't have been surprised if it'd broken out and splattered the room with blood. I almost wanted it to. I needed to get the hell out of there.

I expected Teagan's temper to flare up. Hell, I wanted it to. I wanted to keep fighting, and then I wanted to throw her down on the couch and tear her clothes off. My words though, man, that was the wrong thing to say. Her eyes filled with tears, two silver drops sliding down those rosy cheeks.

“My mother is
dead,
” Teagan growled out, moving a step forward, focusing a shaking finger on my chest. “And she died asking after you, Tyce Winship.” I felt my face fall, come tumbling down my head to crash into the floor. Faceless. I was a faceless, stupid fuck in that moment. “She thought you were dead, you know that? Because she never believed you'd leave us like that. After everything we went through for you, because of you. Together. We were always together until we weren't.”

Teagan took a few, slow steps forward.

“And then I see you in the park and you … hit on me, make me feel like one of your tramps?”

“I had no idea about Venus,” I said, my voice dropping as I remembered the only woman on this earth besides my own that I'd even dare to liken to a mother.

“Of course you didn't,” Teagan said, her tears slipping across her lower lip and clinging there like icicles. “And for what? Football? Is that it? You had to get out of that shit hole to start your career? I get it, Tyce. I didn't at first, but after a while I understood. There was nothing there for us in that town.” Teagan swiped her arm across her face. “But you didn't have to leave the way you did. And you didn't have to stay away.”

“What do you want me to say?” I asked, getting pissed again, moving towards her. Both of Teagan's hands came up and shoved me back violently. Lightning struck that face, burned a line of hatred across her features like a bolt.

“GET OUT!” she screamed at me, coming forward, hitting me again. Her fists smashed into my chest over and over and over. When I reached out and took hold of her wrists, she wrenched them free, sliding them from my sweaty grip and stumbling back. Her roommate chose that exact moment to show up, opening the door with a bag of groceries in one hand. The first thing she saw was Teagan toppling over the coffee table.

I moved forward without thinking, grabbing her on her way down and pulling her against me.

“Let go of her!” the roomie screamed, turning our fight into one, big, horrible clusterfuck. Nails clawed my back as I dropped Teagan the last few inches to the floor, hopefully unhurt. “Get the fuck out!”

“I'm going!” I screamed back at them, raking my fingers through my hair as I cast one glance in Teagan Fletcher's direction. If the look on her face could've killed me then, I would've been dead.

I stood in the bathroom wiping tears from my eyes and wondering why the hell I'd ever come up here.
Because you got a full ride scholarship, duh.
But that wasn't the only reason. Deep, deep down in a place I refused to acknowledge, I'd been hoping for some kind of miracle reunion with Tyce.

“Stupid,” I said as I rubbed at my smudged liner and sucked in slow, simple breaths. If I'd been wearing my Fitbit, the damn thing would be going nuts. My heart rate was dangerously high, making me feel dizzy. It was a half-breed of anger and melancholy that was getting me now.

Tyce knew.

Tyce had looked me in the face in the park, on the balcony, and he'd put on an arrogant casanova smirk to throw me off, to avoid dealing with the shit he must've known was coming his way.

“Coward,” I growled, throwing the makeup smudged tissue in the toilet. It soaked up the water and sunk, just like my heart had when Tyce had mentioned my mother. I closed my eyes tight and refused to think about her.

“Teagan?” Chelease asked, knocking softly at the door. “Are you okay?”

“Fine,” I lied, looking at myself in the mirror. My eyes were red rimmed and puffy, but I refused to acknowledge the depth of my emotions.
I'm being melodramatic,
I thought to myself as I tried to wipe the image of Tyce's angry face from my thoughts. Why he thought he had any right to be angry was beyond me. And then bursting into my apartment like that?
Kissing me like that.
I blinked several times and reached back to gather my hair into a pony.

Well, there goes my first kiss.

And it definitely
wasn't
what I was expecting.

Like a lot of girls, I'd dreamed of having a romantic, butterfly filled fairytale of a kiss. I mean, growing up in a trailer park with a mom who worked three jobs and never managed to make ends meet, I knew better. I had no dad, no money, no family except my mom and Tyce. And then even those things had failed me. Yet still, I clung to the idea of a white knight on a horse to my own detriment. Eighteen years, never been kissed, virgin. Until recently, I'd still been stupidly in love with the memory of Tyce Winship, a feeling I was certain he'd never reciprocated.