The Right Moves (The Game #3)(55)
Author: Emma Hart

My head has controlled this too long. My head is what holds me back. Tonight my heart has taken the reins. I’m not thinking. I’m just feeling.

He kicks the bedroom door open and walks me backward into the room. My legs buckle when they hit the bed, and Blake puts an arm out to slowly lower us back. His body settles on top of mine, lean and muscular. I let go of his hair and slide my hands down his back to the hem of his shirt. I curl my fingers around the material, pulling it up, and he pauses.

“Shut. Up,” I mumble against his mouth before he can say a word. His whole body shakes as he laughs silently, and I feel the smile on his lips.

“I think I like this side of you,” he whispers, kissing along my jaw.

I pull the shirt up his body and over his head, my hands falling back onto hot, smooth skin. His lips travel down my neck, dropping open-mouthed kisses against my still-floury skin, and I breathe in. I breathe him in. And it’s not enough.

It hits me too fast. Hits me that I more than just want tonight with Blake. I need it. I need every single bit of him he has to give me. And the only reason I have is that I just do.

It’s startling and scary. It’s a hard and fast realization, something I can’t even comprehend, but I need this. I need him the way I love him – so completely and utterly it’ll consume me if I don’t give in to it.

His hands take my shirt from my body with the same ease he kisses me with. His fingers unbutton my jeans as deftly as he makes his way across my stomach with his mouth. His eyes comb up and down my body and drink in every inch of me with the same heat that’s pounding through my blood right now.

His body falling back to mine has the same force as my leg hooking around his. His tongue is as probing as mine. Everything about us is in tandem, from our movements to our breathing to our silent pleas to each other.

I hook my fingers inside his jeans and tug them down, along with his boxer shorts. His hands hold my waist as his tongue flicks along the curve of my chest, dipping in and out of the cup of my bra. Goosebumps erupt across my skin, a contrast to the heat of his breath snaking across my skin. As his fingers unclip my bra and move downwards, probing my skin until they reach the hem of my panties.

Blake’s tongue circles my br**sts, his fingers hook inside the material at my hips, then his mouth moves to my ear.

“If at any point you want to stop, just say the word, and I’ll stop. I mean it. Any second.”

I nod, turning my face into his and brushing our lips together. I lift my legs as he slides my underwear down them, exposing every part of me to him. Exposing every pounding pulse point. Every throbbing vein. Every begging body part.

Every scar.

He reaches under the pillow and pulls out a small square foil. He tears the packet open and rolls the condom onto himself. I wrap my legs around his waist, gripping his hair tightly, and look into his eyes.

I want to see green eyes as he slips inside of me. Nothing but clear, honest, green eyes.

Pain sears through me for a few seconds as he pushes inside of me. I fight against the cry that wants to leave me and the arch of my back. He stops when he’s fully inside resting his body down onto mine.

Blake takes my hand with his and brings it to his face. My wrist touches his lips, and he kisses his way up my arm. He drops my arm and does the same to the other, pressing his mouth to my scarred wrist and arm.

And he looks me in the eyes, slowly pulling out of me and easing himself back in. I open my legs a little further, the discomfort disappearing, and stare into a sea of green. Transfixed on him, I barely hear his words he speaks as I begin to fully take him.

“You’re beautiful, Abbi, and so are the scars. Every. Single. One.”

And I believe him.

Epilogue – Abbi

One Year Later

I tap my fingers against the table, staring at the envelope in front of me. It’s big, and the Juilliard logo on the address label taunts me.

This envelope holds my future. It’s the beginning or the end of everything I’ve worked so hard for over the last twelve months. It’s the result of the very thing that started my healing so long ago, and the thing that has kept me going ever since.

It’s the thing that lead me to Blake.

And he already knows. He knows he’ll be at Juilliard next semester, because unlike me, he’s not scared of what’s inside the envelope. He tore his open the second I walked through the door.

That was two hours ago.

“Abbi,” he says softly. “Babe, you’ve been sitting there for ages. Just open it.”

“I tore the flap,” I protest lamely.

“Tearing the flap isn’t going to give you the answer you want.”

“The letter might not, either.”

“You don’t know unless you open it.”

I purse my lips. “I don’t want to know.”

He sits opposite me and pushes the letter closer to me.

“I’m scared,” I admit, staring at the Juilliard logo.

“I know. But the only thing worse than them saying “no” is not knowing. The longer you leave it the harder it’s going to get to open it.”

“Do it for me?” I glance up at him.

“I already know what the letter says. It doesn’t take a genius to work out.”

“But if it doesn’t say yes… If there’s no Juilliard for me… It’ll all have been for nothing.” My voice trails off.

“No, it won’t have been. And I know you. You’ll just go storming back into Bianca’s studio, work your pretty little ass off and go back next year to kick them in the teeth with the way you dance.”

My lips twitch. “You said ass. Not arse.”

Blake smirks. “Bloody Americans rubbing off on me.”

I roll my eyes. And sigh. “Okay.” I smack my hand down on top of the envelope. “I’ll do it.”

I slide the envelope along the table and turn it over, exposing the tiny rip in the corner of the flap. Blake looks at it then up at me.

“You call that a rip?”

“Shut up,” I mutter, slipping my finger under it. I run it along the length of the envelope and slide my hand inside, grabbing the piece of paper. And shut my eyes as I pull it out.

“Cheater!” Blake exclaims.

“Just… A minute.” I take a deep breath. “Can you see what it says?”

“I’m not saying. You’ll have to open your eyes.”

“I don’t want you to tell me. I just want to know if you can.”