Not wanting to take my time anymore, I grabbed her thigh and wrapped it around my waist, lifted her, and then guided my dick inside her. One thrust was all it took. I was fully inserted. We both groaned at the same time from our connection. With the way her chest was moving at a rapid pace, I knew this wasn’t going to take long.

I grabbed hold of her face, looked her in the eyes, and then descended on her mouth once again. With each thrust of my hips, my kisses grew deeper. Her hands simultaneously ran through my hair, making me feel dizzy from the way her nails scraped against my scalp.

A heady combination of lust, yearning, and something deep I didn’t want to explore at the moment hit me, and it hit me fucking hard. My thrusts started to become uncontrollable, and her cries grew louder and louder with each passing connection.

“I’m going to come,” she announced just before she called out my name and bit my bottom lip with her teeth. I tasted blood as she came around my dick, but I didn’t care because at that moment, I went into a euphoric state of mind and came so fucking hard, I thought I was going to pass out.

“Fuck,” I mumbled. My forehead found her shoulder and my hips continued to thrust into her until there was nothing left in me.

Her hands found my neck again as she held on tight. Lightly, she kissed my cheek until I was able to regain my strength and pull far enough away to look her in the eyes.

The red glow of the light in the room made her look like a dream, like she wasn’t actually in my arms. Her eyes searched mine for answers I didn’t have, and right now, in this moment, I wished I had something intelligent to say, but nothing came to mind. All I wanted was to bury myself inside her once again, forget everything around us, and live in the moment with her, but I knew that wasn’t plausible. There was a world outside that door, waiting for us.

“Kace, why are you keeping us apart?” she asked in a small voice I’d never heard her use before.

“You wouldn’t understand,” I spoke softly.

“You don’t know that.”

“I do, Lyla. You deserve more than me. You deserve more than this life you’ve chosen for yourself.”

“Sometimes you don’t choose your life, Kace. Sometimes it’s chosen for you.”

Fucking words of wisdom right there. I hadn’t chosen anything in my life. It had all been chosen for me, and because of someone else’s bad decisions, I was living the consequences. I refused to drag Lyla down that path, down the dark path of my fucked up life.

“Give me a chance, Kace.”

Taking a deep breath, I said, “I want to, Lyla. You have no fucking clue how much I want you, but I just… can’t.”

“Why not?” she asked, growing angry now.

I shook my head and pulled away, chucking the condom and zipping my pants up at the same time. I found Lyla’s shorts and handed them to her. She pulled on her shirt and put her shorts back on, as if she hadn’t just been fucked against the door.

I grabbed a hold of her neck and placed a kiss on her forehead. She closed her eyes from my touch and leaned into it. I held my lips on her forehead for longer than a couple seconds and then reluctantly pulled away.

“I’m sorry, Lyla. I can’t be the man you want.”

“How do you know what kind of man I want? You won’t even talk to me long enough to find out.”

“That’s because I know you deserve better.”

I had her step aside and unlocked the door for a quick escape. I was stepping out of the room when she called out, “You’re not the only one who’s fucked up around here, Kace. You’re not the only victim.”

Without turning around, I said, “That’s where you’re wrong. I am by no means a victim.  I’m actually the furthest thing from it.” With a heavy heart, I walked away. “Take care of yourself, Lyla.”

Chapter Eight

My past…

The cold glass of a tumbler full of whiskey cooled my fingers. I huddled in a corner of a lesser-known bar in the Quarter I felt wouldn’t be too populated by sports fans. News of my “steroid use” was starting to filter through all news sources, making it almost unbearable to be in my own skin.

My phone wouldn’t stop ringing with calls and texts from the press, from friends and adversaries, to the point that I couldn’t stomach the contact anymore, so I’d chucked the piece of shit against a wall and gone to the bar.

Five drinks in, and I could start to feel the pain that had been pounding in my chest start to dissipate.

Everything I’d worked for, everything I’d put forward to my career all gone in the matter of seconds because I’d trusted the wrong person, because I’d put my career in someone else’s hands.

I had nothing left to live for.

“You see that asshole who thought he could take steroids and get away with it?” a loudmouthed man said, sitting at the bar and talking to anyone who would listen to him. “I don’t get it. When are athletes going to realize they can’t get away with doing drugs? You would think they would have learned by now.”

Grinding my teeth to keep myself from lashing out, I attempted to tune out the man. He was right about athletes taking supplements to enhance their performance, but there were people like me who did everything right and still got fucked in the end.

I downed the rest of my glass, sat it at the end of the bar, and motioned for another. The bartender knew to keep them coming. I wasn’t going anywhere soon.

While I waited on my drink, I tugged on the brim of the hood that hid my features from the public. I didn’t need anyone recognizing me. I also enjoyed the blinders the hood gave me, like a damn mule in the Quarter, blocked from seeing anything around me, just the mission ahead, and my mission was to continuously bring the glass in front of me to my lips until I couldn’t feel anymore. I was almost there.

“Do you really think that’s going to help?” someone said behind me.

Jett. Without turning around, I said, “It’s been your go-to. Thought I would give it a try.”

Jett took the seat next to me without an invitation. He motioned to the bartender to bring him what I was drinking and positioned himself on his stool. He was going to be sorry to see I wasn’t drinking his precious bourbon.

“Do you want to talk about it?” he asked, resting his arms on the bar.

“Does it look like I want to fucking talk about it?” I asked, trying to control the anger that wanted to seep out of me.

“For what it’s worth, I know you couldn’t do anything like that. There has to be an explanation.”

There was an explanation, but no one other than Jett Colby was going to believe me. “It doesn’t matter,” I answered while lowering my head. “It’s all over.”

Silence fell between us, and we both casually sipped our drinks, not engaging in conversation or any kind of emotional bullshit. That wasn’t how we rolled. We sat and we drank. It was the one thing I could count on when it came to my best friend.

Thankfully the bar I chose didn’t have any TVs in it. I knew what would be running on them right now.

“Kace Haywood: Positive for Human Growth Hormones.”

“Pumping Juice to Get Ahead, the Real Kace Haywood.”

“Haywood Hung on Hormones.”

Shaking my head, I pressed the glass tightly to my lips and sucked in its contents. I’d never felt so helpless before in my entire life. For once, I wasn’t in charge of my destiny. I wasn’t able to control my own future. The only control I possessed was how many times I brought a tumbler of pain-lessening liquid to my mouth.

“Want another?” Jett asked as I tossed back the rest of my drink.

“Yup,” I responded, directing the glass away from me and pushing myself up, trying to stretch out my back from the tension that was taking over.

I rolled my sleeves up to my elbows and adjusted my hood so it was more secure. The heat of the alcohol started to consume my body, but I wasn’t about to take off my sweatshirt. It was the only barrier I had from the real world.