The Penalty Box - Teagan Kade Page 0,15

looks to me. I hate seeing her like this, on the backfoot. “I don’t trust him. It’s as simple as that.”

We eat, but it’s a far more solemn affair than the diner.

Afterwards, Linnea seems happy simply to lie in bed and talk. We don’t return to the subject of her father, but I try to make her feel comforted all the same, to let her know I’m not going anywhere.

Linnea slides her leg over me, hand reaching down to my crotch. She begins to stroke me through my pants. “You know what would really take my mind off things?”

I hold the side of her face with my hand. “A good book?”

She smiles, pumping the hard outline of my cock through my jeans. “I was thinking something a touch more stimulating.”

God, I want her so fucking bad, but I promised myself I would go slow, to see this through properly.

I kiss her, only stopping when she climbs on top of me and starts to pull off her sweater.

I pull it back into position, the taste of her on my lips fighting my powers of resistance, sexual frustration flanking me from both sides. “I want to, I really do, but I also want to take things slowly. I promised myself I’d do this differently, that I’d do it right, because I want this to be long term. Don’t you?”

She does. I see it in her eyes behind the obvious frustration.

She climbs off and returns to my side, cuddling into my chest. “If this is some grand King scheme to get me like super, super wet, head’s up, it’s working.”

I smile, stroking her hair. “I’ll stay if you want.”

“I’d like that.”

We stay in position until she falls asleep against my shoulder. I breathe her in and can’t seem to shake myself out of the sexual stupor I’ve created.

What is this really achieving? I ask myself.

I could take her pants off right now, lick her to life, but I don’t. I remain there, solemn, painfully erect, silently patting myself on the back for showing such restraint.

But wishing I could let it go just as easily.

CHAPTER EIGHT

LINNEA

“Jesus H, Linnea!” Coach yells from the sideline. “You actually going to sink something today?”

I’ve missed the last three out of four shots I’ve put up, which surely must be some kind of Academy record. It hasn’t gone unnoticed By Coach Henderson. She’s over there looking like a bull who just had his balls clipped off. I can’t blame her. I’m sucking major ass today.

I fire off another three, but it’s a foot wide of the ring.

I hear the sound of a clipboard hitting the boards. “Marsden! Get your ass over here. Now.”

The others stay silent while I make my way over. I front up to Henderson with my hands on my hips.

“Explain,” she says, barely holding herself back from a full-blown verbal assault.

“I have a headache, think I might be coming down with something, maybe?” I reach for my stomach to sell the lie, but I know it’s weak.

Henderson takes a step closer. “I don’t care if you just contracted the plague, you need to pick up your game. Are we clear?”

I wipe my mouth. “Yes, Coach.”

“Go.”

A marginal improvement follows, but it’s far from my A-game.

Carrie, my BFF and fellow baller, bails me up in the locker room. Wrapped in a towel, waving a razor around like it’s a baton, she’s her usual animated self. “You going to tell me what’s going on, babe, because I know that was far from a wholesome D-and-M you had with Henderson.”

I’ve got my top off but have otherwise been sitting here for the last minute staring at the wall, my head somewhere else entirely. I look to Carrie. “She had every right to go at me. I had no focus out there. I’ve seen high-schoolers play better ball.”

“Hey, even Jordan had his off days.”

“Rookie year, shot five-of-eighteen from the field and six-from-eleven from the free throw against the Knicks, I know.”

The razor mercifully goes back to shaving Carrie’s leg. “So give yourself a break for once and tell me what the hell’s going on so I can come up with the perfect place and alcoholic beverage to make you forget all about it.”

If Crestfall ever found out how much hooch Carrie has stashed in her dorm room I’m pretty sure she’d be out on her ass. It’s like prohibition in there. Doesn’t help she grew up with a Russian father who basically considered vodka water.

Most of the others are in the