Savage Collision: A Hawke Family Novel (The Hawke Family Book 1) (24 page)

“Because, if we are here early, the gym isn’t as crowded and we can get through our workouts without being gawked at and annoyed.”

Sounds plausible.

She rolls her eyes and huffs before throwing her door open and grabbing her gym bag from the back. Savage’s car is a few spots down from us, but I doubt Nora notices it. She’s probably used to seeing Gabe’s car at the club instead of Savage driving, but I know Gabe’s out of town this weekend and Savage is riding solo.

I follow her into the building and look around. There’s no one at the front desk and, luckily, the place is basically deserted. Of the few people lingering around, no one even looks at us. I hadn’t really thought this out. I’m not even a member of this gym. I guess I figured I would ask for a trial membership or something when I got here. This saves me the trouble.

“So, where to?” she asks, looking to me for direction.

There’s a large hallway to our right and I hear yelling and other noises from down the corridor. It looks like the most promising place to find the court. “Um, I’m not sure. Let’s go see what’s down there.”

Hopefully, it’s Savage.

I want to see him in action.

She looks annoyed but follows me anyway. The closer we get to the end of hall, the more nervous I become.

Shit, what if he’s mad I’m here?

We reach the open doors to a large gymnasium. I see Savage on the court instantly. He’s in a different chair than usual. This one is lower to the ground and the wheels are pitched out at an angle. He flies down the court, while simultaneously dribbling the ball. When he reaches the basket, he maneuvers around another player and easily makes his shot.

The cut-off shirt he’s wearing allows me an amazing view of his arms.

Sweet Lord.

His muscles ripple and bulge with every move he makes and it’s sexy as fuck. Those arms have been wrapped around me, held me in place while he devoured my pussy…

“Huh? Savage is here. Imagine that.” Nora’s snide comment breaks my momentary lapse into my sexual daydream.

I restrain myself from rolling my eyes at her. “Well, look at that. He is.” I lace my voice with as much sweetness and surprise as possible, but I know I’m not fooling her. She knows me too well.

“Did you really drag me here to stalk your boyfriend?”

Yes.

“No. Of course not. It’s just a happy coincidence that he has his basketball games on Saturday mornings.” She narrows her eyes and crosses her arms. She’s pissed, and maybe she has a right to be, but there’s no harm in watching, even for her. Although, I guess watching your sister ogle your boss could be a tad uncomfortable.

“I’m going to find a treadmill. Enjoy your stalking.”

I lean against the doorjamb and watch the game continue. I don’t really understand the rules. Like baseball, I never watched or played basketball, so I’m not really following the game. That’s not why I’m here.

My eyes follow Savage.

He’s fucking impressive. I never really thought about the upper body strength it takes to do what he does, but it’s evident on the court. All the players are surprisingly agile in their chairs and all of them exude a competitive spirit I never expected. I guess I’ve been naïve and probably a bit uneducated in my belief that people like Savage lose all this with an injury like he has. It doesn’t appear to be slowing him down at all. I feel like a real asshole, again, for the way I ran when I found out he was in the chair.

I know he’s forgiven me for the way I acted that day. He’s more than demonstrated his desire to make this work between us, despite my reservations, and I feel the same way.

Still, we haven’t moved any closer to actually sealing the deal and my frustration is growing, especially when I see him like this. While blowing him is pretty fucking incredible, and he never fails to get me off, multiple times, every time, it isn’t enough and I’ve been avoiding it like the elephant in the room.

Instead of focusing on the problems in our relationship, I’ve been taking my mother’s advice and enjoying the things that do work, which is basically everything else. He makes me happy. The problem is, he also makes me hornier than a dog in heat.

The play on the court ceases. He moves to a row of benches and grabs a towel and water bottle before turning toward the door. His eyes flash when he sees me and then a smile spreads across his face.

I felt her eyes on me before I saw her. The moment the game ended, my eyes found hers and my heart began racing even harder than it had during the game. I stop in front of her and stare up into her beautiful face.

How can I miss her so much when it’s only been one day?

“Hey, what are you doing here?”

She smiles and pushes herself up off the jamb. “Oh, Nora and I came to work out.”

I let her obvious lie skate. She’s a terrible liar, but I don’t care why she’s really here. I’m just so damn happy to see her.

“I missed you last night,” The words are inadequate to describe what I was really feeling at the club. With Gabe gone, I was forced to stay all night. I spent the vast majority of it thinking about Dani and wondering why I was so stupid and told her not to come spend the night. Over the last several weeks, I’ve grown accustomed to coming home and having her in my bed.

The sense of contentment I feel when I see her under the sheets, waiting for me, is only broken by the unshakable fear that she’ll see my scars or I’ll have another failure to launch. Keeping her from knowing the truth has been exhausting and I don’t know how much longer I can keep it up.

“Me, too.” The sincerity in her reply and heat in her gaze tells me all I need to know. She’s no longer fighting this thing between us. She’s finally resigned herself that being in a relationship isn’t a bad thing.

“Did you catch any of the game?”

Her eyes spark. She nods. “I did. I have to say, I’m impressed.”

Impressed?

“Oh, really?”

She leans down and presses her lips to mine briefly before pulling away slightly. “Oh, yes. In fact, it was sexy as hell watching you play. I wish I could join you in the locker room right now.”

Holy shit.

Never in a million years did I contemplate that her watching me play a simple game of basketball would affect her like this, but her body language matches her words. She wants it. Me. Badly.

“Well, as wonderful as that sounds, and fuck, you have no idea how much I want to take you up on that, we would have an audience.” I tip my head toward the rest of the guys who are slowly making their way toward us, and the locker room, and then take a swig of my water.

“I don’t see that as a problem.”

I choke on the liquid in my throat and cough uncontrollably at her words.

Christ. Public sex? And here I didn’t think she could get hotter.

She has the audacity to laugh at my reaction, and she doesn’t apologize. The guys reach us and I have to take a deep breath to steady myself before introducing them.

“Guys, this is Dani. Dani, these are the guys.” She smiles at them and gives them a little wave and they all do the same before she moves out of the way and they disappear down the hall.

When they’re gone, she moves closer to me and leans in. “So, it seems we are alone.”

“For now, but I’m sweaty and disgusting and you are here to work out.” I grin at her and she does the same, stepping back from me. She knows I know she’s full of shit about her reason for being here. She came to see me, whether she wants to admit it or not, and that is the biggest fucking ego boost she’s ever given me. “Give me twenty minutes and I’ll be ready to go.”

“That will be a pretty short workout.”

“Better make it count, then,” I call over my shoulder as I pass her on my way through the door.

The moment I enter the locker room, they descend on me.

“What the fuck, Savage? How come you never mentioned her?”

They all watch me expectantly. I realize I have no answer to their questions.

Why didn’t I tell any of my friends about Dani?

Other than Gabe and my family, I haven’t spoken to anyone about her and that suddenly seems very odd. I’m sure it’s a product of the lingering fear that she’ll change her mind and run. It’s a lot easier to deal with something like that happening when no one knows about her in the first place.

After Becca ended our engagement and I returned home, the friends who checked in with me always wanted to talk about it, anything to avoid talking about the accident or my injury. How discussing my torpedoed engagement was any better is beyond me, but it was painfully obvious the only way to avoid discussing it was to avoid talking to anyone who knew about it. So my old friends fell pretty much to the wayside and I concentrated on what I could control—my work, the business.

Now, the thought of going through that again, of having to explain to my friends why my relationship failed, seems too painful to comprehend.

“Because it’s still pretty new, guys. We’ve only been together a couple weeks.”

“Yeah, but, dude, she’s fucking gorgeous!”

No shit.

She’s fucking gorgeous, funny, sexy as hell, and willing, and yet, I can’t get it together enough to actually have sex with her. I should just turn in my man card and be done with it.

“She is amazing. Hopefully it will work out.” I don’t know how else to respond to them. These guys get it. They know the kind of problems paralysis can cause and I’m sure at least half of them aren’t even able to get it up, so I should feel lucky.

But, instead, I feel like an asshole.

I have a sort-of working cock and can’t use it. I need a long, cold shower to get my head together before I see Dani again. If I go home with her like this, it will surely be a repeat performance.

Her showing up here was a huge step forward. I can’t risk anything setting us back.

My stomach churns and bile rises in my throat as we pull into the driveway of Savage’s mother’s house.

Sunday dinner with the Hawkes…somehow it didn’t seem so intimidating when he asked me to come a few nights ago, but now, staring at the place he grew up, every potential disaster waiting for me inside is running through my head at Olympic sprinter speeds. Even after being together for months, I don’t feel ready to meet the Hawkes.

Savage squeezes my hand from next to me in the back seat.

“You okay? Why do you look like you’re about to be sick?”

“Probably because I might blow chunks right here in the back of Gabe’s car.”

Gabe shifts the car into park and looks at me over his shoulder with a frown. “You better be joking. There will be no chunk blowing in the Mercedes, please.”

Savage chuckles and kisses the back of my hand. “She’s fine. She’s just nervous, although I have no idea why.”

“Seriously? No idea? You think meeting the Hawke women isn’t just a little bit intimidating?”

Gabe laughs and opens his door. “Well, she’s got you there. I’m just glad I’m here for the show.” He climbs out, leaving Savage and me alone in the car, and me feeling even worse than I did ten seconds ago.

“Why does he have to be such a prick?”