CALISTA POV

We parted ways with Nolan in a narrow hallway from where we could hear commentary about an ongoing game. It quickly gives it away that we are at a basketball game.
In the hall, we were introduced to someone who is referred to as the manager. The first man who welcomed us earlier had gone with Nolan down the passageway.
The manager handed a card key to Myles and accompanied us to the elevator.

On the quiet floor we stopped, there were a lot of doors on each side of the walls. Myles said we were looking for a certain door. It bothers me why and where he is taking me, but as I spotted the door labeled fifteen, I tugged his hands and we practically ran to it.

The slight nervousness I felt earlier suddenly weaseled out when the door opens and I learn it is a private suite with pushed-back curtains exhibiting a good view of an active game through a see-through glass window. The suite isn't very big, but it's really lovely. It has a comfy-looking L-shaped sofa, not to mention the snacks and wine they have prepared on the table.

It's the Rockets and 76ers game. Home is leading by two points. It didn't take me a second to know we were in Houston.

Myles grabs my hand and guides me to the couch. He landed on it with one leg folded and the other on the floor.

"Are we on a date?" I asked him, and he tilts to the game briefly, where thousands of supporters are chanting, stomping, and applauding, and the commentary is loud.

"I guess we are," he responded.

I don't know why I am giggling, but it is not every day you go on a basketball game date with Myles Cameron in a private suit.

"Kiss me."

What?

My laugh ceases abruptly, and so is my breathing, and everything else, except for my wide eyes that watch his jaw ground while his lips pull back into a smile and how his eyelashes bat above his glowing emeralds that are fixed on me.

My words left me. I wasn't able to utter anything. And it's okay because Myles saw in my eyes that I wanted him.

His upper lip quirks up, and his body begins to move closer. He drops his hands to the couch, his arms on each side of me.
My heartbeat begins racing as my body is being guided until I am lying on my back, with him hovering over me.

"For almost seven excruciating months, I have craved this day. You didn't tell me your kiss was deadly addictive. Why?" He whispered with his eyes closed. The heat of his breath against my skin and his breathing pace matches mine.

My head shook at his question.

"I have no idea." My voice was hoarse and small.
I can feel a lump in my throat. I had to swallow a couple of times.

"You have no idea that you tainted my soul and body? That I've never had strong memories etched above and below me, side by side, everywhere I go and in everything I do, like those you gave me from last summer?" He asked, still not opening his eyes.

Okay, I may have an idea about that, but I thought he would move on. I have dwelled in that fear ever since I returned here. It had preyed on my mind at the thought of seeing him with someone else on the news channels, but it didn't happen. All that I hear is Natalie and my brother's relationship. Yes, they had found a way to make up after I left Venice.

"I was overwrought with worries that you might move on," I admitted, and his eyes finally opened. His head is pulled back and angles in a celestial way but his gaze is deep and scarily unflinching. I looked away. It took a second for his fingers to reach my cheek, tenderly guiding me to meet his eyes again. They are now nothing like earlier. His amused and crystalline gaze is trenchant, shrewd.

"I was afraid and angry that you would find someone to ask you to be their prom date." He nodded and I chuckled.

He softly laughed along and after some seconds we sighed simultaneously. He's still lying over me, most of his weight resting on his elbows, and his fingers gently brushing my hair away from my face.

"I guess we were both wrong," I said, and he nodded, agreeably.

This time, when his nose brushed mine, he closed the space between our faces and took my lips just as I had dreamed a million times for so long.

We kissed passionately and deeply, not too fast but not at all slow. My legs are hooked around his waist, and his hands periodically squeeze my thighs while our bodies rock against each other. We've kissed before but not as profoundly as this. Everything we did in Venice was innocent flirting. Affirmative, I've drenched my panties a couple of times in his presence and lost my composure, but right now it is completely different. I can feel his arousal brushing against mine between the fabrics of our outfits.

I knew I was soaking wet. I wondered the whole time if he could feel it too and then I worried about it staining my underwear.

We kissed to the extent we missed almost the entire game until the last twenty minutes when we chuckled mouth to mouth at the commentator's line, teasing the Houston Rockets.

So far, I am confident that my face must be red, for I am suddenly embarrassed as we sit up against the backrest and Myles pulls the trolley table with varieties of desserts. He served the sparkling wine in two cups and handed one to me, assuring me it wasn't alcoholic, before taking his hand over my shoulder and cradling me in his arm.

The game was good. The players were defensive and offensive at the same time. When I asked if we could be seen from out there, Myles said it was impossible.

"You said planes in the car and then you said you would show me what changed your mind about vehicles."

Recognition dawned on him then and he shifted on the seat, facing me while I chewed some cheesecake.

He took a sip of the wine and started, "Yes, I said that. So in the NBA, we have to fly a couple of times a week. You get on board and stay high above the clouds for hours. It's a different fear that overwhelmed the one with four wheels skimming the asphalt. You know, sometimes we need to be triggered a little to make it through what we fear. I learned to handle a car from that lesson."

"Absolutely." I smiled lightly at the thought of his flawless and comforting driving.

"And then I started getting millions of dollars in my bank account. I don't know what to do for myself with it. Clearly, automobiles are what I could spend on and enjoy life to the fullest extent. So my fear faded away through the process."

The experience helped him work on his fear.

"I like it." My head rests sideways against the backrest and I peacefully watch him.

"B!tchin' right?"

He didn't really say that, did he?

"Is that Eleven's line I'm hearing? You didn't happen to do some catch-up while I was away, did you?"

He smiles shyly.
"I might have used TV to entertain my moping days while you were away. I ate a lot of junk food too."

My mouth drops open at first, I try to stifle a laugh, but then my eyes review his flawless physique.

There is no way he is being serious right now.

"You ate a lot?" I sounded argumentative. Don't get me wrong, but I have trouble believing he has bored himself to excessive eating when all I see in front of me is a godlike body.

He chuckled, probably at the way I was looking at him, or perhaps, how I sounded.

"I didn't get off my workout routine, David made sure of it," he admitted.

Oh, now that makes better sense.

He is suddenly quiet now. His eyes are downcast on his fingers, fiddling with the hem of his t-shirt.
"Cali." He softly called, and I suddenly feared what he would ask. "Last night before we met in the kitchen you were by my door. Why didn't you come in?"

What?

"I wasn't," I responded instantly and he looked up at me. He knew I lied, he was silently begging me to answer his question. "I don't know. I... Thought you wouldn't like that."

"I have a confession." He let out, capturing my curiosity about what he was going to say.

"What is it?"

He takes my wrist and leads my fingers to his mouth until then I realize I was holding a blueberry that was going into Myles's mouth. I remember one particular dinner back in California after Myles got engaged to Autumn. She was pissing me off by feeding him right in front of me. If only I had known at that time, she and Myles had some complicated story.

But then again, life changes. I'm now the one with the sugar, and she's just the ant with tiny legs from a distance.

When Myles is done chewing, he leans his head, mirroring my experience. "I agreed to stay at your home because I wanted to see you."

"I know, Myles." Why would someone like him stay in a place like my home if he doesn't have a motive?

"So you believe that I want you?"

"I don't doubt that."

"Then what is it? Because if you had come in last night, it would have been our best night since last year."

My mouth went dry. I drew air into my lungs.
"What do you mean?"

His fingers thread into my hair and his eyes watch me with affection until my lids close when I lean into his palm.
"I long for you. I wanted so badly to kiss your sweet soft lips and have you breathless under my touch. I would have felt every inch of your feverish skin against mine to the point your heart rate would have accelerated to the level it had never been."

My stomach tightens at the sour taste of regret. We could have had all those if I hadn't chickened out.

By the time he was done, his words had accomplished the effect he had surely schemed.
I exhaled and cast my eyes down.

"Look at me." He urged softly and that instant, I did as asked. I looked at him.

"I want to make love to you," he said solemnly.

Earnest in his eyes, desire in the rhythm of his breath, and love in the way he held my face in his hand.

"I'd like that too." My voice came out for the first time as I wanted it to. Sure and steady.

Myles smiles and leans in, kissing me. The kiss was subtle. Unlike earlier, there are no tongues now.

The two teams managed a draw score, but by the final buzzer, the Rockets scored two points, taking the win.

The supporters went mental, including me. Myles laughs the whole time we walk out of the suite and sneakily head into the elevator, careful not to bump into any fans.

"Isn't Nolan waiting for us?" I asked, since the game was over, but we are now in another quiet hall, standing before a numberless door.

"He's probably gonna stop at a bar to have some rounds of tequila."

"What?"

Myles chortled, bursting into a pile of laughter at my reaction.

"Stop it." I swat his arm as he opens the door before us.

Wow, a basketball court.

"You should see your face when I said that." He said while he tried to compose himself. Meanwhile, my eyes wandered around the empty court.

"This is beautiful." I giggled when our gazes met.

"Quite."

My eyes rolled.
"What do you mean, quite?"

I mean, the court isn't exactly spacious or refined like the one we just saw a game on. In fact, there are no sitting areas here, and the floor isn't as polished as the arenas that professional basketball players would play in, but I've never been on an empty basketball court. Back at school, I wouldn't even dare, everyone in the school knew better. The only time the school gym is not for the jocks to train and for Scarlett and the girls to watch is when there is an assembly or a game.

"I like it." I smile and then pause, my brows knitting. "Do you hear that?"

"Hear what?" Myles asked, smiling while bringing his hand to my waist and I gaped, my gaze slowly dragging upward as though they could follow the sound.

"Echoes."

He beams down at me and I take a couple of backward steps before turning and running to the middle of the room. Spinning and repeatedly calling out Myles's name to have it wafting and echoing around us.

He didn't follow me, he stalked to the basketball storage rack with a smile on his lip and grabbed one.

"Catch." He suddenly said and tossed a ball toward me.

For the next fifteen or maybe thirty minutes, (actually, I don't even count), but throughout the time, we played an unfair game where I only got to throw the ball into the hoop. It all started when Myles effortlessly shot the ball and scored about five times, swaggering toward me with a bragging smile on his perfect face. I stomped then and sat on the floor, giving up, but he was too nice to watch my despair; he pulled me up, straddling his shoulder, and for the first time in my life, I hung on the rim just as Myles once dunk and deliberately hung on the rim in one of his games and everyone in that arena waited to see him land safely before getting a foul. Which automatically gave the other team two free throws and possession of the ball.

Chloe and I couldn't get over that move, we always talked about how his muscles flexed and how good he looked while doing it. For most of the following games Myles played, we wished he could do it again, but it never happened.