“Jesus Christ above,” I mutter, shaking my head. “What is it, Dawson?”
“Why do you hate me?”
His question catches me off guard. I tilt my head in surprise before I admit, “I don’t hate you. I just want nothing to do with you.”
“Why?” he asks, his gaze full of yearning.
I swallow, unsure how to answer that. He leans in like he did the other day, and the veins of his arms call to me like a moth to a flame. His shoulders are so wide and full of muscle. He was smaller when I first met him, but now, he’s filled out.
He is not only built to take a hit.
Or throw a ball.
He’s also built to please. I swear it.
Just not me.
Can’t be me.
I take a deep breath and let it out in a whoosh as I try to come up with something to say, just as he asks, “Has someone hurt you?”
I look away, shaking my head. “That obvious?”
He nods, no pity or humor in his eyes. “You hated me on the spot, and while I don’t remember what you say happened, I’m sure that didn’t paint me in the greatest light. I’m not that guy anymore. I don’t drink. I’m getting my master’s with a 3.9 GPA. I am focused on my goals, and while, yeah, I don’t know what I want career-wise, I’m trying. I know I may have gotten around, but that was before I met you.”
I refuse to look at him. “Don’t change your ways for me,” I say, and then I do what I don’t want to do. I meet his gaze. “You won’t get me to change my mind, so don’t give up your extracurriculars when you don’t have to.”
“I want to,” he says almost immediately. “I want to know you.”
“Don’t,” I say just as quickly. “I know your type. I know how men like you work and how deeply I’d fall when you’ll have no plans to. It’s the chase, the fact that I told you no, that has you wanting me.”
He shakes his head. “You’re wrong.”
“I’m not.”
“You are,” he says, so fucking calm it’s making me want to scream. “I want you because I love the fact that I have no idea what is going to come out of your mouth, and it gets me really excited to find out. I really like that you are wicked smart about hockey and don’t back down to me. But most of all, I really enjoy the way your eyes light up when you smile.”
I blink, and then I remember the truth. “Those are the same traits guys in the past have told me attracted them before I became too much. Or when they got in my pants, they realized I’d continue wanting attention, so they cut me off.”
When a slow grin moves across his lips, I feel my world exploding from the inside out. Such confidence rolls off him as he taps the table and nods. “Cool.”
Yeah, that doesn’t sound safe. “Cool?”
“Yup,” he says, slowly getting up, and of course, he has shorts on, and yes, the tattoo is still there, all sexy and lickable.
Wow. Someone needs to get off.
Me. I’m that someone.
When his palms come crashing down on the table, I sit back, surprised, as he locks his eyes with mine. Pure determination flows in those depths, leaving me fighting to remember how to breathe as I press back into the booth. These are the eyes of an athlete who will get what he wants.
Fuck. Me.
“This whole conversation has convinced me what I need to do.”
“What?” I ask breathlessly, my body vibrating with need for this man I shouldn’t want.
He moves his eyes from my eyes to my mouth, then back again, sending heat straight to my core. “I’ve gotta prove I’m not like any other guy you know, have known, or been screwed over by. I have to show you who I am. Who I can be for you. With you. Because of you. That our plans will become one.” My jaw goes slack, and his smile widens. My eyes about fall out of my head when he reaches up, using the tip of his finger to shut my mouth. “If you don’t want my tongue in your mouth, you’d better close it.”
