My throat tightens.
I turn toward him slightly. “You mean that.”
“Yeah,” he says, jaw tight but eyes soft. “I mean it.”
A beat passes. Then another. The air between us shifts, growing heavier, thicker.
“Why are you looking at me like that?” I whisper, heat creeping up my neck.
“Like what?” His mouth curves—barely, but enough that I feel it everywhere. “Like you matter?”
“Declan…”
He lifts one hand—slowly, letting me see every inch of the movement—and tucks a piece of hair behind my ear. His knuckles graze my cheek, and then the pulse at my throat, sending a quiet shiver down my spine.
“You do,” he says, voice rough. “You really do.”
A tiny, helpless sound escapes me. I look down at his hand on my knee, then back up to his face.
“You’re in my room, Reid,” I say, trying for lightness and landing on breathless. “Pretty sure that breaks about five different team bylaws. Coach would have a stroke.”
His eyes glint, dark and amused. “Technically, the bylaws say no overnight guests before a game day. It’s Sunday. No curfew. Coach gives us twenty-four hours to bleed out the lactic acid.”
“Loophole,” I accuse softly.
“Strategy,” he counters. “Goalies read the rulebook.”
“And do you follow the rules?”
His gaze drops to my mouth, heat flaring in his eyes. “Depends on who’s asking.”
My heart stutters.
I shove his shoulder, embarrassed by how much I like that answer.
He catches my wrist.
The contact is light, fingers warm around my skin—but the moment stretches, deepens, thickens. His thumb strokes the inside of my wrist just once, right over my pulse point, and everything in my body tilts toward him.
“Careful,” he murmurs. “You push me like that again and I might start thinking you’re flirting.”
“I’m not,” I breathe.
“You are.”
I am.
Heat rises under my skin, slow and molten. My pulse is a warm flutter in my throat.
Before I can talk myself out of it, I lean in—just a little—and whisper, “You don’t have to look at me like I’m something you want.”
He exhales, slow and shaky.
“Talia,” he says, voice dropping, rough with a need he isn’t hiding anymore. “I can’t look at you any other way.”
And then he kisses me.
It’s not rushed. Not frantic. It’s slow—deep, gentle, sure. His lips move against mine with a kind of reverence that makes my chest ache.
