My hand found her lower back, pulling her closer like I needed her against me. My other slid into her hair, angling her just the way I liked, and I deepened the kiss before I could think better of it. Not too much. Not obscene. But enough.
Enough that every camera caught it.
Enough that no one could mistake this for anything other than real.
She tasted like nerves and adrenaline and something sweet I couldn’t name. Her fingers curled tighter in my jersey and for one wild second, I didn’t care that we were still on the field. That my teammates were watching. That the world would break this down in slow motion from every angle.
I kissed her like she was mine.
Because in that moment, she was.
Flashbulbs exploded like tiny lightning strikes around us. A couple reporters actually gasped. One camera jolted upward like the guy behind it had just forgotten how to function. My pulse was still pounding from the words I’d just thrown like knives—and I was one second away from storming off the damn field.
Eventually, she pulled back. Barely. Just enough to speak against my mouth.
“You can thank me later,” she whispered. “For saving your PR disaster.”
I huffed a breath that could’ve been a laugh. Or maybe a groan. I wasn’t sure.
“You think that helped?”
“Please,” she said, a little breathless, a little smug. “They’ll turn it into a love story.”
And then she stepped back, smoothing her hair and tossing a look at the stunned reporter like he was the unprofessional one.
“That’s your sound bite,” she said, her voice breathless and furious and steady all at once. “Walker played his ass off. And anyone with working eyes knows it.”
My throat tightened.
She turned to me then, fully. Her eyes were sharp and cutting, like she wasn’t afraid to throw herself between me and the chaos, even if it got her scorched. “You done here?” she asked.
I couldn’t breathe for a second. Couldn’t think.
“…Yeah,” I muttered, the word rasping out of me.
Before I could say anything else, she grabbed my hand—fingers laced with mine, firm and certain—and started walking. Through the gawking press. Past the crew. Down the tunnel.
I followed.
Not because I didn’t know where I was going, but because for the first time in weeks, someone had chosen to stand next to me when I was a mess. Not just tolerate me. Not just cover me in an article or manage my damage.
She walked fast, silent, until we were clear of the cameras and the echo of crowd noise. The tunnel swallowed us in shadows, and I felt the first real breath expand in my chest since the whistle blew.
I looked at her.
She still hadn’t let go.
And for once, I didn’t feel like the problem. I didn’t feel like the villain. I just felt like a man who’d fought like hell—and had someone fighting beside him.
I couldn’t speak.
Not yet.
My whole body was buzzing—adrenaline still thrumming through my veins, but it wasn’t from the game anymore. It was her. Her mouth. Her words. That wildfire kiss in front of cameras, in front of everyone—not out of panic, but out of something raw. Something real.
She didn’t hesitate. She stepped in like it was second nature, like defending me was in her blood. And that kiss?
That wasn’t for PR.
