“I’m asking you. You’re a schoolgirl too, aren’t you?”
I glare at him and he chuckles.
“It’s okay, you can tell me. And maybe I’ll do that thing for you that every groupie wants me to do.”
“What thing?”
His thumb tucks into my belly button. “Sign my name on your chest.” He lowers his voice a little. “Right where your heart is.”
My heart – my witchy, witchy heart – races and mychesttingles and I get up in his face before I do something like whip off my shirt and ask him to write on my body.
“You know what? Just let me go.”
I don’t know how it’s possible but his beautiful, wretched eyes smirk at me as well. Before he lowers them. “Youdoknow that you’re wearing soccer cleats.” He looks up. “Don’t you?”
“Yes.”
“And are you aware that you’re not supposed to?”
I exhale sharply and I bet he can feel that. I bet he can feel every little twitch of my body because he hasn’t let me go yet.
His hands are still holding me, causing my skin to heat up, causing my anger to spike up too. “Why, is that another one of your rules?”
He shakes his head slowly. “No. It’s common sense. You don’t wear them off the field. Because they make you fall.”
I know, okay? I know. I know you’re not supposed to wear them off the field. I don’t need him to tell me that.
I don’t need him to keep holding me like that either.
So I throw him a sweet mock-smile that again makes his lips tug up on one side. “Thank you for the impromptu lesson, Coach. Now, are you going to let me go or not?”
He nods his head in acknowledgment. “You’re very welcome. And I will. Once you get down on the ground.Safe.”
So I do.
I climb down the ladder and get down on the ground. So I can get away from his hand, and him and all these rioting feelings inside of me.
Rioting and provoking and restless.
As soon as my feet are on the floor, his hands leave me, sending a rush of cold to the spots where he was touching me. But I don’t pay attention to that. To how stupidly bereft I feel now that he’s not holding me and saving me.
Instead, I bend down to retrieve my fallen book and clutch it to my chest, standing far away from him. “Where did you come from?”
My question is spoken with agitation, which is completely the opposite of how he appears.
Just like at the bar after he insulted the girl, he leans against the bookcase and folds his arms across his chest, bunching up his pecs.
“I was in here looking for a book,” he replies, all calm and unruffled. “Lucky for you.”
“A book on what?” I ask, again slightly agitated that he can look so collected when I’m all flustered.
“On soccer.”
I frown. “You mean for coaching?”
“Yeah. For coaching.”
He sayscoachingwith clenched teeth and I hold the book to my chest even tighter. “Are you really my soccer coach now?”
