Damn!Talk about killing the moment.Way to go, jerk face.
He reached for the hem of her T-shirt—hisT-shirt—pulling her to him.“Hey, come back,” he coaxed.“My lap’s getting cold.”
Obviously unamused, she broke free from his grip.Crap, he needed to keep his lips zipped—unless he was going to kiss her again, but something told him that would be the wrong move too.
She cinched her arms over her chest, huffing, “We’re on the verge of a serious discussion here, and I’m learning how easy you are to distract—especially when there are exposed body parts around.”
“Yourbody parts.I’m particular to those.But I’m not helping my case here, am I?”
She inched up her little nose “No, you’re not.”
Leaning forward, elbows on his knees, he tilted his head up.“Let me say this as plainly as I know how: I don’t want you to be a dirty secret, and I don’t want to be yours.I want to be more than fuck buddies.I want you at my games, have you wear my jersey, come to team dinners as my plus-one.I want to have you visit my dad and brother with me.”Her scowl smoothed out.He took it as a good sign, galloping ahead, unsure if he was headed off a cliff.“I want to show you off to my teammates.I want everyone to know you’re my girlfriend.”
Her eyes went puck-wide, and he adjusted his course—assuming he even had one.“If you didn’t work for that particular clinic, if I wasn’t your patient, none of that would be an issue.”
She blinked, and the creases between her brows deepened once more as his speech seemed to percolate.
“But Iwantto work at this particular clinic.”
“I’m not suggesting you quit.”God, he was bad at this romantic adulting thing—probably due to lack of practice.
“Sure sounds like it.”
“Okay, I get where you might think that.”He smoothed his bedhead, giving himself a beat.“How do we solve this with the constant threat of your job hanging over our heads?”
“Let’s back up a sec.”She uttered the words as she was, in fact, backing up.“Aren’t you moving at Millenium Falcon speed?”
“Possibly, though you do realize its engines don’t work half the time, right?”He let slip an errant snicker, amused by his own joke, confident she’d get it.
“What does that even mean?”Her voice pitched high, her agitation clear.
Okay, so she didn’t get it.Or it completely missed the mark.
“I was trying to lighten the mood, but I guess it was a fail.”Dread slogged through his veins.He was fucking this up royally.He dragged his hand over his face.“I wouldn’t call six years fast.This has been building up for a while.At least it has for me.”A disturbing thought he hadn’t considered before struck him, and his heart thudded like a stone in his chest.“Unless you’re looking at this like a one-time thing, and you don’t want to take it any farther after this weekend.”
“Like you did to me?”
Ouch!Exasperation had him hoisting himself upright to meet her glare with a piercing stare of his own.
“Last night and today have nothing to do with six years ago.”Couldn’t she let it go already?“The way I look at it, this is a fresh page, a clean slate.We’ve made the leap into a whole new galaxy here.”
Never taking her eyes off his, she bit the inside of her cheek, thoughts streaming through her eyes.
“Talk to me, Angie.Did I misread the situation so badly?No matter what you might think, this isn’t something I do on the regular.”His breathing kicked into a higher gear.“I don’t tomcat around, I don’t bring women home with me—you’re the first to set foot in this place—and I certainly don’t tell them I want them to become part of my life.”
“A life that’s kind of topsy-turvy at the moment.”Her speech was quiet, nearly a whisper, but she may as well have slapped him across the face with a wet towel.
“Thanks for the reminder.”He pivoted on his heel to turn from her, hiding his wince when the movement jarred his bad ankle.“Yeah, my timing sucks.”
Her hand circled his wrist and tugged.“Sam, I’m sorry.I shouldn’t have said that.”
Arching a brow, he glanced at her over his shoulder.“But you meant it, didn’t you?You were being honest.”
“Both our lives are a bit jumbled right now, and this is coming at me so fast.”
There was a plea in her eyes, something that said she couldn’t trust him not to break her heart again.He had lost his chance, and she was going to put walls around their connection so it stayed in the realm of the physical—a circumstance he might have welcomed weeks ago.Except he wasn’t interested in a friends-with-benefits arrangement.Not with her.
Where he might have welcomed her warm fingers on his wrist, her hold itched now, and he wanted to pull away.
