Page 59 of Last Line of Defense

“Are you going to keep giving me the cold shoulder for much longer?” I blurt out point-blank, and my voice comes out much hoarser, deeper, and more pained than I’d originally intended.

Her expression barely changes; she keeps up the facade.

“I’m not giving you the cold shoulder.”

I let out a dry, ironic laugh laced with bitterness.

“Yeah, right. And I’m the national team’s official goalkeeper. Give me a break.”

She lets out a long sigh through her mouth, her shoulders slumping, and runs a hand over her forehead with a look of sheer exasperation.

“Alicia… please, I’m begging you, don’t start this now.”

“No. Don’t give me that, and don’t pull that little act on me,” I interrupt her with a coldness that stings even me. “I’m not one of your patients you have to tiptoe around and handle with kid gloves.”

She frowns deeply, fixing me with her dark eyes, full of frustration.

“Get it through your head once and for all: I’m doing everything I can to protect both of us. We’re in an extremely delicate situation, and you know it,” she says, lowering her voice and glancing sideways at the floor indicator.

“Don’t give me that. Of course I know—I’m not an idiot. But exactly two nights ago in your bed, you didn’t seem to have so many doubts or reservations about being with me, and now… you’re pulling this on me? Are you suddenly unable to even look me in the face when I’m talking to you?”

I watch as her jaw tightens until the muscles stand out, and a glint of pure panic clouds her gaze. Seeing that fear in her eyes cuts straight to my heart; it hurts me far more than I ever could have expected.

“Look, if what you want is to end things between us and tell me to get lost,” I continue, my voice trembling with pent-up rage, “at least have the decency—the guts—to tell me clearly to my face. But don’t leave me in this fucking, shitty uncertainty that’s been eating me up inside all day.”

The words hang in the air of the elevator car, heavy as lead. The elevator keeps descending floor by floor, and I feel my heart racing a mile a minute, pounding against my ribs with savage force.

Clara freezes for a second, takes a slow step forward, closing the distance between us, and fixes her dark eyes directly on mine with an intensity that makes my legs go weak.

“You just have no idea.”

“Well, explain it to me once and for all!” I demand, slamming my heel against the floor. “Because I’ve been driving myself absolutely crazy all day, thinking you regret being with me. Tell me what the hell has changed. Tell me why, all of a sudden, I’m just another player on the roster to you again.”

Before I have time to react, her long fingers clamp around my wrists with brutal force. She drops the folder of reports to the floor with a sharp thud and pins me decisively against the metal wall of the elevator. The impact suddenly knocks the wind out of my lungs. And not because of the force of the movement, but because of the closeness of her body. She’s so close to me that I can feel the scorching heat of her skin through my club sweatshirt, her perfume flooding my senses, and the frantic rhythm of her ragged breathing against my mouth.

“Listen to me very carefully,” she whispers dangerously close, staring at me with devastating intensity. “I don’t want us to keep hiding as if this were something to be ashamed of. You don’t deserve to have to hide from anyone, nor do you deserve to have people spread rumors about you that aren’t true. I don’t deserve it either.”

The air drains from my body. I feel the anger, frustration, and panic that had been building up inside me spill out chaotically within my chest, colliding with one another. I’ve spent the last twelve hours convincing myself that Clara was dumping me out of fear of complicating her life, and now, having her this close, I realize she wasn’t pulling away. She was scared to death. Just as terrified as I am.

I stare at her and notice how her eyes drift down for a millisecond toward my lips with an agonizing hunger.

“Clara…”

“I’m terrified of what might happen once those rumors spread and the higher-ups find out,” she confesses in a broken voice as she slowly raises a hand to caress my cheek tenderly. “I’m tired of everyone taking the liberty of judging you without having a fucking clue who you are. And it terrifies me to think of what they might do to you if they find out about this. You’re the team’s star player, yes, but the board members will use that damn list of your past disciplinary and behavioral issues to bring you down, and I…”

She doesn’t say another word. She stops fighting her own demons and kisses me with unbridled fury.

The whole world, the club, and the preseason vanish the very instant her mouth finds mine. It’s not, by any stretch of the imagination, a gentle, conciliatory, or restrained kiss. It’s a desperate, wild, intense kiss, brimming with all those emotions that have been making our stomachs churn ever since we met. My hands rise automatically—almost out of survival instinct—to her waist to pull her closer to me, while she deepens the kiss, sliding her tongue inside with a hunger that makes my knees tremble. Her fingers dig firmly into my hair, gently pulling it back to tilt my head, and a hoarse, involuntary moan escapes my throat straight into her mouth.

The elevator keeps descending floor by floor mechanically, but I’m no longer able to feel anything at all other than Clara. Her body pressed tightly against mine, her breath completely ragged, the urgent and delightful way her lips devour mine… In the midst of all this metallic chaos, I suddenly realize that my heart belongs only to her. There’s no turning back in this story—not after realizing that absolutely nothing on this damn planet matters to me as much as she does.

“I need you like I need air,” I whisper directly against her lips between kisses, biting her lower lip eagerly. “Don’t shut me out of your life out of fear, Clara. I’m begging you…”

“And I need you, Alicia,” she replies, her voice completely choked up and her eyes misty. “So much more than I’m capable of admitting. It terrifies me how brutally fast you’ve turned my world upside down, girl, and it pisses me off that I can’t control it.”

The mechanical whir of the elevator puts us on alert. Clara pulls back just a few centimeters from my mouth, though without letting go of me entirely. We’re both breathing as if we’d just played an entire overtime period in the middle of August. The glass doors open, and then time stands still. The coach is standing right in front of us, and beside him, looking less than pleased, is the club’s sporting director himself. Both of them are motionless, staring at us.

The silence that settles over the lobby is absolute and devastating. I’m still pinned against the metal wall at the back. Clara is too close to my body—almost on top of me—her hands still touching me. Our breathing is still a complete mess, ragged and frantic. And even though neither of us has opened our mouths to say a single word… the scene before their eyes is clear and unmistakable. You don’t have to be a genius to know what we were doing.