When you’re a foot taller than a girl, it’s hard to smoothly go in for a kiss, so I don’t try for smooth. I’m careful, though. I lift her chin with one finger, persuading her eyes up to meet mine. I cup her cheek and lower my head until I’m hovering over those lips that look so soft I have to hold myself back from devouring them; I have to control my need to taste her right away. My body revs, demands. My heart slams into my rib cage. My dick is hard. Want sizzles through every cell of my body.
“August.” She pulls her chin away and presses her hand to my chest, but not to explore. To gently push me back. I hold my breath, waiting to see what this means, this small space she’s put between us.
Her head drops forward until the dark cloud of hair eclipses her face, hides her expression. “I’m sorry.” She steps back, running a hand through her hair. “I-I can’t.”
I want to bring her close again. “It’s okay. I get it, of course. We just met.”
I link our fingers. Even that brief contact stirs my senses. I check the roar of my body, hoping my erection doesn’t betray me.
“We can just talk. We can go to your place, if you’re not far.” I lift her chin so I can see her eyes. So she can see that I mean it. Despite the absolute inferno raging under my skin, it’s enough. “We can do whatever you want.”
As little, as much—let’s just keep doingsomething. Let’s just not stop.
“I-I can’t. We can’t.” With a vigorous shake of her head, she takes another step back, dropping my hand, inserting space between us again. “I have a boyfriend, August.”
Shit.
I shouldn’t be surprised that she’s taken. A girl this gorgeous, this funny and smart and authentic—she’s all the adjectives I would use to describe the perfect girl for me. She’s even the things I didn’t know I wanted. But now I know, and I can’t have her.
A hole gapes open inside of me wider and deeper than it should be considering how little I know about her, but it’s there. And by the second, it fills with disappointment and lost possibilities.
“So . . . is it serious?” I wince internally. If there’s anything more douchey than trying to kiss another guy’s girl, it would be asking, in so many words, if she’s sure she wants to stay faithful to him.
“Yeah.” She sinks her teeth into her bottom lip. “We’ve been dating about a year.”
She finally looks up at me, and at least the battle in her expression, the struggle reflected back to me from her eyes, assures me I’m not imagining the pull between us.
“I should have told you, but that would have been weird.” She smiles ruefully. “I would have sounded like I was assuming you wanted more than . . .”
We stare at each other in a silence rich with things I shouldn’t say.
“Idowant more than.” I manage a smile, though I’m frustrated and not just sexually. I’m downright devastated that some other guy got here before I did.
“I’m sorry.” She stuffs her hands in the back pockets of her jeans. “I was enjoying our conversation so much. I didn’t want to . . . I hope I didn’t mislead you.”
“You didn’t.” I stuff my hands in my pockets, too, to keep from touching her again. “At least I made a new friend.”
Friend.
It sounds hollow compared to what I thought we could be, but I can’t demand more. I can’tmakeher give me more. I’m on the eve of something most men only dream of, and this bright-eyed girl has made me feel helpless.
“Yeah.” Her face relaxes a little into a smile. “A friend.”
“And you helped take my mind off tomorrow’s game.”
As soon as I say it, both of our eyes go wide. I check my watch, dreading the time.
Fuck.
Curfew.
Was I so absorbed by this girl that I forgot curfew before the biggest game of my life?
Yeah, I was.
“Oh my God.” Her eyes are anxious, worried. “The game. You’ve missed curfew.”
The hunger, the heat, the rightness between us had made me shove every other thought aside, but they all intrude now.Curfew. The rest of the team, asleep and accounted for at the hotel. Tomorrow’s game.
