All obsessed and horny andcrazyfor me.
I clench my eyes shut for a second, trying to give myself a break, trying tothink. He doesn’t let me rest though because, squeezing my cheek, he growls, “You dancing for anyone yet?”
I open my eyes, my breaths all choppy and broken.
When I don’t answer him right away, he taps my cheek to wake me up and repeats, “Answer me, baby. Any boys you’re dancing for?”
I shake my head, or more like roll it against the wall, and give him the same answer that I’ve been giving him since he started asking this question. After he asks me about my classes, reporters and if any boys are bothering me, he asks me if I like anyone in my class. If there’s a boyI’minterested in. “No.”
As always, he asks again. “You sure about that?”
I lick my dry lips. “Just you.”
A wave of satisfaction passes over his features and my belly flutters. Or maybe it’s his finger pulling on the ring again. Whatever it is, it makes me melt, pleasing him. Being his personal dancer.
Because I do dance for him.
A few days ago, while cleaning his mom’s room, I found a boom box. An old-fashioned red one with a CD collection. And it gave me an idea. He told me my dancing made him focus, didn’t he? And since I’m on a mission to help him, I checked to see if the boom box worked, selected a bunch of CDs, and took it out into the backyard. And every night since then, I put on the music, and I dance. And every night he watches me, standing at the threshold of the back door, or gripping the railing of the porch as if trying to stop himself from pouncing on me. Sometimes he’ll sit, but only for a few moments before going back to stand behind the railing, as if he doesn’t trust himself so out in the open.
And then after every performance, he’ll turn around and stride back inside, slamming the door shut. Hard. Like that first night when I told him how long I’d been obsessed with him.
“What about you?” I ask or rather dare to because it’s been going through my mind a lot lately too.
“What about me?”
“You’re leaving tomorrow.”
“Yeah.”
“So then…” I trail off, squeezing my thighs and fisting his shirt.
He studies my face. “Are you asking me if I’m going to hook up on the road?”
My heart clenches so hard that I want to curl up into myself. The only reason I don’t is because he’s here, crowding me in. “You’ve done that b-before. And if I’m not giving you what you want, you?—”
He tugs on my belly button ring hard, digging his knuckles into my bare tummy. “If you think, even for a singlesecond, that my brain is going to have space for anyone else other than you, then we seriously need to sit down so I can explain to you how goddamn motherfuckingover the topobsessed I am with you. And this time I’ll bring over study cards and graphs and fucking Venn diagrams so you don’t ask me this bullshit question again.”
My heart is a pulpy wreck, and my thighs are a mess as I say, “But?—"
He squeezes my throat again. “No one else but you, remember?”
Before I can say anything to that, the bell rings. It’s so loud and shrill that I jump. My heart jumps too. And I remember where we are. I remember everything. The connections, the complications. Tempest. She’s here to get me.
His features turn harsh for a second and his grip too. It’s like he won’t let me go. He doesn’t want to. But the bell rings againand he lets me go. He walks out the door, slamming it shut. And I want to call him back and tell him I’ll be anything he wants me to be because nothing else matters to me but him.
Chapter Twenty-One
The event is happeningin the same ballroom where the charity gala had taken place. That then turned into his impromptu engagement.
I’m sitting at the table with the rest of the gang—Snow, Tempest and Ledger, Meadow and Riot, and Callie and Reed. Their kids are all at Callie’s house: the twins, Halo and Flora, and Riot’s daughter Sophie, being looked after by a couple of sitters. So basically, it’s like a slumber party with diapers and poop and infants crawling all over the place.
Anyway, since Conrad is the head coach, he’s seated alongside other team management and Wyn is with him. Shepard’s supposed to be at their table as well, given he’s the captain. But he’s by the bar, nursing the same beer bottle pretty much ever since he arrived. I know because he’s in full view of our table and I’ve thrown him stolen glances.
Ever since he arrived at the party an hour later than me, Tempest and Ledger—all dressed up and dashing in his tux, his hair still wet from his shower and falling all over his forehead—he’s been in a prickly mood. He hasn’t smiled once. He hasn’t really talked to anyone,let alonesmiled once. From what I cansee, he’s also snapping at people if they go near him and I know it’s because of what happened in the bathroom.
Because I won’t give him what he wants.
Not to mention, I noticed something. Both Stellan and Isadora are absent, given he’s the second head coach and she’s his girlfriend—well, his fiancée now. Plus daughter of the team owner. And this isn’t the first time. As in, they’ve been missing a lot. They haven’t once stopped by the house in the past weeks, not even for get togethers. They were also absent at that family dinner I crashed to tell them the truth.
