Page 34 of Red Card


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I give him a small smile as we walk to my door. I have a feeling he’s not good, but I guess if he wants to talk, he will. He takes the bag from me as I unlock the front door and then he follows me inside, shutting it behind him.

“Wanna eat on the couch?” I ask him as we move through my apartment.

When he nods and walks over to the couch, I can’t help but notice the way his ass looks in those stupid sweatpants. I swear guys have to know what they’re doing to women when they wear them.

It’s absurd.

Thirty minutes later, the tacos are demolished, and I couldn’t eat another single bite even if I wanted to.

“Bloody hell, that was the best thing I’ve ever eaten in my life,” he says after smashing four out of the eight tacos I bought, and I giggle.

“Itoldyou. Trust me, as a foodie, I am on top of when and where to eat around Prescott. This truck only comes like once a month and no matter what, I make sure I’m there because only having these tacos once a month is hardly enough.”

A low groan rumbles from his chest as he clutches his stomach, then lifts his arms in a stretch over his head. The T-shirt he’s wearing lifts, revealing the dark dusting of hair covering his tan abdomen and the trail that leads into his waistband. I didn’t notice until now how the dark green T-shirt he’s wearing clings to every hard muscle of his upper body, molding to him like it was made just for him.

I feel my cheeks heat, and I clear my throat, a cough suddenly forcing its way up my throat.

Jesus, what am I even doing checking him out like this.

There are a lot of things I’ve been… noticing about Cillian recently. Some against my will, but still entirely impossible to ignore.

Obviously I’m just… horny. And I need a little time with my showerhead. That’s all.

“So, I was thinking about the other night.”

Pushing my thoughts of doing indecent things to him away, I turn to face him, pulling my legs up in a crisscross. “Okay… and?”

His fingers splay along his jaw, then he drags them across his mouth for a beat. “You need to practice on me, St. James. I knowyou said it’s weird, but there’s no better way for me to talk you through it than to see it face-to-face.”

The thought of embarrassing myself that way is the absolute last thing I want to do but before I can even protest, he keeps going. “We’re going to pretend like we don’t know each other. Never met at all and we’ll have a conversation just like we would if I was trying to take you home.”

“And what makes you think that youcouldtake me home, Cairney?”

The lazy, cocky grin he gives me admittedly has my stomach flipping, the feeling of a hundred flutters erupting in my lower belly in sync with the erratic beating in my chest. If Cillian were a stranger at a bar, there is absolutely no doubt in my mind that I would want to go home with him.

I’m not admitting that out loud, but it’s painfully true.

“Damn. Okay, if that’s the way you’re doing it, I get it. You know, you should smile more. Makes you look less like a serial killer.”

He chuckles. “Smart-arse. Now come on, let’s practice.”

When he turns to face me, scooting in slightly, I shakily exhale. We’re almost touching now, his powerful thigh pressed against mine as he angles toward me.

I can do this.

It’s just Cillian. We’re almost, sort of, kind of even friends now. I think so at least.

Friends can flirt. Easy peasy.

“Tell me how I should start,” I say, my voice barely above a whisper. “What should I do first when I see a hot guy that I want?”

It feels so incredibly stupid to say that out loud because Ishould know, but as painful as it is to admit, I don’t. I’m a college girl who only lost her virginity because of a very awkward, very terrible drunken hookup at my high school graduation party that I immediately regretted and have done my best to never think about again.

Who’s now being taught by the bad boy outcast of her father’s rugby team.

“Smile. Introduce yourself. Don’t worry about what he’s thinking, or what you’ll say next. Let the conversation happen naturally. No pressure, no expectations. Just a conversation,” he says pointedly.

As if it’s the simplest thing in the world.