Page 9 of I'm Gonna Get You Back
Reid let out an exasperated breath as he crouched down. “Can I?”
My gaze bounced between his hovering hands and my leg. I nodded.
His fingers were strong, his hands warm as he kneaded the exact spot. His touch was clinical, gentle. Like he’d done it a hundred times. He probably had. State champion and all that.
As he grabbed my dusty sneaker to slowly guide my leg straight with his other hand, I slammed my lips together to avoid an embarrassing sound slipping out of me and fixed my gaze on the small black gauges in his ears. They made him look way edgier than anyone else in Woodhurst.
I let my eyes sweep across his face. There was a line between his eyebrows, the corner of his full lips tugged down as he concentrated. He was stunning on camera, but the up-close version was… an experience.
He pressed harder until I hissed.
“Too much?” he asked. His grip began to loosen, and I shot my hand out, grabbing his forearm to stop him.
“No, it feels good.” I breathed. My calf was finally beginning to relax. But it wasn’t until our gazes collided that I realized how close we were.How suggestive that sounded. I let go of him and scrambled to add, “Um, I mean, you’re—it’s helping.”
He cleared his throat and nodded. I was grateful he was so concentrated on my leg that he didn’t see the blush shoot across my cheeks.
When the muscle finally released, he looked up at me again.
“Better?”
“Yeah, thanks.”
I smiled. He didn’t. In the few weeks he’d been on the team, I’d noticed he almost never smiled. Which was good because I could imagine even his smirks were dangerous. One of those guys who was just too hot to be anything but trouble.
He studied my face in a way that forced me to swallow. Hard. I was sure mascara was smeared under my eyes, my hair frizzing. My usually fair complexion an unholy tomato red.
But the way he looked at me didn’t make me feel like he thought I was all that disgusting.
I pulled my leg back, and Reid’s hands dropped instantly.
Everywhere he had touched crackled with tiny fireworks, and I ran a palm across my bare skin to rid myself of the sensation.
“Ready?” he asked, jutting his chin toward the trail.
I eyed him like he must’ve been joking and hauled myself up to standing. “Nuh-uh. No more running. I’m cooling down the way god intended.”
I gestured toward the lake, and his eyebrows shot up.
“Coach won’t like that.”
“Oh, but I will,” I said dreamily.
The corner of his mouth twitched.
I don’t know what came over me—maybe it was the electricity stillcoursing through my leg from where he touched me that urged me on—but I said, “You coming?”
He glanced over his shoulder as if looking to see if anyone was watching, then nodded.
When we arrived at the edge of the tree line, I couldn’t get my shoes off fast enough. The lake was shaped like a crescent moon around the mountain. Only a wide shot would manage to capture the size and striking blue of the water from the shore.
But Reid eyed the water warily. “There aren’t eels, are there?”
I froze. “Eels?In Crescent Lake?”
He just stared at me. Good god, he was serious. I wanted to laugh, but the guy looked terrified.
“No. There are no eels.”
