Page 34 of Don't Brake My Heart
‘You’re not really offering to kiss me – or anything else.’
‘What do you think is going on then?’ For once, the brainy Leesa Kubicka had no idea what she was talking about.
‘You keep taunting me, but if I stepped up and tried to kiss you right now…’
Ohhh, shit. I could barely breathe when she said stuff like that.
‘… you wouldn’t let me anyway.’
‘I would.’ The words tumbled out. She could do whatever the hell she wanted to me. I’d even let her set me on fire the way she was doing now and she wasn’t even touching me – except with that gaze. The way she looked at me made me forget my own name.
‘I sincerely doubt that, Colin.’
I didn’t like the brittle tone in her voice.
‘You don’t think maybe by teasing you I’m salvaging what little pride I still have after September?’
‘I don’t know how that makes sense. You caused an accident by teasing me, so you’re teasing me more now?’
Hands propped on my hips, I sighed deeply, glancing up at the wooden slats on the ceiling of the bathroom as the guilt – the frustration – washed over me again. ‘I was talking about what happened in the hospital, not the accident. You know how sorry I am about the accident.’
‘The slagroomtaart apology,’ she mumbled. ‘I thought you insisted nothing happened.’
‘My pride says otherwise now. You turned me down. It’s not my favourite memory.’
She kept looking at me, her frown deepening. ‘You weren’t serious.’
I should let her keep thinking that, rebuild my pride on the flimsy foundation, but instead I blurted out, ‘Are you sure? I was… quite disappointed actually.’Shut up, you idiot.
She laughed, which didn’t make me feel any better. ‘Quite disappointed. Okay.’
She’d see through me in another second.
‘You know what I think?’
Here it comes.I thought she was standing too close. My brain was scrambled and I caught a hint of her perfume or soap or whatever it was – raspberries with herbs, tart and sweet. It was classy as fuck.
But she apparently had no idea what was going on inside me.
‘You might be a little attracted to me physically,’ she began in a superior tone that was still a turn-on, ‘but you don’t really want to kiss me. That’s why you’re making a big deal out of this.’
‘I’m not making a big deal out of it.’
Her brows rose with the corners of her mouth and that satisfied smile shot weakness to my knees. ‘I’m right. You don’t want to kiss me. You didn’t deny it.’
Choking when I’d meant to make some kind of verbal response, the various things I might have said got all tangled up and nothing came out. All I knew was that she was wrong. I wanted to kiss her too damn much and maybe that was why—
‘Colin, suck up your own stupid pride and remember that you don’t want me anyway and—’
I grasped her jaw and lifted it, her lips opening in surprise. She drew in a sweet breath, her eyelids blinking. She’d gone still. She would let me do it, press my mouth to hers, make my point. I’d kind of forgotten what my point was. And I wasn’t sure whatshewanted.
Which was how I managed to stop, my lips a breath from hers.
Her cheeks were soft under my thumb and fingers. I felt the bob of her throat against my knuckles. Blood rushed in my ears as my instincts insisted on closer. Maybe we’d make super-special children or something, because every part of me was firing like a party popper. Except it was probably just her.Shewould have incredible children – if she wanted them – with whoever she settled down with.
Which wouldn’t be her man-child ex-teammate, who could barely grow a beard and was tied up with a sport that had burned her.
‘Whatever thoughts are coursing around in your brilliant brain, Lees,’ I began, my voice so low she seemed to be holding her breath to hear, ‘that “I don’t want you” theory is one you’ll never prove, because it’s not true.’
