Page 47 of Forever Defiant
“Come here.”
“No.”
Christ.
“Don’t make this harder than it needs to be.” I folded my arms across my chest. “Peterson,now.”
She still hesitated, her eyes darting around, looking to see who was watching, before resting on mine again. “You look like you want to bite me.”
Right. What had I been worried about? Her sassy ass was just fucking fine.
She also wasn’t wrong.
But I simply waited, and after a moment, she walked over — reluctantly, approaching me as she would a feral dog knowing it would turn on her.
“What is your problem?” she asked, already on the defensive.
“You’re my problem,” I shot back before thinking. “You’re walking around stirring shit up without realizing you’re stirring shit up.”
Her eyes narrowed. “I haven’t stirred anything.”
“You missed the whole change in atmosphere, did you?” I snarked at her, noticing that she shifted her weight slightly. “You’re asking questions. Questionssomepeople are noticing aren’t about spring training.”
Her eyes widened with excitement. “Really? Like who?”
For fuck’s sake.“Peterson,stopwhatever you’re doing. You’re attracting the wrong kind of attention. Okay?”
She moved a step back, her sniff dismissive. “I’m shadowing a freshman defensive end for an assignment.”
I closed the distance, my voice lower. “You’re lousy at playing innocent. You’ve felt the change; no one’s falling for you batting your lashes anymore.”
That pissed her off. Which was good because I was pissed too.
“Batting my lashes?Fuck you, Slater. Don’t you dare make it sound like I can’t do my jobprofessionally.” She stepped closer, chin lifting. “If your teammates can’t handle someone taking notes from ten feet away, that sounds like a them problem.” She shot a glare at Coach Sutherland’s back, not giving a damn who saw her. “If your teammates can’t handle a littlemotivationfrom their coach, then again, I’d say that was a them problem.”
Fucking hell, was she delusional? Or just really insane?
“You’re not getting it.” My jaw ached with restraint.
“Then explain it.”
“I don’t need toexplainanything to you.” I looked her over. “You claim you’re so smart, why don’t you figure it out? Take your head out of your ass, andlook aroundat what’s facing you.”
“They’re hiding something, you know that, right?” she demanded, her temper flaring. “What is it?”
I didn’t answer.
Her mouth tightened. “Nonadmission is still an answer.”
“Stoplooking,” I said.
“I can’t.”
“Then it’s going to get ugly.”
Her gaze searched my face. “For who?”
I held her stare. “Does it matter?”
