Page 99 of Forever Offsides

I put my hand on his chest and lift my chin to meet his eyes. “I didn’t call or text you today.”

I get a half-grin. “I know. Trust me, I noticed. I didn’t either.”

“What was your reason?”

His cold hand cups my jaw, and he steps forward until our chests are nearly touching, and I have to crane my neck to see him. “I’m falling for you.”

My heart lurches. “Oh.”

He smiles. “Hell, if I don’t love it when a woman responds that way to me after I tell her that. Then again, you’re the first I’ve ever said it to as an adult.”

I laugh and drop my forehead to his chest. I can feel his heart pounding beneath his sternum. “I think I’m falling for you, too.”

His hands run down my hair. “Quinn, I’ve never had that. Not for real. Not this way. I don’t know what to do.”

“Me neither,” I admit. I kiss his chest and step back. “Are you coming inside?”

“That’s such a loaded question.”

“Are you? Inside my house and inside of me?”

His knuckles drag along my cheek. “After you.”

“Stalker.”

“Yup. Super stalker. I’m shocked your neighbors didn’t call the cops on me.”

“You’re hot. And you brought food. No one in their right mind would call the cops on you with that.”

“Quinn… I almost didn’t do this.”

His honesty cuts me to the quick, and I pause on my step and turn back around to face him. “Oh?”

He grins, but it’s uneasy. “That’s your word tonight, and I deserve it this time. Every time I see you, I tell myself I don’t care about the repercussions, and when we’re apart, and suddenly I’m working out in the gym with your father or I see your brothers and my son at practice, then I care a lot. I’m torn in two between what I want and what’s right, and I don’t know how to reconcile that.”

“Same,” I agree. “I was talking to Sorel not even ten minutes ago, and I almost said something off the cuff about you, but I caught myself. I’m also smiling and singing at work. It’s throwing people off. I’m not warm or fuzzy there.”

He shifts his weight and takes my hands in his. “I’m sorry. I really needed to think without your magic pussy rattling my thoughts.”

“Magic pussy?”

He scoffs and rolls his eyes. “Like you don’t already know you have one.”

“I mean… it feels pretty good when I fuck myself so I can only imagine it for you.”

A laugh bursts from his chest, and he wraps his arms around me. “I couldn’t stay away. I got home, and I was alone in my house, but my clothes that you wore last night were on my bathroom floor, and the dishes we used were in my dishwasher, and I missed you. I mean it. I’m really falling. Hard. I just wish we had an easier footing to climb on, and I wish I didn’t struggle so much with being with you.”

I shake my head. “Don’t be sorry.”

If he didn’t struggle with this, I wouldn’t like him nearly as much. He’d be like Russel. He wouldn’t be honorable.

“I am sorry. I don’t want to hurt anyone. But fuck it if I’m not in this with you and past the point of no return.” With that, he picks me up and covers my mouth with his, snags the food off the stoop, and carries me inside.

31

QUINN

My hands rake up through his hair and I moan, pressing myself harder against him. I don’t think this was his intention when he picked me up and carried me inside my house, but we’re like a struck match to gasoline, burning hot and fast and without caution.