I shake my head. “Honestly?” I ask. “I have no idea what happened there. I don’t really get soccer.”
He blinks, lays one huge hand over his heart. And then helaughs. It’s a good laugh. Warm, genuine, his face transforming with it. It does something to my chest, loosens a tightness in me. And I can’t stop staring, taking in all this beauty, feeling it…
“You don’t get soccer,” Levi repeats, beaming. “You sat through ninety minutes of a sport you don’t understand?”
I shrug, staring back into his pretty eyes, returning his bright smile. “I had to. I’m on the clock.”
He barks out another quick laugh. “And what were you doing the whole time, if not paying attention to the game?”
Watching you. Thinking about your forearms. Getting wet in the VIP box like a horny teenager.
“Thinking about our international policy,” I lie.
His grin widens. He doesn’t believe me for a goddamn second.
“Liar.”
I let out a surprised huff of amusement. “Excuse me?”
Levi is sexy-smiling the pants off me. “You’re lying, Madam President.” He steps closer, and his voice drops even lower. “Your tells are obvious.”
I bite my bottom lip to rein in my goofy grin. “I don’t have tells.”
“Everyone has tells, Lina.” He’s standing so damn close. I can see the silver strands in his beard, the crinkles at the corners of his baby blues. “Yours is your left hand. You tap your thumb against your thigh when you’re not being honest.”
My lips part and I look down. My thumb is pressed against my thigh.
Fuck. Me.
I look back up at him, and he’s watching me with his pale eyes, the air between us thick with something I can’t name. Won’t.
“Then what do you think I was doing during the game?” I ask. My voice is quiet, intimate.
Levi matches my tone. “I don’t know.” He holds my gaze. “But I know you weren’t watching the game. Because every time I looked up at your box, you were looking at me.”
Oh God.
Heat spreads over my face, my neck, my chest. I’m caught. Oh God.
“I…”
“Lina, I was looking too,” he says quickly. Quiet. Intent. “Every chance I got. Couldn’t help it.”
I can’t breathe. I literally cannot breathe.
We stand there, in the stadium’s tunnel, staring at each other. With the sounds of the celebration fading. There’s just us. This man who’s looking at me like I’m the only thing in the world worth seeing. And me, matching him blink for blink.
“I should go,” I whisper.
“I know.”
Neither of us moves.
“I want to see you again,” he says. “I’m too old for games, Lina. I like you. I’ve liked you for a long time. And I think you like me too.”
A long time?
I ask without giving myself time to think. “How long?”
