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Unfortunately, my retreat has only piqued his interest. I would have been better off playing dead.
There’s a spark in his brown eyes that should make me leery of what’s about to happen, but instead of cowering, I step forward and meet him head on.
“You’re not going to kiss me, are you?” I blurt out suddenly, holding my hands up to his chest to block him.
His smile unfurls in slow motion, stopping my heart in its tracks.
“I was thinking about it.”
Chapter Eleven
Ben
Raelynn’s small hand sits square in the center of my chest in an effort to fend me off, and I comply. I stay right where I am as my heart drums against her hand, a dead giveaway for how I feel about her, but I don’t think she notices.
Her full lips tilt down in a fragile frown. Her blue eyes are wide, fringed with dark blonde lashes that catch the shallow light inside the trailer. I can count her freckles from this angle. Touch every single one.
“Ben—”
She’s breathless.
I’m in a trance as I look down at her. Two more steps and I’d have her pinned against the edge of her table. My hands could wrap around her waist and I’d lift her so damn easily. The only thing that stops me, the thing that pulls me out of my own head, is that helpless expression she’s wearing, a combination of fear and anxiety.
I suck in a breath and shutter my want, trying to tease her and lighten the mood.
“So kissing is off the table?”
My joke doesn’t calm her worries. She looks deathly serious when she replies, “Absolutely.”
“Then stop looking at my mouth.”
Her eyes jerk up to meet mine. “I wasn’t!”
I laugh and attempt to move past her, but her flimsy hand keeps me pinned right where I am. She levels me with a shrewd stare I’m sure she hopes will make me quiver; it doesn’t.
“What’s your game, anyway?” she asks with an interrogative tone. Her hand starts pushing against me, but I don’t move. I take that pressure and feed off it. “What are you playing at? You and your teammates make some kind of bet to see who can bag a townie?”
I hold her gaze and reply honestly. “No.”
“Is this a diversion for you then? Some kind of midlife crisis?”
I scratch the back of my neck, fighting against an amused smile. “How old do you think I am?”
Her fingers fist my shirt in desperation. “Spit it out then! What are you doing with me?!”
Her question stops me dead in my tracks.
What am I doing with her? What the hell am I doing here? In her trailer?
Truthfully, I haven’t thought that far ahead with Raelynn. For so long, everything in my life has been so damn complicated. Except for her. When I’m with her I feel like a teenager again—back before the scouts started noticing me, back when basketball wasn’t my whole damn life. I chased girls. I fell for them and they wanted me right back. It was easy, fun, nothing like the last few years.
How do I say that though?
How do I look at this woman I still barely know and say, I like the way you make me feel. I like your presence in a room. You draw me in and I don’t have a fighting chance of staying away from you.
She narrows her eyes, and I know if I stay in this trailer with her for one second longer, I’m going to lose the battle against the devil on my shoulder. It’s time for me to leave. I shouldn’t drag her into my mess.
I step away and her hand drops from my chest, hanging limp at her side.
“Thank you for the sandwich,” I say, ducking my head.
We touch, shoulders and hips grazing as I dip past her to get to the door of the trailer, and my body lights up like I’ve been plugged into a socket.
Fuck.
I slam her trailer door open, and when I make it outside, it feels like I’m resurfacing from a suffocating depth. I can’t get enough air. I look back and Raelynn’s standing in the door of the trailer, her eyebrows furrowed, her blue eyes carrying all her secrets. She just told me kissing was off the table, and now she looks pissed at me for listening to her. I get it, Little Bird. I want to kiss you as badly as you want to be kissed.
I keep my focus straight ahead as I get into Leanna’s car and start to drive away. It’s dark and quiet out on the road. I don’t fiddle with the radio. I keep my hands at ten and two as I debate whether I did the right thing. I hate that I left her. A bigger part of me hates that I went to her home in the first place, but it’s too late to backtrack. The writing’s on the wall: Raelynn and I will collide. There’s no way around it.
