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Fine,I typed with jabs of my thumbs.Give me a minute.
I pulled on a hoodie over my tank top and shorts, both to cover me up and for the comfort of my knife in the hoodie’s pocket. Just in case my instincts were wrong. After shoving my feet into my sneakers, I trotted down the stairs to the lobby.
Quentin was standing just outside the glass front door. His shoulders were slightly slouched, but he straightened up when he saw me coming with a glint of what might have beenreliefin his piercing blue eyes.
As I stepped out onto the sidewalk, he drew back to make room for me. No one else was around at this early hour, the sidewalks empty, only a single car puttering past while I frowned at the uninvited visitor with my hands shoved in my pockets.
Quentin swiped his hand over his hair, which was looking unusually rumpled, a few strands falling free from the slicked-back ’do. He glanced at the sidewalk and then back at me as if he didn’t know what to say. As if he wasn’t the one who’d called me out here.
“Well?” I said, raising my chin. “What’s going on? What are you dragging me down here in the middle of the night for?”
Even now, he couldn’t restrain that arrogant smirk. “Technically it’s the early morning.”
I glowered at him. “Who the fuck cares about the details? Everyone’s asleep. What’s so important it couldn’t wait until after breakfast?”
His jaw worked. “I was hoping I could see you without St. Pierre as your shadow.”
“Here I am. Are you going to get on with telling me what you want?”
Quentin cocked his head. “What if I just wanted to see you?”
“Seriously?” I let out a scoffing sound and spun on my heel toward the apartment entrance. “That’s not even a real reason.”
Before I could take a single step, Quentin’s hand shot out. He caught me by the upper arm and whirled me around faster than I could have anticipated to push me against the wall next to the door. He leaned close, his arms caging me in.
He hadn’t yanked me hard enough to hurt, but my temper flared anyway. In an instant, my knife was in my hand, the blade aimed at Quentin’s chest.
My heart thumped away, an electric buzz passing through my nerves as Quentin glanced down at the knife and then back at me with a faintly amused expression. Not that I’d ever admit it, but something about his complete disregard for the obvious threat turned me on.
“I’m not done,” he said, his voice low and taut with an intensity that quivered over my skin. “I was going to tell you that I’m going back to Singles. I can still compete at Nationals that way thanks to my placement last year.”
My jaw clenched before I managed to speak through my annoyance. “And I should care because…?”
He smiled with a flash of his white teeth. “I’ll admit that you and Jasper beat me, but I think it’s mostly you. The way you skate…” He paused, the intensity in his eyes searing brighter as he held my gaze. “I haven’t been able to stop thinking about you. You’ve gotten into my head, and I can’t get you out.”
The previous quiver turned into a full-out tingle, sweeping through my body against my will. I ignored the unwelcome reaction and scowled at Quentin. “That sounds like a you problem, not a me problem.”
“Hmm, I wonder.” He leaned even closer to me, his head bowing close enough that his breath grazed my cheek. “You knew I was there that night, didn’t you? I could tell when you realized. Did you like knowing I was watching you take both of them in the locker room? Did it get you off?”
My face flushed, and I gritted my teeth, at least as pissed off because Ihadgotten off on the knowledge as because he’d brought it up.
I gave him an insistent shove, tapping the blade of my knife against his shirt. “Back the fuck off, Quentin.”
“Not yet,” he murmured, and then he slammed his mouth into mine.
The kiss hit me with a jolt of surprise, irritation… and a little thrill. Quentin claimed my lips with a determination that reverberated through my body in the fleeting second before he pulled himself away, just as I was about to shove him harder.
He stepped farther back, tucking his hands in his pockets. “We’ll talk more later.”
As the words rang in my ears like a promise, he turned and stalked off without waiting for an answer.
I wiped the back of my hand across my mouth, annoyed all over again at the shiver of heat that passed through me at the memory of the kiss. For fuck’s sake, I didn’t want anything like that with Quentin Wolfe, of all people. Hotness didn’t trump assholery.
What the hell had gotten into him? I’d thought all he cared about was seeing Jasper—and therefore me—crash and burn. Now suddenly he wanted to strike up a relationship?
No, this was probably about Jasper too. Just a different way of trying to one-up his rival. He could forget about using me to accomplish that goal.
I peeled myself off the brick wall with a little shake. As I gathered my composure, a dark sedan cruised up to park on the other side of the street, directly opposite me.
