Chapter 28
CHAPTER
TWENTY-EIGHT
APRIL
The lip of a bookshelf digs into my back. It’s a dull pain and I focus on that sensation to keep from getting lost in Chance’s dark ocean eyes.
Breathe, April.
I shoot a look at the exits. Chance sees where my eyes have gone and his expression loosens in amusement. It’s a subtle change, a simple twitch of his lips.
But I can tell he’s laughing at me.
Come on, April. Dig yourself out of this hole.
I try to speak in a normal voice, but it fails spectacularly. “We’re not in high school, Chance. This isn’t truth or dare. I don’t have to prove anything.”
“So it did mean something.”
“No, it didn’t.”
“Then why are you blushing?”
“Because I’m angry.”
“You really are a terrible liar, Tink.”
I’m not a fairy, but there are a couple of winged creatures flapping around in my stomach, all of them enamored with the man whose face is way too beautiful and way too close to mine.
My head has gone completely blank and I have no idea what to do next. The hesitation makes me feel even more vulnerable.
When it comes to fight or flight instincts, I’m a fighter.
Usually.
Except when I’m backed up against bookshelves by pro-hockey athletes.
Throwing all my weight forward, I shove at Chance’s chest. He steps back easily, allowing me to flee a couple paces away.
“That isn’t funny,” I scold him.
“That wasn’t a joke,” he answers, his voice low and silky.
I attempt to swallow but my throat is dry and I just end up coughing. “I already apologized for kissing you.”
“I don’t accept your apology.”
My eyes narrow on instinct. “Don’t be petty.”
“It’s up to the victim whether he forgives or not.”
I bark out a dry laugh. “Victim?”
“Unlike you,” he traces his lips with a finger, “I don’t share these lips with just anyone. I’m a very modest man.”
I roll my eyes.
“I’m hurt that you don’t believe me.” Chance shakes his head.
My mind conjures the memory of him and the girl he was hugging at The Tipsy Tuna. “We both know you don’t have a problem getting close to women,” I snap.
Chance frowns. “What is that supposed to mean?”
“Nothing.”
A muscle in his jaw jumps. His smile disappears and is replaced with an intensity that sends my head reeling. “Is that why you stopped answering my messages? Do you think I’ve been talking to other women?”
“Just drop it, Chance.”
“It’s only been you,” he says firmly. “There’s been no one else, April.”
Liar!
My heart beats faster and faster. If he keeps talking, if he keeps explaining himself, I’m going to believe him. I’ll pretend that I didn’t see what I saw with my own eyes that night. Like a total idiot, I’ll succumb to the Chase effect.
And after Evan, I’m not signing up for another ‘bad boy who can’t keep his pants zipped’ package.
“You don’t have to explain anything,” I say firmly. “I don’t have any expectations of someone like you.”
His eyes flash. “Someone like me?”
“Yeah, someone like you.”
“And who exactly am I in your eyes, April?”
Chance’s voice has a dangerous edge, but I don’t back down.
“You, Chance McLanely, are a man who always gets what he wants, especially with girls, and for the first time ever, you met someone who isn’t swooning every time you flash those pretty blue eyes or whip out your charming smile.”
“You think my smile is charming?”
I glare at him. “Is that all you heard?”
“That’s all that matters.”
I throw my hands high. “You’re full of it, Chance McLanely.”
My wrath is building to a boil. I’m angry with Chance for making me feel this way. Angry with myself for being unable to control these feelings despite my best efforts.
And through it all, he keeps looking at me with this penetrating gaze, like he’s so close to breaking down my walls and seeing right through me.
“Just so you know, the attraction isn’t one sided,” Chance says with a smile.
My jaw clenches and my blood simmers. He really thinks this is all a joke.
“There is no attraction. There has never been an attraction.” I point an accusing finger, stalking in front of him. “This is me drawing the line with you. Sorry to disappoint, but I haven’t fallen for any of your tricks.”
He massages his forehead like I’m a wayward student who refuses to get the lesson. “You think… all this time, I’ve been playing tricks?”
“I think none of this matters and this conversation is pointless. After the way you played tonight, you’re definitely going back to the league and you and I will never see each other again.”
His voice is a thin, restrained sound, like I’m stretching out his last nerve. “So in your mind, you’d never date me if it wasn’t for the contract.”
“Exactly!”
“You think the absolute worst of me.”
“I do!” I agree vehemently.
“And yet…”
“And yet?”
His eyes narrow slightly and he leans down, dropping his voice to a taunting husk. “I don’t believe you.”
My mind churns with chaos, grasping at straws for a way to prove my point. And finally, it settles on a desperate, impulsive, half-baked way to end the argument once and for all.
“Fine,” I spit. “I’ll prove it.”
Digging my fingers into his collar, I wrench him down until his face is a breath away from mine. His wide-eyed stare is all I see before I close my eyes and surge in for a punishing, battle-cry of a kiss.
Our lips smash together for a brief, angry dance. The urge to deepen the kiss overwhelms me, but I shove him away instead.
He stumbles back, his chest heaving and his eyes ablaze.
My chest is pumping up and down and I stammer, “S-see?”
Chance stands frozen, staring at me beneath his fringe of dark hair. I notice his hands curling into fists and then releasing, working in time with the muscles flexing in his jaw.
I blink rapidly, willing my feet to run. To take me out of there. To free me from his addictive stare.
It was so ridiculously stupid to kiss him. What exactly did that prove? Why did I let my temper get the best of me?
I press a hand to my wildly beating heart and lie straight to his face. “I feel nothing. It means nothing.”
Slowly, torturously, Chance’s gaze slides up my body and pierces me.
“You shouldn’t have done that,” he whispers darkly.
My heart tumbles over itself because I know .
There’s no use running now.
His biceps contract beneath his T-shirt and, seconds later, I’m getting swept into his arms. I gasp when our bodies collide, lining up flush against each other.
My head tilts back and I anticipate Chance grabbing my face and kissing me hard enough to bruise, punishing me in the same way I did to him.
Instead, he brushes his thumb against my cheek and grinds out, “Where are they?”
“W-what?”
“Your freckles?”
The breath knocks out of my lungs. Something bright and dangerous flares to life behind the ice wall I’d built around my heart.
“And your curls?” Chance touches a lock of my hair. “Why did you change what was already perfect?”
My fight or flight alarm bells are blinking a persistent red.
Mayday, mayday! Get out of there.
But I can’t move.
Not only because Chance’s fingers are digging into my hips but because my knee-caps have suddenly decided they’re full of Jello.
“So beautiful.” He breathes the words in my ear and now I not only have Jello knee-caps but also Jello shins and Jello ankles.
His eyes darken. “I’ve wanted to tell you that since the first time I saw you in those over-alls, carrying that toolbox.”
His touch lingers on my cheek and then slides behind my ear. The exploration is so excruciatingly light that my heart pains me. For some reason, the way he’s watching me, like I’m something too exquisite, too precious to hold, makes me emotional.
His face muddles out of focus as tears crop in my eyes.
I don’t want to hurt again, and Chance McLanely… oh he could make me hurt. Not only that, he could destroy me.
“Are you crying?” Chance’s voice rings with worry.
“I’m not,” I sniffle.
“You are,” he says, gently scrubbing his thumb under my eyes.
What on earth is happening to me? I’ve lost full control of my body and mind.
Chance McLanely is a wizard and he’s casting a spell on me. A spell that reaches completion when he leans in and presses a kiss to my eyelid.
His smell of peppermint and cologne fills my nostrils.
Leaning in, he kisses the other eyelid with lips so whisper-soft that a pin drop would be louder.
“Don’t cry, Tinkerbell,” he soothes me.
My head swims from the heat of his body, the heaviness of his hands, and the thick something that lingers in the air. It’s the hint of promise, the weight of a moment that could change the course of my life forever. As if Fate itself is sitting in front of us with popcorn, eyes glued to the TV screen.
I can’t do this.
I can’t.
After everything with Evan…
I’ll never forget the bitterness of rejection. The way my heart shattered when I saw the truth in all its glory—I am not good enough as a girlfriend. I am not good enough as a woman. I am not the kind of girl men find it easy to be faithful to, especially ones like Chance who’ll constantly be surrounded by more dazzling, more sensual and more feminine options.
Breaking away with all my strength, I shake my head.
“No. I… I’m not going to do this with you. I want to break the contract. I can’t do this. I won’t.”
“Good. I was thinking the same thing,” he says.
I nod stiffly. “I’m glad we’re in agreement.”
As I turn away, Chance pulls me closer. His lips chase mine down like a predator to a prey.
I don’t have time to blink, don’t have time to figure out what to do with my hands—whether to push him away or drive him closer.
His kiss deepens, and I respond in kind. Tasting him, matching the rhythm of his mouth’s brutal strokes. My thoughts are drowned out by the harshness of my breath, by the storm of emotions that swell like a raging tide.
It’s so, so wrong…
But it feels so right.
With our lips still connected, Chance walks me backwards. His hands twist my hips, spinning me away from the bookshelf. It’s his back that collides with the column of books.
His mouth disconnects from mine as the entire bookshelf rocks, but my arms and my mouth follow him like magnets, obliterating the distance he created as if I have a personal vendetta with it.
Chance grins against my greedy mouth, slowing down the kiss so he can speak right to my lips. “Still think this is ‘nothing’, Tink?”
“Don’t misunderstand. I’m hating every second of this,” I grind out.
He not too gently twists me around again so it’s my back against the bookshelf. I’m spine to spine with an Ancient Gaelic Language dictionary. And, when Chance holds me tightly and nips on my bottom lip in displeasure, sending a spurt of pain and heat straight to my stomach, I start speaking a Gaelic tongue of my own.
The room is spinning around me.
Chance McLanely’s kiss is literally rocking my world.
Apparently, the bookshelf feels the same way because a sharp slice of pain splits apart all the hot sensations flooding from his mouth to mine.
“Ow!” I scream.
My hands fly to the top of my head and my gaze sails to the ground, taking in the giant book titled Special Species: World Research Edition .
It really did feel like the entire world took a sledgehammer to my head.
“Are you okay?” Chance’s eyes bulge.
I whimper in pain, holding my hand to the center of my scalp. I think the edge of the book nicked a brain vessel. It hurts so much.
“Come over here.” Chance leads me to the center of the library where the light is much brighter. He whisks his fingers into my scalp, gently probing. “I’m sorry, Tink. No matter how good the kissing was, I shouldn’t have pushed you against the bookshelf.”
I can feel my face turning into a full-on tomato. “Seriously? That’s what you’re apologizing for?”
Chance’s lips twitch before he curbs the smile and says solemnly, “I don’t see any blood. Let me get you some ice.”
I scowl at him. “They don’t keep ice in the library.”
There used to be an ice machine left over from the water factory but it broke last summer, flooding the room and ruining hundreds of books.
Unfortunately, Chance doesn’t listen. He insists on leading me through the library and out into the open air.
Then he leads me to the reading gazebo a few paces from the library’s back door.
And what I see there makes me gasp out loud.