3. Kirin #2
“I don’t think you give a shit about my sister hating you, or being seen with me.
” He leaned back on his heels, and his smirk slipped into a grin when her eyes narrowed.
If she wasn’t careful, he was going to mess with her just to see her reaction.
It was far too much fun. “At least not worried about the team seeing us together. I think you’re worried about something else. I just need to figure out what it is.”
When she blinked, he knew he’d hit it on the head and almost laughed at the series of emotions that fluttered across her face. Annoyance and frustration were the most obvious, but there was something else he couldn’t pinpoint.
“Laurel—”
“My sister won’t be an issue,” he said, and she shook her head.
Movement behind her had his attention shifting long enough to shake his head at one guy when he tried to approach. The hope on the guy’s face snuffed out, along with the attention she’d gained from a few other people.
There were a lot of perks to being a known entity on the Montgomery campus.
He thought he’d exhausted all of them, but this was a new one.
The knowledge that nobody was going to approach her because he’d shown interest was archaic, but he still enjoyed it.
Mostly because he liked the idea of claiming her.
It was a problem.
A big one.
“You don’t get it.” She rubbed a hand over her face.
“I don’t know if there’s anything else going on between you and your team outside of transferring from Westmont and breaking Laurel’s nose last year, but like I said, I’ll handle my sister.”
“First off, transferring wasn’t exactly my choice, but this was the best option.
I wish people would stop acting like I’ve done something to them personally by turning my entire life upside down.
” She poked him in the chest, her eyes lighting up with that defiant fire again when she added another finger.
With a firm push from her, he stepped back, her blunt nails digging into his sternum.
“And second, that was an accident. It’s not my fault the Montgomery pitch becomes a mud pit with the slightest splash of water because the drainage sucks or that she somehow forgot that women’s soccer is often an aggressive contact sport. ”
He glanced down when she added a third finger, still pressing into the center of his chest. His focus was on the warmth her hand was creating against his skin through his threadbare shirt.
A few students walked by, eyeing the obvious standoff.
He offered them a lame smile, waving a hand as if this was all normal even as their conversations halted, then picked up double time when they passed by.
“We should move this to somewhere more private.” He decided when he caught a few people looking back at them and their eyes dropped to her ass. His body tensed, and he tried to shrug it off.
She opened her mouth, probably to argue with him, but Kirin closed his hand around her fingers and tugged her after him. Was he being a Neanderthal about not wanting to share her? Yes. Did he know why? No.
The choked sound that came out of her was followed by a growled “let go,” so he held on a little tighter, worried she’d wiggle free and gain more attention.
At this moment, he wasn’t giving her an option.
He didn’t want anyone else checking her out around him.
He was definitely going full Neanderthal on her, and dragging her down the hall hunting for an open, empty classroom only highlighted it.
He tried three before he found one and yanked the door open, pushing her ahead of him so he could close the door behind them. He leaned against it as she whirled on him.
“Do not manhandle me like that ever again,” she growled in his face, those fingers pressing into his chest again. This time, he curled his hand around her wrist, loose enough that she could pull away, as he slid his hand up her arm.
It felt good to touch her, and he wasn’t sure what to do with that.
But it stopped her from growling at him, which was an improvement.
Her brain seemed to stutter at being touched.
He was doing the same. With one exception, there was no woman he’d ever met that he thought about for more than a day.
This was dangerous. He should run in the opposite direction.
Should.
And yet.
“What’re you—” Her breath hitched, her brows furrowing again, but she didn’t pull away. Her eyes lifted to his for half a second before dropping to where they were touching. She swallowed, cleared her throat, and asked, “What’re you doing?”
Her voice was wobbly, full of uncertainty and trepidation.
“Distracting you,” he answered, watching her carefully when he asked, “Would you like me to stop?”
Rose was still watching, a little dazed, as she blinked up at him.
“Would you like me to stop touching you?” he asked again. Keeping his voice calm as he rubbed his thumb along her pulse, over the tattoo of two uneven half circles with dots in the middle. “Are these tits?”
“What? That’s not—” She glanced down and yanked her hand away, crossing her arms over her chest. “Don’t touch me.”
Kirin held his hands up, waiting for her to step back, but she didn’t move. She just stared at him, so he pulled his backpack around until it was between them and yanked the zipper open. He tugged out a few papers until he found the project packet.
“Can we talk like actual adults now?” He held up the papers, letting her focus on that as he sidestepped and leaned over the professor’s desk at the bottom of the lecture hall.
“We need to think about this project and what social experiment we are going to pick. That’s all we need to discuss for now. ”
There was silence, and he kept staring at the sheet, waiting for her to engage or leave. It took another second or two, but then she was there. A quiet breath whooshed out of him. She stepped beside him and mirrored his stance over the table with a sigh. “What’re our choices?”
“It says we can do one of the options listed or an alternative. Either way, we have to defend our choice and outline the entire project proposal to submit by next week.” He looked over the options.
“Suggestions are: examining how couples view their relationship versus how others perceive them, conforming to group pressure, testing helping behavior, exploring initial attraction, or observing how people categorize themselves.”
“Okay, so we need to decide on a direction and meet to get it written out. What’s your schedule like?
” she asked, pulling the packet out from under his hand and looking it over.
“Why is this project so much of our grade? It says we can earn up to two percent in extra credit if we do something not on the list or take an approach that incorporates two or more experiments, but we have to have definitive proof of an outcome outlined and available for our midterm before the fall break, then be able to prove further data for our final.”
“This class only meets once a week. That’s why it’s so much of our grade,” he groaned. “Damn, I hate when they do that.”
“Dumb,” she agreed, then looked up at him. “Schedule? What’s yours like?”
“It’ll change after Thanksgiving, but until then I have Wednesdays after seven and Thursday nights after eight?” He shrugged. He could mention Saturday nights after the games, but those were reserved for partying, so those weren’t really an option if he wanted to blow off steam this semester.
“I can do tomorrow after nine.” She winced as she pulled a planner out of her backpack. “Actually, nine thirty would be better.”
“We can meet at nine thirty, if that’s better for you,” he answered.
“Thanks,” Rose said as she flipped through her planner until she got to what she was looking for.
A glance at the page showed the current week just as she leaned over the desk, allowing for a nice look at the slope of her back to her round ass.
By the time she looked up, his attention was back on her face. “Where should we meet?”
“Well, you know where my place is, so that’s an option.”
“Neutral territory,” she insisted.
“Right, do you know where St. James Sweets—” He stopped when her brows lifted and another potential puzzle piece clicked into place. “Are you related to Paulie?”
“She’s my aunt. I know where it is.” She wrote some notes in her planner, her loopy handwriting hard to read from where he stood, but she dragged her pen down on Wednesdays from nine thirty to midnight. She didn’t look up when she asked, “Why are you on a first-name basis with my aunt?”
“She was my employer for most of high school.”
“Got it.” She wrote another note and then pulled the packet back in front of her. “I’m not doing helping behavior. Initial attraction is also off the list, and people’s relationships aren’t any of our business, so that’s out, too.”
“So, group pressure, categories, or other,” he finished, and she tilted her head back and forth as if she were considering.
“I vote other. I’ll do some research and see if I can find another option because these will not get us extra credit.”
He nodded. “Fine with me.”
Rose flipped her planner closed, pausing when he put out a hand. “May I?”
“Sure?” She handed over her planner at the same time he reached for the pen, the weight reminding him of the ones his mom had on her desk.
He flipped through the pages, trying not to focus on the clean pages from January through March.
The sheer lack of notes had an odd weight settling in his stomach, but he didn’t dwell on it.
He kept flipping until he got to the crowded pages of April, then the alarming, chaotic mess that was summer, notes and overlapping handwriting packed onto each page.