Blindsided (10 page)

My pussy clenches at the deepness of the kiss, at the way he controls it so deftly, so powerfully. My heart thuds at the way he hums low into my mouth, the vibrations seeming to flow through my veins.

I’m aching everywhere, just everywhere. I can’t tell my heartbeat from my breath. I can’t tell the adrenaline from the lust. It all mingles until I’m a tingling ball of sensation and my clit throbs painfully.

Corey pulls away and looks me in the eye, breathing heavily. “Don’t ever fuckin’ walk away from me like that again, Leah.”

“Or what?” I reply, putting as much strength into my voice as I can muster.

He touches the tip of his nose to mine. “Or I’ll be forced to fuck you on the spot.”

He closes his mouth over mine once more then untangles his fingers from my hair and stalks over to his car. I watch his powerful stride swallow up the driveway. He yanks open his car door and looks right at me.

“I’ll pick you up at four o’clock tomorrow. Be ready. I hate waitin’.”

“What for?” I shout as he sits in the car.

He doesn’t reply. He simply revs the engine, turns the car around, and drives out.

I watch the white Evoque disappear through the gates and into the darkness, my heart still fighting to break free from my ribs, and let out a long, shaky breath.

I’ve never been kissed that way. Never has someone walked toward me with so much determination and kissed me until I couldn’t breathe.

Never have I been so thrown by a single person in my whole life.

I open the door with a shaky hand and lock it. Mom’s in the kitchen, and she watches as I kick off my shoes, leaving them scattered in the hallway.

“Leah, are you okay, honey? You’re back early.”

“Yeah.” I walk through the room without stopping. “Just have a lot to do for Quinn.”

“All right. Goodnight.”

“Night, Mom.” I run up the stairs and slam my door behind me.

I lean against it and close my eyes. Once again, he made me play his game, and he won. He left me in the dust with a simple demand and wet panties.

I take a deep breath and throw my purse on my bed. I rip my dress over my head and throw an oversized Vipers jersey on before heading to my desk. Then I open Quinn’s file with a smile on my face. I don’t want to play, but I don’t have a choice. Not anymore.

Corey Jackson plays a good game. He knows all the rules, and he isn’t afraid to bend them to his will.

I’m about to break every single rule he’s ever written.

I’m ready to play him at his own game.

S
he tastes like sugar and candy. She tastes like everything that’s good but forbidden, like heaven and perfection. She tastes like fucking
addiction
.

She tastes like something that shouldn’t have a taste, but she’s it. She’s addiction. Even when she isn’t trying to be, she is.

I had to get the fuck out of there last night because the heated glaze over her eyes and the sharp breath she’d sucked in had nearly undone me. The worst thing is that she doesn’t have any idea how sexy she is. She’s oblivious to how tempting she is with her eyes wide and her lips swollen from
my
kisses.

My cock was throbbing for her. It was so hard that it was fucking painful, but I couldn’t stop kissing her. I had to drink her in, touch every inch of her mouth with my lips and tongue¸ feel every fucking sensation she was handing me.

If she had any idea how badly I wanted to throw her into my back seat and drive her to my house, she would have run a mile to get away from me.

But shit. I want to know what makes her tick. What makes her laugh and where the hell she gets her smartass comments. I want to know what turns her on, whether it’s a kiss to her neck or a stroke of my thumb on the inside of her thigh, and I want to try every fucking trick in the book until she’s coming undone in my arms.

I need to know it.

I need to know how she likes to be kissed and how she likes to be teased. I need to know every damn thing about this girl until she’s completely naked in front of me. For all the times she’s tried pushing me away, all she’s done is pull me closer. She’s gone from an attraction, a one-night fling, to the obsessive addiction she tastes like.

And the problem with her being an addiction is that she’s on my mind like one. I can’t throw a ball for shit. I can’t catch it, I can’t pass it, I can’t fucking run it—nothing.

“Pull yourself the fuck together, Jackson! Preseason isn’t the time to turn into a mid-grade player!” Dante yells across the field.

“Yeah, man. What the hell is wrong with you?” Jack glances at me.

“Don’t ask.” I rub my hand down my face and grab the ball. “Can we finish this up?”

“Last run-through,” Coach says into my ear. “Try not to mess this one up too, Corey.”

“Got it,” I reply.

I pass the ball and weave through our own defense team to catch it back. One throw to Jack and he flies into the end zone.

“If only it were that easy in a game,” Jack sighs.

“It’ll be impossible to win unless I figure my shit out,” I mutter to him, heading toward the shower. I have a day and a half to get Leah Veronica out of my system before I turn the Vipers into the laughing stock of the league.

After showering and changing, I drop my bag in the back seat and tear out of the parking lot. I need a damn good run to get this frustration out of me. I turn toward the Hills, breaking the speed limit in my hurry.

Parking, I rest my forehead against my steering wheel and take a few deep breaths. No girl has affected me this way for as long as I can remember. Maybe they never have. Maybe it’s just her.

When I look up, she’s sitting on my doorstep, her eyes fixed on my car. I can see the tightness in her jaw from where I’m sitting, and I know the shit is about to hit the fan. Here comes my ass-kicking for last night.

An ass-kicking right now is dangerous. Real fucking dangerous.

“How did you know where I live?” I ask as I get out of the car.

“This is Hollywood.” Leah stands, her hands on her hips. “You told me to be ready at four o’clock. It’s almost four o’clock.”

“Touché.”

She’s wearing running shorts and shoes, which tells me that she’s here to prove some dumb point. We might as well have this conversation on the go.

“I’m going for a run. Are you coming?” I nod my head in the direction of the street and take off.

“I’m already done, but evidently, I don’t have a choice.” Her steps hit the asphalt hard as she comes up next to me. “What was that yesterday?”

“I don’t know what you mean.”

“Don’t dick around, Corey. You know exactly what I mean.”

“No, I don’t.”

“You’re gonna make me spell it out? Really?”

“Yep.”

“You’re un-fucking-believable, you know that?”

“I have been told that.”

She mutters something under her breath and I glance at her. Her blond hair is pulled up and back from her face, exposing her neck. My eyes graze over it and down her body to her slim figure and the curve of her ass. And her thighs. Those gorgeous, toned thighs I had my hand on last night.

“When you followed me home and kissed the living shit out of me. What was that about?”

“I kissed the shit out of you, huh?” My lips quirk on one side.

“Of course. Of course that would be the part of that you’d hear. Why wouldn’t it be?”

“I wanted to kiss you. Is that a crime?”

“No.”

“Shit. It probably should be though. Do you know I couldn’t throw a ball in practice today?”

“So much for your epic skills.”

“I have epic skills when I’m not thinking about kissing the shit out of a certain blonde.”

“Maybe you should stop thinking, then.”

“When I can still taste your lips on mine? How do you expect me to do that, babe?”

She chews on the inside of her cheek, and I know I’ve caught her off guard. Hell, I caught myself off guard. I hadn’t meant to say that out loud.

“How am I supposed to answer that?” She glances at me.

“However you want.”

We reach the top of the hill, and Leah leans against a tree the way she did the first time we ran together. She lets her hair down, and I look at her properly. She’s wearing no makeup, and she’s probably the only girl I know who can pull that off and still look red-carpet ready. Her long eyelashes, darker than her blond hair, curl over her eyelids, and her pink lips are naturally plump. The pink in her cheeks instantly sends me back to last night when the cause of the flush in them was me.

“You’re infuriating, you know that?” Leah snaps her hairband around her wrist.

“You’ve said something like that before.”

“Have I? I mean it more now. I’m still pissed you followed me home. How fucking dare you pull such an asshole move?” she yells.

“You walk away from me, darlin’, and I’m gonna fuckin’ follow you. Got it?”

She stands up straight and points at me. “I just… Argh!” She turns on me fully now, her eyes ablaze with anger and heat that sear right through me. They’re shining, playing off her flushed cheeks, and her pouting lips are just begging to be covered by mine. “I can’t even put it into words. That’s how angry I am at you! And you know the worst thing? The absolute worst thing?” She pauses. “I’m not even mad that you kissed me. I’m mad you that followed me home. Okay, maybe I am a little mad that you did. I don’t know. Shit! I’m not even making sense. I’m going home before I fling myself into this rock, because it turns out that I have no idea why I’m here.”

She moves and I grab her arm, spinning her into me. I curve my hand around her back and hold her body against mine, trapping her in place. Her hands are flat on my chest, her fingers twitching as she breathes heavily. Her blue eyes are wide and angry and hard as they look into mine.

I run my fingers through her hair to push it back from her face and cup the back of her head, bringing my face close to hers.

“What do you want me to say, Leah? That I’m sorry? ‘Cause I’m not. Not for one single fucking second.”

“I don’t want you to—”

“Do you want me to tell you how I fucked everythin’ at practice today because all I could think about was the way your body felt against mine? How all I could taste was the sweet taste of your mouth? How I’ve touched your silky skin and wished there was nothing between us? How, now that I’ve had more than one taste, I don’t know if I can give it up?” I move my face even closer to her. “Do you want me to tell you how badly I want to rip off your clothes and taste every single inch of your body? How I want to take you to the edge and push you over it until you can’t breathe? Huh? Is that what you want, Leah?”

Her breathing is coming hard and fast through her parted lips, each breath heating my own, making me ache to kiss her again.

“’Cause if that’s what you want, I’ll tell you. I’ll tell you how you’ve driven me fuckin’ crazy for the last day. You’ve driven me fuckin’ crazy since the day I met you. First because you said no and now because I want to fuck you so, so badly.”

“No,” she whispers. “I don’t want to know that. I don’t want to know it because knowing leads to believing, and if there’s one thing a girl should never do, that’s believe you.” She knocks my hand from her head and steps back. My hand falls from her waist. “You’ve had your fun with me, Corey. That’s all it’s gonna be. Do you get that? I’m going crazy because I never know if what you’re saying is true. How do I know that everything you just said is the truth? For all I know, you say that to every girl.”