Blindsided (36 page)

I look around the quaint street we’re standing on. How have I never been here before? Why have I never bothered to jump on a boat and escape here?

Corey leads me into a two-story, turquoise house that would look out of place anywhere but here. Until you walk inside. Here, it looks like something out of a magazine with two cream leather sofas, a wide-screen TV, and walnut coffee table. A few pictures hang idly on the walls, and my curiosity gets the better of me. I walk to the biggest wall, to a photo of a guy in his teens. There’s a football tucked under his arm and unruly, brown hair flops down into smiling, bright-blue eyes.

“Is this you?” I point to the picture and raise an eyebrow at Corey.

“I should have guessed you’d get it in seconds. Yep, that’s me.” He comes up next to me and his thumb brushes the frame. “I was fifteen, and that was taken right after we won the state championship.”

“So I’m gonna ask a really dumb question now, but how does your picture just happen to be in this house?”

He smiles. “My parents own this place. They came here for their honeymoon and Mom loved it so much that Dad bought her this house. Once a year, right after the season ended, Lottie and I would be shipped off to our grandparents and they’d come here for some time together. Then, before training started, we’d all go as a family.”

“That’s so cool.” I walk along the fireplace, looking at the pictures. “And this is your sister?”

“Yep, that’s Lottie. Nose in a book as it always was.”

“You look alike.”

“I might have to spank you for that.”

I grin at him and step back. “You’re not touching me until you tell me why we’re here, cowboy.”

Corey’s eyes wrinkle with his smile. “All right. But I am touching you.” He steps forward and wraps his arms around my shoulders. I circle mine around his waist and look up at him. “I brought you here because it’s somewhere we don’t have to worry about being watched,” he says in a low voice. “Somewhere we can hide from the media and just be us before we both go to New York for the weekend.”

I squeeze him tight. “You’re the sweetest asshole I’ve ever met.”

He laughs. “Hey, I have my moments.” His fingers brush my forehead as he pushes some hair from my face. “The last few days haven’t been the same. I wanted to bring you somewhere where you can remember that, in the end, all that matters is us. That you, me, us—we’re real to me, Leah. It didn’t start that way, but that’s how it’s finished.”

I swallow. His eyes are intensely focused on mine. I’m trapped by both his gaze and his arms, and I realize how important those words were. How much I needed to hear them. I didn’t even know I needed to—a part of me wanted to, sure, but needing is something else.

And needing something from someone past just their body, whether they care about you or not, is a dangerous thing for anyone else to do.

Needing means you open yourself up to them. Needing makes you vulnerable. Easy to hurt. Easy to break. I don’t do needing, I don’t do vulnerable, and I sure as hell don’t do easy.

Until Corey came along and slowly smashed all of that. Because I care. I care, and he matters. Somewhere between all of our fights and teasing, I started falling for him. It’s been hidden beneath my determination to keep him away and my judgment of him. It’s been hidden beneath what I thought was right but was actually very, very wrong. Slowly, it’s become real, and falling for him has become real, too.

I was vulnerable to him the moment his smooth, soft, Texas accent floated to my ear on my birthday in the bar. I needed him the second his lips touched mine, and the moment the words he just said left him, I became like glass—one touch just a little too heavy and I’ll shatter.

Corey Jackson is my exception in everything.

“And I’ve looked at you and realized that maybe this is too much for you. That I am,” he says just as softly, his fingers curved around the back of my head and holding our faces close. “And that, when we come back from New York, you might walk away.”

“I don’t want to,” I whisper.

“I know, babe.” He kisses me softly. “But just in case. This is for us.”

I bury my face into his chest. I don’t want to talk about leaving him although I know it’s a very real possibility. I was so afraid of him being the weak one when it came to the pressures of having a relationship fully in the public eye, but maybe I’m the one who’s weak.

“F
ish and chips. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the world’s most unromantic meal on the most romantic island,” Leah mumbles, walking off the boat. “It bugs the hell out of me. It should be fries.”

I smirk as I study her. She’s been talking about the ‘chips versus fries’ thing since we walked into the restaurant two hours ago. Never mind that the owners are British or that fish and chips aren’t out of place in America. She’s adamant that it should be fish and fries.

“Leah, it’s just a name.”

“I know, but chips are crunchy and come in packets. Not next to a piece of fish on my plate.” She sighs.

I shake my head and jump in front of her. I take her hands in mine and link our fingers together, pulling her toward me. “Does it matter that much?”

“Well, no.”

“Shut the fuck up about it, then.” I bring my lips to hers. “I can think of plenty of better things you can do with your mouth instead of complaining.”

“Hey.”

“I’m just sayin’,” I say against her smiling mouth. “Don’t tell me you can’t think of anything better to do with mine.”

“I can, actually.” She takes her hands from mine and flattens one of them over my mouth with a loud giggle.

“God, you’re a real comedian.” My words are mumbled into her hand. “I bite, you know.”

“Do you?” She quirks an eyebrow, pulling one side of her mouth up in a suggestive smirk.

“Sometimes.” I nip her hand and she removes it, stepping onto the beach. I wrap my arms around her shoulders from behind and bury my face in her hair, slowly walking with her. Even her hair smells like candy, fresh and sweet.

“Are you sniffing my hair?” Amusement laces her tone.

“It smells the way you taste,” I murmur. “I’m liable to bite now.”

She laughs and wraps her fingers around my arm. “Is that a promise?” She turns her face into mine.

“Do you want it to be?”

“Depends where you bite.”

I love hearing her laugh. It’s soft and warm, the kind of laugh you can’t help but respond to, whether it’s a smile or a laugh of your own. I love that it’s so easy to make her laugh, to put that wide, beaming smile on her face.

“I’ll keep that in mind.” I release her and drop onto the sand. Then I pat the spot between my legs for her to sit.

“Why haven’t you done it before now?” She slowly lowers herself down between my legs and rests her back against my chest, her fingers linking between mine as they rest on her stomach.

“Bitten you?”

“Yes.”

“You want me to?”

“I already told you, cowboy. It depends where you do it.” She taps my hand with her fingers and leans back fully onto me.

“Relaxed?” I ask, kissing her jaw.

“Very. I should have come here before.” She rubs her thumb across the back of my hand. “But I’m glad I’m here now.”

“I go into shock every time you say you’re happy to be somewhere with me.”

“Well, hey now. I didn’t say a thing about you.”

I flip her around onto her back and lean over her. Sparkling, blue eyes gaze up at me, and the smile playing on her lips is a teasing one. She looks like our conversation never happened, that the idea of us being apart was never brought up.

I wish it were true. I wish I could look at her and know I could promise us both always. But it isn’t in my hands. It’s her choice. I can only fight for her to make what I think is the right one.

“That’s what you get when you get all presumptuous,” she teases, tapping my nose.

“It’s hard not to be sometimes. You know you’re here with Corey Jackson, right?” I lower my face, murmuring, “People want me, babe.”

“God.” She shakes her head with a laugh and traces my jaw with her thumb. “Your ability to be an It Boy never ceases to amaze me. You know that?”

“Yep. And every It Boy needs his It Girl.” I close the small distance between our mouths and savor the taste of her. She arches her back so her lips are firmer on mine, so there isn’t an inch of space between us.

She arches her back so her lips are firmer on mine, so there isn’t an inch of space between us. “Secret It Girl,” she reminds me, sinking her hands into my hair.

“Secret It Girl,” I reply, correcting myself, and sit up.

She stays lying down, but she looks up at me, her eyes big and blue and her hair spread on the sand. I reach over and run my fingers along her jaw. They trail down her neck to the curve of her chest, and she shivers when I tease the skin along her bra line.

She sits up and curls into me, hooking her legs over mine. Then she slips her arms around my waist. I feel her take a deep breath and turn her face out to the water, where the sun is setting in the sky.

I breathe her in. All of her. As the sun lowers and her grip on me never loosens, I realize something that should have been clearer than simply believing that I want and need her to be close to me.

I’m falling for this girl.

Fuck anyone who says that you can’t fall for someone in just a few weeks. Love doesn’t have to be a slow simmer. It can be a fast burn that only intensifies over time.

And while I know I’m falling a little more each day, I know I could hit the bottom soon. I know I will. One day, I’ll fall so fucking far that she’ll consume me.

She’s so under my skin that she couldn’t even be cut out with a fucking knife.