Page 124 of Out of Bounds

A heavy pause followed, and when I glanced up, Ryan was gazing down at my hands, twisted together on my lap. A beat skipped between us. His breathing slowed. I could feel it. Slowly, he reached down and carefully picked up my wrist so gently, I couldn’t breathe.

He stared. "What isthis?"

"What’s what?" I twisted my wrist in his grasp to see what he was talking about. "Ryan, that’s not even close to yours."

The bruise on my wrist wasn’t even deep, or big, or looked like it throbbed like Ryan’s. Yet from the way his voice darkened, you would’ve thought my arm had been sliced open.

He wasn’t looking down at me anymore. His eyes were fixed on the door. Smoldering honey. Hardened honey. "Kassie, who did this to you?"

"Ryan…"

"Tell me. Now."

"It doesn’t matter." I shook my head. "It’s not a big deal. He was just shitty. I’m pissed off that I missed watching your game."

"Hedid that?"

I had to get him on to another topic. "Give me the goods, did they film the punch?"

"You’re trying to makemefeel better." He shook his head, still taut. "And you’re the one that got hurt."

"It’s a tiny bruise, Ryan."

"I’m going to fucking kill him," he growled.

Pulling away from him was an awful necessity but it needed to be done. I shifted back to look up at him. "No, the fuck you won’t. You’re team captain. You’re going pro. You’re not doing any stupid shit, especially because of me."

"Hehurtyou," Ryan said, eyes blazing.

"And? People are going to hurt people. It happens."

"That can’t happen toyou."

"You can’t protect me from everything, Ryan," I told him flatly.

His reply was swift. "Yes, I can."

I was two seconds away from breaking it down to him, how precarious his position was, and how, above everything else, he couldn’t do something as dumb as going after a man who honestly wasn’t worth the effort, but I didn’t get the chance.

Ryan’s hand slipped to the back of my neck, drawing a shiver out of me before I even realized what was happening. Those dark honey eyes of his trailed over my face for a long moment. His breathing slowed. Same as mine. It was the only sound in the room. The only one beyond the blood pounding in my ears.

All of the angry, spitting fire in me died down to embers until I was just a girl, sitting next to a boy, all alone on a couch.

He dipped down, just inches away from me, hesitant. His fingers tightened on the back of my neck and he leaned down even farther, brushing his lips against mine.

All of my defenses folded.

They packed house, not even lingering behind. I closed my eyes, washed away by the electricity between us, the tension that acted like live wires beneath my skin, and kissed him too.

He made a low noise at the back of his throat and I was in heaven.

The next kiss was harder. More insistent. His fingers didn’t knot in my hair, he fisted my hair. He tilted my head to the side, deepening the kiss, taking me to this spine-tingling place I’d never been before until I could barely breathe. Even then, he didn’t stop kissing me.

It was a wild, raw side of Ryan I’d never seen before. He could be so damn demanding but I’d never experienced it likethis. Ryan didn’t ask for another kiss, he took it, and pushed for more, yanking me close.

God, just keep kissing me.

All at once, he was there, in every corner of my vision and my senses, taking everything he could from me, and then he was gone, breaking away to retreat to the other side of the couch.

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