Page 211 of Out of Bounds

“Hey…” he trailed off.

“Thanks so much for delivering.” I held out my arms.

“Can…uh…someone else…?” His eyes flicked behind me and I glanced back, to see Ryan standing there. Turning back to the pizza delivery guy, I couldn’t understand his hesitation.

I frowned. “I can just take it.”

“Yeah, I don’t want to mess with your off-limits tag.”

“The what?” I blinked.

Suddenly, the guys were up close with me and grabbing for the pizza while I was corralled off to the side, confused. There was that expression again. I’d heard it a couple of times but I never had someone outright say that it was somethingIhad.

I pushed between the guys. “What’s an off-limits tag?”

The delivery guy made a noise at the back of his throat and when Ryan passed him off the tip, he shoved it in his pockets, and took his exit down the hallway.

With narrowed eyes, I glanced back at my boyfriend.

Suspiciously quiet.

“Ryan?” I pressed.

He placed the pizzas on the counter, silent. More silent than usual.

“I’ve heard it too,” Zariah said. “Some of the hockey players were talking about it.”

"Ryan. Whatisan off-limits tag?" I put my hands on my hips. When he didn’t say anything, I turned my attention to his teammates, who were looking so guilty, they might as well have held up signs stating it. “Ryan. Whatisan off-limits tag?”

He finally shifted back. “It’s what it sounds like.”

I stared at him for a moment, thinking about it. Off-limits as in—what?

“Like…no one can…sleep with me?” I asked, mildly irritated that I needed a chastity belt around campus.

“No.”

“Well, that’s what it sounds like.”

“No one can touch you.”

I blinked. “Touch me like what? Like atall?” The second I said it—those ridiculous, over the top words—the less I believed it at all. “Ryan, there’s forty-thousand students at MU. You couldn’t possibly enforce that.”

He raised his eyebrow. “Has anyone touched you this semester?”

“Holy shit…” Zariah gasped. “Girl, that’s why the lines atGianna’sare so fast when you’re around.”

“That’s how we get quick drinks at the bars,” Adam instantly agreed.

King chuckled. “It’s why Tyler Michelsen doesn’t use the main gym anymore.”

“Tyler who?” I frowned. “I don’t even know who that is.”

“You don’t need to.” Ryan shrugged. “He’s a basketball player that kept leaving those little faces with hearts under your pictures. I had to have a talk with him about it.”

“What’s that supposed to mean? You put an off-limits tag because you don’t trust me?”

“I put that tag on you from the firstpractice,” Ryan informed me and my blood heated from the intensity of his stare. “And it’s not you I don’t trust. It’s them. I don’t need some guy to shoot his shot in public and force me to do something stupid.”

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