Page 60 of Kiss Me Tonight

Levi.

Hearing her name heats my blood immediately.

I reach for my hat, then force my hand to veer to the lanyard around my neck.Tweet!I wait for the boys to look my way then shout for them to take a water break.

Their relief is palpable.

My guilt threatens to drown me like quicksand.

“I didn’t actually come out here to reprimand you.”

“No?” With my arms linked over my chest, I watch the boys pile around the watercooler. “I figured you were tired of grounding your kids at home and needed another victim. Is Cody using your condoms as slingshots again?”

Brien’s shoots me a quality-level side-eye. “That wasonetime and he was only four.”

“Didn’t he successfully tip over a glass of milk with nothing but his condom slingshot and a peanut to his name?”

“Once. Just once.”

“Early signs of athleticism, if you ask me. Think about what kinda prospects he’ll have one day with aim like that.”

“Who has good aim?” Levi muses as she cuts over to us, one hand raised to shield her face from the sun. “Your son, Adam?”

The smile she sends my way is no different than her normal ones: bright and cheery and not the least bit intimate. I think of what she told me in the Golden Fleece’s restroom:Don’t ever touch me like you did tonight unless you plan to do something about it.

Last night, with her faintly scarred lips parted and her breathing heavy with emotion, I came damn near close to doing something about it. Came so close to it, even, that when I paused to tell her exactly why I had stopped by, I’d been seconds away from pushing her up against her glass doors and kissing that smart mouth of hers until her breathy moans belonged to me alone.

I wanted to soak up that calm she talked so much about. I wanted to devour her positivity and the hope that coated every inch of her, even when life has clearly tried to beat her down. I wanted, for once, to bare my skin and know that a woman like Aspen Levi would see more than just my nakedness when she looked my way.

Except . . . except she’s got emotional baggage from her ex-husband and clearly I’m all kinds of fucked up in the head. Hooking up with a coworker is a bad idea. Hooking up with a coworker whose son you also coach? Now that’s disaster in the making.

Maine is my calm. Maine is my reprieve. Maineisn’thot sex with a single mom who encourages her kid to play dirty at mini-golf and moans when she eats pizza.

Levi’s hand brushes mine and, fuck me, but I hiss between my teeth at the unexpected contact.

“Don’t mind him,” Brien says to Levi with a dismissive nod in my direction, “all the grumbling he’s doing is on account of stomach problems.” He and I both know my stomach isn’t hurting and he’s only trying to bust my balls for being in a bad mood, not that he seems to give a shit when he blithely adds, “Is it wrong of me to hope it’s painful? DaSilva’s got a crap ton of bad karma to work off.”

Feminine laughter loops around me, tightening the invisible noose circling my neck. “Are you prepared to die waiting for retribution? Something tells me Dominic here has bad karma in spades.”

Her comment hits a little too close to home. And, after last night’s heart-to-heart, it also grates on an already sore wound.

Sharply, before I even think about the words as they escape me, I ask, “Where’s your Wildcat shirt?”

Levi twists toward me, berry lips parted. “Excuse me?”

The asshole in me—the one who despises feeling vulnerable and raw—digs its heels in deeper, refusing to listen to reason and shut the hell up. “Hancock High?” I nod to the tiger mascot printed on her shirt. “What? You weren’t feeling the Wildcat school spirit? Or maybe you’re just regrettin’ your move back home?”

Her nostrils flare. “Jeez, what crawled up your ass and died today?”

“You did.”

Shit, shit,shit!

She gapes at me, and I don’t need to hear her response to know I’ve messed up.And this is why you think before opening your big, stupid mouth.It doesn’t matter that shehasgotten to me today. She’s wreaked havoc on my head, on my thoughts, on my isolated, black heart. “Levi, shit. I’m sorry—”

“Screw off, Dominic.”

“Whoa, whoa, whoa.” Brien shuffles between us, his hands raised like he’s concerned we might go at each other, battering-ram-style. “Enough of that.” He points a finger at me. “Don’t be a jerk.” When he looks to Levi, his expression softens imperceptibly. “Don’t sink to his level, Coach.”

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