Page 103 of The Shake Off

My attempt at hiding a laugh didn’t work, especially when Lowe snorted loudly.

“God, Ace, it’s a good thing you already have a job, because your acting skills need work.”

Ace shuffled his feet and looked down, though not before I saw a smile appear. “Yeah, you got that right.”

Lowe turned to me. “I’ll run up and find Penn. See you back here in five?”

I nodded. “Sure.”

Less than a second after she disappeared up the stairs, Ace grabbed my wrist and tugged me underneath them and out of sight. Thick, strong arms roped around my waist as he pulled me against his sweaty body. I inhaled as deeply as I could; the sense of calm I’d been missing all day had made an appearance.

“Hey, Babycakes. Enjoy the game?”

I nodded. “You should be proud of yourself. You were on fire.”

“It’s because you were watching.”

I chuckled, trying to keep the heat from my cheeks and the nerves from my belly. “No, it was you. All you.”

“We’ll agree to disagree.” He stepped in closer, pushing up the brim of my ball cap so he could look at me properly. “I thought you were going to be in the box, and since I saw you behind the dugout, I’ve wanted to do something.”

I didn’t get the chance to ask what before his mouth found mine. The soft kiss I’d been expecting with the teasing nips he’d learned drove me crazy was gone, replaced by an insistence as his tongue thrust forward and forcefully stroked along mine. It was greedy and desperate. The air became weighted with his sweat and the steam still coming off his hard body as it pressed into me, like he could never have enough.

It was raw, masculine, and simply put, hot as fuck.

I wanted to bury myself in him and inhale until my lungs burst.

His nose ran along my jawline, his hand cupped around my chin so he could take all the time he wanted. I barely had the strength to hold myself up, let alone fight against him gaining more access to my burning skin.

Not that I wanted to fight.

His lips stopped their exploration, and he craned back a little until he was looking directly at me. “Let me take you for a late dinner.”

His gaze was so penetrating that I shrunk back a little; I always thought I’d do well under cross examination but now I wasn’t so sure, and I was having the hardest time concentrating.

“Wh… what?”

“I want to take you for dinner.”

Flashes of those girls in their Ace Watson t-shirts scouring the city for him appeared in my head, and I shook it off. “And get myself beaten up by a load of your girly fan group? No, thanks.”

That cute little smirk of his quirked his lip. “Then let me cook you dinner in a safe house of your choosing.”

Those little curls of anxiety, the ones which had been present for most of the day, began stroking against my belly, curling and twisting and reminding me where I was and what I was doing.

It was on the tip of my tongue to say yes. I wanted to say yes, but somewhere in the back of my head lurked a cloud that would suffocate me if I let it.

I could cope with sex. I could definitely cope with the sex we were having; the mind blowing, delicious, bone melting sex. But dinner was… a step too far. Dinner was intimate, dinner was unnecessary for the purposes of why we were together. Dinner led down a path Ididn’tknow I could cope with.

I shook my head again. “No. No dinner, thank you. Just come over when you’re done here.”

I could have blinked and missed it, but I definitely saw something flash across Ace’s face, and when he smiled a second later, it wasn’t the smile I’d become used to.

“Sure. Coming over always sounds good to me. I’ll meet you at your place in an hour, Babycakes.” He leaned in one last time, and this time the kiss was soft. “I gotta shower.”

I watched him jog down the hallway to the locker room. Parker appeared in the far corner, and Ace threw up a high five and jumped on him. They disappeared, laughing together.

I slumped back against the wall with a deep sigh.

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