Page 33 of Matched By My Rival
Biting down on my lips, heart rabbiting, I decided to push a little.How about some foresight then. Meet me tonight?
Quickly, lest I scare him off, I added,It can be as friends. I just want to put a face to the name.
I stilled, roller in hand, as I waited for an answer.
“Why aren’t you working?” Simon’s voice came from just behind me, close enough his breath gusted over my neck. It startled me, making me jump, and I whirled toward him without thinking. My mind was on the phone in my right hand, not the paint roller in my left.
As I turned, I smacked it right into his right shoulder, then my movement carried it in a downward diagonal toward his left hip.
For a second, we both stared at the mint green streaking across his pale blue T-shirt. When he looked up, he was glaring, and I almost wished he still wore the sunglasses. Instead, they held back his hair, only intensifying his stern look.
“What. The. Fuck. Reed!”
I cringed a little, grinning awkwardly as I hastily put down the roller. “Oops?”
“Oh, you’re so dead,” he said.
I flinched, closing my eyes. Waiting for a punch. Instead, cold, wet goo trickled over my head. I gasped, eyes flying open.
Simon stood smirking, shaking the paint roller over my head.
“My fucking hair!” I shouted, outraged. Simon laughed, sounding the definition of evil—and that’s when I lost all good sense.
Stooping, I scooped my hands through the paint in the tray andflungit directly at Simon’s smug, arrogant face.
* * *
SIMON
Oh, hell no.
I dodged as Parker flung paint at me, turned my wrist, and swiped my paint roller down his front. I may have been a smidge too aggressive, knocking him back against the house he’d just been painting. His eyes widened, that indignant expression on his face once more, as paint soaked into the back of his T-shirt while I streaked the front.
“You fucker!”
There was something about that look that sent exhilaration through me. We’d been through the wringer, Parker and me. I’d punched him and lost everything; he’d wallowed in the mud for me, accepting a punishment he probably didn’t really deserve. But nothing compared to this moment. Parker wasn’t the kind of guy to ruffle easily. He always wore a stupid grin and acted as if nothing fazed him.
I’d always wondered, what the hell would it take to wipe that smirk off Parker’s face?
Well, now I knew. Paint in the hair. Paint on the clothes.
He lifted his hands, maybe to push me away, and I slapped more paint over his palm. He retaliated by reaching for my hair, but I caught his wrist. For a moment, we both strained, locked in a struggle for dominance.
I kept him from reaching my hair, but his palm slapped against the side of my neck, just under my jaw.
“Oh good, I can finally strangle you,” he muttered.
I laughed in spite of myself. I liked this side of Parker, this aggressive, determined edge I’d never seen before—even on the football field.
His hand twitched against my neck, as if he reallymightstrangle me. I had the strangest urge to encourage him to do it.
Our eyes locked, his a bright blue. Sometimes blue eyes could look cold, but never Parker’s. Usually his were light, fun, playful. Never serious. Just now, though? They burned into me, intense and questioning.
There was the sound of an engine pulling into the drive. It broke me from our stand-off, and I jerked back, knocking his hand from my neck as if his touch had offended rather than confused me. My nerves still sparked under my skin.
“What are you guys doing? That’s wet paint!”
Parker and I both glanced down at our clothes as Cooper approached, trailed by Trace. But it soon became apparent that he wasn’t concerned with our paint-stained clothing and skin, but the mess we’d made against the side of the house.
