Page 262 of Forbidden Billionaires: Vol. 11
I walked into my room and collided, bowl first, with something hard. I went to scream, but someone clamped their hand over my mouth.
“Shhh,” Axel said. “It’s just me.” His other hand landed on my waist.
I looked up at Axel as the ice cream smushed onto his shirt and the bowl fell to the floor. The ice cream had melted quite a bit during my conversation with my mom and it just went everywhere.
My heart was beating so fast that I could feel it in my throat. He’d scared the shit out of me. And I was having a hard time calming down when his hands were on me. I tried to step back, but for just a second, his fingers tightened on my hip.
“Did you just throw pudding at me?” Axel asked with a laugh and removed his hand from my mouth. His other hand slowly fell from my waist. “You’ve been spending too much time at Sophie’s.”
He had no idea. “No, it was ice cream. I...” Why was I explaining myself to him?Heshould have been explaining himself tome.“What the heck are you doing here?” I was having a hard time catching my breath.
“We had plans to meet up.”
“Hours ago, Axel.” I wasn’t an idiot. Liam had gotten home from practice before dinner. And what the heck? Had my dad or Liam let him in? And if so...why hadn’t they called for me? “And how did you even get in here?”
“I snuck in through the hole in the floor.”
What?!“Axel, what were you thinking?! Use the front door next time.”
“I remember you specifically asking me on Friday to sneak in through the secret entrance.”
I opened my mouth and closed it again. “Someone could have seen you. We haven’t fixed the hole yet and I don’t want to be grounded again.”
“I was careful. I don’t want you to be grounded either. Because if you remember our conversation about you asking me to come hang out with you by sneaking through your new getaway door, you’ll also remember that I said I wanted you at my first game of the season.”
I glared at him. He seemed to remember so much about that conversation. Except for the important thing. When I’d told him I saved my first kiss for him and he didn’t have any reaction.
Axel picked up the bowl of ice cream off the floor. He leaned down to grab my phone next, but I quickly got to it first.
The last thing I needed was for him to see the text I’d just sent. I held my phone to my chest.
“What?” he asked. “Something on there you don’t want me to see?”
I laughed awkwardly. “No.”
He smiled. “If you say so.” And then he started to pull his ruined shirt off.
I watched as his abs were exposed. It was like the video footage of the locker room I’d watched yesterday. And yeah, today too, sue me. But he looked even better in real life. His long lean muscles were tan from his time at the beach this summer. I didn’t think he’d ever looked better.
He walked over to my computer and put his hand on the back of my chair. His varsity jacket was draped there. I thought he was going to say something about it, but instead he leaned down to look at my computer screen. “Why do you have a copy of the varsity football roster?”
What? Crap!Why had I left that open?
Axel grabbed the mouse. “And why is it sorted based on height?”
“It’s for a...research project.”
“What research project?”
“Something with Sophie.”
“For which class?”
“None of your business.” It was the only thing I could think of to say.
“As team captain, it kind of is my business. You have all their phone numbers too? Why do you have all this personal information?”
I folded my arms across my chest. “You’re acting like we stole the list or something. Obviously we didn’t do that. We got it legally.”
