Page 98 of Dating Goals
“I don’t owe you explanations.” She tilts her chin up defiantly.
“No. You don’t get to push me away anymore.” I lean in. “I nearly died on a train this morning, and you know what flashed before my eyes? Not hockey. Not my career. You. Just you.”
Her eyebrows shoot up. “You whaaat?!”
“Someone tried to kill me,” I say, noting how her eyes flicker with concern. “And all I could think was that I never got to tell you how I feel.”
“And…how do you feel?” she asks, her voice carefully neutral.
I brush a strand of hair from her face, my fingers lingering against her cheek. “Like I’ve been guarding a net my whole life, and you just scored right through me.”
She rolls her eyes, but I catch the slight upward tug at the corner of her mouth. “That’s the cheesiest hockey metaphor I’ve ever heard.”
“I’ve got more where that came from.” I move even closer. “You’re mine, Anika.”
Her breath catches. “I am not yours. I am not anyone’s.”
“Yet,” I add. “But I’m a patient man. I’ll wait.”
“There’s nothing between us. Just air.”
“Oh really?” I lean impossibly close, my mouth inches from her ear. “Your body said otherwise when I kissed you. The way you melted against me, the little sound you made in the back of your throat…That wasn’t nothing.”
She flushes pink to the roots of her hair. “Griffin!”
“I’m not letting you walk away again without hearing me out.”
Her gaze flickers to the poker table, then back to me. “This really isn’t the place for this conversation.”
“Then let’s go somewhere else. Right now.”
“I can’t just leave.”
“Why not? What’s keeping you here? Him?” I gesture toward Durand again, letting my anger rise.
“You,” she says cryptically.
“I’m done playing games, Anika.” My voice is firm, possessive. “I need you alone.”
She rolls her eyes and turns back to the bar.
“No, not like that. Well, yes like that, but more importantly so I can explain everything. The helicopter, the gala…None of it was what it seemed.”
She looks up at me, her expression guarded. “Then what was it?”
“Not here.” I glance around. “Let’s go up to my room.”
She snorts. “So you can spin me more stories? I’m not naive, Griffin.”
“No, you’re not. You’re the smartest woman I’ve ever met. That’s why I need you to trust me just a little longer.”
Anika shifts her gaze back to the poker table. “You should go.”
“Not until you tell me what’s going on,” I say, my voice low and fierce. “That guy doesn’t deserve you. He doesn’t even know you.”
“Griffin…”
“Tell me I mean nothing to you.” My voice comes out louder than I intend.
