Page 22 of Enticing the Enforcer
Ingrid’s apartment is epic.Like, the kind of place you see in glossy magazines stacked on the coffee table in a dentist’s office: exposed beams, huge windows, velvet couches in jewel tones. My teammates are sprawled across them like they own the place, pizza boxes open, with SportsCenter running on the massive flat screen. Reid’s already arguing about defense strategy with Axel, and Nadia is making Shelby laugh so hard she almost spills her drink.
They’re having the time of their lives. Me? Not so much.
I’m sitting there, pretending to care about the highlight reel while my head spins. Ingrid Flockton. In my DM’s. Then at my game. Now inviting us all over like she and I don’t know each other, like I don’t know what her tongue feels like in my mouth.
It’s too much coincidence. Too much silence around what’s not being said and hell, I just want to talk to her again.
The girls spilled most of the story on the way over; how on the day after her concert Ingrid was still in town and came into the Den for dinner. “She ordered the Jefferson Parks Special,”Shelby said with a grin. Shelby is the other Ingrid Flockton fan in the group. We’ve bonded over it a little–like Reid and Twyler and their shared love of murder documentaries. Shelby and the guys know my secret. That there’s a list I carry around with the names of women I want to fuck.
Ingrid is on the top of that list.
“Because it’s amazing,” I’d replied casually, despite the fact I’ve been strung tight since I saw her in the stands.
I’m trying to figure out how to get Ingrid alone when Madison reappears without her. Huh. I take the chance and slip out of the laughter and noise and into the hall. The place feels even bigger back here, ceilings soaring, rooms spilling one into the next. My footsteps echo on the hardwood until I hear something faint–a creak, maybe a shuffle–from a room to the left.
I peer in.
She’s standing there by an antique desk painted this striking teal blue, fingertips brushing along the wood like she’s trying to steady herself.
“Hey,” I say, leaning against the doorway.
Her head jerks up, lavender hair curling down her shoulders. “Hi.”
For a beat we just look at each other. No crowd, no music, no teammates. Just us.
“So this is a surprise,” I say finally.
“I owe you an explanation.” She twists her hands together, a rare sign of nerves. “Madison and I went to grab burgers at the Badger Den the other night, and Shelby was our waitress–”
I hold up a hand, stopping her. “No need to explain.”
“Really?” she asks, eyebrows lifting.
“It’s obvious.”
A wrinkle forms between her brows. “Obvious how?”
I let a grin tug at my mouth, trying to play it off. “You’re obsessed with me.”
Her laugh bursts out, sharp and disbelieving. “Oh my god. You’re absurd.”
“Am I wrong?” I step further into the room, closing some of the distance between us.
Her smile falters just slightly, eyes flicking down to my chest before darting back up. She’d been checking me out earlier when I hiked up my shirt to show Twyler the bruise. Now? Damn, the heat that sparks there almost knocks me on my ass. I want to kiss her again. More than that, I want to press her back against that teal desk, taste her, get answers with my mouth instead of words.
But she’s unreadable, half amusement, half something else I can’t pin down. Is this about me? My teammates? Something bigger I don’t see yet?
The tension stretches, thick enough to choke on.
And all I can think is: I’m in trouble with this girl.
Ingrid is the one to speak first. “That bruise,” she says.
“What about it?”
“I have something for it.” She starts toward the door, and turns, going deeper into the apartment. She stops at a bedroom. Massive. Colorful. Blush pink, more teal, soft green. Pure female,mature, not like the college dorms and tiny rooms in the Shotgun district we live in back at school. I’ve been in a lot of women’s beds, but this one isn’t just different because of the extravagance. It’s different because it belongs to her.
Number one.
