Page 95 of Cross Checked
I looked at him. “That’s all you’re going to say?”
“You said it changed things. I agree.”
“Wow. Big emotional contribution from the human-interest subject.”
His mouth curved. “Keep going. You clearly have something you need to work out.”
I inhaled slowly. “I can’t date you.”
Cade did not move.
Not even a flinch.
Which was annoying because I had emotionally braced for some kind of reaction, and instead he just looked at me with that intense, unreadable focus like he had already expected this and was waiting to see how far I’d take it.
“I’m serious,” I said.
“I’m listening.”
“No, you’re doing that thing where you look calm, but I know there’s an entire war council happening behind your eyes.”
“That’s also called listening.”
“Cade.”
His gaze sharpened slightly at his name. “Say it, Pip.”
The nickname hit too gently for the conversation and too possessively for my nervous system.
I crossed my arms, more armor than attitude. “I can’t be some hockey player’s girlfriend. I can’t do the schedule and the attention and the girls and the rumors and the whole campus treating my relationship like spectator sport. I can’t sit around waiting for a man whose entire life is built around being wanted by everyone and chosen by his sport first. I know that sounds unfair, but I know myself, and I know this world. I know what it does to women who think they’re different enough to survive it. And I know what it does to men when they realize they are nothing without it.”
His jaw flexed once, but his voice stayed even. “And you think that’s what I’d do to you?”
“I think you’re twenty-two, hot, rich, worshipped, headed somewhere bigger than this town, and used to getting what you want.”
His mouth twitched, but it wasn’t amusement this time. “I am used to getting what I want.”
The honesty of that slid through me, hot and inconvenient.
I lifted my chin. “Exactly.”
“And what do you think I want?”
The kitchen went quiet.
My pulse jumped because that was the dangerous question, and he knew it. I could see it in the way he leaned there, calm and cocky and too controlled, letting the silence stretch until I had to either answer or admit I was afraid to.
I looked away first. “Me.”
His voice dropped. “Look at me when you say that.”
My breath caught. I looked back. “Me.”
His eyes darkened. “Good. Now keep going.”
I swallowed hard and forced my hands to stay folded against my ribs. “I’m not saying I don’t want you. That would be ridiculous after last night.”
“Very ridiculous.”
