Page 176 of My Italian Love Affair

The kind that gets under your fucking skin. The kind thatimprints itself so deep in your mind that you can stillfeelit long after it’s over.

The kind that keeps me awake at night, one hand fisted in the sheets and the other wrapped around my cock, cursing the fact that she’s not in my bed.

And what’s worse? What’s mostinfuriating?

I know she wants me.

Iknowit.

I see it when she looks at me, in the way her eyes flicker down to my mouth even when she’s pretending she’s not thinking about kissing me.

I sense it in the way she argues with me, how she throws herself into every snarky comment like she needs the tension as much as I do.

I hear it in her breath - how it hitches just before I kiss her, how it comes out in shaky little exhales when my hands are on her skin.

I feel it in the way her body moves against mine, in the way she melts into my touch no matter how much she tries to pretend she doesn’t.

She wants this. She wantsme.

But she’s fighting it.

It makes no sense, though.

Shemakes no sense.

Women chase me. They always have.

I don’t wait around for a text. I don’t wonder if someone’s thinking about me.

I don’t fuckingpine.

I rub a hand over my jaw, pacing my living room. I should be getting ready for training. I should be thinking about recovery, about the next game, about my performance.

Instead, here I am - checking my phone like an idiot, my stomach dropping every time I see that it’snother.

It’s bullshit.

It’s a problem.

And problems need solutions.

Because there is no way -no fucking way- I’m letting her slip through my fingers.

I don’t know what her deal is. I don’t know why she’s holding back.

What I do know is that she’s a puzzle I need to solve, and tonight, I plan on getting some damn answers.

Because this isn’t over.

*

I should be high off this win.

I should be celebrating, riding the wave of adrenaline, soaking in the glory of scoring a hat trick in one of the biggest games of the season.

I should be out with my teammates, eating, laughing and basking in the fact that my name is now written even deeper into Roma’s history.

But I’m not.

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