Page 61 of Stags

“You liked it?” She shook her head. “You couldn’t have.”

“It was kind of cute,” he said with a shrug. “You were so solemn about it. So obviously wrong and so serious. You really thought you were right and you had given a lot of thought to it, and you don’t get a lot of people who are willing to accept that about themselves and just carry on. I likedthat.”

This, shamefully, made tears spring to the back of her eyes. She had to work hard to swallow them. She didn’t want him to see how she was overreacting to one stupid compliment. It was only… it was maybe the best compliment she’d ever gotten.

He let go of her hand. “Sorry.”

“No, you don’t have to—” She reached for his hand again.

He had already moved his hand halfway across the table, but he stopped moving it.

They gazed at each other.

His hand lurched toward hers.

And the waitress was there with plates full of burritos, and they both sat up straight on their sides of the booth and stared at their food and not each other.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

ATHOS WATCHED HERcome back off the field. He sat in the corner, in the shadows, staring at her like a pervy stalker guy, except for the fact that stalkers don’t usually get to actually fuck the women they’re stalking, and he had definitely fucked her. Twice.

Damn it, though.

Was this leftover swan bond shit? Was that it? Was he now doomed to be a bird about everything, and the minute he stuck his dick in a woman, he’d fall in love with her?

No, just fuck her out of your system,he told himself.Just go out there for the evening run tonight and fuck someone else.

The evening run was around seven o’clock tonight, not like Friday’s midnight run, so it would begin in the light and darkness would descend and then everyone would have the chance to be in bed early and check out in the morning.

Sure, there was a morning run on Sunday, but he wasn’t sticking around for that.

So, anyway, yeah, he could do that, couldn’t he?

Fuck someone else, and whatever weird devotion he was feeling starting to form towards her would go away.

It couldn’t work, anyway.

He didn’t like women like her, and she thought he was a completely different sort of man than he actually was.

He watched her, though, watched her coming back in with her clothes a little dirty and her hair mussed and her mouth all red and she looked just-fucked and prettier for it, or was that because he’d done the fucking?

She wasgorgeous.

Wait, why was she stopping?

Shit, she’d seen him?

Was she coming over here?

He got to his feet, embarrassed but sort of excited, too. He liked being near her. He shoved his hands into his pockets. He traced a pattern on the floor with the toe of his shoe.

“You have lunch plans?” she said.

He slowly raised his gaze to hers. “You asking me on a date?”

“No,” she said. “After you said you didn’t have plans, I planned to say that was too bad, and then just walk off. Because, you know, I’m a stone cold bitch and all, right? That’s what you think of me?”

“No, that’s not what I think of you.” He thought he wanted to see her without her clothes again. He thought he wanted to put his mouth on her again, all over her. He thought… “Come to lunch with me.”

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