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“What I want doesn’t matter.” My hands turned clammier; my stomach flipped in a way that made me nauseous. “My dad owns your team. I work for your team. You’re their star player and captain. There is no space for anything other than professionalism.”

“Did your dad make you sign a nonfraternization policy? The league doesn’t have one, but some individual teams do.”

“No. I signed nothing like that. But I did sign a code of conduct clause, and in there it specifies things like respect and integrity and conducting myself with professionalism at all times.” I hesitated before I said, “What’s happened between us isn’t professional, Beck. It’s downright naughty.”

“But what you’re saying is that, legally, we’re safe.”

I shook my head. “I never said that.”

“We’re grandfathered in, Jolie. We were a thing way before you signed that clause.”

“Regardless—”

“What about what I want?”

Please don’t say it, Beck. Oh God, please don’t say it.

“You fucking live here now,” he continued. “You’re going to be around me every goddamn day—at the arena, at practice, on our plane.”

“And I’m going to treat you like every other player.” I was doing everything I could to shut off my emotions, folding them into a part of my heart that I wouldn’t ever open. “And you’re going to treat me like?—”

“Like I’ve never seen you naked? Like I don’t know what your pussy tastes like? Like I don’t know all the different ways to make you come?” He slammed the chair down, its legs hitting the wood beneath, making a noise much louder than his voice. “I can’t act as if I don’t know any of those things.”

I sighed. It was that or moan, and I certainly couldn’t do that. “You’re going to have to.”

“Right.” He nodded sarcastically. “And you want me to just listen to my teammates go on and fucking on about you?”

I stared at him, oblivious to what he was talking about. “On and on about what?”

“You still think you’re that girl with barbeque sauce on her face, don’t you? You have no idea how other people see you.”

I silently agreed, the movement of my head coming on slowly. “But what does that have to do with anything? What are they going on and on about?”

“Nothing.”

“Beck—”

“I need to hear you say that deep down in your heart, you honestly don’t want anything to happen between us. That you’re going to be able to work with me every single day of this season and not think of me in any way aside from professionally.”

He walked closer, and when he got to the couch, he got down, kneeling directly in front of me.

My breathing completely stopped.

My thoughts weren’t in a safe territory.

My body was consumed with tingles, jitters moving through me at the speed of light.

But those were still on the surface, and what I was feeling was underneath.

Beck’s attention, presence, gaze—they shrouded me, like I’d pulled a heavy comforter over my head, letting the weight of the down feathers block the light to create this thick, increasing warmth.

That was him.

A build that never let up.

“I need to hear you say you’re going to be able to keep your hands off me. That you’ll be able to look at these fingers”—he hovered them over my knees, but never set them on me—“and my tongue and not think about what they can do to you. What you want them to do to you.”

Every word was a weapon.

Slashing me, cutting me so deep—he knew I was on the verge of bleeding out.

But I had to be strong.

I had to say what was right, whether I believed it or not.

“I’m telling you, Beck”—my lungs screamed even though I was feeding them air—“there is no other choice.”

“What I’m hearing is that you want me to give up?”

I held the back of my neck so my hands weren’t within his reach. “You have to.”

“You really think I’m that kind of guy? One who just walks away. One who doesn’t fight.”

I said nothing.

“Let me tell you something. When I hear things like this, I’m the kind of guy who fights even harder. You’ll see—and, yes, Jolie, you will see because I’m about to show you. It’s game on.”

“Fuck my life,” I groaned as Ginger picked up my call, gripping the steering wheel as though it were the bottle of whiskey I was going to guzzle at some point tonight.

“Are you in the car? Driving home?”

I sighed, “Yep.”

“I stopped at the store and got us some drinks. I figured you could use one. Or a thousand.”

“I love you.”

When I had agreed to move to LA, one of the best parts, aside from having the job of my dreams, was that my best friend wanted to move with me. That we wouldn’t have to live across the country from one another. We looked at apartments together, and she had immediately found a job in finance.

“How did it go? Tell me everything.”

“It went …” I stopped at a red light, my eyes briefly closing.

I didn’t know where the emotion was coming from, but it was burning.

And that burning led to dripping, tears streaking each cheek.

“Nothing he said surprised me. Well, I take that back. The last thing he said before I wiggled my way off the back side of his couch because he was kneeling in front of me—that surprised me.”

“Hold up. You’re saying Beck Weston got on his knees for you?”

Would I ever get that vision of him out of my head?

The way he had looked at me.

The way he had wanted to touch me.

The way the silence had hung between us and I wanted to break it by wrapping my arms around him and kissing him.

That man was dangerous.

I couldn’t be alone with him.

Not until I could trust myself.

If I’d ever be able to trust myself …

“I guess he did,” I replied. “But it wasn’t exactly like that … I don’t know … maybe it was. Fuck .”

“What did he say that surprised you?”

I used my arm to wipe the other side of my face, my thumb tapping the steering wheel. “He basically said I was telling him one thing and showing him something entirely different.”

“Of course you were. You’re in love with the man. You can’t hide that in the way you look at him.”

My head shook, sending a tear straight to my lips. “But I have to, Ginger. I can’t have these feelings for him. If Dad found out, he’d fire me. And if the team found out, they’d never look at me the same. I can’t gain him and lose everything else.”