chest. It heaved at her touch.
“Tell me why I shouldn’t be with Tommy, Cal.” If he could give her a reason, something that would give her hope that the limb wouldn’t break under her weight when she crawled out along it …
Tell me there’s more here. Tell me what I’m feeling is real.
“Cal,” she whispered, peering up at him with imploring eyes. “Tell me why I shouldn’t.”
Which is when he kissed her.
And because she was stupidly, ridiculously in love, she kissed him right back.
This was utter madness. But Mia was starting to realize that all things Cal were madness. He drove her crazy and inspired her to do crazy things in return. She couldn’t think straight around him and so she wondered if thinking was overrated. If sanity was overrated.
Madness was the only way forward.
This kiss was the only thing she wanted.
She moaned, as did he. The kiss deepened until she wasn’t sure “kiss” could adequately describe it. This was kiss-plus, a conflagration, a storm battering her senses, a distilled point of need to this precise moment in time. The only moment that mattered.
That pulled her up short and she inched back to grasp onto some semblance of balance. Kisses were wonderful but you had to back them up with real words and honesty.
It was time for straight talk.
“Why did you do that?”
“Because it was the only thing I could do.”
She stared at him, willing him to make sense, to tell her the why and not just the what. When he remained as perplexing as ever, she put a finger to her kiss-swollen lips, hoping that might reveal something about his intentions. Because the man himself appeared to have clammed up.
“That’s not good enough.”
She was still annoyed with him over his high-handed interference in this Selena Fabien business. How dare he try to solve that when she had explicitly told him what she needed from him? His friendship and support, without judgment.
His objection to Tommy probably stemmed from some caveman biological imperative, a feeling of ownership over the female you last slept with. But beyond that transitory notion of possession, she saw no evidence that Cal actually wanted her. He didn’t get mad about that online post. About how Bethany cheated on him. She was finally seeing the Cal Foreman philosophy in action, the one that kept his heart intact and his life hassle-free. Easy come, easy go.
Something shifted in his expression. “Where is he now? Is he waiting for you?”
She assumed he meant Tommy. She could tell him there was nothing between her and her brother’s agent, that she’d searched her heart for some connection between them but it had failed to materialize—not like the threads she thought were growing stronger with every minute in Cal’s presence.
“Probably.”
His eyes flashed, a brief millisecond when she thought he’d tell her she had it all wrong. He wanted her, only her. He would fight for her. He loved her.
But then those same eyes went hard and flat. Lifeless. “Then don’t let me stop you from fulfilling the master plan.”
Her heart cracked at that lazy tone, the message clear.
Class dismissed.
Cal Foreman stepped around her and walked away.
27
Cal was having a bad dream.
Someone was chasing him on the ice, but not in a hockey arena. More like a lake. He was dressed in his old Royals uniform and he was racing across a frozen Tundra while someone—something—nipped at his skates.
He couldn’t see his pursuer. That had to mean something.
Inner demons, perhaps, typical dream symbolism. He became aware of it, the fact of dreaming, while he skated. That awareness should have eased his fear, but it didn’t.
A figure appeared up ahead, getting larger and sharper as he skated closer. Another skater.
Mia.
His adrenaline spiked, his heart on fire. He skated toward her, waiting for her to come into focus as he got closer, but no. She stayed the same. He knew he had to reach her before whatever was behind him did. And then she was gone, and all that was left was an empty, icy wasteland. All that was left was the fear.
He woke up with a start, feeling unmoored and alone. The word that came to mind was bereft.
Two hours later, Cal entered the locker room at the Rebels practice facility, hungover for the first time since he was in college. He rarely drank to excess, but last night seemed as good a night as any to put a few away and then some.
His early morning meeting with Harper—which she shifted to 8 a.m.