calculating way that he’s looking at me, my witchy heart is still beating like a drum.
My stupid belly is still fluttering and when he finally looks up to my face and licks his lips in that new way of his, I clench my thighs.
I curl my toes.
“So I have a proposition for you,” he whispers with hooded eyes.
“What proposition?”
“I’ll help you with your soccer, if you help me with mine.”
“Help you how?”
“Be my distraction.”
“Distraction.”
He nods and somehow his scent has become thicker and the space around me has grown darker.
It’s like he’s blocking all the light with his big chest and dousing me in his musky, delicious scent.
He’s dousing me in himself like he’s gasoline and I have no choice but to drip, drip, drip with his scent.
“Yeah, distraction. My rebound girl. You know everything about me. You know I’m angry and I’m hurt and I’m upset. You know I can’t play when I’m like this. So why not? Besides, you ruined it for me, the other night. It’s only fair that you make it up to me now. What d’you say? Want to be my rebound girl, Salem?”
My belly clenches when he says my name on a whisper.
On a thick, rough whisper that rolls down my spine like the beads of sweat his heat is causing.
“I need to…”
Think. Leave. Get away. Throw myself at you.
My brain is short-circuiting right now.
All the wires, all the nerves in my body are coming loose and getting tangled up with each other, firing off like crazy.
And his next words do not help at all. “Come on, you looked pretty jealous back on the soccer field. You didn’t think I’d notice? I saw the way you were all outraged. It was pretty funny actually. I’m not into schoolgirls but they’re fun to play with. You are fun to play with. Plus as I said, girls have always found me irresistible and I know you’re not immune. So if you have a little crush on me, no one would blame you. Especially not now. I’m not with your sister anymore. This could be your turn. Your golden fucking chance.”
My turn.
This could be my turn.
He’s right.
I was jealous. And now I know that he was flirting with those girls to provoke me.
I do have a crush on him, only my crush feels like love, big and doomed. All consuming.
It is love.
It has been love for years. For eight miserable years when I’ve cried in my pillow, written him secret letters, pined for him, longed for him, watched him.
Because he was in love with someone else. He was in love with my sister.
But he’s not with her anymore, is he?
I know I promised myself that I’d stay away from him and keep him safe from my advances.
But he’s the one suggesting it and he’s in pain and…
And then, I’m not thinking anything at all because he’s touching me again.
The thumb that he was moving back and forth on my belly is now on the corner of my mouth.
Arrow uses that rough thumb to trace the curve of my lower lip that’s started to tremble. My whole body starts to tremble when he tugs my lip, making me part my mouth.
Making me arch my back and get pulled toward his body.
“Not to mention, this could be your revenge.” He tugs harder at my lip and I go up on my tiptoes. “I know your relationship with your sister is complicated. Has been for years. Maybe you could get even with her. We both could. All you have to do is say yes.”
He’s still swiping his thumb back and forth, still looking down at me with blazing eyes, and my body is still straining toward him like a lovesick fool.
Maybe that’s why it takes me a second to understand his meaning.
Revenge on my sister. For having a complicated relationship with her.
Being a distraction for Arrow could be my revenge on my own sister.
As soon as I understand that, something flips inside of me.
Something that gives me so much strength that I raise my arm and knock his thumb away. Not only that, I use that palm to smack him, his harsh cheek.
And I don’t do it just once. I do it twice. I do it so harshly that my palm burns with the impact.
But on him, there’s hardly any effect.
Except for the flare of his nostrils and the tic of his jaw, he looks unaffected.
“You’re a pig,” I tell him with a vibrating voice. “You know that? You’re an