stares blankly at me, I realise I should have known that Vilma…isn’t like most women.
“I don’t understand football,” she says with a heavy sigh while propping her elbows on the table. “It’s so much running, and the scoring is so low. It’s a very dull sport, yes?”
I blink.
And blink.
And blink some more.
Clearing my throat, I lean forward. “I’m sorry…I must not have heard you correctly because it almost sounded like you called football dull?”
“Yes.”
“Yes, what?”
“Yes, football is dull.”
That ache in my chest returns, but it’s not the same sensation as before. This is the feeling I get when I miss a penalty kick, or like the kick in the nuts she executed only moments earlier.
The love of my life cannot hate football.
“Darling, how good is your English?” I ask, sending a prayer up to the heavens that this is some horrible language barrier.
“My English is perfect,” she snaps defensively and narrows her eyes at me. “I’m at the University of London on a scholarship.”
“So, you’re clearly very bright,” I reply, running a hand through my dark hair and biting my lip nervously. “Then how in the bloody hell can you call football dull?” I splay my hands out on the table and stare her straight in the eyes. “It’s a widely known fact that football is the most magnificent game in the entire world.”
“Clearly not widely known,” she retorts with a shrug and then takes a sip of her wine without breaking eye contact with me. “If I don’t know it, it’s not wide.”
I slow blink once more, wondering if I can truly allow myself to be in love with a woman who can so easily desecrate my religion. “You must let me change your mind.”
She shakes her head. “How would you do that?”
“I’ll…bring you to one of my matches,” I reply quickly. “We play in Manchester at Old Trafford in a couple of weeks. You have not lived if you’ve not attended a football game there. Let me fly you there.”
“Fly me there?” She laughs with wide eyes. “You hardly know me. Why would you go to such an expense?”
I reach across the table and grab her hand, a spark running through my veins at the skin-on-skin contact. “Because this night…this moment…this feeling I get when I look at you…can’t be for nothing.”
The silence grows as our eyes lock, and our breaths quicken. Christ, what is it about this woman that makes me feel so…alive? I’ve lived my whole life playing the world’s greatest sport, and I’ve never, not once, felt as I do when I look into Vilma’s eyes.
She breaks our heated stare and runs her finger around the edge of her wine glass, allowing me to continue to hold her other hand. “And you think if I watch you play football, I will be a changed woman?”
I weave my fingers through hers and feel a hum of electricity roll through my body. “I know you will be.” Because bloody hell if I’m not already a changed man just talking to her.
“Why?” she whispers, rubbing together her lush, pink lips that are damp from her wine as her eyes glance down at mine.
“Because football gives me life. It feeds my soul. Without it, I can’t breathe, I can’t function…I can’t even fuck.”
She inhales sharply, her eyes hooding with desire. “You speak with intense passion.”
My cock instantly springs to life with her heated reaction. A reaction I want to see over and fucking over again. “Only because football has fed my soul for most of my life.” I lift her hand and press my lips to her knuckles. I feel a shiver run through her as goosebumps crawl up her arm. “What are you passionate about, darling?”
She pulls her hand back and takes a deep breath, clearly trying to regain control of herself so she can speak. She eyes me seriously. “I am passionate about family.”
The corner of my mouth lifts as I take the moment to adjust myself more comfortably. She has no idea the effect she has on me…and I’m not just talking about my cock. “Excellent, me too.”
She laughs that gorgeous, rich laugh that dominates my attention, making me want to surrender to her right here, right now. “You cannot be passionate about two things, footballer.”
“I can because I am a footballer. Football means that I have passion in excess.” I sit back and wait for her to challenge me more.
She narrows her eyes wickedly. “Do you want children someday?”
“Of course,” I reply, knowing that she