talk to me?” He folded his arms over his massive chest. “You didn’t have too hard a time in that elevator.” His eyes trailed the length of my body, and warm shivers danced along my skin.
But I saw the deflection for what it was—hide whatever this anger was behind teasing flirts and distracting looks.
“What’s it going to take, Jansen?” I asked again.
“What’s between you and Maxim?” he fired back.
I furrowed my brow, then shook my head. “That’s none of your business,” I hurled his own words back in his face.
He flinched as if I’d smacked him, but something clicked in his eyes, some mixture of disappointment and anger.
I blew out a breath. He’d had an attitude ever since Maxim had rushed to help me out of that elevator, and I was so beyond done with the bullshit. They had issues, clearly, and I wasn’t about to get in the middle of a family squabble. Didn’t matter how much I ached to help Sterling through whatever plagued him so badly. Didn’t matter that I hadn’t been able to stop thinking about him since that night in the elevator. I couldn’t and wouldn’t allow these sensations to stand in the way of my work.
“This is that important to you?” he asked after a few tense moments of silence.
“It’s important to the team—”
“I’m asking if it’s important to you.”
A crackle of fire licked up my spine at the primal tenor in his tone.
“Yes,” I breathed the word. “What’s it going to take to get you to play nice for the season?” I asked for the final time.
Sterling shifted, something playful returning to his eyes. “I’ll agree to work on this issue and play nice if you work on yours.”
I scrunched my brows. “What issue?” My voice trembled on the question.
I knew which issue. And just the thought of it, just the mere fact that he’d brought it up had a cold sweat breaking out on the back of my neck.
He took a step toward me, his body towering over mine as he lowered his voice. “You know what. Your fear of confined spaces.” His hand twitched at his side almost as if he were going to graze the back of it over mine but then thought better of it. “You told me you hated it. The fear. That it made you feel helpless.”
My heart raced in my chest, and I couldn’t tell if it was the fact that he was talking about it or if it was just him. His scent swirled in my senses, the warmth from his body practically begged me to reach out and span the small distance between us. And those eyes? God, he was looking down at me with such hope and confidence, like he alone had the power to help me walk through this fear of mine and come out stronger on the other side.
“Let me help you,” he said. “Like I did that night.”
The memories flashed in my mind, an incomprehensible mixture of fear and desire. It churned and ached and throbbed inside me.
“That would only benefit me,” I said, shaking my head. “You’d be doing two things for me. What’s in it for you?” I asked, my voice breathless. God, I needed to take a step back. To breathe in air that wasn’t filled with him, but I couldn’t physically pull myself away.
“I get to spend time with you,” he said. That smirk of his shaped his lips, and heat flashed up the center of me.
“It could take…a while,” I said. “I’ve been to therapy. I’ve had this issue for years.” Ever since that game of hide and seek when I was ten. I shoved that memory down, having zero strength to revisit it right now. “It won’t happen overnight.”
“You’d be surprised how much I could change in one night.” He cocked a brow at me, and I swear my cheeks were on fire. “But I understand,” he said with more seriousness. “I don’t care how long it takes.”
Why? Was it just because he wanted to help me? For real? Or did he actually want to get to know me better? Or was it a combination of both?
The questions stormed through my head, right alongside the idea of spending that much time with him outside the arena. With his attitude toward Maxim—and him being my brother’s best friend therefore he constantly popped up around my house—it could get complicated super quick.
“If I agree,” I said, heart racing. “But I have a condition.”