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Staying On Top(18)

By:Lyla Payne


I wanted to see how Blair would react to me offering her money in order to right a wrong.

“I don’t want your money, Sam. What kind of person do you think I am?”

The breath I’d been holding gushed out of my lungs and I smiled at her. It seemed to take her aback, but the loosening of the tension in my gut felt great. If she was like her father, with little to no moral compass, she wouldn’t have turned down a fee.

That’s what I’d have to believe to go forward. To at least trust her enough not to lead me down a dark alley and kick me in the nuts.

“So we’ll go together? Fly under the radar?”

She squinted up at me. “You know what that means, right? No fancy hotels, no room service, no staying with your friends or taking chartered jets. It’s going to be . . . different.”

“For you, too.” After a moment she nodded reluctantly. I grinned because I wanted to see if she would return it, and warmth spread over my skin when she did. “So, do you think we’ll need to wear disguises?”

*



“Are you sure you want to come?” Blair asked me for at least the fiftieth time in the past twenty-four hours, pursing her lips as she slammed charging cords into her backpack. “I’m sure it’s not going to be good for your training schedule. And the time change is going to be a bitch to deal with when you come back for the start of the season.”

“Yes, I’m sure, but thanks for coming up with new reasons for me to stay. The others were getting stale.” No reaction. “Besides, we’ll be on the move and you can be my new hitting partner. You up for it?”

This time she rolled her eyes, shouldering her pack in a way that drew my eyes to her breasts under her tight black tank top. “I’m going to assume you mean tennis, not some other kind of hitting. And I don’t play.”

“I’m still coming. And by that I mean coming along, not some other kind of coming, although we are going to be spending a lot of time together so I hope you’re prepared to control yourself in that department.”

“I think I’ll manage,” she said with a snort. “Are you ready?”

“Yep. We’re all checked out, and I have enough cash and euros on me to pay an international ransom. Are you going to tell me where we’re headed first now?”

“You mean you’re not going to follow me blindly, no questions asked? I knew that it would never have worked between us.”

I stepped closer, inhaling her perfume and purposefully invading her personal space, not missing the hitch in her breath when we drew close enough to touch. Blair had been flirtier since she came to my room this morning, still trying to change my mind but also ready to accept my company on her trek. Her cocoa eyes gazed up into mine, a confusion of thoughts parading through them. I couldn’t catch a single one, but most of them I didn’t like.

I bent down until our faces were inches apart, loving that she leaned in to me instead of backing away. Blair likely didn’t shy away from much. “Trust me, Blair, if we were involved, I would lead or follow, whichever you wanted at the time. I do it all.”

She tipped her chin up, but not before a delicate shudder told me she wasn’t immune to the crackling tension between us. “Maybe so, but given your confidence and reputation, I’d need to see multiple blood test results to go anywhere near your bare skin.”

Protests or not, she leaned closer when I took another step forward, swaying as though fighting the desire to touch me. “Is that what bothers you? That you wouldn’t be the only one?” I slapped her ass a little harder than necessary, and when she bit her lip I got a hard-on I would have to hide.

Her recovery didn’t take long, and the dirty look she shot me could wither a rose in the middle of summer. “Rule number one—don’t ever touch my ass again. Rule number two, I’ve never been a one-and-only kind of girl, but this entire partnership is fragile enough without adding sex to the mix. I think we’d be best off keeping it simple.”

“Agreed. Nothing fancy, then. And I agree to your rules, with one exception—I won’t touch you again until you ask me to.”

“Fair enough. Let’s go.”

I could tell by the look on her face that she thought resisting me would be possible, but the lust neither one of us could quite hide made me wonder if we wouldn’t end up in bed together sooner or later. Even though it was hard to feel badly about that, the whole thing tickled my newfound suspicious bone. Blair had been so dead set against even a harmless fling with me, she’d turned down at least five requests for a date and refused to come to my tennis tournament. What had changed?