Not My Match

by Madden-Mills, Ilsa

  “Slide over,” Aiden says to me, and I wrench my eyes off them.

  “Aiden!” Giselle calls, her lips curving. “Meet my date, Greg Zimmerman.” She quickly introduces them, and normally a guy would be into meeting two players for the Tigers, but he barely cares—because his hand has moved to the back of the booth, and his fingers are toying with her hair.

  I bet he graduated from a fancy school, drives a luxury sedan, and has a regular nine-to-five job. Probably doesn’t have an alcoholic parent with a penchant for gambling.

  “What the hell,” Aiden murmurs quietly to me as we watch them chat, and Giselle laughs at something he’s said. “Who’s the asshole moving in on my girl?”

  My knee knocks against his. “She likes him, so be nice.”

  Feeling Aiden’s glare on me, I flick my eyes at him. “What?”

  “All you had to do was tell me the truth,” he says under his breath. “There’s a bro code for this, and even an asshole like me knows when to back off.”

  “He’s the kind of guy she wants to be with,” I hiss.

  “Is Aiden your roommate too?” Greg asks Giselle, an eyebrow raised as he takes me and Aiden in.

  Aiden starts in surprise, then smirks as he gives me a look that says, When were you going to tell me that?

  Taking his eyes off me, he says to Greg, “No. Just friends.”

  “What do you do, Greg?” I ask abruptly, interrupting their conversation, studying him. His hand has slid around lower to cup her shoulder.

  “Weatherman for Channel 5 News,” he says, then proceeds to give us the forecast for the next two days. “With the cumulous clouds in the sky, we’re in for more clear weather. Those are the puffy clouds, the ones that look like cotton candy.”

  “Fascinating,” I say, infusing my words with enthusiasm. “Tell me more.”

  He leans in, his arm moving away from Giselle’s shoulder. “Well, their name derives from the Latin cumulo, meaning heap or pile. They appear in lines, clusters, or on their own, the type you see in the summer.”

  “Indeed,” I say, propping my elbows on the table, feigning a new love for weather.

  Greg keeps going, his eyes lighting up. “However, cumulus clouds are influenced by weather instability, air pressure, and temperature. Cumulus clouds form via atmospheric convection as air warmed by the surface begins to rise. As the air rises, the temperature drops . . .” He goes into an honest-to-God five-minute TED Talk, and I keep interest plastered on my face. I can’t stop the glee when Giselle’s eyes glaze over.

  “Of course, most people don’t study clouds. I realize it can be quite boring.” He darts his eyes at Aiden, who’s checking out a girl that’s swaying past our table.

  “Never,” I say as Giselle takes a sip of her water, her gaze on me, thinning.

  Giselle says, “Maybe we should talk about something—”

  Greg cuts her off. “Weather is important. As a scientist, I’m sure you appreciate that.”

  A frown wrinkles her forehead. “Science is wonderful.” Her shoulders rise and fall in a soft sigh, one so tiny I don’t think Greg sees it. He can’t read her like I can. He can’t see behind the cool facade to the girl with all the layers. “Sometimes I just want to have fun.”

  Greg thinks for a moment, a silent debate going on in his head, then smiles at her, his gaze softening. “My fun is painting clouds in watercolor. I have a few pieces in my loft.” He takes a sip of whiskey. “Maybe we can drop by there later, and I can show you?” His later is husky, and my hands are under the table, clenching.

  “Mom would love to meet you” comes from him.

  “You live with your mother?” I ask. My comment comes out a bit derisive, and he reacts by frowning.

  “She’s elderly and needs care. It’s a very large apartment,” he says to Giselle. “You’d love her.”

  Shit, she loves older people.

  “Did she tell you she’s writing a romance?” I blurt.

  Greg’s eyebrows go sky high. “Ah, no.”

  “Aliens,” I say as I take a sip of my water. “Purple with sparkly scales and prehensile tails.”

  “I took the tail off!” she calls.

  “Oh?” He blinks down at Giselle, who’s currently giving me a flat look.

  Focusing on him, I try to decipher if he’s into it or thinks it’s not worthy of a scientist, but dammit, he’s not giving me any tells.

  “Do you think that’s silly?” she asks him.

  I don’t, babe, is on the tip of my tongue. Tell me more about them. Tell me everything. Put me back on your Pinterest board. (Yeah, I had to look up what that was.) You be the woman who can rock whatever she wants because she’s fascinating and intelligent and sexy as fuck.

  Greg leans in closer to her, his eyes heavy lidded. “I’m guessing you used real science to explain the details?”

  “Of course,” she says.

  He bites his lip. “Damn. That’s hot—”

  “All right!” I announce and shove at Aiden to get up. Standing, I roll my shoulders and try to shake off the antsy feeling crawling all over me. “Let’s hit the VIP room,” I tell them, waving my hands in that direction. “More privacy and free food and drinks,” I tell Giselle when she gives me a weird look. “Hard to talk over the music out here.” It’s actually not loud in the mezzanine. But who cares.

  “I could eat,” Greg says as he drains his glass.

  Giselle nods, and they take off ahead of us down the stairs.

  Aiden’s shoulder bumps me. “What’s the plan? How are we going to get this dude away from Giselle?” He bristles. “He paints clouds, for fuck’s sake.”

  Is he boring? To me, yes, but . . .

  Is he to her?

  Regardless of the tangents on weather and living with his mom, she digs him, my head tells me as my chest tightens.

  I motion to the bouncer to let Giselle and Greg in the area roped off by velvet to the right of the bar that leads to the VIP rooms as I hang back with Aiden.

  “No plan,” I growl.

  Aiden gets a mulish look on his face. “All right, I see; you’re leaving it up to me. Fine. I’ll handle this.”

  “I hope your plan doesn’t involve hitting on Giselle. Those days are done.”

  He shakes his head, a disappointed expression on his face as he takes me in. “We’ve established you’ve got it bad for her—whatever. I will let you have her, because you had dibs or bro code, whatever, but I’m going to cock up that date, and you can’t stop me.”

  Before I say anything, he grins, backs up, and dances across the dance floor right in the middle of a group of women, who squeal and put their hands on his chest. He looks at me and calls out, “You want Giselle, and I can make it happen. She’s yours.” He’s wearing his “I got this” expression, the one he gets when he’s surveyed the defensive line and has a plan to score.

  She’s not mine, my eyes tell him, but my heart isn’t in it.

  That cliff looms, and with a few more tugs, I’ll be falling over . . .

  Chapter 14

  DEVON

  Aiden’s version of I got this is clear an hour later. I came in with them earlier, got them a table with a view of the floor, and made sure they had a server for drinks. I told the waitstaff to cater to whatever they wanted, and they ordered several appetizers from the kitchen. I sat with them for as long as I could (about half an hour), but when Greg put his hand on Giselle’s knee, I jerked up and went to check in with Selena.

  Now, Greg is leaning against the wall with three jersey chasers around him: a blonde, a redhead, and the petite brunette from the dance floor.

  Greg drains yet another whiskey as he shows the girls a video of him doing the morning weather, a bemused smile on his flushed face. The blonde has taken off his jacket, the redhead is currently loosening his tie, and the brunette is batting her eyes.

  Giselle is dancing on the small raised dance floor in the middle of the room. Alone. I scan for Aiden and find him in the back, utter
delight on his face. Several other players sit at a table close to the dais, and I watch as Hollis sets down his drink, eyeing Giselle, then gets up and dances over to her. Dammit. Jack’s warning means nothing when a beautiful girl is in VIP.

  Aiden gives me a grin, and I want to punch him. How can I be gone for thirty minutes and another of my teammates has zeroed in on her?

  I can’t leave her alone, ever.

  I’ve moved before I’m aware of it, jostling him out of the way. “My dance,” I tell him under my breath, and he steps back, hands up in the air.

  After grabbing Giselle’s hand, I twirl her around and pull her into my chest. She feels fragile when I gaze down at her, smoothing hair out of her face, trying to get a read on her.

  “I went to dance, and the girls swarmed in on him,” she tells me, her eyes shiny. “One minute he was telling me about precipitation in the Sahara—not much—and the next . . .” Her eyes dart over to Greg.

  She has no clue she’s the most beautiful woman in the room, and it’s on the tip of my tongue to tell her, when another giggle sounds from their side of the room as one of the girls leans into Greg and gives him a kiss on the cheek.

  I’m going to kill Aiden.

  “Are you upset?”

  Her nose presses into my neck as she inhales, and I lose my train of thought.

  “Giselle? Talk to me.”

  She says nothing, resting her head on my chest, and I exhale, tightening my arms.

  “Look, I’m angry for you. I’ll beat the shit out of him,” I say.

  “Cumulous clouds are the mother of all other clouds . . . ,” comes Greg’s excited voice.

  Her shoulders shudder, and my anger notches up, but I hold it in, tracing my fingers down her spine to rest on the waistband of her skirt, idly brushing at the place where her blouse is tucked in. “Baby, talk to me. How can I make it better?” My hands rub down her back, lingering at the top of her ass before starting at her shoulders again. Her hair brushes against my jaw, and she smells like vanilla, sweet and thick and heady. God. So fucking good.

  Her body shivers, and I think she sniffs.

  “Baby, don’t cry, please . . .” I try to ease away and tip her face up, and she grudgingly lets me. “You aren’t crying,” I accuse as we stop moving, and I see the glint in her eyes.

  She laughs, stuffing her face in my shirt again. “Oh God, no. He’s so awful. I tried, I did, but if he talked about clouds one more time, I was going to stick a fork in his face.”

  A grin tugs at my lips. “You don’t want to go meet his mom?”

  She guffaws. “My own is enough.”

  “Ego bruised?”

  “It’s worth you dancing with me,” she says with a smile and tangles her hands in my hair as we start dancing again, and I have no clue if it’s a fast song or slow, but I don’t want her out of my arms.

  “Did you eat at least?” I ask a few beats later.

  She smiles. “Should have just stayed home and ordered from Milano’s.”

  “Nah, it’s your birthday eve.”

  “I’d rather sit on your couch and watch Shark Week.”

  “Bloodthirsty beast.”

  “You like it.”

  “I love it.”

  She laughs, and I laugh with her. Watching her, the curl on her red lips, the way her eyes linger on me, holding my gaze . . . a sense of urgency flies at me, digging deep and taking up space in my chest. I want to be alone with her—just her, just me . . .

  “Come on; let’s get out of here.” Clasping our hands together, I head to the exit, and she follows me.

  Before we get there, I look over my shoulder to see if Greg is going to protest, but he’s got his lips on the blonde. My fists curl, which is ridiculous, since she wasn’t really into him, but he’s a giant douche.

  She seems to know where my head is, because she tugs me out. “Let it go, caveman.”

  A while later we’re deep into Shark Week as we sit on the couch in the dark, eating more cookies Giselle insisted she make.

  She hands me another one, fresh from the oven, then wipes at my mouth as I chew.

  “What?” I say, swallowing my bite.

  “Chocolate,” she murmurs. Her hair is up in a messy bun, glasses back on, her clothes changed out for her shorts and one of my old shirts. I whipped off my jeans and settled on gym shorts and a workout shirt.

  She scoots closer and wipes at my lips again. “Stubborn spot.”

  “It’s fine,” I breathe, freezing.

  “No, let me get it.” She leans in and licks the corner of my mouth. A satisfied purr comes from her. “Yummy.”

  I snatch the nape of her neck before she can pull away. “Did you seriously just lick me?”

  She pauses, giving me a sheepish look. “I was . . . hungry?”

  My chest rises. What am I doing? I should just go to bed. Now.

  She stands up. “I’m going to bed.”

  I grab her waist and pull her back down on the couch. “Oh, no you don’t. We’re watching TV.” Obviously I have two personalities.

  Her head leans on my shoulder as she settles back onto the couch. “I warn you, I may fall asleep. It’s been a tough week.”

  “I’m sorry about your professor.” She’d told me the details of her meeting with Dr. Blanton.

  “He just made me more determined. I want my PhD, I want to write, and someday I will go to CERN.”

  “How far away is Geneva?”

  “Eleven hours and twenty-two minutes on a plane, roughly four thousand five hundred and ninety-eight miles.”

  Too damn far.

  “Stop! Go back!” she calls, her hands taking the remote out of my hands.

  “What was it?” I say, expecting something horror related, but my face freezes when I see what show she’s landed on, her gaze intense as she leans forward.

  “French film. It’s called My Night in Paris. Basically, the movie takes place during one night when the hero meets the heroine in a coffee shop, lures her back to his hotel, and fulfills her sexual fantasies. Here comes the part where he goes down on her. Best ever,” she says—with a serious face.

  I inhale sharply at the images of a dark bedroom and the couple on the bed. “So it’s porn.”

  She smacks me on the knee. “It’s art. The cinematography is beautiful and gripping—the shots of their faces and eyes, ah, so perfect. Notice how everything is in deep blues and gray, from the hotel room to the bedding. There’s no corny music and no random pizza-delivery guy showing up to join in. Just her and him.”

  “How many times have you watched this?”

  “Enough to almost speak French, bébé.”

  Realization dawns. “You want to see this—with me?”

  “Why not? It’s an excellent depiction of using sexuality to explore ourselves.”

  “Porn.”

  “No, I’m serious. There’s nothing wrong with the sex here.”

  “Never said there was,” I huff out. “Sex is great.”

  She nods. “It’s who we are, no matter your gender or preference. Birds do it. Bees. Even eukaryotes. It’s part of the universe. Essential. Everything is a push and pull—gravity, if you will—how we are drawn to certain people and not others. And when you get that zing with it . . . it must be amazing. They have zing.”

  She takes a breath, watching as the dark-haired man takes off the woman’s blindfold and eases on top of her, sliding between the V of her legs. “There’s beauty in this film, especially in how he gazes at her, the angle of that shot, like he’s going to die if he can’t have her—look at how he clenches his fists next to her head because it feels so good, and making her his is everything to him, and . . . and I . . . want that . . .” She reddens, her voice stopping abruptly. “Do you get it?”

  Oh, I get it. And it’s killing me. I adjust myself in my shorts as slyly as I can, which isn’t hard since she’s glued to the screen. “It’s about the emotion, you mean, the depth of their connection, the yearning, the ‘I
have to have you right now, or I’m going to die.’” It’s what I don’t have when it comes to my own physical encounters.

  “Yes.”

  The woman on the movie orgasms—I guess; I don’t know, because I’m not looking at the screen, just staring at Giselle. My heart is hammering in my chest, and I feel light headed. “All right, I want to watch it with you.”

  Mistake.

  Two minutes later—yeah, I have no control—I can’t breathe, and I’m barely watching, my eyes flipping between the movie and Giselle’s flushed face. The room is oppressive, the den a fucking furnace.

  Her hand lands on my leg and curls around my thigh. “Watch this part. He’s going to flip her over on her stomach . . .” Her voice trails off, her grip tightening as the woman moans as the guy slides all the way inside her.

  Giselle’s lashes flutter, her mouth parting, gasps coming as she watches them. My hands fist. I could put that expression on her face, make her come so many times she’d pfft at a French film. I could fuck her—and then what? Would I just be a way to get her V-card out of the way, like this Mike guy who’s going to her birthday lunch? Annoyance flares. I don’t want to be the one she uses, then leaves—for another country.

  My chest twinges. Shit, honestly, she has some kind of weird power over me. Every time she moves, I’m following. When she smiles, I smile back. Every time she looks at me, I’m gazing right back. It’s terrifying, and I don’t like it. Makes me want to breathe into a paper bag. The last time I cared about a girl, my heart was decimated.

  I jerk up off the couch, causing Giselle to fall back.

  “Early morning for me! Good night!” I call as I stumble through the den, cursing when in my haste I slam my knee into the recliner footrest.