I swear my heart skips a beat. I know he wasn’t there a few minutes ago.
My breathing’s already heavy from the swimming, but when he stands and stalks slowly in my direction, my panting gets shallower and faster. He’s in swim trunks and a white T-shirt with red print that says something I’m not coherent enough to read—because his incredible legs are right there, walking toward me, long and tanned and defined.
And that’s when I realize I’m still watching him upside down from a fairly compromising position. I straighten up and turn to face him.
“Your teammates are all at the mall or whatever,” he says, the hint of a smirk lightening his strong face. “What are you doing here?”
I’m pretty sure those are the first words he’s said directly to me in the three weeks since he asked me out in the park. I slap down the butterflies that explode into flight in my stomach and wave absently at the pool. “Conditioning.”
One corner of his firm red mouth ticks up along with one dark eyebrow. “You’re already in twice the shape of anyone else on the team.”
The fact that he’s noticed what kind of shape I’m in sends those butterflies swarming again. I will my eyes to stay on his face instead of traveling over the stretch of cotton covering pecs I’m dying to see. “Not into shopping.”
As if he read my mind, he tugs off his T-shirt. I turn and kick my leg up onto the starting block to stretch my hamstring, because it’s taking every ounce of will I have not to scour his body with my eyes. As I stretch, in my peripheral I see him helicopter one arm then the other.
“Glad for the company,” he says. “I’m less likely to dog it if someone’s here to push me.”
I blow out a laugh and turn to look at him. “I seriously doubt you’ve ever ‘dogged’ anything in your entire life.”
He lowers his head to scratch the back of it and I take the opportunity to let my eyes slick down his body. He’s got the classic swimmer’s build: long and lean, but seriously defined. There’s a part of me I never knew existed that is dying to trace the ridges of his abs with my finger…or tongue. And he’s nearly a foot taller than me—at least six four.
The tingle of my tightening nipples reaches my consciousness and shakes me out of my lust-induced fog. When my gaze snaps back to his face, his hand is twisted into his unruly sable hair and he’s looking at me from under the thickest eyelashes I’ve ever seen with warm cinnamon eyes. “Why would you say that?”
The way he’s looking at me, with a hint of amused curiosity mixing with something darker and more intense, I know he saw everything, from my ridiculous ogle to the resulting peaks of my nipples poking into my wet swimsuit.
I turn and kick my other leg onto the block so he won’t see the pink I feel rising in my face. “You were valedictorian here five years ago, right? But then ended up with a athletic scholarship to UCLA instead of an academic one?”
I shoot him a glance and find him nodding slowly, the amusement in his expression gone.
I turn and lean on the block to stretch my calves. “And you were First Team All-Conference all four years at UCLA, Second Team All-American freshman year, First Team All-American for the other three, and National Player of the Year your junior year after UCLA’s back-to-back National Championships.” I push off the block and look at him. “Did I miss anything?”
His eyes study my face but I feel him deeper than that, rooting through my thoughts and turning them to chaos. “All-Academic all four years.”
I tear my eyes away and stretch my arm overhead. “They left that off the plaque.”
The intensity of his stare fades and a smile kicks up one corner of his mouth. “So, now that we’ve run through my bio, what about yours?”
I look at him, then realize I’m doing it past an armpit that hasn’t been shaved for two days. I lower my arm. “What do you mean?”
He tips his head at me. “You came from somewhere. And from the look of your game and the way you move in the water, you played polo there,” he adds with a flick of his wrist at the pool.
Action to be avoided: talking about my past. Which is why, in the month since school started, I’ve yet to say more than three words to any of my classmates. No friends means no questions. No explanations. But if I don’t answer Marcus, it will just lead to more questions. “I went to Roosevelt High.”
“Which Roosevelt High? There have to be hundreds of them.”
I think about lying, but something about Marcus makes me trust him enough to tell the truth. “In San Mateo.”
He gives a slow nod. “From the bay to the mountains. That has to be a pretty big change.”
I shrug and go back to stretching. “I’m adjusting.”
When there’s no response, I look at him again. His full upper lip is sucked between his teeth and he’s biting on it as he scrutinizes me with eyes that suddenly seem darker.
“What?” I ask, wiping my forearm under my nose, thinking there might be snot dangling there. One of the hazards of swimming.