Rush Me (New York Leopards 1)

I took a step away from Ryan. Thank God for the interruption. What had I been thinking? Hadn’t I already proven I was no good at sleeping with people without attachment? Well, I’d had some small—minuscule—attachment to John, but that hadn’t ended well. Fool me twice... “Please don’t leave.”

Malcolm raised his brows at the blond.

Ryan grinned. “She’s a little high strung.”

“I’m not high strung!” Which, admittedly, did not do much to convince anyone otherwise. I took a deep breath. “There’s been a misunderstanding.”

“Yeah,” Ryan leaned back against the wall. “I thought she was sane.”

I conjured up my most withering glare. “You thought I was easy,” I corrected, and then I frowned. “Wait, so I’d have to be insane to not be interested in you?”

Malcolm started to laugh, a low, warm chuckle, opening his mouth to show off perfect orthodontist work before slapping Ryan on the back. “Guess those magic hands finally failed you.”

“Please.” Ryan’s eyes locked on mine. “She’s just scared of how much she wants me.”

Hot embarrassment flashed through me at how close he’d come to the truth, and I crossed my arms tightly. “Where the hell did you get such a large ego?”

Malcolm’s grin grew even larger, and he cocked his head at me. “Probably from being Ryan Carter.”

“Which means what?”

The two guys exchanged a disbelieving look. “For the Leopards?”

The name tickled, like a phrase I’d read a hundred times but never quite committed to memory. Weren’t sports teams often named after animals, and, I don’t know, non-PC Native American phrases? I knew the Patriots and the Red Sox, and the Yankees came along with the latter, but that just about exhausted my sports trivia. But given the wall photos and the builds of these two, I was fairly confident the Leopards were one of New York’s football teams.

Still, I couldn’t help from playing dumb after seeing their appalled astonishment. I widened my eyes, aware it made me appear young and naïve. “That’s football, right?”

Their faces slackened as though no proper response could be found for a girl who didn’t know the Leopards. Does not compute. “Sorry.” I bit back a smile and held my hands up, palms out. “I don’t really follow sports.”

Ryan took a step forward. “You’re lying.”

His incredulity sucked the humor away. “Excuse me?”

“What the hell would you be doing here if you don’t follow us?”

Wow. “You know what that sounds like?” I countered. “Like an egotistical jock who can’t stand believing he isn’t the center of everyone else’s world. So what if you do play for the Leopards? Do you think that makes you a celebrity, or something?”

Ryan’s lips thinned down to white lines. Malcolm goggled at me, and then turned to his friend. “Where did she come from?”

“A theatre party,” I finally managed to slip in as Ryan opened his mouth. “Walking into this apartment was an accident.”

“Then you should walk back out.”

“Tried that. Turns out it’s hard to squeeze your way through a hundred drunken party-goers.”

“I’ll say.” Ryan raked his eyes down my body in a way that made me remember how stick thin all the girls out there had been. Football groupies, I realized. Desperate to sleep with pro-athletes. I imagined them being vetted by appearance before their invitations were handed out, and shuddered.

“So you’re an actress?” Malcolm asked.

“No. I work in publishing. A Maples&Co imprint.”

Ryan raised a brow. “So you’re a nerd.”

He made it sound like an insult, like Sophie Salisbury had in high school. I bristled. “Must be a novel concept. People using their brains for a paycheck.” Well, a theoretical paycheck, currently made up of goodwill and happiness.

Ryan’s jaw clenched, and Malcolm shifted slightly, catching his gaze. Ryan let out a long breath, and when he spoke his voice had cooled. “You should leave.”

I shrugged. “Happy to. Just show me the way out.”