Ryan Hunter

muttered.
    Already? I didn’t want to just yet. “Are we in a hurry, Matthews?”
    She looked around uncomfortably, clearly not in the mood to hang out in the swing, then decided to park her sexy body against the post next to the wooden steps that led down to the beach. “Not really. But I won’t stay in a place where I have to sign a marriage license to be welcome,” she snapped.
    Was she still scared because of my mom? “She won’t come back.”
    “I don’t care.” She cast me a glare that spelled Come back with me or drop dead .
    “Fair enough. Let me just get the ball, then we can go.” I stood and walked back to my room for the soccer ball that I always kept there in case some friends came down here with me and we wanted to play on the beach. I stuffed it into a backpack together with bottle of water and the towel that lay on the swing.
    Shouldering the load, I dumped the keys back into the potted plant and ushered Liza down the steps. She didn’t look like she’d cope with running another couple of miles, so we ambled back instead.
    The sky cleared from rosy to blue, and it was nice to walk barefoot in the sand, with the water brushing around my ankles, and with my girl strolling besides me. I wanted to reach out and take her hand, oh damn, so terribly much. But she seemed a little stiff since we’d left the beach house, so I didn’t dare push my luck.
    “Why did you bring the ball?” she asked after a while of silent walking.
    “You need to practice kicking and catching. The beach is perfect for that.”
    We reached the rocks where we’d hidden our shoes and put them on. Then I told her to stay put while I jogged some thirty feet back and got the ball out from my backpack. “I want you to stop the ball,” I shouted at her before I kicked.
    But all she did was shriek and catch the ball with her arms to her chest. What the heck— “This is soccer. You’re not supposed to use your hands,” I told her. “Kick it back.”
    She cast me a wary look and kicked the ball back at me. Not only did she raise a sandstorm with it, but the ball also missed me by ten feet. The girl was going to need quite a bit of coaching. But I was totally up to it. I jogged to the ball and kicked hard.
    Liza caught it again.
    I cut a glance to the sky and rubbed my palms over my face. “No hands, Matthews!”
    We shot back and forth a third time, and now she simply stepped aside and let the ball race past her. She couldn’t be serious.
    “What was that?” I shouted as I jogged over to her.
    “You said no hands ,” Liza snapped. “Want me to catch it with my teeth or what?”
    “I strongly suggest you don’t do that. ” We didn’t want her to lose that pretty smile. “During a game you will have to stop the ball. But you’re not allowed to use your hands. So you use your body to block it. Your shoulders, or head, but mostly your chest.”
    “Aha. There’s only one problem with that.” She cupped her boobs with both hands. “I’ve got these!”
    I couldn’t believe that she just did that. A girl should never touch her own boobs when a guy was present…unless she wanted to strike him dumb and ruin any change of ordinary conversation for him. I gulped, as my mouth and throat went dry, and couldn’t look at anything else than the nice handful she held.
    She let go of her jugs and said meaningless shit to me, but I guessed she didn’t like me staring at her when drool came out of my mouth. Slowly and with a smirk, I tore my gaze away from that delicious part of her body and looked at her red face.
    “Enough training for one morning.” Her croak betrayed her, and I happened to really enjoy that. She looked away, digging her toe into the sand. “I want to be back before my mom finds out I’m gone.”
    That was fine with me. But I didn’t let her get off the first training day so easily. With some protesting, she finally agreed that we run at least half the way back then walk the rest to cool-down. As we reached her house, she suddenly pulled me across the street and behind a tree. I followed like a well-trained puppy, totally ready to make out with her in that hiding place. But she didn’t even think about it.
    With her back pressed against the tree, she leaned carefully to the side and spied around the tree. When she snapped back into an upright position, she glanced at the sky and whined, “I’m so screwed.”
    I looked around the tree, too. Okay, so somebody was walking around in a room