Chapter 14

Aurora

My heart was beating so hard I could feel it in my fingertips. I had practically bolted out of the car, my skin still tingling from the heavy, suffocating silence that had filled the car.

What was that? I thought, my breath coming in shallow hitches.

I had been inches away from her. I had smelled the salt on her skin and seen the way her pupils dilated when our eyes met. For a terrifying, exhilarating second, I hadn’t wanted to get out of the car. I had wanted to lean across the center console and find out if the “Ice Queen” tasted like the fire she played with.

I pushed through the front door of my building, Luna trotting tiredly at my heels. I felt like a fuse had been lit. I reached my apartment door, fumbling with my keys in the dim hallway light. My hands were shaking. I managed to get the door open and stepped inside, but as I turned to close it, to shut out the world and the confusing, electric mess in my head—

A hand caught the edge of the door.

I gasped, jumping back. The door swung open, and there she was.

Alexia.

She was slightly out of breath, her hair still a mess from the beach, her eyes dark and searching. She didn’t look like the captain of FC Barcelona. She looked like someone who had just lost a fight with her own soul.

“Alexia?” I whispered, my back hitting the wall of my small entryway. “What are you—?”

She didn’t let me finish. She stepped into the apartment, the door clicking shut behind her. The space was tiny, making her presence feel even more massive, more overwhelming. She was close—so close I could feel the heat radiating off her.

“I can’t,” she said, her voice a low, jagged rasp.

“You can’t what?” I asked, my voice trembling. My head was spinning. One second I was convinced she hated me, and the next, she was standing in my hallway at midnight, looking at me like I was the only thing left in the world.

“I can’t keep doing this, Aurora. I can’t keep lying to Mapi, and I certainly can’t keep lying to myself.” She took another step, her eyes dropping to my lips before snapping back to mine. “You’re a distraction. You’re stubborn. You’re a nightmare for my tactical discipline. And I haven’t been able to think about anything else since the moment you walked into that locker room.”

My heart did a violent somersault. The defiance I usually used as a shield just… evaporated. I looked up at her, my pulse thrumming in my throat.

“I thought you didn’t like me,” I whispered, the words barely audible.

“I don’t,” she breathed, her hand reaching out, her fingers hovering just inches from my cheek. “I don’t like how much I want you.”

The air in the room vanished. I didn’t wait for her to make the first move. I couldn’t. I wanted her too. I reached up, my hand trembling as I cupped the back of her neck, pulling her down.

When our lips finally met, it wasn’t soft. It wasn’t a gentle “first kiss.” It was a collision—a week of tension, shouting, staring, and hidden smiles exploding all at once. It tasted like the salt of the Mediterranean and the desperate, hidden hunger we had both been trying to bury.

Alexia let out a low, broken sound against my mouth, her arms winding around my waist and pulling me flush against her. I was anchored to her, my fingers tangling in her hair, finally answering the question that had been burning in the car.

The “Dragon Lady” wasn’t made of ice. She was made of smoke and embers, and as she pressed me harder against the wall, I realized I was more than happy to let the fire burn.

Alexia

In all my years on the pitch, I had prided myself on one thing: control. I controlled the tempo of the game, I controlled my body’s recovery, and I controlled every single emotion that dared to surface. But as I pressed Aurora against the wall of her narrow entryway, that control didn’t just slip—it shattered into a thousand jagged pieces.

The taste of her was a revelation. She tasted like the sea, like the summer heat, and like a challenge I finally had no desire to win.

My hands, usually so steady and precise, were almost frantic. I needed to touch her. I needed to confirm that she was real, that this wasn’t some fever dream brought on by sunstroke and exhaustion. I slid my palms from her waist up her back, feeling the delicate heat of her skin through her thin shirt. Every point of contact felt like a live wire, a jolt of electricity that made my blood roar in my ears.

I wanted to touch her everywhere. I wanted to feel the strength in her shoulders that allowed her to ping those forty-yard passes. I wanted to trace the line of her throat where I could see her pulse jumping in sync with mine. I wanted to pull her so close that the space between us simply ceased to exist.

“Ora,” I breathed against her lips, the name sounding like a prayer and a confession all at once.

I moved my hands to her face, my thumbs tracing the line of her jaw, tilting her head back to deepen the kiss. She responded with a desperate, hungry energy that nearly brought me to my knees. She wasn’t shrinking away; she was leaning in, her fingers clutched in my hair, anchoring me to her.

I had spent a week telling myself she was a “variable” I had to manage. What a lie. She was the storm, and I was just a ship that had been waiting for the wind to finally tear the sails.

I trailed my kisses down to her jaw, then to the sensitive skin just below her ear. I felt her shiver, a soft gasp escaping her that made my own breath hitch. I wanted to map every inch of her, to understand the girl behind the fire, to find every place where she was soft and every place where she was steel.

For the first time in my life, the “Standard,” the “Club,” and the “Captaincy” didn’t matter. There was no tactical board, no roaring stadium, no Mapi watching from the sidelines. There was only the weight of Aurora in my arms and the realization that I had been starving for this without even knowing it.

I pulled back just an inch, my forehead resting against hers, our breaths mingling in the dark. I looked into her eyes—those blue, defiant Italian eyes that had haunted me since the moment she arrived.

“I tried so hard to stay away,” I whispered, my voice thick and unrecognizable.

She let out a small, breathless laugh, her hand sliding up to rest over my heart. “You’re a terrible liar, Ale.”

“I know,” I muttered, before leaning back in. Because I didn’t want to talk. I didn’t want to think. I just wanted her.