Binding 13

Without thinking twice about what I was doing, I reached up and tucked her hair behind her ears.

I felt her tremble from the contact and quickly scolded myself for the move.

Don’t touch her, dickhead.

Keep your hands off.

"Your voice is strange," she a

I frowned. "My voice?"

She nodded slowly, then groaned and cupped her face once more. "Your accent," she clarified, breathing hard. "It's not a Cork accent." She was still clutching her head but she was more alert now.

"That's because I'm not from Cork," I replied, unable to stop myself from reaching up and smoothing back a piece of her hair. "I was born and raised in Dublin," I heard myself explain, tucking the rogue tendril behind her ear. "I moved down to Cork with my parents when I was eleven."

"So, you're a Dub," she stated, clearly amused at the information. "A Jackeen."

I scoffed at the term and tossed back one of my own. "And you're a Culchie."

"My cousins live in Dublin," she told me.

"Oh yeah? Where about?"

"Clondalkin, I think," she replied. "What about you?"

"Blackrock."

"The southside?" Her smile widened, eyes more alert now. "You're a posh boy."

I cocked a brow. "Do I look posh to you?"

She shrugged. "I don’t know you enough to say."

No, she didn’t.

"Well, I'm not," I added, uncomfortable at the thought of her making a preemptive judgement of me.

I shouldn’t care.

Hell, I never normally cared.

So why was I sulking over it now?

"I believe you," her small voice broke through my thoughts. "You could never be posh."

"And why's that?"

"Because you curse like a sailor."

I laughed at her reasoning. "Yeah, you're probably right about that."

She laughed right along with me, but quickly stopped and groaned, clutching her temples.

Regret soared inside of me.

"I am sorry," I told her, tone gruff now and thick.

"For what?" she whispered, seeming to lean closer as she chewed on her bottom lip.

"Hurting you," I replied honestly.

Christ, my voice didn’t even sound like it belonged to me. It was strained…raw.

I cleared my throat and added, "It won't happen again."

"You promise?"

There she went with the promises again.

"Yeah," I said, tone thick now. "I promise."

"God," she groaned, grimacing now. "Everyone's going to be laughing at me."

Those words, that small fucking sentence, brought to life some weird fucking emotion I hadn't experienced before.

"I'm so embarrassed," she continued to mumble, eyes cast downwards. "I'll be the talk of the school."

"Look at me."

She didn’t.

"Hey –" I paused and tipped her chin up with my thumb and forefinger. Once I was satisfied I had her attention again, I carried on, "No one is going to say a word about you."

"But they all saw me –"

"Nobody is going to open their mouth about it." Realizing my tone was bordering on angry, I brought it down a notch and tried again. "Not the team, Coach, or anyone else. I won't let them."

She blinked her confusion. "You won't let them?"

"That's right," I confirmed with a nod. "I won't let them."

"You promise?" she whispered, a tiny smile pulling at her swollen lips.

"Yeah," I replied gruffly, feeling like I would promise all the fucking promises in the world just to make this girl feel better. "I've got your back."

"No, you got my head," she croaked out. She glanced down at her body and sighed. "Actually, I think you ruined all of me."

Thank fuck for that, because you're ruining all of me right now, I thought to myself.

Jesus, where the hell did that come from?

Blinking away the thought, I settled on a safer, "I'll have my people call your people to work out the bill," comment instead.

That drew a smile out of her, a proper smile, not a shy one or a small one.

It was an honest to god megawatt smile.

She was just so fucking pretty.

I hated that word, pretty was a pussy word used by women and the elderly, but that's what she was.

Fuck, I had a feeling that her pretty face would be cemented in the fore point of my mind for a very long time.

But it was those wild eyes that really struck me and I had this crazy urge to google eye color charts just so I could figure out the fucking color blue in her eyes.

I would do that later, I decided.

Creepy or not, I needed to know.

"So," I pressed my luck by asking, "It's your first day?"

She nodded again, smile faltering ever so little.

"How's it going for you?"

A small smile tipped her lips upwards. "It was going just fine."

"Right." I cringed. "Sorry again."

"It's okay," she whispered, studying my face with those big eyes. "And you can stop saying sorry now. I believe you."

"You believe me?"

"Yeah." She nodded then exhaled a sharp breath. "I believe you when you say it was an accident," she squeezed out. "I don’t think you'd intentionally hurt anyone."

"Well, that's good." I had no idea why she would think otherwise, but I wasn’t about to question the girl. Not when I had half-mauled her. "Because I wouldn’t."

She grew quiet again, withdrawing from me, and I found myself racking my brain for something to say.

I had no explanation for why I wanted to keep her talking to me. I guess I could scratch it down to needing to keep her conscious.

But deep down I knew that wasn’t the reason.

Scrambling through my brain to find something to say, I blurted out, "Are you cold?"

She looked up at me with a sleepy expression. "Huh?"

"Cold," I repeated, resisting the urge to run my hands up and down her arms. "Are you warm enough? Should I get you a blanket or something?"

"I'm…" she paused and glanced down at her knees. Releasing a small sigh, she looked back to my face and said, "I'm actually hot."

"Completely fucking accurate assessment."

The highly inappropriate response was out of my mouth before I had a chance to filter myself.

I quickly followed it up by touching her forehead, my pathetic attempt at checking her temperature, and then nodding solemnly. "You're definitely warm."

"I told you." Her big eyes were wide and locked on mine. "I'm really, really hot."

God.

Fuck.

"So," I tossed out casually, trying to distract myself from my wayward thoughts. "What year are you in?"

Please say fifth year.

Please.

Please.

Please god make her say fifth year.

"Third year."

Yeah, and that was that.

She was in third year.

And just like that, I watched my five-minute dream float out the window.

Fuck. My. Life.

"What about you?" she asked then, voice soft and sweet.

"I'm in fifth year," I told her, distracted by the sudden and prominent pang of disappointment churning around inside of me. "I'm seventeen –and two-thirds."

"And two thirds," she giggled. "Are the thirds important to you or something?"

"They are now," I muttered under my breath. Sighing in resignation, I looked at her and explained, "I should be in sixth year, but I repeated sixth class when I moved to Cork. I'll be eighteen in May."

"Hey – me too!"

"You too what?" I asked cautiously, trying not to get my hopes up, but it was a hard thing to do with her sitting so close.