The Spanish Love Deception by Elena Armas (novels for students .TXT) 📕

his hulking size, moved with incredible agility and skill.

For someone who had never played soccer before, he had gotten the hang of it pretty damn fast.

Aaron’s looming figure approached me swiftly, eating away the distance. Way too quickly for my brain to order my limbs to kick into action.

Mierda.

In an attempt to stop him in any way I could that didn’t involve getting naked, I launched myself in his direction with the purpose of intercepting the ball. Or him. Anything would do. Unfortunately, that intent landed nowhere near where I’d expected. Just when I was about to reach him, my foot got caught in a little bump on the grass, causing me to trip and be catapulted forward.

So much for ending this with dignity.

As I braced myself for a painful landing, my eyelids shut involuntarily. I was swallowed by darkness, counting the seconds and milliseconds left for the upcoming crush against the grass. Three, two, one …

Nothing. Impact never ensued. One moment, I had been flying, eyes closed and about to face-plant on the floor, and the next, I was somehow suspended in time. No, I was suspended in the air. Not understanding how, I blinked my eyes open, just as a humph was punched out of my lips.

My midsection landed against something hard.

Then, I was greeted by the sight of glistening, smooth skin. A flawless back. My gaze trailed down, taking in a tight backside in sports shorts, followed by a pair of muscled calves.

Understanding sank in as I realized I was hanging off someone. Particularly off someone’s shoulder—Aaron’s shoulder to be one hundred percent exact.

What in the—

Everybody seemed to be on board, if the clapping and cheering around us were any indication. Ignoring the little commotion behind us, Aaron rearranged me on his broad shoulder, gripping my waist gently but firmly. A complaint rose and died in my throat as he shot off, running.

“Aaron,” I screeched with urgency.

He was running with me hanging off him like a goddamn human-sized potato sack.

With every stride, the symmetric and strained strings of muscle on his back moved. His backside too. Distracting me.

Dammit, Lina, no. Focus.

“Aaron,” I repeated, being ignored again. “What. Are. You. Doing?” My speech was interrupted with each bounce of his body. With each stomp of his long legs, guiding the ball in my sister’s direction. “Aaron Blackford!”

He chuckled. Then, he patted the back of my thigh. “I couldn’t let my girlfriend fall to the floor now, could I?” the bastard said calmly, not sounding one bit out of breath.

“Aaron,” I howled. “I swear to Lucifer—”

He bounced a little extra hard, cutting my words. His hold on my waist tightened. Sending a wave of awareness down my legs. His other palm held the back of my thigh still, his fingers spreading across my skin. God, everything I felt under me was hard and warm.

Dammit.

I couldn’t believe it, but I was mad and … and … and …

Shit. I was a little turned on by the display of strength.

That last thought had barely registered when Aaron’s grip on my waist shifted, securing me with his whole arm. I could feel his biceps against my side. My blood swirled, and it had nothing to do with being upside down.

“Brace yourself, girlfriend. I’m going to win this thing and put some food in you before you eat my head off.”

“There’s no stopping that from happening. Boyfriend.”

Wishing I could know how close Aaron was from delivering the killing goal, I twisted my body upward as much as I could. Behind us, phones were out, recording the whole damn thing.

Oh Lord, please don’t let this end up on TikTok.

One last bounce, and chaos erupted as Aaron’s strides came to a stop.

“Put. Me. Down.” I punctuated my words by attacking his back with my weak fists. Judging by his lack of reaction, I doubted he was even feeling it.

“Hey.” He turned around, giving me a view of my sister, who was still under the goal.

She might have just been scored on, but she was smiling.

Aaron continued, “I knew you were bossy, but I didn’t know you were this violent.”

“You haven’t seen anything,” I gritted through clenched teeth while he remained casually standing there, unaffected by the weight of the woman he had tossed over his shoulder.

His chest shook under my hips and thighs.

Was he laughing?

The nerve of him.

The situation called for extreme measures. So, with all the skill I could gather, I stretched down until my hand reached his backside and pinched his butt.

Yep. I, Lina Martín, had just pinched Aaron Blackford’s butt.

And I regretted it immediately.

One, because it was Aaron’s butt cheek I had pinched. And how could I ever come back from doing something like that when I had to see his face at work—every working day of every week—and he’d soon become my boss?

And two, because it had been so smooth and firm that I wanted to do it a second time, just to be sure that an ass that hard was real. I wanted to double-check if a butt could really have that many muscles.

And that, together with reason one, made me question my sanity.

As that spun in my head, I realized that Aaron had noticed my unfriendly pinch. I knew because he had instantly frozen. My fake boyfriend’s body—which was still underneath my hips, stomach, and legs—had gone very, very still from the moment my fingers came into contact with his ass.

Tempted to pinch him again to check if he was breathing or if I had shocked him as much as I had myself, I waited.

With astonishing care, his hands moved to my waist. Aaron lifted me from his shoulder, positioning my front against his chest, still holding me so my feet wouldn’t touch the grass. Our heads were at the same level, our gazes irremediably meeting.

His face was this unreadable blank mask again, as if I had pinched all emotion out of it.

I realized I preferred playful Aaron to the one who hid whatever he was feeling. But that