Read Online The Dead List by Jennifer L. Armentrout - Free Book Online

who—was staring me right in the face, but there were no other answers.
    He’s extremely willing to help out, Ms. Reed had claimed, but she must’ve been toking off the crack pipe or something, because she had sent me to meet with Jensen Carver.
     

Chapter 4
    I had no idea how I was standing in front of him. “You teach self-defense?”
    Jensen strolled over to me, taking long, purposeful strides, and Lordie-Lord, he so needed to put that shirt on because I was having a hard time keeping my eyes trained to his face. “I’ve helped the instructor a time or two during his classes, so I know what I’m doing.”
    My gaze dropped to those indents on either side of his hips. He so knew what he was doing. “I don’t understand. Shouldn’t you be at football practice?”
    Jensen stopped a few feet in front of me, casually fixing his shirt so it wasn’t inside out. “I’m not playing football this year.”
    “Why?” I demanded like… like I had a right to know. “I mean, I heard you were going to start as quarterback. You tried out for the team last spring. You made it.” My cheeks heated as he cocked a brow at me, and I realized it might be a little odd that I knew that since I hadn’t spoken to him when he’d showed up halfway through my junior year. “I mean, everyone was talking about it.”
    He looked up at me through thick lower lashes as he tugged the sleeves out. The density of those lashes should be illegal. “I’m trying to get a scholarship to UM. Football isn’t going to pay my way there, so I decided that focusing on my classes was a smarter route to go.”
    How had I not heard that he wasn’t playing football this year? Then again, since he returned, we weren’t running in the same crowds, not anymore. I just assumed that he’d changed. That he was like Brock and Mason, a typical meathead. Okay, that was judgie. Jensen was far from a meathead. The guy was super smart. I just didn’t know him anymore.
    Watching him pull the shirt over his head, I now didn’t know if I should be happy or disappointed he was covering up the kind of body fantasies were built upon.
    “So,” he said, letting the shirt slide down his abs. “You want to learn self-defense?”
    I was stunned. “Did you know it was me when Ms. Reed asked you?”
    His eyes glinted in the bright fluorescent lights. “Yes.”
    “And you agreed to do it?”
    He laughed under his breath, like something was funny. “Yes.”
    “I don’t get it.”
    Jensen scratched his fingers through his hair as he titled his head to the side, eyeing me with a look of barely restrained exasperation. “Okay. Did you ask Ms. Reed to help you find someone who can teach you self-defense?”
    “Yes, but—”
    “And that’s what she did. She caught me before lunch and asked if I would teach you a few things. I said yes.” He lowered his hand. “And here we are. That’s not too hard to figure out.”
    My eyes narrowed. “I’m not stupid. I can follow along with the chain of events.”
    “I know you’re not. You’re far from stupid.”
    “But I don’t know why you’d agree to help me. You don’t…”
    Now his eyes tapered into thin slits as he took a step forward, his arms at his sides. “I don’t what?”
    Every instinct demanded that I take a step back, but I held my ground. “You don’t like me.”
    The lopsided grin spread. “I’ve never in my entire life ever said I didn’t like you, Ella.”
    The way he said my name brought a flush of heat to my cheeks. He had never said my name like that before. Suddenly, he was right in front of me, standing so close that his sneakers were brushing my toes, like they had been this morning. Before today and before Saturday, the last time we’d been this close was when…
    Jensen had been my first kiss.
    My heart jumped as the memory tugged at it. We were kids, and neither of us had any idea what we were doing, but that kiss had been better than all the kisses that had come afterward. A