I kick off my jeans and pull my t-shirt over my head, and she does the same with her leggings. She’s about to take off the jersey, but I stop her. “I love seeing you in this.”
She presses her face against my bare chest, kissing my tattoo. “Oh yeah?”
“Sexy as hell, babe.”
“You’re the sexy one. I was thinking about sucking you off the whole game.”
I play with the hem of the jersey. “Seriously?”
“You’re in command on the field. It’s hot, trust me.”
After a few minutes, our breathing evens out. I like having my legs tangled with hers. Her bed is a twin, so my feet are nearly hanging over the edge, but I’m making it work. The exertion from the game, not to mention the orgasm, is catching up to me. I stifle a yawn with my hand as I pat the floor, looking for Albert.
She sits up a bit, looking down at me. “James?”
I set Albert on the bed next to us. “Yeah?”
“I’m sorry if I messed up anything with your dad.”
I’m shaking my head before she can say anything else. “Don’t. I handled it.”
“I don’t think he liked me being there.”
“He was just surprised.”
Her brow knits together. “Does he know we’re not really dating?”
“Now he does,” I say, even though that makes my chest hurt. “He was just concerned about it, but I explained.”
“But why would he be concerned if you’re with someone? I mean, if it was real, wouldn’t he be happy for you?”
“You know I don’t date.”
“Because of football.”
I nod. “He helped me make that decision.”
Part of me wants to explain further, but I’m coming off a high, and the thought of getting that real, even if it’s with Bex, makes me nervous.
She continues to trace the lines of my tattoo. “Your brother has the same one.”
“Yeah. Seb too. We got them together a couple summers ago.”
“It looks familiar,” she says. “What is it?”
“It’s the Celtic knot. You know, Callahan. Irish roots.”
“It looks good on you.” She kisses it softly. “I know I didn’t want to stay over last time. But you will, right?”
I kiss her cheek before saying, “Show me your photography.”
She blinks, eyes widening. “If you really want?”
I hold her gaze. “I do. I was going to ask before, but full disclosure, I was too fucking hard.”
She bursts out laughing, slipping out of bed, and grabs a folder from the desk. She settles back against me, and I wrap my arm around her middle. I’m grinning; I love making her laugh.
“I’ve been taking some portraits of the diner patrons, that’s always good practice. And I’ve been looking at angles in architecture,” she says.
I stroke her arm. “Let me see them.”
She opens the folder, which I see now is filled with proofs. “I have more on my computer, obviously,” she says. “Printing is expensive. But it’s helpful to see what the vibe of the physical photo is like, you know?”
“No,” I admit, which makes her laugh. “But I love hearing you talk about it.”
We flip through the stack slowly. She explains how she took each one, and I think I ask semi-intelligent questions, because I get her rambling about stuff like aperture and white balance and bokeh. It’s adorable, even when she gets overly excited and accidentally elbows me in the face.
“Crap,” she says, turning my face from side to side. “Are you okay?”
“Just fine,” I lie, kissing her. In truth, she’s stronger than she looks, because my cheek is stinging. “Tell me about this one.”
I point to a photograph of somewhere I recognize; it’s the great hall in McKee’s library. The table looks familiar, because it’s the one we sit at when we go there to study. My laptop is open on the table next to hers; our jackets hang on the backs of two chairs.
She blushes, tracing over the photograph. “I took it when you went to go call your sister.”
I snort as the memory comes back to me. “She was afraid she accidentally ate a pot brownie.”
“Did she?”
“Honestly, I’m still not sure. Coop thinks she did.” I hold up the photograph. Seeing evidence of our time together makes me feel warm inside, like I just drank a huge gulp of hot cider. “You’re seriously talented.”
“Do you want it?” She ducks her gaze down. “I mean, if you want it, you can have it.”
“Not like this.”
She looks up, hurt flashing on her face momentarily.
I kiss it away quickly. “Princess, you need to sign it for me first.”
She practically throws the photography on her nightstand, climbing into my lap. My hands grip the backs of her thighs automatically, groaning when she presses open-mouthed kisses to my throat.
“Can you go again?” she says breathlessly, rubbing her cheek against mine as she grinds down in my lap. “Want to ride your cock.”
And again, I can’t say no. Not to her. There’s nowhere I’d rather be right now than in her bed, watching her bounce on my dick in my jersey. I bring my hands up, massaging her firm ass. “As long as you let me eat your pretty pussy after.”
23
BEX
Several weeks later, I wake up in James’ bed. Again. After Darryl, I thought I wouldn’t wake up in a bed other than my own dorm room the whole rest of the time I was at McKee.
Yet here I am, buried comfortably in James Callahan’s bed, fighting the sinking feeling in my stomach that comes with waking up alone.
I’m not worried he left because he ended up not wanting me to stay; he said last night that he needed to wake up early for his workout. But that doesn’t mean I don’t wish he was here so we could wake up together in a much more pleasant way.
I rub the sleep out of my eyes, sitting up with a yawn. Before we went to sleep last night, he shut the curtains—which he admitted his mother made him put up, insisting the room needed more homey touches—so even though the sun is up, the light inside the bedroom is still soft and gray. On the wall opposite, I see the photograph I gifted him. I signed it for him like he wanted, and he had it framed. It looks good over his desk, like a real piece of art.
There’s a note on the pillow, written in his messy handwriting. I bite the inside of my cheek as I read it. Trace my fingernail over the letters that make up my name.
Bex,
Hate to leave you. Stay, so I see you when I come back?
-J
I hate how I need to remind myself yet again that we’re not dating.
Not. Dating.
After the game against LSU, something shifted. I invited him home, to my suite, and he spent the night. We fucked three times before finally falling asleep. When I woke up in the morning, he was curled around me almost comically, his feet hanging over the edge of the bed, one hand palming my bare bottom, the other tucked around Albert. I’d stared down at him, panic curling through me like smoke, and the intensity of my gaze woke him up.
He’d smiled at me, gaze soft, the corners of his eyes crinkled adorably.
And then I’d tried to kick him out.
I blush now as I remember it.
“I have work,” I’d told him, even though that was a lie. I scrambled out of the bed, pulling the jersey over my head and tossing it into the hamper before crossing my arms over my bare chest. He’d sat up, looking at me calmly, and my voice ran ragged as I told him he had to go.
Instead, he pulled me back into his arms. Kissed the top of my head.
“Don’t panic,” he told me. “This doesn’t have to change anything.”
“How?” I whispered.
“We’re friends,” he said, stroking my tangled hair. “Friends who are attracted to each other. We can keep doing this without complicating it.”
“Sounds like a recipe for disaster.”
“Do you want to stop? Say you want to stop, and we will.”
“Our deal?”
“Not the deal. Just this.”
I shook my head. In the end, I couldn’t lie. “I don’t want to stop.”
“Then we won’t.”
He kissed me properly, then, and I hit his arm because our breath smelled horrible, and he’d just smiled and pulled me closer. That’s where we left it. Texting, tutoring, dates to keep up the fake relationship. I’m doing things like waking up in his bed and wishing he was around so I could sit on his dick.
A couple days ago, he officially received his nomination for this fancy football award, and where was I? In the background, doing a silent happy dance as he called his parents to share the news.