One year later:

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“Jett, are you serious?” I bent over to pick up his t-shirt that was laying just outside of the laundry basket and held it up, holding the sweaty thing he’d worn to practice between my thumb and forefinger. “You can throw a football hundreds of yards and make it right into another man’s hands, but your laundry never seems to make it into the freaking laundry basket. What gives?”

The sheepish grin that moved over his handsome face made me smile even though I was trying to give him a stern expression. We’d lived together for a year and still this was an issue. “Aww. I didn’t even notice that I did that.” He jogged over to me, taking the filthy thing out of my hand while kissing my cheek. “Sorry, baby. I’ll try to pay more attention to this.”

As he’d just gotten out of the shower, he smelled so clean and fresh. The fact he only had on a pair of tight boxer briefs did a lot to cool my agitated mood too. And when he dropped the stinky shirt into the laundry basket before taking me into his strong arms, well all my aggression slipped away with ease.

His mouth took mine in a warm kiss that made my head go light. Even after a year, I still swooned for the man.

His hands moved down, cupping my bottom, tempting me to pick my feet up and wrap my legs around him. But we had an agenda. A thing he and I both kept forgetting about the whole morning for some odd reason.

Maybe it was the idea of moving that had us being so forgetful. Maybe the idea of Jett being recruited to play for an NFL team so soon — before our last year of college was even over — was what had our heads in the clouds all morning long.

A scout for the Miami Dolphins invited Jett out to Florida to check out their facilities and talk to them about where he sees himself after graduation.

And we were supposed to be getting on a private jet they sent for us in the matter of a couple of hours. And we weren’t even close to being ready to go to the airport. But the way his kiss was working it’s particular kind of magic on me had me barely able to recall all that.

Slowly, his hands moved off my bottom and up my back as his tongue played with mine and I melted into him. His naked chest against mine that was only covered with a bra. I too had only gotten partially dressed so far. A bra and panties were all I had on, I was waiting for my dress to get finished in the dryer.

One of his large hands moved up, taking me by the back of the neck as his kiss grew heated, more passionate and his cock began to swell, pushing at my warm center that was beginning to grow moist in anticipation.

But we had things to do!

I wrenched my mouth away from his, both of us already breathing heavily. “Jett, we really don’t have time for this right now.”

He rested his forehead against mine as he sighed. “I know. I don’t know why I’ve kept getting distracted this morning. This is like the most important thing I’ve ever done career-wise. You know you’re the most important thing I’ve ever done, falling in love with you, and moving in together. But asking you to marry me was by far the most important thing I’ve ever done. Thanks for saying yes, by the way. See what I’m doing even now? I’m thinking about everything but what’s about to happen.”

“Thanks for asking me to marry you and giving me this gorgeous engagement ring.” I had to hold my hand out to look at the ring he gave me a couple of nights ago. He’d taken me out to a fancy dinner and proposed, making me cry right there on the spot and accept his proposal. “I think it’s because it’ll mean so much has to change if they want you. You could be playing for the Miami Dolphins next season, Jett.” I was excited for him, but I was excited for myself too.

If he did take the job — if one was offered to him — then that would mean I’d be closer to my mother.

I missed Mom like crazy. I mean, we talked on the phone all the time. And Jett and I made it to Christmas this last year to spend it with her. We had to spend Thanksgiving with his family. Being a couple meant splitting up the holidays to make it fair for each side.

Things were going great for the two of us. With the fall semester in full swing, we both were doing extremely well with all of our classes. Jett made an excellent study buddy. He’d give me a kiss for each correctly answered question and I’d do the same for him.

Did our study sessions always end in hot sex?

Well, sure they did. But that’s what made taking the time to study so dang easy to do!

Taking Jett by the hand, I led him to our bedroom where his clothes were already laid out for him. I loved dotting on my man. Doing little things like laying out his clothes for him, making sure we had his favorite brand of orange juice in the fridge at all times, and plumping his pillows when I made the bed each morning made him feel the love I had for him.

“You need to get dressed. I’m going to grab my dress out of the dryer. We have to finish up the packing, we’ll be there for the whole weekend. I think Mom said something about there being a big soccer game today. She wanted us to go to it with her at the University of Florida, where she teaches.” I let his hand go and turned to leave the room.

He stopped me as he asked, “Laney, you’d like it if the Dolphins made me an offer, wouldn’t you?”

I turned back to look at him as I nodded. “Sure I would. It would mean being closer to Mom and getting to see her a lot more.” I bit my lower lip because something was troubling me a bit. I didn’t want Jett to take their offer if he really wanted to play for some other team. “But I get it if you’d like to hold out for who you really want to play for. I would understand, Jett. I want you to do whatever it is you want to do, without any pressure from me.”

His eyes moved from my head to my toes before they came back to meet mine. “What did I ever do to deserve such a wonderful girl?”

Trying to lighten the mood that had gone heavy, I wiggled my butt as I sauntered out of the room. “You scored a touchdown for me. Don’t you remember that? How could a girl walk away from a man who could do that for her?”

“And once I’m in the big league, baby, you have at least one more of those coming to you,” he said then laughed.

“Get your butt ready, Jett. We have to jet!” I laughed at my own joke and heard him laughing too.

We were about to head off to Florida to see what the future held for us. Nervous yet very happy, Jett and I were moving forward with our lives. Florida might be the direction we were heading after graduation. But then again, who knew what else might be in the cards for us?