-14-
KAYLA
Music from a not-great marching band blared from the stadium behind us as Jay and I headed through the deserted parking lot toward his car. I couldn’t help but think about Chuck as the band murdered the song. This high school was further proof that OSU had “The Best Damn Band in the Land.”
“So,” Jay said, “do you get thrown out of every place you go?”
“I don’t know why the coach would offer if he wasn’t serious.”
I should have been embarrassed how the game had to be stopped while I was escorted off the field, but I wasn’t. The coach was the one who should be embarrassed. He was doing a disservice to those kids.
Something large and calloused curled around my hand, and I felt my eyes widen. I stared down at Jay’s fingers tangled with mine. Hand-holding. It made me all warm inside, and I told myself I didn’t like the feeling. Tonight was making a disaster of my ‘get over Jay Harris’ strategy.
I steeled my voice so he wouldn’t hear how flustered he made me. “I’m sorry I ruined your plans.”
I was tugged to a stop, and it forced my gaze up. All the way up, until I was staring into his deep sapphire eyes. “Who said that was my only plan?”
I swallowed a breath as he leaned down and captured my lips with his. Just like last time, I didn’t know what to do or how to feel, but my body had it covered. I acted on instinct, leaning into his kiss. Heat flooded down my spine, pumped outward by my thundering heart. Could we just stay like this all night? Time stood still as he kissed me at a high school halfway between our schools and on neutral ground.
It was over way too soon, and I was dazed as he resumed the walk to his car, pulling me along.
“Where are we going?”
“You’ll see soon. It’s not far.”
He opened the passenger door of his car for me, showing off his manners once again. I got in, put on my seatbelt, and folded my nervous hands into my lap. The air around us swirled with electricity as he slid behind the wheel. Although I didn’t know what he had planned specifically, I felt down to my bones it would involve kissing, and maybe . . . more. The sexual tension was thick between us, filling every spare inch of his car.
What would happen between us if we parked somewhere secluded this time? I was hot and needy between my legs. His tame kiss in the parking lot had turned me on terribly. I wanted his shirt undone and imagined him tugging mine off. We’d press our bare skin together, where I could feel every ridge and curve of his chiseled form touching my breasts, which were heavy and aching.
Okay. Maybe it had been a really long time since I’d had sex.
I pinched my knees together and turned away to stare out the window so Jay wouldn’t see the heat burning on my face.
“Your car’s nice,” I said. “It looks brand new.”
He laughed. “It’s not. I like keeping it looking good. It was a high school graduation gift from my parents.”
That was a spectacular gift, and I tried not to be jealous. My parents had helped Cooper and me out when we’d bought our used cars, but Jay’s had to cost more than five of my Rios.
He’d interrogated me about my family, but I’d been rude and hadn’t asked about his. “Do they still live in Indianapolis?”
“Yeah. It’s a long drive for them, but they try to come to all of my games.”
“Siblings?”
He paused, and the silence was strange. “No.”
Since he didn’t elaborate and his mood shifted, I tensed. This subject was off-limits. Outside, mailboxes whizzed by, the reflectors glowing in the car’s headlights.
“I’m bummed I got us thrown out before we could get a carcinogenic hot dog,” I said. “True story. During one of our high school games, Marcy and I saw the boxes those dogs come in. It said ‘Grade D Meat—Still Edible’ on it.” I shuddered. “It legit said that.”
His eyes stayed on the road, but he cracked a smile. “It might kill me, but I’ll take it over tofurkey.”
The drive was short. He turned off the road and into a park, climbing a hill and following the drive past a large playground. It led to a parking lot, which was empty and surrounded by trees. It was closed in. Secluded.
Anticipation needled over my skin, and made breath tighten in my lungs.
He shut off the car and pointed to a footbridge I hadn’t noticed in the darkness. “Let me grab some stuff out of my trunk, and then we’re heading that way.”
It was quiet in the unlit parking lot. I shouldn’t want to be here with him, but when I forced myself to forget the jersey he wore was yellow and blue, he morphed into a guy I wanted to know more about. I stood beside the car and listened to its faint settling noises while Jay went to the trunk, got whatever he needed, and came to me. He carried a rolled-up blanket and a cooler bag.
“Did you . . . cover up the logo?” I asked. There was a duct tape X on the front, but a corner of yellow peeked out beneath.
He acted indifferent. “Maybe.”
I grinned widely. He really had planned this, even making an attempt to put me at ease. Maybe I was naïve, and this was all just an effort to get him laid, but I doubted it. I hung out with the football players at OSU. They couldn’t step out of their room without running into a girl willing to take them for a spin. It had to be the same for Jay. So why was he putting in this effort to be with me?
Our feet made soft thumps across the wooden slats of the footbridge, which was wide enough for a golf cart to drive through, but not a car. The water in the small creek below looked black in the moonlight.
Once we’d cleared the trees, there were three youth soccer fields side-by-side. Jay walked into the center of one, set down the cooler bag, and unfurled the blanket.
“How’d you know about this place?” I asked.
“One of the guys I worked with at ARC is from around here. He told me about it.” Jay sat down on the blanket and gazed up at me. “Care to join me? I can sweeten the deal by telling you I have beer in my cooler.”
He was lit by silvery moonlight and was the most inviting thing I’d seen. I sat down beside him, only for him to lie on his back, his eyes turned up to the sky. I did the same, staring up at the stars and the bright moon.
It took a moment to get comfortable on the blanket beside him, and we were close enough our shoulders touched. When I set my palms flat beside me, my fingertips inadvertently grazed his wrist, and his breathing picked up.
It was quiet, and peaceful, so I felt compelled to whisper. “Are we seriously out here stargazing right now?”
“Yeah.” His voice was low as well. “Hey, you know what I just noticed?”
“What?”
“There’s a lot more room out here than there is in the backseat of my Charger.” He turned and propped himself up on an elbow, while his hand slid over my belly and came to rest on my hip. My gaze went from the stars to him.
His eyes were intense, and he stared down at me with an expression of longing. Or desire. I couldn’t tell because it was getting hard to think about anything but the way his hand on my body made me feel.
My mission of purging Jay from my thoughts burst into flames.
I should get used to the fire. I was clearly going to hell for having such impure thoughts about a guy from Michigan. OSU football was religion in my house, and we worshipped on Saturdays at the Horseshoe.
So why did I love the way his strong hand held my hip and pulled me close? As his head dipped down, I focused on his lips, staring at them until they were too close and my eyes fell shut. The contact of his mouth on mine wasn’t what I expected. It was sweet, and slow, and tame. He brushed his lips gently against mine, like a caress. As if we had all night.
But we didn’t have all night, because now I wanted him so badly, need made the bones in my body vibrate. I curled my hand up into his hair and locked him into my kiss. It’d been four days since I’d agreed to meet him, and I’d spent every one of them anticipating what was going to happen. I wasn’t sure if I was now in a worst or best-case scenario.
A sigh slipped out of me when Jay answered my kiss, layering on a new level of heat and seduction. His thumb crept beneath the hem of my tank top, but his palm stayed in place on my hip. The pad of his finger swept over my skin, and although it was a simple touch, goose bumps broke out all over me.
His tongue slipped inside my mouth and moved in time with his thumb. Deliberate and unhurried. When I inhaled, I breathed him in. His cologne was noticeable but subtle, like leather and pine. It was a potent combination.
I turned my head to the side as his mouth shifted over my cheek. Everything around us was frozen beneath the stars and bathed in white moonlight. When his breath filled my ear, his hand finally began the slow journey upward beneath the fabric of my shirt.
“Tell me something,” he said. His palm skated over my ribcage and settled on my breast.
“Hmm?” I couldn’t think when he was touching me, or when his lips feathered kisses against the side of my neck.
“Tell me anything.” His voice was low. “I’d planned on talking first. I wasn’t supposed to jump right on you, but you’re kind of hard to keep my hands off of.”
A laugh trickled out of me as he didn’t stop his seduction. Jay squeezed my bra-clad breast and sucked on the sensitive spot just below my ear. Pleasure poured through me and tightened my voice. “You want to have a conversation now?”
My shirt rode up on his forearm, revealing skin and lace, giving him more room to work with.
“I’m pretty good at conversation.” He lifted his head and I felt his gaze sliding over me. His expression clouded with lust. “I’m even better at multi-tasking.”
I inhaled sharply as his face nuzzled between my breasts, and he was licking, and sucking, and biting me gently through the lace. The rough edges of his stubble rubbed against my skin.
“Shit, that feels good,” I whispered.
He moved, settling over me and between my legs. I trapped his head in my hands, threading fingers through his hair. This evening had gone off the rails so fast. Damn him and his sexy tongue. I swallowed an enormous gulp of breath when he hooked the cup of my bra with a finger and tugged it to the side. My nipple was only exposed for a second, and then covered with his hot mouth.
Thoughts blurred in my head. He’d said I was supposed to tell him something, and I asked it in a strangled voice. “What do you want to know?”
How did he do that? His hands were everywhere. One steadied my breast while the other pushed beneath me, getting me to arch up into him. I tightened my legs around his jean-covered hips, savoring the sensation of the rough seams against my inner thighs. But, really, I enjoyed his semi-hard dick pressing against me even more.
There was a faint pop as Jay released my skin from his mouth. “Tell me . . . whatever. You never answered my question before.”
“Which one?”
“Why you’re single.” His lips teased over my pebbled skin.
“Pick a reason. I’m too busy. I’m too picky.” I made a face, not wanting to think about it, but it spilled out of me. “Or go with what my last boyfriend said. I’m too difficult.”
I expected him to crack a joke, or to have more questions, but Jay didn’t slow. His tongue spun a circle on my nipple, and as the breeze flitted over my damp skin, I shivered from the sensation.
Before Jay, I’d never had an orgasm with a guy, although my last boyfriend didn’t know that. Andy had needed a confidence boost the first time we’d done the deed, and I’d faked my O, and then the next time, only to continue the lie for too long I couldn’t backtrack.
There was a saying in cheerleading that once is luck, but twice is skill. Could Jay get me there again? Should I go back to faking it if he couldn’t?
“Maybe I like your brand of difficult.” His tone was sinful. “Tell me something else.”
“Like what?” I groaned in my head. My frustration wasn’t with his demand. Couldn’t he see how desperate he was making me? I was writhing beneath him.
“Tell me,” he commanded, “when I’m going to see you again.”
My lungs ground to a halt. There wasn’t supposed to be a next time, and a new battle in my head grew loud. If I wasn’t going to see him again, what was I doing tonight? It was unlikely I’d let it go that far, but I wasn’t a one-night stand type of girl.
The desire swirling in me made me honest. “I don’t know. I shouldn’t.”
“Because of the dumb rivalry?” He shifted, dropping a line of kisses in my cleavage and trailing lower. It muffled his words. “Forget about that.”
Oh, good lord. His devious mouth was branding me, moving over my stomach. Fireworks bloomed across my skin as his fingers circled the snap at the top of my shorts. He’d probably get me to forget my own name.
The button popped free under his deft fingers, and I swallowed a breath. “You don’t understand. My family—”
“I’m great with families.”
“That’s not what I mean.”
His focus was locked onto the pull of my zipper, and he inched it down, tooth-by-tooth. “You don’t seem like a girl who’d let her family choose who she hangs out with.”
He peeled back the sides of my shorts and planted a kiss on the newly exposed skin just above the line of my lace panties. I threaded my hands through my hair, wanting to pull it out. The ache was unbearable, and his words were spun perfectly. I couldn’t argue with them.
His hot breath danced over my skin, while he hooked his fingers at the sides of my shorts, tugging them down. Over one hipbone, then the other side. He moved lazily, and it had to be for my benefit, giving me all the time in the world to shut him down. Instead, my body took command and I lifted my hips, making it easier for him.
“Okay,” I whispered.
He had my shorts around my knees, but froze like he hadn’t heard me right. “Okay?”
“One more date.” I couldn’t believe I was saying it, but was equally surprised when anxiety didn’t come. Whatever. Tonight, I wouldn’t worry about it, and tomorrow I could figure out what to do. I strived for a joking tone. “I’m in college, isn’t that what I’m supposed to do, experiment? Do all the stuff I’m not supposed to?”
His grin was sexy evil. He sat back on his heels, yanked my shorts off, and hurled them to the ground with force. And then his gaze settled on me, and the grin turned serious. It was cooling off outside, but my body hadn’t gotten the news. I felt flushed. My tank top was pushed up and my bra pulled down, exposing me, and now with my shorts off, only a thin pair of panties covered me. His gaze seemed to trace every thread of the black lace he’d revealed.
I was breathless. “What’s the likelihood someone’s going to wander by and see us?”
“We’ll hear them if they do and have plenty of warning.” He grasped my ankle and lifted it, and the action made my legs open to him. My pulse roared in my ears, and nervous, excited flutters tickled from inside as his lips brushed against my skin.
Jay kissed a line along my calf, and I bit down on my trembling bottom lip. His soft, warm mouth worked along my skin, heading toward my knee.
“You got my pants off in record time, Eighty-Eight,” I whispered.
“Pretty sure it was a team effort.”
It had been. I swallowed a gulp of air as his kisses marched along the inside of my thigh, and he settled down on his elbows, perched between my legs. I was nervous. Excited. A little terrified. “I don’t want to have sex.”
He had a face like someone planted a helmet square between his jersey numbers.
It was an enormous struggle to find the right words. “I don’t do that with someone unless he’s my boyfriend.”
The shock wore off and his face went blank. “I get it.”
The faint hum of the bugs in the trees dropped out. The breeze stopped, the stars faded, and the moon ducked behind a black cloud. It felt like the world stopped turning, because for the briefest of moments, I considered what it would be like having a Michigan football player as my boyfriend.
It’d be horrifying.
Maybe what I was thinking was clear on my face, because his mouth quirked up into a smile. “At least let me try out for it.” He coursed a hand up my thigh, coming to rest at the spot my leg met my body, and his tone was mischievous. “What skills do you need me to demonstrate?”
My face burned a million degrees. I wished I had a witty comeback, but his touch disabled thought. “We can do everything but sex.”
A pleased smile warmed his face. “Good. I want to go down on you. I’ve felt you come on my fingers, and now I want to taste you coming on my tongue.”
Whoa.
Every muscle from my belly button down clenched in response. Oh, I wanted that, but he seemed to be waiting for my consent. I nodded quickly. His face flooded with desire, and I’d never seen anything sexier. It was devastating, too much to look at, so I dropped my head back onto the blanket.
He touched me first. Jay’s fingers grazed over my center, massaging the damp lace, causing me to shudder. A moan leaked from my mouth as he increased the pressure. I throbbed against the fabric, beneath the pads of his fingertips.
His touch went away, replaced by his mouth, and the stroke of his tongue sizzled across my nerves. I was soaking, and could feel the tip of his tongue swiping through the lace. My back arched off the blanket, pulled up to the sky like I was a marionette and his mouth was plucking at the strings.
I cried out when he slid my panties to the side and licked me with nothing between us. My eyes had slammed shut, and sparks danced behind my eyelids, timed perfectly with his manipulations. My heart raced, pounding out a building tempo.
He held my panties out of his way with one hand, but the other pressed my trembling thigh open further as he sucked at me. I loved the sensation of his rough palm against the inside of my leg. His tongue did cartwheels on my skin. White-hot pleasure flashed through my mind, burning everything away but the desperate need to find release. I tensed, like I was about to do a roundoff-back handspring, about to go tumbling and flying from his intense kiss.
“Oh my God,” I groaned. I clutched at him, filling my hands with his hair.
The palm moved off my leg, and a thick finger speared inside me.
I moved my hips, bucking beneath his mouth. His gentle thrusts injected me with heat. Like a real tryout, he was doing an impressive job of showing off what he could do. Lust swamped my brain. “Please,” I begged. “Faster. More. Oh, Jay, please.”
He grunted like he’d been hit, only it’d been with unexpected pleasure. As if my uncontrollable begging had knocked him sideways.
A second finger joined the first, and I sank deeper down into enjoyment. Desire wrapped all around, smothering me like a heavy blanket and pinning me to the ground beneath his tongue. And his fingers . . . they slid in and out, moving faster and faster until I couldn’t breathe.
Holy hell. It took no time at all to push me past the point of no return.
I cried out, the sound echoing off the nearby trees and filling the night air as I came apart. My orgasm boiled through my veins. It swept along, flames licking at me as I convulsed. Each wave of pleasure was sharp, followed by a burst of blissful numbness.
It was such a cruel twist of fate that this guy was so perfect for me, but in this moment, I no longer cared. All that existed was us.