"What would I do if I didn't play football? That's a weird fucking question, Cassie," he says. We're lying in the back of his truck looking up at the stars like we have nothing better to do even though its finals week and Colton has an exam tomorrow.

I'm a terrible tutor.

"It's not a weird question," I say. "You said you liked hanging out with me because your identity isn't entirely defined by football when you're with me."

Colton laughs. "I definitely didn't say it like that."

"What?"

"You make it sound… smarter."

"That's all you, Colton," I say. "I'm just rephrasing what you said. You're so much smarter than you think you are, you know."

Colton laughs. "Nah. I'm a dumb jock."

I roll over onto my stomach, my arms on his chest. "I hate that I said that," I groan. "It was before I knew you. You're not a dumb jock."

"I know my strengths," Colton says, his hand gripping my ass cheek. "School is not one of them."

"You have an A in English and a B in History."

"That's all your doing."

"No. You're doing the work, Colton. I'm hardly helping at all."

"Football is my whole life," he says. "I've always known I was going to be good at it. I'm not saying that just to be an arrogant asshole. It's the truth. You know how you do something sometimes and it just clicks? That's always how football has been for me."

"What did your dad think of it?"

"He was proud of me and Drew," he says. "Drew played it for a while, but baseball ended up being his thing. He's smart, though. He's on a scholarship but he doesn't really care about going pro or not. Money was always tight on the farm, but my dad worked his ass off to make sure we had everything. He wanted more for us than the kind of back-breaking life he’d had on the farm. Don’t get me wrong — he loved it.”

"What would he think if he saw you now?"

Colton is silent for a while, his fingers tracing a line up and down my back, and I think I asked the wrong question. Or too many questions. Then he finally speaks. "He'd love where I am with football. He'd be really proud of that. He wanted me to get a college scholarship for it. I don't know if he thought I'd make it to the pros or not. The rest of it, not so much."

"What do you mean?"

"The partying, the drinking, the girls," Colton says. "My parents were high school sweethearts. My dad didn't exactly play the field. My mom always says he looked at her the same way after twenty years of marriage as he did when they first started dating. They used to dance in the kitchen after dinner, every night, without fail. Not to any music. When we were kids, Drew and I would make vomiting sounds when they danced, and my dad would send us to our rooms. I think that was more so he could have time to make out with my mom than because he was mad."

I don't say anything, because I don't know what to say. It's the first time Colton has really talked about his dad.

"Drew is the same way," Colton goes on. "He's been with his girl since eighth grade. We all grew up together. It was never a question, who he was going to be with."

"That's a lot of pressure."

He pushes my hair back from my face when it falls over my forehead. "Yeah, exactly," he says. "My parents were blissfully happy. Drew has had his love life mapped out since we were kids and is totally content. There's no way to live up to that shit."

"So why even try, right?" I ask softly. I blurt it out without thinking, finishing what he leaves unspoken, and immediately regret it. I probably went too far.

"Yeah," he says, his eyes on mine. "Never had a reason to."

He looks at me intently, and I sit up, pulling my knees to my chest and looking away. This conversation got too intimate, too quickly.

I'm surprised by the way that scares me.

"Your parents have been together a long time, too, yeah?" he asks.

"Yeah, but mine aren't at all like yours," I say, laughing bitterly. "I mean, maybe they're happy in their own way, I guess. Or maybe they're just resigned to being together. They'll never leave each other, that's for sure. They fight all the damn time, though. Always have. Knockdown, drag-out screaming matches. Throwing plates, that kind of thing. They would never actually hurt each other, not physically, but their arguments have always been insane."

"Is that why you never really dated?" Colton asks.

I shrug. "I don't know," I say, thinking. "I never really thought about it that way. But I mean, it didn't really make me want to be with someone, I guess. If that's what I had to look forward to, I'd rather be alone, you know?"

"What would you do if you didn't become a professor?" Colton asks, and I'm grateful for the change of subject.

"Not sure," I admit as he sits up behind me, sliding his arms down mine. Heat radiates from him, sending a shiver up my spine.

"Are you cold?" he murmurs into my ear.

"Not anymore."

"You shivered."

"Not because I'm cold."

Colton makes a sound that's somewhere between a growl and a grunt.

"A bar on the beach," I say.

"Come again?"

"That's what I'd do." I dream of it. "Mix margaritas and listen to tourists complain about how they don't want to go back home to their shitty lives."

Colton laughs. "You could probably have done that without getting a Ph.D."

"True," I say. "But then I wouldn't be here in Texas getting some of the best dick of my life."

"Some of the best dick of your life?" he asks, his hands on my shoulders as he turns me to look at him. "Honey, I'm going to absolutely be the best dick you ever had. There's no topping this shit. The rest of your life, it's all downhill from here."

I laugh as he lays back and pulls me on top of him, my hands on his chest. "You think so? I was hoping the next guy would be an improvement."

He growls. "I don't want to hear anything about a next guy ever again," he says, sitting up and flipping me over onto my stomach before I can even register what he's doing. He brings his palm down hard on my ass, the blow stinging.

"Or what?" I ask, my throat tight.

He smacks my ass again. "I already told you I'm going to ruin you for other men," he reminds me, slapping me again. "I don't even want to think about you with other men. Maybe I'm not doing a good enough job of ruining you."

"You should probably try harder," I agree, my voice thick.

He slides his fingers between my legs. "Your smart ass little mouth is going to get you in trouble."

"You should probably fix that."

“You’re not going to look so smug with my cock in your mouth.”

“Oh, I don’t know about that. I think I’d look pretty self-satisfied with my lips wrapped around you.”

He grabs a handful of my hair and pulls me up to face him, sending a shock of pain through me, then lets go immediately like he's afraid of losing control. "Cassie, you fucking kill me, you know that?" I rise up on my knees, guiding his cock toward my entrance because I'm greedy and I don't want to wait. I want him inside me.

I slide onto him, groaning in satisfaction at the more-than-welcome intrusion. Rocking against him, I look into his eyes. "Why do I kill you?" I whisper.

"I think you might be ruining me."