Possession: A Football Romance (Stone Creek University Book 3)

by Lainey Davis

  Contents

  Front Matter

  Chapter One - Olive

  Chapter Two - Bax

  Chapter Three - Olive

  Chapter Four - Bax

  Chapter Five - Olive

  Chapter Six - Bax

  Chapter Seven - Olive

  Chapter Eight - Olive

  Chapter Nine - Bax

  Chapter Ten - Olive

  Chapter Eleven - Olive

  Chapter Twelve - Bax

  Chapter Thirteen - Olive

  Chapter Fourteen - Bax

  Chapter Fifteen - Olive

  Chapter Sixteen - Bax

  Chapter Seventeen - Olive

  Chapter Eighteen - Bax

  Chapter Nineteen - Olive

  Chapter Twenty - Olive

  Chapter Twenty-One - Bax

  Chapter Twenty-Two - Olive

  Chapter Twenty-Three - Bax

  Chapter Twenty-Four - Olive

  Chapter Twenty-Five - Olive

  Chapter Twenty-Six - Bax

  Chapter Twenty-Seven - Bax

  Chapter Twenty-Eight - Olive

  Chapter Twenty-Nine - Baxter: Six Months Later

  Chapter Thirty - Epilogue: Baxter

  Thank you so much for reading!

  By Lainey Davis

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  © 2019 Lainey Davis

  All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced in any form without permission from the publisher, except as permitted by U.S. copyright law.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, business, events and incidents are the products of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

  Individuals pictured on the cover are models and are used for illustrative purposes only.

  Many thanks to Nicky Lewis and Arwen Davis for editorial input.

  Thank you for supporting

  independent authors!

  CHAPTER ONE

  Olive

  HEY LIV, U got any mac n cheese? His texts come at all hours. He’s always hungry whenever practice lets out, and the dining halls are always closed by the time Coach lets the team go from evening practice. But does Baxter Morgan keep his cupboards stocked with snacks? No. No he does not.

  And I definitely enable him. I sigh. I tap back, Of course I’ve got mac n cheese.

  UR a lifesaver. C u in 10.

  I remember the first day I met Baxter Morgan. His family bought the house next to mine months prior, but my parents were never the type to bring over a casserole or welcome anyone to the neighborhood. I was 8 years old, and I didn’t really have the words to explain that my parents’ drunken arguments terrified me, but I knew I felt better when I climbed inside the forsythia hedge between our two properties and hid there until my parents screamed themselves to sleep.

  One night, I nearly peed my pants when I heard the leaves rustle and the branches parted to reveal a curly head in the dark. Wide brown eyes blinked at me. He looked like he’d been crying, too, but neither of us ever talked about that.

  “I’m not supposed to talk to you,” I told him that night in the hedge.

  He shrugged and climbed in, sitting next to me in the dirt. “Yeah, well I’m not supposed to talk to anyone.”

  In the 12 years since, we’ve hardly been separated. Baxter Morgan is my best friend in the entire world, the only person I consider family. He comes to kill the spiders I find in my dorm, I buy him processed cheese pasta, and we look out for each other.

  There’s just one problem.

  I’m hopelessly, fully, desperately in love with him.

  Bax taps on the glass window of my dorm room and I ease it open for him. We figured out that if I got a single room on the back side of the first floor of McPherson Hall, he could get around the visiting hours and “no male overnight guests” rules by climbing in and out as he pleased.

  The microwave beeps as I try not to stare at the exposed skin on his muscular back when his t-shirt catches on the window sill. This one-sided attraction I’ve got? It’s just something I have to deal with, something I have to figure out how to tamp down. He sinks into the couch beneath my loft bed, groaning in pleasure as I hand him the steaming bowl of microwaved noodles. “Fuck, Liv, this hits the spot.”

  I have to choose, like always, if I’m going to sit at a safe distance, across the room from him in my computer chair…or curl up next to him on the loveseat, waiting for his silent signals that it’s ok to rest my head on his sweaty shoulder. I used to just enjoy being near Bax. Just felt warm and safe around him. I’m not sure when all that shifted so that my pulse races and I feel flutters deep in my belly just thinking about the scent of his soap. Jesus, I’m so far gone, I don’t even care that he smells like a shoe after practice.

  It’s sweet, agonizing torture to touch him and know that his soothing hugs mean something different to him. I’m the sister he never had. He’s told me so again and again, and it’s true. Bax is family to me. But my heart just hasn’t caught up with the rational part of my brain. It’ll happen. Eventually this lust I feel for him will pass and all that will remain is the deep bond of friendship.

  That happens, right? We grew up together. We went through some terrible shit together. We look out for each other. It’s not my fault he’s drop-dead gorgeous with the body of an elite college athlete. Baxter Morgan is objectively hot as sin. His light brown curls are always just the slightest bit overgrown. His deep brown eyes are always just the slightest bit puppy-dog. And that deep voice of his melts my bones as it vibrates through my body.

  “Hello? Liv?”

  Shit. He’s talking to me and I drifted off again, obsessing about our relationship. “Sorry. What’s up, B?”

  He talks with his mouth full, inhaling the bowl of noodles in just a few forkfuls. “I asked if you’re coming to my game on Saturday. We’re home this week.”

  I grin and tousle his hair, still damp with sweat from practice. “And just when have I ever missed a home game?”

  He nudges me with his elbow. “Um, hello? You missed the game against Ohio.”

  “I was in the hospital with pneumonia, asshole.” He grins and reminds me that he tried to convince the coaching staff and the hospital to set me up in one of the executive suites in the stadium, IV pole and all.

  “I play better with you there,” he says, tossing the empty bowl on the milk crate I use for a coffee table. He belches and leans back in the seat with his hands clasped behind his head, stretching his long legs out and practically filling up my entire room.

  I wrap my arms around his broad chest for a hug and murmur into his shirt that I need to get back to my homework. “I’ve got an 8am class tomorrow,” I say, hoping but not actually daring to hope that he’ll lift my chin and kiss me until I don’t notice that I’m tired.

  I don’t want his usual peck on the cheek or the top of the head. That’s standard fare for us. No, I want Baxter Morgan to kiss me, like I see him doing to countless jersey chasers over the years. I want him to slam me against the wall during a party and roll his hips against mine, take me by the hand and lead me back to his room and destroy my body.

  But he doesn’t do any of those things. He stands and stretches, giving me another painful glimpse of his abs when that damn t-shirt rises up again. He leans down and pecks me on the top of my head and squeezes my shoulder. “Don’t work too late—you do your best thinking while you’re asleep anyway.”

  “Who told you that?”

  He lifts the window and starts climbing out
, winking at me as he goes. “Smartest gal I know.” And then he’s gone into the night, leaving me to my essay.

  CHAPTER TWO

  Bax

  “FUCK,” I MUTTER as I brush myself off. Climbing in and out of Olive’s window is getting old. I know I shouldn’t call her at all hours, but I swear, if I don’t see her at least once every day, I feel tight through my chest. Like my skin doesn’t fit.

  She has absolutely no idea what it does to me when she sits with me on that damn musty couch she’s got in her dorm room. She wraps her soft little body against mine and it feels so fucking right that I have to remind myself that it’s 100% wrong for me to have the filthy thoughts I have about Olive Hampton.

  Liv is like family to me. Scratch that. Liv is the only family I’ve got left. Until my family moved next to hers, I didn’t know there were other kids who lived with constant screaming and terror. I always thought I was some shitty ass outlier whose parents only spoke in mean digs and cutting exaggerations.

  My dad’s a football coach—they’re supposed to yell, right? Yeah, not like my old man. Something turned sour inside him a long time ago. The old fucker stopped raising a hand to me when I got big enough to let him know I wouldn’t hesitate to hit him right back, but he hit me plenty when I was smaller. Olive was the only one who knew the bruises all over my legs weren’t really from peewee football. She used to risk her own neck stealing Tiger Balm from her parents’ bathroom after they passed out. I got my first hard on trying to ignore Olive’s touch as she rubbed that shit into my black and blue back.

  Me and Liv had a secret spot in the back yard, hiding inside the forsythia bushes neither of our parents ever got up the energy to prune. By the end of middle school, I had rigged a hammock in there, and I spent most evenings with Olive, tucked inside, trying to convince myself that the feelings I was having were brotherly.

  There’s nothing brotherly about the way I inhale Olive’s shampoo when she leans that blonde head on my shoulder. Her big, brown eyes are always so kind, and she sees everything. She can look right into my soul. My heart races when our skin connects. But I know I can’t cross a line with Olive. She trusts me, and I know what that means. I can’t fuck that up for her.

  That’s what I do with women. I fuck shit up. Hell, I never had anyone to show me how human beings are supposed to interact with each other. Nobody but Olive.

  By the time I get back to my suite, my dick has pretty much calmed down. The football team gets some pretty nice living arrangements. I feel bad that Olive only has a tiny-ass room and has to share a bathroom with her whole hall. She’s here on an academic scholarship that includes room and board…but the smart kids don’t get anything like what they give the football team. I’ve got my own room with a king sized bed and only have to deal with one other guy’s funk in the bathroom. Plus we’ve got people who clean for us.

  When I open the door, the other 3 guys in my suite are spread out in the living room, watching Maryland’s game against Arkansas from last week. “Morgan,” they grunt in greeting.

  I kick Finnegan’s leg out of the way and sit on the couch, studying the Maryland running backs, watching the lines they run. Most guys dream of being a quarterback or some shit when they fantasize about professional football. I always figured, if my old man was going to force me into this sport, I was going to play where I could fucking hit someone.

  Defensive players don’t get much glory in the grand scheme of things, but I can pretend each one of those fucking RBs is one of my asshole parents, and trust me. Years of frustration make a pretty damn good motivator. There’s a reason I’m here on a full ride.

  Scotty hands me a beer and I crack it open, trying not to think about my fucked up family. We’ve got a game this weekend. One thing I know is I’m not going to be able to climb any further away from the hell-hole of my childhood without going pro.

  Olive Hampton is going to go anywhere she wants after SCU. My girl’s a damn genius. My dad wasn’t wrong about me being dumber than a bag of rocks, though. This game is all I’ve got going for me.

  “Coach said new guy’s going to see some playing time against Maryland,” Scotty says, referring to the QB transfer. Our guy JT sprained something in his thumb. Scotty fucking knows I don’t like this new asshole, because he doesn’t treat Olive with the respect she deserves.

  “Hm,” I grunt. I don’t like it, and I don’t like him.

  Players’ family gets treated like royalty. It’s a fucking unspoken, common sense team law. You do not fucking stare at the tits and ass on your teammates’ sister or their girlfriend. And this new guy hasn’t got it in his thick head yet that Olive Hampton is off limits.

  I have years of experience keeping other assholes from acting on their dirty thoughts when it comes to Olive Hampton.

  The thought of any other guy laying a hand on her body makes my blood boil. In high school, it was easy to step in whenever any of the scumbags from Fulton High School got ideas. None of them were worthy of her. It’s a hell of a lot harder to make sure she’s safe now that we’re at a huge university.

  We have a kind of unspoken rule about not telling each other about sex stuff. I’d probably puke if she went into detail about that like she tells me about her literature classes and the “utterly breathtaking” books she’s reading for her fiction class.

  But at least I know that nobody from the Otters athletic department will come within winking distance of my Olive. I really don’t want to have to get my ass suspended over this, but as I finish my beer I decide I’m going to have to make it crystal clear how far off limits my Liv is.

  CHAPTER THREE

  Olive

  “THAT’S A WRAP, folks.” Justin, the head trainer, tosses the last roll of bandages into the bucket, declaring the training room ready for the coming week. With four of us working, the grunt work of restocking flew by. I stand and do a little dance, happy that Justin is going easy on us.

  Even though I’m just an undergrad, I’ve gotten to work in the football team training room all four years. I’m sure Bax had a lot to do with SCU’s decision to allow a work-study student anywhere near their valuable football players.

  I’ve gotten some amazing opportunities in this room, and I’ll fold splints and stack tape as long as it takes to stay here.

  My other friends studying kinesiology get to do a few weeks here and there with some of the smaller sports. They’ll wrap wrists with tennis or help massage the gymnasts. I know I’m lucky that I not only get to be in the football space, but I actually get to help work with the players hands-on.

  It helps that Bax tips me off when he hears someone’s been struggling. He’ll text me if someone’s shoulder aches or some else’s hip stings after tackle drills. Often, my “hunches” about a diagnosis sound downright clairvoyant to the training staff when I reveal a blossoming stress fracture or ligament sprain. I grin, remembering the wide receiver whose shin splints I was able to ease up before he missed a game.

  I feel a hand on my shoulder and turn around. Julia and Gabe gesture toward the door. “It’s early,” she says. “We’re all grabbing a drink. Come with us?”

  I should go home and study. I should go home and pretend I’m not waiting for a text from Baxter asking me for chicken nuggets or hot pockets. “Yes, Hampton,” Justin claps his hand on my other shoulder, steering me toward the door. “Staff meeting at the Dark Horse. Pronto!”

  I guess if my boss insists, I have no choice.

  I have just enough time to grab my bag before my friends are dragging me out of the building and into the autumn night.

  I hardly ever go out during the week, and I drink alcohol even less often than that. I’ve got too much riding on my grades, and if I’m honest, I’m worried I’ll turn out like my parents. Bitter, angry, struggling with alcoholism.

  Baxter always said at least my drunk parents had an excuse to scream and yell. His dad’s just ornery. Broken inside. I shake away these thoughts and order a spritzer.

 
The trainers are already settled into a corner booth, passing around shots of whiskey, toasting geeky things like rotator cuffs and “springy groins.”

  “Another spritzer?” Julia raises an eyebrow at me. She knows I don’t really drink. She’s in graduate school for sports medicine and rehabilitation, but we’ve been friends for a few years. Not the sort of friends who open up about my parents on a bender dragging me through the front yard by the ponytail. Only Bax knows those parts of my past.

  I smile and take a sip as Justin drapes an arm around my shoulder. “To ice and stim and no blown ACLs,” he says, raising his glass.

  I stare at his arm, trying to figure out what it means that he put it around me. I stiffen, and he pulls it back into his lap.

  “Come on, Olive,” Julia says, holding a glass of brown liquid toward me. “The boss is toasting. We’re about to be neck deep in football stench. You gotta drink at least one shot with us.” She grins.

  She’s probably right. I remind myself how lucky I am to have this opportunity and gain this experience. Justin probably is including me because he thinks I’m doing a good job, right? I shrug and accept Julia’s glass, clinking it with Justin’s. I feel the warm drink burn as it slides down my throat. I shake my head and slam the glass back on the table.

  Justin stares at me for a long while and I see Julia notice. She slides closer to Gabe—they’ve become sort of a thing this semester—and winks at me. I sip at my spritzer. I know my boss is not too much older than me—he got hired at SCU athletics right after he finished his masters.

  But I don’t want to cross any boundaries that might impact my work. He’s a good trainer and I have a lot to learn from him, especially if I want a funded position in graduate school. He reaches to tuck a lock of my blonde hair behind my ear, and I turn to face him, eyes wide. First of all, only Bax has touched me like that—but Bax and I are just friends. Maybe this is just how guys show they care about the women in their lives?