Rumor Has It (Jock Star Book 1)

by Caterina Campbell

  He grabs hold of me, a rough edge to the well-intentioned gesture. With one hand laced in my hair and the other pressed into my lower back, he presses me into him, and I look up, meeting his intense gaze.

  “Is it okay if I come see you for the weekend? I have a charity game in Anaheim on Saturday, but . . .” he trails off, kissing my temple, “I’d be happy to make up the time later.” Pulling away, he grins. “I promise I won’t disappoint.”

  “You’ve never disappointed.” I say it softly, realizing Uncle Rodney is the only other person I can say that about. “I won’t turn you down, though.”

  The Silver Stallion’s horn wails, and I snap my jaw closed to grind my teeth.

  “Best not keep her waiting,” he whispers against my mouth before taking a firm hold of my lips. He kisses me hard, tongue dominating, hand on the back of my head keeping pressure.

  I never want to open my eyes. I want this kiss to extend long into my future, but it can’t, and we’re both reminded of that by another blaring horn call.

  “I love you,” I say, lips still pressed to his.

  “Me too.” He smacks my ass then picks up my bag, and together we walk out to meet an impatient Bristol, who despite my protests to the contrary, still believes Vance cheated on me.

  “Morning, Bristol,” Vance says, opening the car door to put my bag in the back seat. His tone is playful, knowing hers will be at best cordial but teetering toward sarcastic.

  “Is it still morning?” It’s cordial sarcasm with an irritable smirk accompaniment. Not openly hostile, but nowhere close to friendly.

  “Yep. Still morning.” He grabs my hand and kisses me. “Call me when you get to L.A. I’ll see you Friday night.”

  Bristol’s aloof demeanor ebbs slightly when it’s just her and me, but in general, the distance between us has continued to grow as I spend more time with Vance. Before Stiletto Girl, I expected she would eventually adjust to a new normal that included Vance, but that fiasco has only given her something to hang her resentment on.

  “Does he still taste like that girl in San Fran?” She doesn’t look at me, but I can see her face plenty clear with her hair pulled back into a ponytail.

  My nostrils suck in the heated air of the car and the icy stench of her demeanor now that she’s fired the first shots. “Stop it! You’re not being fair.”

  “Fair would be you honoring our pact not to let boys come between us.”

  I shift in my seat, pulling my knee up, and face her head-on while she side-eyes me. “A boy is coming between us because you don’t want me to be with him. That’s not a pact I agreed to. A boy is coming between us because you’re being a judgmental bitch.”

  “He had a naked girl in his bed. HE was naked. If it kills me, Brenna, I will make you see him for what he is—a cheater—since you can’t seem to see it for yourself. That’s the pact I made, to always put you first.”

  I blow out an exasperated breath. “Vance didn’t cheat on me.”

  “Then why are you always on edge when you’re not with him? Worried he’s cheating?”

  “No.”

  “Bullshit.”

  “You want the truth?”

  She nods.

  “I’m worried he’s going to get tired of all your shit and decide I’m not worth fighting you for.”

  Bristol slows her roll, her body relaxing, a sigh signaling a change. “If you weren’t worth fighting for, I wouldn’t still be harping on this and he wouldn’t be making the efforts he is.” She reaches over, grabbing my hand. “I’ll try, but if you want me to accept this relationship, I’m going to need more than just your faith in him.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

  “You look tired.”

  It’s the first thing Vance says to me when I answer his video call. “I am. But not too tired for you.” I offer a pleasant smile despite the exhaustion I’m fighting having been up late all week finishing assignments.

  Vance keeps the irritation out of his voice, but he can’t keep it out of the creases in his forehead. “I don’t like seeing you so tired. I’ll be glad when this is all done.”

  The months of weekend commutes to L.A. for Vance are done, and I’ll be home this weekend for winter break. It’s a good thing, because he’s starting to lose his patience for the college grind. Between homework, work, Bristol, my roommates, and me being drained, our weekends come down to a couple of hours where we get to enjoy each other alone. The distance is hard on both of us.

  Video chats like the one we’re having now are typically late at night when Bristol is out or asleep. Appeasing her and accommodating him has become a full-time job I can barely keep up with.

  “What are your plans when you get home?” Vance asks me, like he’s not sure where he’ll fit into the picture.

  “Depends on how long my test takes, but I planned on going home first to drop off my stuff and see my mom. Then I’ll have someone drop me off at your house, if that’s okay?”

  “Okay? It’s more than okay. I’ll pick you up, though. I have a surprise if you haven’t already made plans.”

  “You’re my plans.”

  “Then I’ll pick you up.”

  I grin. “I don’t need a surprise. I just need you.”

  “You get both.” He sighs heavily, rolling over to his side to prop on a mound of pillows. This is where we should transition to phone sex, but I always laugh, so it has no appeal, and we just end up talking about how our week has been. He’s been playing a lot of golf with Halsey. My routine never changes, and I leave out the days I’m too tired to brush my teeth or take a shower. He doesn’t need to know I have swamp girl tendencies when I’ve run out of steam.

  “Babe, you’re killin’ me. I hate seeing you so tired. I don’t want to be the reason you’re exhausted when you get here. Get some sleep. I’ll see you in a few days.”

  Smiling weakly, I blow him a kiss and close the call.

  “Where are we going?” I ask when I realize we’re heading out of Milagro Beach.

  Vance glances into the rear-view mirror, which I’m convinced is a stall tactic after I follow up my question with, “I’m not dressed for anything fancy.” I didn’t say it, but he isn’t either, though he looks distractingly beautiful, dressed in a ball cap, jeans, and a long-sleeved, blue Henley pushed to his elbows. “Are you going to answer me?”

  “It’s a surprise.”

  A few hours later we check into some gorgeous hotel on a bluff overlooking the rough Pacific Ocean. It’s cold. The wind whips my hair into a tangled frenzy and carries with it a salty-scented mist lifted right from the sea. I inhale deeply, loving the smell and the feeling of cool humidity on my cheeks and lips.

  The pale, ginger kid tasked with seeing us to our room deposits Vance’s bags inside the door. “Thank you,” Vance says, slipping him a fifty. His face, full of freckles, bears the quickest hint of recognition when he looks at Vance, but he errs on the side of professionalism and bows out gracefully, closing the door quietly behind him.

  I’m temporarily awestruck by the sheer size of the place as I step deeper into what I thought would be a hotel room and not a damn condo. The little girl in me wants to do cartwheels from wall to wall to measure its size.

  It has all the amenities of a hotel room, just on a much larger scale. A white-washed four-poster canopied bed built out of some freak-of-nature-sized piece of driftwood looks directly at a gas fireplace topped by a mantel decorated with poinsettias, white glittered ribbon, and starfish. The view of the Pacific is visible from a wall of windows you have to climb up two steps to stand beside. A table for two also sits on the platform in front of the windows and boasts a tray of chocolate-covered strawberries, champagne, and an oblong box wrapped in red foil paper.

  I look at Vance, who shrugs and offers a tentative smile before stepping in front of the fireplace to light it.

  I follow him, stepping down off the platform to stand beside him. “Um.” I stare straight at him, eyebrows lifted. “Did you forget to
tell me something?”

  He shoves his hands into his pockets like a chastised boy. “No. Surprises are usually a secret.” Unlike me, he stares into the fire, finding something in it more interesting than my displeasure at being without a gift or even a lace underthing to make up for it.

  Firelight dances across his face, highlighting his dark hair in an amber glow that makes it look like his head is ringed with fire, because he’s too good in bed for it to be a halo. “I’m talking about that on the table, not the destination.”

  He grins, not even trying to hide his amusement. “It’s all a surprise,” he says, still not glancing at me. “The next two days are the surprise.”

  “Two days?” I drag the two words out, shocked. It’s three days before Christmas. Bristol is going to have a conniption fit if I’m not there to go shopping for Mom’s standard gift of See’s Candy and whatever else we can find as we stroll the mall making fun of people in their Christmas sweaters.

  He nods, still grinning. “I’ve had to share you with Bristol and your roommates for the last few months. I want you all to myself somewhere they can’t pop in as they please or call you away.”

  “We stayed in hotels alone when you visited me, Vance. It’s not like you had to sleep on a blowup mattress between mine and Bristol’s beds.”

  “I’ve still had to share you, and for the next two days, I don’t. What do you want to do first? Are you hungry?”

  “Vance!” I shriek his name while simultaneously grabbing his arm. “I don’t have clothes for two days. Hell, to be honest, I don’t have good-enough clothes for this hotel.”

  Turning sideways, he looks at me, eyes alight with the flickering firelight. “You don’t need clothes.” His deep voice along with the heat in his gaze manages to do what the fire hasn’t yet accomplished, and my body heats expectantly.

  He steps toward me and tilts his head down to look at my chest, then flicks his mischievous blue eyes back up to mine. “I want you naked.”

  “Fuck,” I say beneath my breath, earning his grin as he lifts my shirt over my head and unclasps my bra.

  He brushes his lips against my ear, leaving a soft breath there when he whispers, “I love your dirty mouth.” After sliding my bra straps down my shoulders, he tosses my bra to the side, and an even softer growl next to my ear rumbles my chest. “I love everything about you.” His index finger runs up my bared stomach from the waistband of my pants to the bottom of my sternum. My skin tingles where he touches and hums when he palms my breast. His lips move once again beside my ear. “I love your tits.” I feel his hand sneak around me to cup an ass cheek. “God, I love your ass.” My eyes are closed, savoring every blind second of his caresses. As I feel his hand come between us, every inch of my flesh responds like his touch is new. My anticipation builds the lower his hand goes, and when he finally stops to caress my girl over my jeans, my thighs quiver. “Mmm, I want this.” He covers another one of my moaned curses with his mouth and quiets all further dialogue with his tongue.

  Holy shit. That was hot. If I could melt any further into his body I would. I’m like uncontained liquid, and I feel like I’m spilling out everywhere making a mess on the plush carpet.

  Eyes now open, and minutes from an embarrassing orgasm brought on by his words alone, I run my hands up underneath his shirt to feel his skin and the hard contours of his muscles. I manage to get his shirt up and over his head with only a minor mishap on his nose. I’ll never manage his pants, so I focus on getting my pants down my thighs, shimmying back and forth like the hula dancer on Uncle Rodney’s dashboard when he drives down pot-hole-ridden San Mateo Drive. Vance, way more aesthetically pleasing to watch while he undresses, is naked before I am and is unfortunately an amused witness to my undignified strip show.

  Two feet from me, he pads across the open space to wrap an arm around my waist, eyes intent on mine. The tattoos along his arms look like one singular black piece in the odd lighting of the fire and waning outdoor light. Loving the ink covering his skin, I kiss the bottom of his shoulder right where it joins his bicep. He runs his other hand over my hip and down my thigh, making several lazy trips up and down it, drawing up patches of goose bumps.

  “Are you cold?” he asks, pulling his head back to look at me.

  “No.” I am, but I don’t want him to alter his path because of it. I kiss his chest, and his hand on my hip rises to the back of my neck and fists my hair.

  He tugs, forcing me to look up at him, and taking my mouth hard, he leaves no question as to who is going to be in charge of my body tonight. I’m so completely lost in him, I don’t know how many taps of his foot against my ankle it takes before I finally part my feet. With a light touch, he runs a finger over my slit, and I moan into his mouth, receiving from him in return a tiny groan and a nip on my bottom lip.

  I climb onto my tiptoes, holding onto both of his biceps as one, then two of his fingers enter me, and his mouth latches onto my neck. Out of instinct, because lord knows I’m too immersed in my own pleasure to think of his, I stroke his erection. He groans against my neck, the deep noise rumbling my throat, shoulder, and chin.

  He’s rough when he spins me so that my back is against his chest, our bodies flush. I like this bold Vance whose sole focus isn’t on my well-being, but so intent on my gratification he’s willing to forgo his. Holding me firm with one arm across my chest and the other around my waist, I can feel his erection in the small of my back and at the top of my ass. As I’m on the verge of questioning him, he halts all coherent communication when he drops one hand to massage my clit with one finger while another two fingers on his other hand roll and pinch my nipple with near textbook-perfect pressure. I whimper between speechless parted lips, never happier to be without words.

  “I want to hear more of that,” he whispers against my cheek. “I love it when you own it, Brenna.”

  A moan, thick in my throat, escapes, and I squirm in his embrace, but he only tightens around me and ups the pressure in both places. “Feel it, Brenna.” Both hands move in their own steady rhythm, evoking the same response but moving at different speeds, motions, and pressures. “I want you to come.” He lowers his head and bites my neck, leaving the tiniest bit of sting behind. “And I want you to come a lot.”

  “Get dressed,” he says, sitting up and taking his arm out from under my head. I need more than a few minutes to catch my breath after that love session, but he’s acting like he didn’t just take me three different ways. “Let’s go to a nice restaurant.” He rolls over, covering my side with his body. He plants a kiss on the side of my head. “And then we’ll go on a real date. Like, to the movies or something.”

  “A nice restaurant?” I laugh and he sits up a little.

  “What? Would you prefer McDonald’s?”

  “No, smartass.” I roll onto my back, feeling infinitely better and with a bit more energy than I had two minutes ago. For someone who runs and surfs, I swear I have no stamina for sex with Vance. “The only clothes I have are barely good enough for takeout.”

  He pops up like it’s nothing and gets to his feet. I gawk as he walks to where his jeans lie in a heap on the floor. He pulls them on, and I close my mouth as he covers his firm ass. Doing up the button, he turns to me, and I refocus my attention on his abs. “Your bag is right over there, next to mine.” He gestures with a head jerk, and I look at the two bags sitting at the foot of the bed.

  “How’d I get a bag?”

  “Bristol packed it.”

  I grab up his shirt before he can and slip it over my head. “Bristol?!” I chirp her name loudly, hoping against hope that’s not the name he said.

  He grins, plops down on the bed, and leans back on his hands. “I got her Katy Perry tickets.”

  “No shit?” I ponder this. If she knew about the tickets, I may be good. If not, I’m screwed.

  I hold my breath and stalk to the bags, Vance’s shirt hanging like a shower curtain over me. I unzip the bag I probably should have recognized, and I st
art to pull out the items Bristol packed. Toolbag Carl’s blue plaid boxer shorts top the heap, and below them a pair of fringed novelty socks and my comfy, sweat-stained, washed-twice-in-two-years bra. Cushioned between a homemade cropped tank top and high-waisted jean shorts from my mom’s bottom drawer is a framed picture of Bristol. I can’t wear any of this. Not a single fucking thing. And where in the hell are my fresh panties? I toss everything onto the bed except for the bra, which I hide beneath the huge package of Always super-absorbent maxi pads.

  “What the hell is this?” Vance picks up the striped boxers that not all that long ago cupped Toolbag’s sack, and I panic, snatching them back like a thief.

  “I’m going to kill her.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

  “I’m sorry,” Vance says for the hundredth time. “I honestly thought she’d pack a few outfits and we’d be good.”

  I look at him from over the top of my champagne flute as I plop onto his lap and straddle him, wrapping my hands around his neck. “There are worse things than being stuck in this room with you all weekend,” I say, kissing him softly. “I’m sorry Bristol ruined your plans, but I’m not at all upset about the alternate possibilities.” I kiss him again, shimmying up his lap to get a little closer, isolating my girl right over his new erection.

  He chuckles and wedges his hands beneath my ass, lifting me up a fraction. “I’m not as sorry as I sound,” he admits, grinning.

  I kiss him again, this time with tongue, and taste the lingering fizz of champagne. His hands squeeze my ass. “How ’bout you open that gift?” He nods toward the oblong box sitting beside the only strawberry left on the plate. “Then we can get to other things.” He squeezes my ass again.

  I shake my head like I used to do when Uncle Rodney would ask me if I ate the last Hershey’s kiss out of his candy bowl. “I don’t want a gift,” I say softly.