But fuck, I’m hard in seconds seeing the way the material of the bottoms disappears tantalizingly between her legs, or the way the curve of her tits push at that top. I move like someone in a trance until I’m standing right in front of her, my eyes drinking her in as they roam over her body.
She’s wearing sunglasses, and I can tell she’s napping by the rhythmic rising and falling of her chest. It’s fucking hypnotizing, and I fall more and more under her trance as I let my eyes wander over her.
Jesus, I want to run my mouth over every fucking inch of that skin. I want to taste it while she’s soaking up the sun like that. I want to peel that suit from her body, sink my tongue deep in her sun-warmed pussy, and taste every drop of her.
I can feel my cock starting to throb inside my pants.
“Creep much?”
I jerk my eyes from the place where the bikini cuts across her exposed hip to her face. Her brows are raised behind shades, and there’s the faintest hint of a smirk on those lips.
Busted.
I grin, shrugging. “Just wanted to make sure you weren’t getting burned.”
She takes her shades off as she rolls her eyes. “Oh, I’m sure.”
“Need some lotion?”
She fixes me with a look, and I grin as I shrug it off.
There’s a moment of silence as we stand there staring at each other, like what happened last night didn’t.
Or maybe like the meltdown of this morning didn’t happen either.
Finally, I clear my throat, running my hand through my hair. “So listen, I was thinking about last night.”
Hailey sits up, looking at least somewhat sheepish. “Yeah, same.”
I nod slowly, clenching my fist and getting ready to rip the band-aid off.
It’s going to suck no matter what, so just let her down easy. Let her know it’s not her, it’s just that you-
Hailey suddenly makes a face, her lips curling into a grin. “Oh my God.”
I frown. “What?”
“Your face.” She brings a hand up to her mouth before she starts to laugh. “Oh my God, Dalton.” She rolls her eyes, “Were you about to ‘let me down easy’?”
I scowl as I look away. “No.”
“Dalton, I thought I told you I wasn’t one of your little groupies, and last night-”
“Yeah, Hailey, about-”
“Last night was a just a thing, Dalton.” Her shoulders rise in this casual shrug. “I don’t know what came over me, but I never should have-” She shakes her head. “It shouldn’t have happened, and I’m sorry if you got the wrong impression.”
What. The. Actual. Fuck.
I blink, feeling my head spin a little.
Did a girl just let me down? I almost want to laugh at the way this conversation has gone, but somehow, I can’t seem to muster that sort of emotion.
“Uh, yeah, same,” I say haltingly, shrugging as I run a hand through my hair.
“Look, it’s not about you or anything, and I’m sorry for being weird this morning. I just need to focus on my work for a while,” she says with a shrug, biting at the ends of her sunglasses.
Holy fuck, this has never happened before. A chick just gave me “the line” - the “it’s not you it’s me” line. I grin as I look up at the sky and shake my head.
Fucking hell, karma is a bitch.
“Look, Dalton, it’s not like-”
I do laugh then. “Don’t flatter yourself, darlin,” I say, forcing the grin to my face as I casually shrug. “Could’ve been anyone in that bed last night with her hands on my cock.”
Hailey’s face goes dark as she glares at me, her lips in a tight line.
“I mean, no offense,” I toss in, for good measure.
She says nothing as she puts her shades back on and lies back in the chair. “You’re in my sun.”
I turn and head towards the garage. “Don’t get burned,” I throw back over my shoulder.
“Look who’s talking,” she whips back.
Ouch, darlin.
26
Hailey
For having a football coach as a dad, there’s not a whole lot of “go team” type altruisms I’ve picked up along the way.
But there’s a few, and “don’t dish what you can’t bring to the table” is one that’s been floating around my head the last few days.
Basically since I decided to take the “it’s just fooling around, what’s the big deal” approach with a man like Dalton. Me - wildly inexperienced, wears her emotions on her sleeve me. Dalton goes through one night stands and flings like most people go through Netflix episodes, and there I was trying to play the “no big deal” card.
I’d have made less a fool of myself if I’d walked onto the football field during a game and tried to tackle him or something.
I’ve been talking more game than I can actually bring around him, trying to play it cool and act like what’s happened between us is no big deal. But the whole time, I’ve really just had front row seats to the whole thing blowing up in my face.
Because for all my big game talk, I’m almost sure a guy like Dalton doesn’t buy it for a second. It’s like he can see right freaking through me, and read my thoughts. Because every time he looks at me, it’s like he knows just how inexperienced, and just how awkward I really am.
It’s like he knows he’s the only damn thing running through my head, all the damn time.
Well, him and one singular, repeated line: I can’t believe I did that.
I can’t believe I did any of it at all, really, but especially with him - terrible, gross, dickhead Dalton Cole.
Of course, all the mean words in the world won’t change the fact that one night of just hands with Dalton is about a million times hotter than the one night of actual sex I had before.
Literally, a million times.
…Which still doesn’t mean I can believe I did that.
* * *
“Hey, there’s my girl!”
My dad’s voice calls out from the kitchen over the sound of a Tom Petty record as I close the front door to Heather’s house behind me.
Our house. I should really start working on that.
I mumble back some sort of a non-English reply and start to make for the staircase.
“Hey!” Dad pokes his head around the corner with Beasley slumped over one arm and a spatula in his other hand.
Whatever my current mood, I can’t stop the grin that cracks across my face. Both my Dad and Beasley are covered in flour - it’s on mustaches and whiskers, on eyebrows and furry ears. Dad looks psyched - Beasley looks like he wants to poop on something.
“What’s up with you, sour grapes. How was class?”
I frown, peering closely at my dad. “Are you okay?”
“I’m great, kiddo,” he shrugs, like him coming out of the kitchen covered in cooking supplies is in any way normal for him.
“Are you…?” I trail off, my eyes dropping back to Beasley as I lose it again. “Are you cooking?”
Dad shrugs again, frowning. “Yeah, no big deal.”
“Dad, when have you ever cooked something that didn’t involve a toaster or a microwave?”
He looks up and winks at me. “Alright, busted. I’m trying to make dinner for Heather tonight.”
“Good move.”
Beasley yawns, and my dad peers into my face again. “Hey, you okay, sport?” He frowns. “Still a little shaken about the other night?”
My face feels tight as I shrug and move to sit on the bottom step. Dad puts Beasley down, who growls and scampers off, before he walks over to put his arms around me.
“Talk to me kiddo, what’s going on?”
“Nothing, its fine.”
Truth be told, having someone to talk to about…well, whatever is going on right now with Dalton would be great.
My dad is probably the single last name on that list.
“Ahh, right, right,” Dad takes a step back to look me up and down with a concerned look on his face.
“Girl stuff?”
I almost laugh - almost.
“Yeah, Dad, girl stuff.” I stand and turn to head upstairs.
“Girl stuff going to get in the way of homemade sage ravioli in half an hour?”
My stomach grumbles, and I stop. “I guess not,” I mumble as I turn back.
“There’s my girl,” he says with flour-caked grin before his eyes go soft again. “You know, Hails, you can talk to me.”
I can’t, but it doesn’t mean him saying it doesn’t have me flopping back down the stairs and putting my arms around his neck. “I’m good, Dad, just…” I sigh. “Just life.”
“It’s a doozy,” he says with a chuckle.
It was Mom’s favorite saying.
“Oh,” he claps his hands together. “Have you seen my travel garment bag since the move?”
I frown. “Going somewhere?”
Dad laughs and shakes his head. “The away game? At the Tigers?”
I cringe. “Oh, right.” I scrunch up my face. “Sorry.”
He laughs. “Hailey, I gave up on you knowing my game schedule a long time ago.”
“Dad-”
“No, no, I don’t mean that in a bad way,” he says with a wink. “You know I like that you’re your own person, right? It reminds me a lot of your mother.”
I smile, slowly nodding. “She’d like Heather, Dad.”
He grins and looks at the floor before glancing back at me. “Yeah, I think she would.”
“You want me to come to this game?”
He chuckles. “Nah, you’ve got work do. And hell, I can already spoil the ending for you.”
“Oh?”
“Oh, hell yeah. With Dalton Cole throwing QB, we ain’t losing a single game this season.”
I groan as my dad whistles. “I’ll tell you, honey, that boy’s got a damn golden touch.”
I cringe inside, heat flushing into my face.
“Honestly, it’s like he’s got magic hands or something.”
Please kill me now.
“Once that boy gets ahold of a play, there is nothing that stops him from going deep and driving it home.”
I’m going to be sick.
“Dad-”
“Alright, alright, no more football talk,” Dad grins at me, oblivious to the heat flushing across my face and my body.
“Hey, I love you kiddo, don’t you forget that.” He winks at me before he leans down and kisses the top of my head. “Dinner in thirty?”
“Sure.”
Just as soon as I go bury my head in my pillows for the next three months.
27
Dalton
“So, Ten-”
She smiles coyly at me, twisting a lock of her blonde hair around a perfectly manicured, glossed fingernail. Her tongue darts out, playfully wetting her perfectly painted, bright red lips.
“Can I call you Ten?”
Under normal circumstances - meaning, if I was being my normal, aggressively charming, shamelessly horn-dog self - there’s a few choice things I might say right then.
Baby you can call me anything you like.
How about we lock that door and I’ll show you something else you can call ten?
I can tick them off like a checklist in my head - the predictably inappropriate lines meant to both scandalize and charm the panties off of a girl. I’ve used most of them a hundred times, and I can run through them like football plays.
Except these aren’t normal circumstances, and I’ve somehow got zero interest in the very blonde, very painted, very dolled-up ESPN reporter sitting on the bench across from me.
Meredith is heading the T.V. crew that’s going to be covering my season.
Of course, she’s looking at me right now alone in this empty locker room like she’s more interested in covering me with her big fake tits and her painted mouth than she is with a story.
And like I said, under normal circumstances, I’d have this chick on her back with her Louboutin heels in the air.
You wanna call me ten, honey? I’ve got ‘ten’ to show you right fuckin’ now.
I frown, the thought souring in my head. Because these are not normal circumstances…I’m not normal.
Nothing seems to be normal after Hailey.
So instead, there’s no line. There’s no game. There’s no picking my best words to get her to suck my cock.
I just answer the stupid question.
“Yeah, I mean, Dalton works okay, ma’am.”
Meredith sticks the tip of her tongue out again, wetting her lips as she arches her brows suggestively at me. “Yeah but I’ve heard Ten is so much better.”
And they say subtlety is lost on modern media.
Meredith continues, “So, we’ve moved past game one with a win, which takes care of any second thoughts people might have been having about you.”
I grin as I shrug. “Well, that’s my job - to make sure we win and make sure I live up to my hype.”
I’m playing it by the book, because Coach is right - what I need to do is keep my head down and do the damn work. The NFL is a reality, but the NFL doesn’t give a flying shit which billboard models I’ve slept with, or how long I can do a keg-stand, or how big my damn cock is.
They just want results on the field, and results is what I’m after now.
Not banging star-fucking, fake-titted ESPN reporters.
“Word is among some of the sororities on campus that you are certainly living up to your hype,” Meredith says with an easy laugh. She’s recording this interview to write up later, and I have no idea why she laughs as if she’s on camera or something.
I shrug. “Well, I think most of that is just rumor.”
“Is it?”
Meredith arches her brow again as she drops her eyes to my crotch. She slides a little closer to me on the wooden locker-room bench, wetting her lips again and placing her hand on my knee.
As if she needed to clarify her reasons for requesting to do this interview alone in the locker room after hours.
I’m saved by Coach’s office door banging open. I look up sharply before I grin at the figure standing awkwardly in the doorway.
Must’ve felt her ears burning.
Hailey looks startled, as if surprised to see anyone actually in here. “Oh, sorry, I was just looking for my dad.” Her eyes dart between Meredith and myself, and then down to the hand on my knee. She scowls.
“Oh you must be the sister!” Meredith smiles broadly, tossing her hair over her shoulder as she stands and marches over to Hailey.
“Um, stepsister, and not really,” Hailey mumbles, shaking the reporter’s outstretched hand.
“So good to meet you!” Meredith says, giggling again.
She’s so blonde, and so bouncy, and kind of awful - basically my type, really. And it makes me feel like a smug asshole, but seeing Hailey’s face darken as she clearly sees what is not actually happening here amuses me.
“Need a ride home?”
Hailey’s eyes dart back to me over Meredith’s shoulder, but before she can answer, the bubbly reporter is giggling again and turning to wag a finger at me.
“Oh Hailey, how jealous are all your girlfriends with a man like Dalton Cole asking you questions like that?”
Hailey rolls her eyes and shakes her head as Meredith turns to wink saucily at me. The reporter whirls back with the little recorder in her hand, and Hailey’s suddenly smiling the world’s fakest smile.
“Oh, so jealous!” She gushes, her voice suddenly flippant and bubble-gum tinged in a way I’ve never heard.
“Oh-em-gee, isn’t Dalton just the greatest?” She flaps her hand and tosses her hair over her shoulder, and I grin.
She’s totally mocking Meredith.
“Oh he sure is!” Meredith turns back to me, missing the look of death Hailey flashes at her back.
“Well, Dalton, sugar, I’ve got to take off here.” She saunters towards me, “Unless you want to give me a ride home first and take off a few other things,” she husk
s, not nearly quiet enough for Hailey not to hear, judging from the sour look on her face.
I put on my most charming smile. “You know what, I’ve gotta finish up some stuff here, actually.”
Meredith shrugs, tracing a manicured nail over her lips. “Well then, I guess I’ll see you this weekend at the game to finish what we started.”
She takes the nail away from her lips and traces it down the front of my shirt, a bit lower than what you could possibly consider appropriate, before winking at me and turning to pick up her purse.
“Nice to meet you, Hailey,” she gushes, throwing her an air-kiss.
“Oh it was so nice to meet you too, honey!” Hailey’s full southern-bell accent oozes sarcasm, but the blonde woman doesn’t seem to pick up on it.
She turns back to me and winks one more time. “Bye, Ten.”
The locker room door shuts behind her, and I turn to see Hailey rolling her eyes, her arms crossed over her chest.
“What?”
“Oh, nothing, Ten,” she says in that same sing-song fake voice.
I grin, “See, I knew I’d have you calling me that sooner or later.”
Hailey rolls her eyes again and turns to leave back through her dad’s office.
“You don’t want that ride?”
“I feel like walking.”
This time it’s my turn to roll my eyes as she turns to leave.
“Hey, you coming to my game this weekend?”
Hailey stops and starts to laugh as she turns. “Um, no, Dalton.”
“Well, I mean, I’d hate to have you go and shock anyone by showing up,” I grin. “It’d really mess up that ‘give no shits’ attitude you’ve worked so hard for.”
She frowns at me. “I don’t ‘not give a shit’, I just have other plans.”
I smirk as I nod. “So, this has got nothing to do with you being all weird around me, huh?”
“Oh get over yourself,” she says flippantly, rolling her eyes. “Anyways, have fun with that reporter, Ten.”
Jock: A Secret Baby Sports Romance Page 41