by Lily Cahill
Ben’s words bring tears to my eyes, but they soothe my soul. I cup his face in my hands and kiss him, softly, gently. I know now that this man is a part of my life, a part of my future. What he said is completely true. The darkness in me makes the light brighter, more pure.
Ben leans his forehead to mine and looks me in the eyes. “My father has said I’ll be disinherited if I don’t drop out and go home.”
My heart thuds to a stop, like a sudden hole in my chest. How can he deny what his father wants when he holds the key to Ben’s future?
Before I can say anything, Ben’s fingers whisper down the side of my face and tilt my chin up in a fluttering kiss. “It used to be a foolish sense of pride and guilt and anger keeping me here. But now I have a new reason.”
“Ben,” I whisper. “I don’t care about money or a title. I’ve never had much of either.”
He pulls back to look at me, hope flaring in his eyes. “Are you sure?”
A smile tugs at my lips as I nod. “Plus,” I add, “do you think the aristocracy would accept a black American woman as the Earl of Derby’s girlfriend?”
Ben grimaces. “I’m just Lord Mayhew.” His scowl deepens. “For now, at least.”
But then his features clear, and his intense focus is back on me. He plucks my hand up from my lap and presses his lips to my knuckles, my palm, the tender underside of my wrist. “Nara,” he says against my skin, his voice warm and rich. “I don’t know how you did it, but you’ve enchanted me.” His hand slides up my arm to my cheek, and I nuzzle into him.
We sit on the steps of the library, our arms around each other, our lips brushing against one another, our hearts melding together. After a while, Ben pulls back, the gloriously wicked grin on his face.
“A football player and a cheerleader. Wonders never cease,” he says, his tone bone dry.
I jump up suddenly, dragging him to stand. “Come on, my big football star. I’ve got something to show you.”
Chapter Thirteen
Ben
NARA’S HAND IS TIGHT IN mine as she tugs me onward. The sky overhead is dark, but the orange glow of street lamps infuses everything with a dreamlike quality—soft and a little indistinct.
“Where are we going?”
Nara glances back over her shoulder and just smiles.
And then we’re there—right in front of the massive Mustangs stadium. The walls soar up at least four stories, painted dark blue and seemingly impenetrable. The wide sidewalk dead-ends at giant, locked doors. There are four public entrances to the stadium, plus two more private ones for the teams. Yet Nara seems to be leading me toward something else entirely.
She looks around, grabs hold tight to my hand, then slips into the manicured hedgerows hugging tight to the base of the structure. It’s dark between the greenery and the blue concrete, flashes of orange lights from the lamps striping our bodies as we slowly make our way around the stadium.
“During rush week my freshman year,” Nara says as we walk, “There was a competition to see who could find the secret entrance to the stadium.”
“Secret entrance?”
Nara stops and stares at the wall. It just looks like a never-ending curve of concrete to me. There’s something of a pathway back here, and places where the maintenance staff has stashed trowels and wheelbarrows, but nothing like a door.
Nara bites her plush lip. “It’s around here somewhere.”
Slower now, she leads me onward until she makes a triumphant “a-ha!” and stops. Right before a metal door.
“Huh,” is all I can say.
Nara’s grin when she looks at me is wide and wonderfully devious. She bounces up to the balls of her boots and plants a quick kiss against my lips. Then just as suddenly, she yanks the door open and runs inside, and I’ve got no choice but to follow. It hits me suddenly that I’d follow this woman anywhere. It’s like every single cell in my body longs for her, reaches for her.
“You coming?” her voice comes from inside the darkened hall.
“Coming!”
We feel our way forward, slowly tip-toeing down a long hall. Every step echoes, bouncing off concrete, every breath is magnified. Then I hear Nara wrench at something that screeches terribly, and we’re there.
On the field.
We’re alone, in the dark, in the middle of the Mustangs stadium.
Nara’s watching me as I walk out onto the turf, my head swiveling up. Without the crowds in the stands, the stadium feels absolutely mammoth. The hundred yards between the goal posts feels like a mile. And the night sky arcing overhead is endless, a thousand stars winking down on us and the crescent moon giving just a sliver of light.
We’re alone—absolutely alone—in the middle of a giant stadium. And I suddenly want to do very, very bad things with Nara. By the wicked grin tugging at her lips, I think I’ll have a more-than-willing partner.
“Ben,” Nara whispers, her voice low and throaty. It’s doing wonderful things to my cock. We’ve wandered down the field to the opposite goal posts, until we’re standing in the slight shadow cast by the silver moon.
“You belong here,” she says, looking around. “Can’t you feel it? The energy in this place? It’s electric, even when it’s absolutely empty. And you and I, we’re lucky enough to experience it. Close your eyes,” Nara says.
She tilts her head back and lets her eyes flutter closed. Her arms are at her side, but her fingers are reaching. And the bliss on her face, so open, so full of unadulterated love for this school, for the opportunities she has. How could I ever have hated being here, how did I not see what was right in front of my face?
“God,” she breathes, eyes still closed. “I love that I get to be here so much.”
I can’t stand it any longer, not saying what I’m feeling. I cross to Nara in one big step and wrap her in my arms. She’s so much smaller than me, but I can feel the strength in her. I can feel her heart.
Nara looks up at me, her lips parted just slightly.
“I love you, Nara,” I practically growl, the force of my emotions making my voice rough.
Nara gasps, her eyes blinking wide. “I ….”
“You don’t need to say anything,” I reassure her. “But I need you to know. You brought me back, you made me realize what I’m missing. You’ve … you’ve consumed me, until all I want in this world is you. Jesus, Nara. I love you so much.”
Nara buries her head into my chest, and I wind my fingers up into her cloud of tightly curled hair. It’s rougher than it was when she’d straightened it, but I love the feel of the texture rubbing against my fingertips.
“I love you too, Ben,” Nara whispers against my chest. She cranes her neck to stare up at me, and there are happy tears pricking at her eyes. “It’s crazy. We haven’t been together that long, but I love you.”
I hold her tight and dip my lips to hers, pouring everything I’m feeling into this kiss. It starts out sweetly, gently, but then Nara is pressing up hard against my body, deepening the kiss. Her tongue flicks against my lip, slides along the seam of my mouth. I groan and grasp tightly at her small waist, dragging her even closer.
She arches against me, her hips grinding into the tops of my thighs and her stomach pressing along the length of my cock. Her hands slide down the front of my chest, leaving a wake of molten hot lava. Her thumbs flit across my nipples, making them hard. Everything is hard; everything in me demands to feel Nara’s touch.
“I love your hair, Nara,” I say, threading my fingers into her hair at the nape of her neck. “I love your neck,” I say, dragging my lips away from her mouth.
My mouth finds her neck, her collarbone, the soft skin at the edge of her electric blue, silky tunic.
“I love your tits,” I say, dropping my mouth lower. I flick my tongue against her peaked nipple that shows through her tunic, and she gasps.
“I love your ass,” I say, dropping to my knees and planting both of my large hands on her rounded, ample ass. I knead her flesh with my hands
for a moment, then hook two fingers into the band of her leggings and tug her pants down.
Groaning with anticipation, I slide my hands down her thighs to her ankles. Nara kicks off her shoes so I can throw her pants to the side, until she’s standing before me in just a pair of black thongs and a tunic that grazes the tops of her thighs. Jesus, she can drive me wild without doing a thing.
“I love what you do to me, what you make me feel,” I whisper, my face close to the heat between her legs. I can smell her arousal, heady and a little sweet. It makes my cock strain against my pants.
“Ben,” Nara moans, her hands in my hair. “Ben,” she says again.
I place a kiss against the top of her thigh, then slowly drag my tongue in closer, closer, closer to the slick heat of her pussy. She parts her legs for me, and I can hear her panting already.
Then quickly, I grab her hips and spin her around so she faces the center pole of the goal post. With one guiding hand, I bend her over, until her delicious ass is right in front of my face, just a thin strip of her thong keeping me from licking up from her clit into her hot pussy.
Fingers shaking with desire, I yank her underwear down and plant both hands on her ass. Her clit is already swollen, just begging to be sucked. Spreading her thighs wider, I tilt my chin up and slowly, slowly circle her clit with my tongue. She cries out, and her body shudders. She bends over deeper, giving me more access.
I suck at her, rolling my tongue against her clit in a building rhythm until she’s arching back against my mouth. God, this feels amazing, to taste her, to feel her rock and shudder against me, to make her come completely undone. It lights up every muscle and bone in my body, until I’m practically quivering with need, with desire to make her come over and over and over.
I drag one hand away from her plush ass and plunge a finger insider her. She’s so tight, her pussy wet and hot and just so tight around my finger. I groan against her clit at the thought of how she’ll feel clamped around my dick. The anticipation of it nearly makes me pull away. Nearly.
But not yet. I need to make her come for me. I need to feel her completion break against my mouth and around my fingers. She’s close now, I can feel it. Her body quakes and she’s panting, moaning loudly. I feel her body tighten, coil up hard and strong.
And then she breaks. She cries out in ecstasy as she comes, then her body goes limp. She’s still bent over, still holding on tight to the goal post, but her muscles are soft, her knees bent slightly.
Finally, I pull my lips away from her, but I keep one finger inside her, stroking her slowly, languidly.
We stay there, panting, coming back to ourselves for minutes, my finger still giving gentle ministrations to her soft pussy and my forehead resting against one side of her amazing ass. She doesn’t speak, doesn’t move.
Until she does.
“Oh my God, Ben,” she groans, as her core stirs once more around my finger.
I’m still so hard, the desire for Nara pulsing through me. With one hand, I yank a condom out of my pocket and hold it between my teeth as I work my trousers down to my ankles. Working quickly, I roll the rubber on as my fingers stoke her blazing desire higher and higher.
I press the head of my cock against her slick pussy and finally tug my fingers free. With both hands at her hips, I take a breath, a pause. Then I thrust into her.
She keens loudly, and the sound of her desire sends shivers racing over my skin. And Jesus, the feel of her around me. My dick buried deep into her, until my hips crash into her ass. I groan and slide myself out of her, only to plunge back inside, deeper. So deep. God, so deep.
I pump in and out of Nara, my desire building, reaching heights I didn’t think possible. I’m going to come. I feel it reaching a crescendo. I need to see her face. The need for my mouth on hers overcomes me. I drag my cock out of her and flip her around, lifting her up into my arms and pressing her back against the goal post in one motion.
Nara wraps her legs around me as I plunge into her. She holds on tight to the goal post under her ass and arches her tits against my chest. I bury myself in her, my cock in her pussy, my head into her neck. We thrust together, joined in this single moment of absolute ecstasy.
I drag my mouth up to hers and kiss her deeply. She nips at my bottom lip, pulling it between her teeth as I moan loudly. My entire body seizes up with the achingly beautiful pain of completion. I plunge into her one final time, pushing all of myself into the act, into her, and find glory.
We go still, just the sound of our panting breaths echoing around us. The late October wind is cool against my bare legs, and I feel the eyes of a hundred thousand empty seats on us.
Nara presses her face into my neck and giggles.
“What?” I ask, my voice hoarse.
“We just had sex in the end zone.”
I look up and around, marveling at the audacity of it all. “It’ll make touchdowns during homecoming all the better, I think.”
Nara sighs, threading her fingers through my hair. “I love you, Ben.”
My heart flips over in my chest, thumps against my ribs. I feel it with everything I am as I repeat back to her. “I love you, Nara.”
Chapter Fourteen
Nara
THERE’S SOMETHING ABOUT PUTTING ON this uniform that feels a bit like ritual. The blue and silver long-sleeved shell emblazoned with the rearing mustang that exposes my midriff; the short, navy skirt with silver piping at the hem. Even pulling on the matching navy spankies—a modest cheer garment meant to cover my underwear—and tying on my bright white sneakers feels like completing the transformation. This uniform turns me from Nara the college student into Nara the cheerleader.
This time, though, one small change seems to tug some of the real me into the “cheerleader” persona. I’ve left my hair natural, pulled back into a bouncy, puffy-curled pony tail at the crown of my head. A grosgrain ribbon tied in a bow around my hair flutters through the curls, and I’ve had Lou help me paint a bright silver star at the corner of one eye.
Homecoming is a big deal in Granite. The whole town will come out for tonight’s parade through campus and town, ending with the pep rally on the Diamond pedestrian mall. Out-of-towners—MSU alumnae, parents, sports media—will flood the hotels and streets and cafes, turning our little college town into a nonstop festival.
My phone buzzes, and I check it. My face lights up in a smile and I peek out the window down to the Kappa lawn below. Ben is standing on the sidewalk, smiling up at me.
“Be right down,” I mouth, then bounce down the stairs.
I haven’t been able to stop smiling since that amazing night. It isn’t just sex with Ben. I love him. We love each other. And lord, does it feel amazing to revel in this feeling. I have to bite down on the side of my cheek as I walk out the door to keep from grinning too broadly, but then I let the smile break free.
Ben makes me happy, and I’m not going to hide that. I tumble into his arms and press a kiss to his lips. Ben murmurs a hello then kisses me again, his hands sliding around the exposed skin between my cheer shell and skirt.
“Brits are sorely missing out not having cheerleaders,” he says, eyeing my uniform.
“College football could use more men who dress like you,” I shoot back, doing my own bit of leering.
Ben looks amazing, as usual. His chiseled face is clean shaven, and his messy, dark hair is tamed … but I can still see a hint of the unruly waves curling at his ears and the nape of his neck. He’s in a slim-cut, three-piece suit in a light gray that makes the blue of his eyes seem to glow like sapphires. His attention to detail extends even to his shoes, a burnished tan with a pointed toe. Most men—especially the college football players I know—would wear the same scruffy, square-toed black shoes their moms bought them in high school. But Ben … Ben is a man who knows how to dress.
My cheeks grow hot. He knows how to undress too. And do so many amazing things with that lean, muscular body of his. Heat fires in the core with just the memories of
the last time we were together.
I have to clear my throat. “Shouldn’t you be with the team?”
“This detour was worth it.” Ben slips his strong arm around my waist, and we head toward the start of the parade. We stroll past floats, drum lines, college groups, the marching band—everyone keyed up with excitement to start.
At the back, we finally get to the cheerleaders and football players. Most of my cheer team is already here, people stretching and warming up. We will walk just in front of the football team, stopping at intervals to throw up stunts or do tumbling passes.
Coach Higgins watches me walk by with my arm around Ben, and I don’t miss the way her lips curl up into a smile. She nods at me and holds up a finger: one minute.
Ben leads me into the barely-controlled chaos of a hundred rowdy, muscular football players in ill-fitting suits. A few ignore him, but I notice with a smile that a few more nod at him, hit him on the shoulder in hello. In the crowd of guys, someone wolf whistles at me, and I shake my head in mock annoyance as Reggie and West thread through the players to come say hello.
“Nara, I don’t know what you’ve done to Ben,” Reggie says with a grin, “but keep doing it.”
I peer up at Ben with a wicked smile. “I plan on it.”
Ben’s neck goes a bit red, so I know he’s thinking of the same sort of thing that I am. Ben squeezes my side and can’t hold back a deep, rich laugh.
Reggie feigns shock. “He laughs!” He turns to West. “Did you know Ben could laugh?”
West just shakes his head. Reggie is in a black suit that he keeps tugging at in discomfort, but West is in a sharp navy suit with a thin, blue plaid tie. His shoes are a shiny black and look suspiciously like the shoes Ben wore with his tuxedo. In fact, the whole look appears to have come from Ben’s closet. West adjusts his tie then smiles at me.
“Nara!” Coach Higgins’ voice floats over the crowd. My one minute is up. I press up onto my toes and plant a kiss on Ben’s cheek, then weave through the players toward my team.