He smiles back at me. “I take that as a compliment, but it’s true. I mean, I'm glad that you think that I've got some moves. That bodes well for my future girlfriend.”
“Is it so important that I believe you?”
He spears me with those brilliant gem green eyes of his. “Yeah, I think it is.”
I refuse to explore that sentiment. It’s too scary. I ask him another question. “So, you've never made out with anyone or never had a girlfriend?”
“No, I have.” His arm has slid over that spare inch and now rests against my ass. I try not to let it affect me. I try to pretend that little contact between his bare forearm and my jean-clad butt isn’t spreading into every nerve of my body.
I clear my throat. “So, you’re an everything but virgin. Newsflash, you're not a virgin.”
He chuckles, low and deep. “I’ve never stuck my dick in a girl. I've never gotten a blowjob. I've never gone down on a girl. But I have got to first and second base.”
“I can't believe I'm asking you these things, but I can't help myself. It's partly your fault because you keep answering them. But how about dry humping?”
He takes another swallow from his bottle and then another. Then he drains the whole thing and sets it on the deck floor. “Yeah, I'll admit to that. Do I keep my virgin status?”
“I’ll think about it.” I’m glad it’s dark because I feel hot, and I bet I’m beet red. Why I’m asking these super personal questions of Knox Masters, I do not know. But I’m the one suffering because now all I can think about is what it’s like to kiss Knox, to straddle his lap and rub myself against him until we’re both crazy with lust. Dry humping? Did I really ask him that? I press my can against my forehead, but it’s lukewarm and provides absolutely no relief. I think I need a cold beer. Or some of that rum that the kid offered earlier.
“What are you drinking?” I ask in an effort to remember a tiny bit of manners and hop off my spot on the porch. A few people have drifted over, probably drawn in by Masters’ gravitational force.
“Water.”
That stops me short. “Water? No beer? No vodka? Season hasn’t even started.”
“There will be plenty of time to throw down after the season is over,” he says mildly, not even remotely offended. “The average time in the NFL is five years. I'll play ten if I'm lucky. Fifteen if the gods smile down at me. That gives me forty plus years to drink myself into a stupor.”
The discipline this guy has amazes me. “You're big into delayed gratification.”
“Waiting can be worth it.”
“How would you know?”
He laughs. He throws his head back, and the deep rumble starts in his body and ends in mine. Fuck me. He’s gorgeous, talented and has a goddamned sense of humor.
Life is so unfair.
8 Knox
With little effort, I swallow the rest of my laughter. I want to pinch Eliot’s cute, frustrated cheeks right now, but I have a feeling that’d go over as well as Hammer’s attempt to throw the ball—which means not at all. His arm is shit. If we run a trick play, he’ll never be the one to throw the ball down field toward Ace.
She shifts uncomfortably, but I don’t make any effort to make that go away. It’s a good uncomfortable. She’s hyperaware of my existence, which is only fair because I can’t stop thinking about her either.
It hasn’t been a cakewalk abstaining from plowing every willing girl who’s thrown herself at me. It’s only gotten worse since I got put on the cover of SI with a bunch of other overhyped college players and the caption Who’s Next? I didn’t even want to be on the cover. It’s complete bulletin board material. No doubt that stupid picture is up in locker rooms all over the conference full of dart holes.
There is so much willing pussy thrown around that it’s hard to dodge. At a big Division I school, all you have to say is you’ve got a spot on the roster and girls are ready to spread for you. Even the wet-behind-the-ears freshman bartender won’t have any problem finding a chick to go home with tonight, even though he struck out hard with Ellie. It’s easy to drink water instead of pounding drinks. It’s easy to say no to those offers of HGH or money from agents. There are real repercussions to those actions.
But saying no to a hot, dark-haired beauty who wants nothing more than to put her lips around my dick? Or no to the cute redhead who promises me the carpet matches the curtains? Or no to the banging blonde whose barely-there tank top doesn’t quite disguise her erect nipples that she apparently has developed from rubbing her ass all over my lap? That takes super human effort. As each month wore on, it felt harder to remember why I’d decided I’d wait.
I’m not religious. Oh, I believe in a higher being. If pressed, I’d say that heaven and hell existed in some form. But my decision to wait didn’t stem from some mandate in a thousand-year-old written text or from some guy on top of the mountain. It’s a hell of a lot more prosaic and boring. But I’ve managed to say no because I’ve waited this long, and it didn’t make sense to waste it on a quick and easy fuck in some bar bathroom or frat house bedroom.
But fucking my fist gets real old.
It’d be easier if I was a hermit like Ace, who doesn’t like parties and would rather be tied up and whipped publicly than have to sit and make small talk with a bunch of assholes he barely knows, which is why he’s hiding in the video game room playing Madden. But I enjoy the crowds. It hypes me up to see all these people here at Hammer’s house, excited to be with us.