He knows he’ll be playing on Sundays and he has to know that he’s the king of this campus. If he crooked his little finger, 99.9% of the women and maybe half the men would be at his side saying, “Yes, please” to any request he may have, no matter how degrading or ridiculous.
This time when I move away, I do the tug and twist, and my hand comes free. The music changes and Silento’s “Watch Me” plays. Watch me disappear. I wave to him before I let the crowd swallow me up. He stares at me, a thoughtful expression on his face. I’m afraid of what he’s thinking, afraid that his interest might draw me back in, so I turn and dance with the nearest drunken student, hoping that somewhere in this mass of people is that chess player I told Jack I would date this semester.
But my plan is waylaid when a circle opens up in the center of the room, and the football players that aren’t hiding in some room playing Madden egg each other on to show off their whips, Nae-Naes, and Dougies. You can barely hear the music over the shouts of the crowd. Matty Iverson, the All-American Mid Conference linebacker, starts it off, swinging his hips and grinding low to the ground before jumping back up with one foot in the air. His mop of curly black hair shakes with him.
Another player follows up with his teammates hollering for him to get low. His arms pop and lock, and then he places a hand behind his head and wiggles his elbows as he bounces in a wide circle. I can’t help but smile and cheer along with everyone else as one after another gives us a short display of their moves.
The part of me that loves football is the same part of me that responds to this show right here—the pageantry, the athleticism, the energy of the crowd. The beats of the music, the synchronized shouts, all thrum throughout my body.
“You want to dance?”
I didn’t even sense him. Masters bends low, his hands finding a perfect resting spot on my waist. His lips are so close to my ear that one could classify it as a kiss. Realistically, though, it’s loud in here.
“Not really.”
“Yet, here you are. On the dance floor.” His mouth curves up by my cheek. He starts to turn me around into his embrace when I’m saved by a shout.
“Masters! Get your white, unrhythmic ass over here!”
Masters shakes his head and laughs, and it’s like before, deep and rumbly, as if he does everything with his whole self. My stupid body tightens in response because I know he’d be a beast in the sack. He’d throw every ounce of his energy and enthusiasm, and it’d be dirty, loud, and exhausting. Girls would walk funny for three days.
“We’re playing this song on never-ending fucking repeat if you don’t come over here and throw down,” Hammer calls out. He turns to the crowd, waving his arms up and down, and starts to chant, Masters, Masters. The students pick it up and soon Masters—and I—get propelled to the front of the circle.
He rubs a hand down his face and turns back to me. “Don’t forget I was an All American pick for both freshman and sophomore years.”
Finishing his uncharacteristic bragging, he steps into the empty space and spreads his arms wide, like a ringmaster in a circus big tent. He bellows into the room, “We having fun yet Warriors!”
Everyone jumps up and screams, “Yes!”
He snaps his fingers, the music spins up, and we watch open mouthed as Knox Masters, soon to be professional football player, the pride of the Warriors national championship hopeful team, begins to dance. He’s…terrible.
Knox jerks his arm between his legs followed a half a beat by his second arm. He doesn’t look like he’s whipping anything so much as attempting to get a hold of an out-of-control jackhammer. His teammates fall into each other laughing. It’s obvious they’ve seen this show before.
Everyone howls and so does Knox. His grin is huge as he dances off beat and tries to grind low as everyone hoots for him to do more. His performance is short, no more than thirty seconds or so, but it’s long enough to crack my no-athlete barrier and melt my ovaries.
He ends by falling into the arms of his other defensive linemen, who throw him back and he careens carelessly right to me. I hold out my hands to brace him, only he stops short, expertly back in control of his body once more. The DJ segues into Jason Derulo’s “Want to Want Me” and Masters takes advantage of the switch to swing me into his arms, his hips moving in rhythm to the music with much better timing than when he tried to hip flex in the middle of the circle.
“Liked that, did you?” He taps the apple of my cheek that hurts from smiling.
“Maybe.” We both know the answer is yes.
“I can make a fool of myself regularly if it makes you smile like this.” He grins again and I can’t stop my own lips from curling upward. He’s ridiculously irresistible.
Masters takes this as an invitation to slide one of his big hands around my waist, to rest at the waistband of my jean skirt. His long fingers rest at the top of my ass and he slips his other hand under my hair to palm the back of my head, as if he owns me. Masters tugs my hair back and his green eyes—almost black in the dark light of the dance floor—bore into mine as Derulo sings about needing to be with his woman, about not being able to wait, and getting high by just the thought of her.
Again, there’s something in Masters’ face—a hunger or desire or need—that scares me. I want to run away from this, but he’s fastened me as securely against him as a sailor would lash himself to a mast.
Derulo’s falsetto notes seem incongruous against the big, hard body pressed against me and his tones fade away replaced by an even slower, sultrier song. This time it’s Ellie Goulding begging to be loved the right way. Masters might be a virgin, but his erection feels huge against my stomach. Rock hard doesn’t begin to describe it. Whatever he has in his shorts crushes rocks, decimates them, and turns them into dust. Kind of like all my good intentions.