Big Man on Campus: an Enemies to Lovers College Romance (Big Men on Campus Book 1)

by Stephanie Queen

  “Don’t be surprised if I don’t answer,” I say, then hastily add, “I’ll see you for calculus Wednesday at eight p.m. sharp.” No need to sabotage my calculus grade with an overabundance of caution and conscience, is there?

  He sighs, straightens out, and nods. “Whatever you say, Joni.” He’s not smiling. His face is neutral. It’s the expression that makes him look scary because I don’t know what he’s thinking, what he’s hiding. At least that’s what he looks like to me. No one else seems to care or differentiate the various expressions on his perfect face aside from his half smile smirk when it graces them and his sea-breeze stare when it catches them.

  He walks off to jump into George’s monster SUV and I wonder how Izzy got here. I turn back to our dorm lounge, usually empty on Sunday mornings, but full today because it’s Homecoming weekend. And also because, I realize as I look at my phone, ready to call Dooley, it’s not morning. Shit.

  I have Dooley meet me outside Aroma’s and we sit on a wall drinking coffee. He’s all ears, but I’m not giving up the kind of details he’s looking for.

  “Tell me something, babe-a-la. You have my friendship and years of devotion to you and your grandchildren—especially if they’re with Jack—as proof that I’ll never talk. They can threaten to castrate me and I—”

  “I get the picture,” I say laughing at his typical over-the-top flavor. “Jack’s grandchildren? Don’t even.” I lick my lips. “All I’m going to say is he’s set the bar sky high and I barely have hopes of ever reaching it again.” Not with my fictional romantic poet, anyway. Jack has more muscle power and stamina than any ten poets I ever met.

  “I knew it. How long? How thick? Give me a hint.”

  I laugh so hard as he holds his hands a yard apart. “I’ll only say he’s more than I’ve ever handled before and it was divine.”

  “So he measures up to the hype, eh?” I nod, still getting my laughter under control.

  “Then you’re looking for a repeat performance, I take it?” He sneaks in the hit while I’m not looking. Shit. I’m trying not to remember him saying he’ll call me, trying to forget we’re seeing each other again in three days. Trying not to admit to myself I don’t know how I’m going to keep myself from jumping him, from drooling, from longing for more. Just like every other girl on this campus. Shit. I know better, don’t I? Bad is bad.

  I shake my head and take a long hard drink of sobering black coffee.

  Chapter 13

  Jack

  Heading down the street to BMOC House, the scary idea runs through my head in a nonstop loop. Joni fucking Dowd is the opposite of a disappointment. Tapping on the wheel to the beat of Post Malone’s Better Now with too much energy, the restless kind, because I should be fucking exhausted, I power off the music.

  Physically I feel more than good. But the buzz from the night and the morning’s fucking is gone and I’m left with the same need I had yesterday. She’s like fucking crack. I know getting addicted to her is dangerous, but I can’t work up the necessary fear to care. Not right now with the smell and taste of her pussy fresh. I bring my hand to my nose and breathe in, nearly making myself dizzy as I park George’s Escalade at the curb behind my truck.

  My rusty heap of junk should be parked in the driveway where I left it. George must have borrowed it. He’s probably pissed. I don’t give a crap. Do I? I head for the back door because I don’t feel like confronting him right now. He’s the one who insisted we go together in his car. His true insecurity showing, his need to shove it in everyone’s face that he’s dating my ex. As if I care? The only one who truly cared was his poor date, Izzy. And I truly felt bad for her. Why? Not sure, but it’s not because I’m pining after her.

  Oh, no. The only pining I’m doing, inexplicably, is after Joni fucking Dowd. What the fuck is up with that? It’s fucking two in the afternoon and we have a meeting and game films at three. I figured getting inside her would cure me of the driving need to be with her, but now… not so sure. Now my mind is spinning with ideas of having her back in bed—and sooner than Wednesday fucking night which suddenly seems like an eternity away. Since when is three days an eternity? Am I out of my fucking mind?

  Running up the back stairs to my room because all the things I need to do come crashing down on me now, I ignore the smart-ass comments from a couple of guys and slam my door behind me. I have a massive case of lust like I’ve never had before, that’s what’s wrong with my fucking mind. And I need to get over it. Quick. Like before I show up at the field house for the meeting or Coach will be all over my lust-hazed ass.

  Sitting in the movie theater style film room that’s just big enough to accommodate the team, the lights are at full brightness and Coach Radz takes center stage. I’m sitting in the front row with Tristan and the freshman backup QB whose name I can’t remember. Fuck. That never happens. It’s not like this is the first time I stayed up half the night fucking a girl. This picture keeps getting more wrong the more I try to snap focus and have a hard time.

  We’re in our street clothes for the meeting so I fiddle with the cufflinks in my pocket. For some reason I took them down from the rearview where they hung and put them in my pocket. Why should they remind me more of Joni than my grandpa and my purpose, I don’t know. That’s what the cufflinks had always been a symbol of—the need to succeed, to make something of myself and my gifts. I never sold them like Grandpa said I should. I finger the cufflinks, then slip my hand from my pocket and focus on Coach.

  “We have a short week and a tough opponent Friday night. We’re going to need to mix the offense up, make some changes because they have a damn good defensive rush with more sacks than the rest of the conference put together.” He looks at me and points. “You’ll need to be prepared to scramble your ass off or you’ll be decked. These guys are big—bigger than you and your head. I know that’s hard to believe.” Everyone laughs, the low, solid laugh of men who are only slightly amused. I don’t bother. He often makes jokes at my expense. He explained it to me once my freshman year after he put me in as starter and I performed, making it clear the job would be mine for the duration.

  Coach told me he didn’t want me to get a big head, didn’t want the other guys to think I was too important or not one of them. Most of all he didn’t want me to think I was more important or bigger than the team, because I couldn’t win the game by myself. I thought he was nuts because I was a freshman and even though I’d been a phenom in high school, this was Division 1 college football at an elite program and I wasn’t stupid enough to think it would be a cakewalk in spite of my performance.

  Besides, I needed my teammates. I had no family as far as I was concerned and had left the town and all the friends I had there behind. I needed to make the team my new family and I intended to do everything I could to make that happen. First thing I did was find an old house to rent and take over, then I got a bunch of guys to move in with me. Fuck the frats. But the best thing I did, the thing that sealed the deal, was hiring Majik. We all worshipped her. She was the substitute mother we could relate to without feeling like sappy little boys.

  And for me, she’d been the mother I never had. One who actually cooked, one who had a clue. One who I harbored a secret hope my mother could someday become.

  “I’ll be sure to wear my scrambling shoes,” I said. “Don’t worry. I can hold in the pocket and throw with guys coming at me. But if I need to, I can throw on the run. And if I’m desperate, I can run with the ball. But I don’t intend to be desperate.”

  Coach nods, acknowledging the game plan that I just outlined for him. He never says he appreciates when I’m a step ahead of him, but I can tell he does. The rest of the team figures we have secret phone calls ahead of team meetings so I already know what the coach is going to say. But it’s more like I know the coach by now and I know the game. Plus, I study up on our opponents ahead of time. Tristan is the only other player who does that before the team meeting and films. We usually do it together Sunday mornings, but I
was late today.

  He looks at me and winks. Coach starts the films and my mind wanders thirty seconds in. Fuck. It’s going to be a long fucking week. No calc tutoring Monday because we have a late practice and extra film session scheduled because it’s a short week.

  After a week of texting with Joni where she fends off my suggestions for phone sex or text sex, I’m wound tight and can’t imagine sitting in my kitchen doing calc with her next to me, within reach, and waiting to get my hands on her and my cock inside her. But when she shows up at the back door at eight tonight, there’ll be a whole crowd of us in the kitchen waiting, because I won’t be able to get rid of the guys. They want to see her—or more accurately they want to see us together. George has everyone convinced that I’m serious. I insist I’m not.

  “Get the hell out of my kitchen,” Majik shoos Billy and a couple of the other guys out of the room. I’m sitting at the small kitchen table with Tristan and George and there’s only one empty chair that six different guys have already tried to claim.

  “You’re an asshole for putting money up,” I say to George. He laid odds on whether Joni and I would end up in my room. He’s positive we will. He could be right, because I’m going for it and to hell with my rule. Some of the other guys are going with me sticking with my tradition of not bedding a girl in my room. I should be embarrassed that I’ve tossed the rule out the window so easily, but I’m not. My cock is too jumpy to care, my lusty addiction too extreme. It’s tough to hide, but I do my best. George sees right through me and Tristan too, but he’s not a dick about it.

  “I’ll give you a cut of the money if you want,” George says to be a double dick and I have to hold myself back from jumping at the chance for extra money. I have a project I haven’t been able to complete so I haven’t earned any extra money in a couple of weeks. I have to send my living expenses stipend to my mother this week to cover her expenses and I’m left with pocket change for gas money.

  “You going to let him get away with this?” I say to Majik, as if she’s our mom and we’re bickering brothers. She cracks a smile and shakes her head, grabs her old ratty raincoat, and heads for the back door. One of these days, when I’m rich and famous, I’m going to buy her a new coat. When she opens the door, Joni steps in and they exchange greetings before Majik leaves.

  Joni takes a look around the kitchen table at the three of us and she knows something is up.

  “Did I get it wrong? Because I didn’t come prepared for a poker game,” she says.

  “I was just leaving,” Tristan says. “Jack’s brain is all yours to suck out all the calculus tricks you can.” George being George, he snickers when Tristan says the word suck.

  “I have nowhere else to be,” he says. I slap him on the head.

  “You’re not staying. We have serious work to do.”

  He pushes from his chair and says, “If you say so. I’ll be upstairs. Waiting.” He flicks a look at Joni. “See you later.”

  When he leaves and we’re alone in the kitchen it’s already eight fifteen and Joni takes out her iPad, pencil and paper. “What’s up with your friends?”

  “The usual dickhead football player stuff. Betting on whether you’ll spend the night.” I enjoy the shocked look on her face and the pretty pink blush. Her ability to blush never gets old and I sometimes I hope I don’t disillusion it out of her. But I know better. It’s only a matter of time, and I intend to enjoy every bit of the ride along the way.

  “Jack—” she sputters, at a loss for words. I know I have my work cut out for me to convince her to stay.

  “What do you have for calc homework tonight? We up to differential equations yet?”

  “What?” Her blank look tells me the answer is no. She slides the iPad over to me and we start in. I give her a half hour of calculus before I relent and let my cock take over.

  “Good work tonight,” I say.

  “Thanks.”

  “I mean me.” She laughs and leans in for a kiss and I take her up on it.

  “Getting brave kissing me in the kitchen.” I nibble on her earlobe because I love how it makes her shiver, love the ever-present cherry-almond scent that lingers there.

  “It’s you. You’re irresistible sometimes.”

  “Only sometimes?” She laughs again and I press my advantage. “How about if we take this upstairs?” I stand while I can and push her things into her backpack and heft it onto my shoulder.

  “Upstairs?” Her bravery is waning fast, but she stands so I put my arms around her.

  “My room is private,” I say, teasing her lips with mine.

  “I don’t think so, Jack. I can’t stay here. The house is too crowded for me. I know they’d be listening. I’d feel too exposed like we were lovemaking in the middle of the living room with everyone watching.” She shudders.

  Taking a deep breath, I sigh, but I get stuck on her reference to lovemaking. If she thinks of us as lovemaking then she’s in for a rude awakening because that’s not what this is. Far from it. My chest tightens and I get that sharp pain in my back, the one that’s been chasing me for four years since Grandpa passed, the one that makes me want to get out, to run, because if I don’t my dreams might come crashing down around me.

  “Are you all right? You look funny—like you’ve seen a ghost.” She lowers her voice. “I’m sorry about tonight, Jack. It’s not that I don’t want to,” she says, licking her lips. I believe she means it. Her tongue distracts me and I take her face in my hands and cover her mouth, sucking her tongue into mine, needing to possess her, brand her in some way, erasing my resolve to set her straight about where we stand.

  “What about Friday night?” I ask, determined that I’m going to have her in my bed, that I’m going to make sure she wants me as much as I want her, no matter what kind of shit my friends give me.

  “What about it?”

  “We’re spending the night together.”

  She arches a brow. “Maybe we can make arrangements—”

  “We’re spending the night together in my room.”

  She laughs. “I should know better than to present a challenge to you. But seriously—”

  “If I score a touchdown for you, you spend the night in my room,” I say, pulling her hips into mine, needing to remind her, brand her with my stiff cock. I don’t know why it’s important. Maybe it’s another useless rebellion against the rules. But the need is strong.

  “You score touchdowns all the time.”

  “No, not like that. I mean if I carry the ball into the end zone myself. You spend the night in my room.”

  She’s reluctant. “Is that even a big deal?”

  “Yes. Coach doesn’t like me carrying the ball. I haven’t scored a touchdown all season and only two in my first three seasons. It’s rare and I’ll piss the coach off if I do it because no fucking way he’ll call that play.” Her eyes go wide and I’m satisfied that she gets it.

  “You’re going to defy your coach so I’ll—”

  “Spend the night with me in my room.” We stare at each other and I can read everything in her eyes, the reluctance, the desire, the awe and appreciation. Not quite adoration, but I’ll take it. I want her to be as lust-lost as I am, as crazy to be together fucking—not making love—as I am.

  “In that case, it’s a deal.” Her declaration is breathy and I palm her head, pulling her mouth to mine and devour her, my cock leaping in my jeans, pressing against the zipper. I want to keep kissing her, but the discomfort forces me to stop.

  “Shit. You need to get out of here,” I say.

  “I think you’re right.” She scrambles to take her backpack from me. I remain still, breathing deeply in and out, my eyes on her sweater and the way it curves around her perfect breasts, not too tight, but enough to show what she has, torturing myself. I close my eyes and she stops, standing there waiting for me.

  “Jack?”

  I walk with her to the door, shifting my cock with my hand to ease the discomfort. Her eyes zero in on my
bulge and I see her face heat up, knowing she’s tempted.

  “You change your mind?” Her eyes flash back to mine and she backs away. I back her to the door and she opens it before I can stop her. The cool night air floats inside bringing rational thought with it. I have a pile of reading to do and that project I’m behind on. No way can I afford to spend the night with Joni as much as my cock insists it doesn’t care.

  I need to care. Fuck. Am I ready to blow up my Heisman season over a night in the sack with a girl? Fuck no.

  “Good night, Jack,” she says and I kiss her on the forehead, not even touching her. She smiles and I almost change my mind, the light in her eyes like a siren call. She moves to the other side of the threshold then and I shut the door with enough force to convince someone I mean it.

  There’s something about playing football on Friday nights under the lights. It’s easy to get up for these games and always has been ever since I played for the junior league before I got to high school. I’d been too big for Pop Warner when I was a kid, but I know now that’s a blessing. Head injuries to young kids are a bitch and QBs in Pop Warner were notoriously prone to concussions and the like.

  Putting on my customized Riddell SpeedFlex helmet feels safe, but I know it’s not by a longshot. Trotting alongside Tristan from our dressing room to the tunnel of the stadium, not even the possibility of a head injury detracts from the palpable excitement in the air. The team follows us and their energy is sky high. I feed into it while it feeds me.

  “Whose ass are we going to kick tonight?” I shout as we near the entrance to the field.

  “BC-BC-BC,” is the loud answer, fists pumping in the air.

  We reach the field and Tristan stops. I stand with him. The team is behind us jumping up and down, grunting some shit, as I look at the lights and the Jumbotron showing our record, 7-0. Tristan tenses as they wrap up the intro of our opponents.