Consumed: A MMA Sports Romance

by Claire Adams

  I took the stairs once more, climbing them slowly and dreamily, able to feel the aching tenderness between my legs. I would text Zack once I got back to my room, I thought; he should be out of practice and maybe we could make plans. I had to get my homework done, but maybe Zack would be willing to come up to my room and we could study together and then have sex again. That was a good date, no matter who you were. Or maybe Zack would be up for going to the movies in a few days, and coming back to my room afterward; in spite of the fact that our first sexual encounter at the college had taken place on the couch at his frat house, I didn’t like the idea of going to the frat house to be with Zack. I could still remember his brother’s comment about me being Zack’s piece of ass. I didn’t think that Zack took the same view—I hoped he didn’t—but I didn’t want to hear it from anyone else, either.

  My mind kept going back to the way Zack had improved in the time we had been apart. The thought of him—of what it was like to have sex with him—was so intense that I felt myself getting turned on in spite of the fact that I was walking around campus, into the dorms, up to my room. I thought about calling Zack, inviting him over to have one more little quickie in my room before dinner. I could still feel the ache between my hips when I moved, the sweet feeling of tenderness between my thighs that was so satisfying. I wanted more of it—I couldn’t help but want more. I smiled to myself. I could easily just offer Zack a massage; after practice he’d definitely want one, and he’d know right away that it was the perfect opening for sex.

  I was so lost in thought that I didn’t spot the guy in front of my dorm room until I was nearly at the door. I looked up and saw one of the guys who had been sitting with Zack in the dining hall at lunch standing right there, looking up and down the hallway. The sight of him confused me; since he was on the team, I had to suppose that I’d been right—practice was over for the day. But what was he doing hanging around in front of my dorm room? The guy was bigger than Zack—bulky and hefty where Zack was lean and muscled, with dark hair already starting to thin at the top in the crew cut he wore. He shifted uncomfortably and watched me as I approached, his pale gray eyes firm and his lips pressed together.

  “Uh, hi? Who are you and what do you want?” I shifted my backpack, feeling an instinctive fear creeping up from my stomach.

  “Hey,” he said, trying to give me a friendly smile, but I could tell he was tense about something. “I’m Robbie—I’m on the team with Zack. How’s it going?”

  I shrugged, feeling impatient. “I’m doing pretty well—or I was until I found some strange guy standing outside of my door looking like a creeper.” I raised an eyebrow and Robbie shrugged uncomfortably. I set my jaw. “Maybe you’d rather just get the point of why you’re here.”

  Robbie looked at his feet for a moment before meeting my gaze. “Look,” he said, “You need to just cut Zack loose.”

  I frowned. “What the hell are you talking about?” My heart was beating fast, and I wondered if Zack had told all of his teammates about me.

  “I know you don’t know me and we’re not friends, but consider it a personal favor. Don’t hang out with him, don’t go on dates with him, leave him alone.”

  I felt anger mixed with confusion rising inside of me. “Excuse me, but I don’t have any reason to do you a favor. I don’t know what’s going on in that big blockhead you’ve got going on, but this was probably the dumbest way to ask me to stop seeing Zack.” I shook my head in disbelief. “You don’t know me and you can’t do anything about what Zack wants to do.”

  “Listen—hey—I get it, but just hear me out…” The guy started forward, giving me an opening. I darted around him and got my key in the door quickly, unlocking it with a wrench and yanking the door open.

  “Get the hell out of here before I call one of the RAs and tell them you’re harassing me,” I told the big, beefy guy, scowling at him before I slammed the door in his face. I twisted the lock and stormed away from the door, telling myself I’d give him two minutes before I checked to make sure he was actually gone.

  I went into my room and threw myself onto the bed, shaking slightly. Who was that guy to tell me not to have anything to do with Zack? I shook my head, feeling the anger boiling up inside of me, twisting my stomach into knots. I couldn’t get comfortable. I sat up, threw myself back down, got out of bed and sat down at my desk; I couldn’t even manage to get into the reading assignment for one of my classes. Part of me wanted to call Zack and tell him what his teammate had just done. I went through my bag to find my phone and looked at it for a long time; but I couldn’t quite make myself make the call.

  I put my phone back down and considered it. What reason would the guy have to ask me to stay away from Zack? The guy would have had to have come directly from practice to be waiting at my dorm when I got there; had something come up during practice—had Zack told his teammates about ending up in bed with me? The thought of that brought the anger boiling up even more; if he had told his friends he’d gone straight from the dining hall to my dorm and convinced me to sleep with him, I would kill him. But then, I remembered the spectacle he’d created. The guy who’d been at my door had been sitting right next to him—he had probably taken the proclamation of love at least a little seriously.

  I chewed on my bottom lip, thinking about it. Even if Zack hadn’t told his teammates about getting into my pants, I doubted that Zack went around jumping onto tables and proclaiming that he was hung up on girls on a regular basis. The team was reaching the end of its season, and they were close to that elusive ideal—the perfect win-loss record. I got up from my desk and left my room, going to the door to the common area and opening it hesitantly. The guy who’d stood there waiting for me was gone. I went back to my room and climbed into my bed, thinking about the situation from the team’s perspective. I could see where they’d be worried that Zack would get distracted by the prospect of dating me—or anyone. The team only had one more game in the regular season to get through, and then they would be into the national championships. With their record they would be playing against a top-tier school for sure—but a perfect record would definitely bolster their hopes.

  I looked at my phone again and decided that at least until the end of the season—only a couple of weeks or so away—I could afford to put the possibility of a relationship with Zack on hold. It wasn’t that I was doing what I was told; it was that I didn’t want to distract Zack, and I didn’t like how fast things were going between us. I told myself firmly that I would just put the brakes on things for a little while, let things cool down. There would be time after the season ended to reconnect with Zack if he was really, truly serious about being with me—if I wasn’t just some kind of convenient fuck buddy for him.

  I felt a wrench in my chest at the possibility that if I did decide to slow things down—in reality, to stop them until after the season had ended—I might lose Zack altogether. It was a risk I had to take, I told myself firmly. If Zack moved on to another, easier girl while I wasn’t around, that was on him, and I would just have to move on. It wasn’t as though we’d been dating seriously anyway; or even, really, at all. We’d gone on one date together, and at that it was because Zack made it a condition of answering my interview questions. I thought about the fact that about a week after we’d had sex for the first time since high school, he’d told me flat out that it was just sex; if that had been his attitude, then I could easily give him up. I put my phone down and turned my attention back onto my homework as best as I could, even though I was still haunted with the possibility that I would really, really regret my decision.

  CHAPTER TWO

  For the next few days, I buried myself in schoolwork. I barely left my room except to go to classes or the library, and I always made sure to get in early enough to book a private study room. Midterms had passed, but I knew that if I gave myself too much free time, I would come to regret it. Jess rolled her eyes at my diligence, reminding me of her “all work and no play makes Evie a dull girl” c
rack—but I couldn’t quite bring myself to tell her exactly what had happened, only that I had decided to take a little break from Zack and even dating in general.

  It was harder than I had even imagined; I knew that it was easy for me to become infatuated with him—but I hadn’t counted on how quickly it could happen. I couldn’t exactly tell Zack what had happened either; I didn’t want to start a fight amongst his teammates, and I honestly didn’t know how to explain it to him. I felt guilty, but I couldn’t think of any other way to deal with the situation. The first time Zack texted me—right before dinner hours at the dining hall—I simply responded to his invitation to sit with him that I planned on getting something to go and studying in my room.

  After that I couldn’t bring myself to answer any of his messages or calls. While I sat at my desk in my room going over the class readings the day after my altercation with Zack’s teammate, my phone buzzed.

  Practice was canceled today, the message read, with a little smiley face. We could hang out…maybe you could show me more of those skills you picked up.

  I pressed my lips together and didn’t even pick my phone up to contemplate replying. It buzzed again, breaking through my focus.

  Or if you don’t want to get down we could just hang out and watch a movie.

  I took a deep breath. No—I wouldn’t respond to him. I wouldn’t even reply to tell him that I was too busy with homework. If I did, he might offer to come up and study with me; of course, knowing Zack, he would be able to very quickly convince me to do anything but study.

  The next day, he tried again. I was in the library, in the private study room that I’d reserved for the afternoon trying to make heads or tails of the new Stats lesson. My phone buzzed, on silent per library rules.

  Hey, are you mad at me? Can I at least get a chance to figure out what I did wrong?

  My heart wrenched in my chest. It took all I had not to open the message that was flashing on my screen and reply to it—tell him that he hadn’t done anything wrong, that I wasn’t mad at him, that I just needed some space and thought he did too. But instead I turned it off altogether and tried to bury myself in my textbook.

  When I got back to the dorm, there was a note taped to my door.

  Jess let me in—I’d hoped you were here. Call me, please?

  It was signed in Zack’s messy scrawl. I ripped it off my door and went in, closing myself into my lonely room and deciding that I’d rather just curl up and go to sleep rather than risk running into him at the dining hall. I turned off the lights and tried not to think about the times that Zack and I had been together, or the sound of his voice, or the way that he seemed so interested in being with me. He would give up soon enough and maybe later—if I hadn’t ruined things for good—I could explain to him that I had just needed space, and wanted him to have the ability to focus on the game. Even if he couldn’t forgive me for that, I needed to be able to tell him. Maybe, I thought with a mixture of dread and hope, he would just forget about me completely, and move on with his life. The frat he belonged to must be having parties; there would be plenty of girls all around him vying for his attention, more than happy to take his mind off of me.

  The next morning, I woke up with my stomach in knots, twisting in on itself from hunger. I realized that I had left my phone turned off all night and dug it out of my bag, turning it on. At least I hadn’t managed to oversleep. As my phone loaded up, I saw the flash of two more messages and a voicemail—all of them from Zack.

  Look, just tell me you’re okay. I can’t find you and your roommate won’t tell me where you are. The second one read: If I did something wrong you should at least give me a chance to apologize.

  Steeling myself, I opened up the voicemail he’d left me. It was three minutes long. “Evie, come on, I know you’re avoiding me. I just want to know why. My phone is showing all the texts are delivered—and I saw you read most of them. What’s going on between us? I already told you: no more public spectacles. I promise. Just give me a chance to figure out what I did wrong and how I can make it right.”

  My eyes stung as I deleted the message, unable to listen to it all, and took a deep breath. I didn’t think he’d try to contact me again after that. At least I hoped not. I just hoped that once everything was said and done, I’d have some kind of a chance to explain to him why. But then, I thought, I didn’t even fully understand why I was doing it myself.

  It would have been bad enough to handle Zack’s texts if I was able to keep my reaction purely emotional; it bothered me to hurt him—and I definitely was—but the sex I knew I was missing out on bothered me almost as much. I had gotten so used to not getting any; even before I started college, I had cut myself off from sex, having too much to deal with after my mom died. Even more to the point I didn’t even particularly want to date anyone after—not just because I was wrecked by having my biggest support and cheerleader gone from my life, but because I had discovered that guys were just a bunch of trouble.

  But from the first time Zack and I had made out, I felt the juices flowing in my veins again. When we’d had sex on the couch at his frat, I’d been easy prey—it wouldn’t have been that difficult even for Zack to convince me to head to his bedroom at the frat house during the party. Now that it had happened again I was consumed with the memory of how good he’d become, of how great it felt to have him touching me, tasting me. I shivered in class as my brain—against my will—reminded me of how great Zack’s cock had felt deep inside me, brushing against my inner walls, filling me up. I couldn’t focus on my work the way I used to be able to easily; I was distracted, having to take breaks to get myself off to the thought of Zack in my bed again, going down on me or working me with his fingers, thrusting into me, rocking his hips against mine until I came. I didn’t tell Jess about it, but I was almost afraid of how intensely I wanted sex—how much I wanted to just give in and call Zack, tell him to come over and screw my brains out.

  I told myself that it would pass—that it had always passed before—but I was on fire constantly, hoping and dreading that I would run into Zack. If I just saw him, I knew I’d end up throwing myself at him, begging him to forgive me and find us somewhere private where we could be together. I could only grit my teeth and hope that it would pass in time, that I would be able to get back together with Zack once the football season ended and I could be with him without distracting him. It occurred to me more than once that it was—for me at least—more distracting to be separated from him than it was to be with him. But I had to stick with what I had decided. Even if it was torturing me slowly every day.

  ****

  I had to miss the staff meeting for the newspaper; I told Professor Grant in advance and also emailed Lisa that I couldn’t be there because of a class. They both told me that it was a perfectly valid excuse, and Lisa said that I could drop by her office in the student union after class to get my assignment from her. I hurried over to the student union as soon as the professor let us out of class, and made my way to Lisa’s office, still drinking the last of the coffee I’d brought for my late class and ready to take notes on the assignment she had for me.

  “Hey, come on in,” Lisa said, gesturing to the chair on the other side of her desk. “I wanted to tell you we all really loved your piece on the last game. The interview was great—you really got Zack to open up!” My cheeks burned with a blush but I didn’t say anything, struggling to keep my composure. I nodded, not quite trusting my voice. “In fact, we didn’t have to do much editing to it at all! Good work.”

  “Thanks—that means a lot.” I took a deep breath. “So what have you got me on for next week, Chief?”

  Lisa grinned. “Since you did so well on the game last time, I figured you were a natural to cover the final game of the season. This time, though, we want you to get an interview with Coach Bullden, about our prospects for the nationals, that sort of thing.”

  I nodded quickly. The very last thing I wanted in the world was to have to go to another football g
ame and watch Zack. But I couldn’t exactly tell Lisa that the reason I’d been able to get Zack to open up to me was because he and I had a history together—a history that I was risking by staying away from him. Besides, since I couldn’t make the meeting, there probably weren’t any other assignments open anymore, and I wanted to make sure I was in the campus paper as many times as I could be.

  Lisa gave me the details and asked me to do some research on my own about the coach—his career, his strategies, the kind of material that would make a good profile on the man to accompany the coverage of the final game of the season and the one that would determine our position in the national level. I took notes, trying to calm myself. I wouldn’t have to even talk to Zack, I told myself over and over again. I would just ignore him—as much as you can ignore the quarterback when it came to a major football game. I would cover the game, talk to the coach, and have done with it. If I had any luck at all, Zack would just head straight for the showers after the game and I could get my interview without any fuss or even any attempt from him to talk to me—he might not even know I was there until the article came out.

  CHAPTER THREE

  Jess had a date for the night of the game—away from campus, with a guy she had met in Women’s Studies. So I went to the stadium all on my own. I had my campus newspaper ticket and my press pass that would allow me to get onto the field after the game, and I told myself that I would be just fine on my own, that it didn’t matter; after all, when I’d gone the last time, Jess had left when I went out onto the field to talk to Zack. With my notebook and camera, I’d be left to my own devices, more or less, by the people seated with me.