The dark winter night bites at my exposed skin and tears through the thin fabric of my long-sleeved t-shirt. I shiver. I can’t go back in there. But I can’t disappear, either.
I finally just sit in the cold earth of the flower bed I’ve been crouching in, watching people wander past me and into the dance. I lean back on the cold brick of the building. I feel like the temperature is waking me up. Maybe if I sit here long enough I’ll turn into the person I used to be.
Unquestioning. Virginal. Content.
But was I really content before?
No, comes the answer to my own question.
“Delilah, you’re going to freeze those perfect tits clean off your body if you don’t come inside.”
I open my eyes and Saint is standing before me. Of course he is.
“Go away,” I moan, wiping the tears off of my cheeks. He crouches down and procures a white handkerchief. I take it even though I shouldn’t. “Thanks.”
He smiles at me kindly. I see his blue eyes and immediately heat appears between my legs. God help me. Literally. All I want to do is feel him inside of me. “One of these days, Delilah, you’re going to greet me with a phrase that isn’t a synonym for fuck off.”
I laugh in spite of myself. “Don’t bet on it.”
“I was coming over to dance with you and I saw that someone else cut in line.” His eyes flash in anger. “Did that asshole make you cry? Because I will kick the absolute living shit out of him.”
Scott. The sound of his name sobers me. I’m reminded that Saint has to be my betrayer. “You’ve told someone about us,” I say challengingly.
Saint looks confused. “I told Rick, yeah. But I didn’t tell anyone else.”
I roll my eyes and shove his handkerchief back towards him. “Right. You haven’t been bragging about your sexual conquests in front of the entire locker room?”
Saint shakes his head. “Of course I haven’t. Why would I do that?”
I stare at his eyes, willing myself to not be sexually aroused by looking at him. “And I’m just supposed to believe that?”
“If you trust me, you should believe it.”
“Why should I trust you?” I retort.
Saint leans back on his heels and stares up at the night sky. Then he holds out his hand. “Get up,” he commands.
“Excuse me? I’m not getting up,” I say stubbornly. But the cold of the ground is seeping through my skirt. My knees are cramping up. I really do need to stand and soon.
“Just get up, Delilah.”
I take his hand and he pulls me upright. I dust off my skirt, still shooting him stubborn looks.
He’s still piercing me with his gaze. “You don’t trust me. Really? You’re going to stand there and tell me that you don’t trust me?”
I think back to all the times Saint could have been setting me up or lying to me. He’d had every opportunity to get me fired as water girl, or worse: expelled from school. But he’d always been careful.
He’s nodding slowly. “Putting the pieces together, are you?”
I sigh. “You’re right. You have as much to lose as I do by telling other people about us.” I hate being wrong.
He chuckles. “You hate being wrong. I know that.”
A group of laughing students walks past us. I take a step back and nearly fall into the Christmas tree. Saint grabs both my arms and holds me up.
“Thanks,” I say.
Saint stares at me, not letting me go. “I want to dance with you in there. Inside. Where people can see us.”
I consider his offer. My heart is leaping out of my chest, but I don’t want him to know that. “I think…that would be acceptable.”
Saint grins and lets go of me. “See you inside, Delilah.”
The winter night doesn’t seem so cold when he’s looking at me like that.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
SAINT
“You staying until the end of the week?” Rick asks, zipping up his suitcase.
I nod. “Yep. Exams through Friday unfortunately.”
“Bummer man,” he replies. He double-checks his wallet and pulls out his airline ticket. “See you after winter break, I guess.”
“Merry Christmas,” I call after him.
“Merry Christmas, man,” Rick replies.
The door is barely shut before I’m grabbing my cell phone and texting Esther.
Come over.
Where?
To my room.
Esther starts and deletes her next text about six times before finally replying.
We can’t do that.
We can do anything we want to do. Meet me at the side door in ten minutes. The entire dorm is nearly empty. No one will see us.
There’s a long pause.
Okay.
I grin and jump out of bed. Eight minutes of dirty-laundry-hiding later, I run down the back staircase to the side door. Esther is there in the sinking twilight. The orange light makes her hair look like its glowing.
“Hey,” I say, bending down to kiss her on the lips.
She returns the favor with a long, simmering kiss. “Hey yourself,” she says.
I take her hand and we run up the stairs together to my floor. “Everybody on my hall has gone home,” I say to her in a normal voice.
Still, she looks around nervously. “You sure?”
I unlock my door. “Positive. Wait. I need the password before you can enter my fortress of solitude.”
“Password?”
“That’s right.”
She thinks for a second. “It’s something dirty, isn’t it?”
I grin in response.
“I can’t wait for us to have sex in an actual bed,” she says.
I laugh and push her into my room. “I was hoping you’d say ‘I want you to eat my pussy’ but that’s close enough.” I lock the door behind us.
Esther is examining the posters on the wall. Rick and I have papered every available surface with football legends. “We have similar taste,” she says thoughtfully.
I walk up behind her and kiss her neck, running my hands up under her sweater. “I think I already knew that.”
“No, I mean we like the same teams,” she replies, giggling.
I unbutton her sweater from behind. “I knew what you meant.”
I shove her onto the bed and she smiles at me. She looks different. “Are you wearing makeup?”
“Just mascara. I stole some that Romy left behind.”
“I like it,” I reply. I kneel on the bed and spread kisses up her stomach. “I mean, you’re absolutely perfect without it. But this is like having two girlfriends.”
“I’m not your girlfriend,” she replies between quick breaths. I’ve found my way to her nipples. She always likes that.
“Whatever you say, Delilah.”
Soon I’m pounding into her and she’s making no effort to hide her cries of pleasure. I’m almost over the edge when a knock comes at the door.
Esther nearly falls over when I drop her from her precarious position on my dresser. It turns out that even when we have the option of a bed she still prefers uncomfortable surfaces for fucking.
“Who is that?” she mouths to me.
I help her off of the dresser and shove her towards the bathroom. She climbs into the shower and pulls the curtain shut.
“Just a minute!” I yell. I pull my jeans on without my boxers and throw on a t-shirt. I open the door.
It’s Scott.
“I thought I heard some ungodly noises coming from in here,” he says, trying to peer into my room. “And I mean ungodly quite literally.”
“Nope,” I reply. “I don’t know what you thought you heard but I’ve been studying.”
Scott raises his eyebrows skeptically. “Right. Either you were fucking a woman better than anyone’s been fucked in their entire lives or you were watching porn at full volume.” He leans against the doorframe like the cocky fuck he is. “So it’s really just a question of whether one person is going
to get an honor code violation or two people.”
“Get off my doorframe and go fucking bother someone else,” I spit at him.
Scott laughs. “I could write you up for cursing. I am on the honor committee.”
Not punching him is the hardest thing I’ve ever had to do in my entire life. I push the door shut and he puts his hand in the way, making a fist so I don’t pinch his fingers. “Not so fast. I need to look in here.”
“No, you don’t,” I say. “You need the Dean’s permission to do that.”
Scott smiles. “You want me to go get the Dean involved in this? Because I will.”
I weigh my options. “You feel free to do whatever you want. Do the math on whether the Dean is going to believe a third-year senior who belongs on the second-string over Saint fucking Williams and get back to me.” I slam the door and lock it, my heart pounding.
I wait until I see Scott’s feet disappear from underneath the gap in the door before I walk into the bathroom to see Esther. She looks terrified. “I never told you what Scott said at the cotillion,” she whispers.
I pull her naked body up out of the bathtub. “What?”
“He knows about us.”
I pace the bedroom while Esther gets dressed. I run my hands through my hair in a display of stress. “If I had known I was going to end up in the academic version of that town in Footloose, I wouldn’t have fucking come to this school.”
“Please don’t curse,” Esther intones. She looks at the door. “How long do I need to wait here until I know Scott won’t see me?”
I check my watch. “He works at the library desk in the evenings.” I look out the window. “We’ll just sit here until we see him leave.” I give her a sexy look. “Of course, you could just spend the night and I could sneak you out first thing tomorrow morning before the sun comes up.”
Esther bites her lip. “I have an exam tomorrow.”
I put my hands on her hips. “I could help you study to pass a more important exam.” One kiss on her neck and she’s undoing her own buttons for me.
“I can’t say no to you,” she replies, greedily wrapping her fingers around the back of my head.
We end up fucking the entire night, exams be damned.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
ESTHER
Being at home for Christmas is like a perpetual exercise in dodging landmines.
I keep avoiding my father. He’s spending most of his time at work and at church, so that’s not too hard.
I look in the mirror and button the top button of my black cardigan. We’re doing our traditional visit to the midnight Christmas Eve service. And my entire family, including my three older brothers, are all here with their families.
“Esther, come on.” My brother Tom bursts through the door of my bedroom.
I throw a pillow at him. “I could have been naked in here. Please knock.” I exhale in frustration.
“Whoa, what has gotten into you, little Esther?” He glares at me. “I’ll be sure to let Dad know that you’re talking back to the men of the house now. In addition to your other sins.”
I’m about to start shaking with rage when my mom shows up. “Tom, your father needs you.” She gives me a look that seems like she knows that I was about to lose it. But that’s impossible. My mom has never, ever been on my side in things like this. “Esther, you look lovely. We’re leaving in a few minutes.”
“Thanks,” I say to her.
She pauses at the door and I think for a minute that she’s going to say something else, but she doesn’t, instead closing the door shut with a click.
I turn around and fish in my top dresser drawer for my birth control pills. I find the peach-covered plastic disk and open it, turning the wheel of blister pack pills to today’s date. I pop the tiny pill into my hand and swallow it without water.
I take one final look in the mirror and grab my coat, heading out into the cacophony of my nieces and nephews, awaiting my father’s inevitable wrath. This will be the first time we’ve really seen each other since I came home for break.
“Oh holy night, my rear end,” I mutter to myself.
My father ignores me throughout the drive to the church, the service, and the drive home. But as my sisters-in-law go to tuck in the kids and my mother spreads out presents under the tree, I suddenly realize my mistake.
It’s just me, my brothers, and my father in the kitchen.
I try to make a break for the door but Tom steps across it. “Father needs to talk to you, Esther,” he says gruffly.
I take a few deep breaths and sit at the kitchen table. My brothers join me. I don’t look at my dad. I don’t have to; I know he’s grooming his rage carefully. It’s had weeks to grow and blossom.
“Esther, you joined the football team without my permission. I expressed my displeasure at you doing that, but you insisted on staying on the team, which is the last thing I wanted for you. Do you disagree with any of this?”
“I don’t, Father,” I say.
“Look at me when you speak,” he says.
I’m going to lose it if I look at him. But I don’t have a choice. Eight masculine eyes are all burning through my flesh. I finally look up. I ball up my fist and pretend Saint is here with me, to defend me. “I don’t, Father.”
He nods. “You’ve shamed this family with your actions.” He taps the table. “Women and football do not mix. It’s not appropriate for you to be around men like that morning and night.”
“I’m not around them,” I say obstinately before I can stop myself. “We are on the field together, and that’s it. It’s not like I’m hanging out in the locker rooms between practices.” My brain unhelpfully pulls up an image of Saint hanging out in the locker room the day I snuck in there to pee.
My brain is a scumbag.
“This isn’t up for discussion, Esther. You’re not to be on the team in the fall in any capacity. If I turn on my television next season and see you even in the audience, I’m pulling you out of school.”
I bite my lip to keep myself from speaking my mind. Instead, I let out a perfunctory nod. “I understand.”
“Good,” he says. But I know there’s more. I can feel it coming. “You are dismissed.”
I glance at him, uncertain whether this is some sort of trick or not. But he’s serious.
As I walk back to my room, I can’t shake the feeling that there is something that he’s left unsaid.
I open up my laptop and pull up a search engine.
I want to pay my father back for humiliating me like that in front of my brothers. What I’m doing is petty, and he’ll never possibly know about it. But I feel like sinning and sinning big.
That’s when I proceed to search for tips on how to give blow jobs.
I feel a perverse satisfaction in researching porn under his roof without him knowing.
***
The rest of Christmas break passes without incident even though all fifteen of us, mom, dad, three brothers, three wives, six kids, and me are all snowbound for the better part of that week. I haven’t even snuck a phone call or text to Saint this whole time. I feel like my father is stealing my phone and checking my messages.
I deleted all of them off my phone on Christmas Eve.
Call me paranoid, but I’m not taking any chances.
I throw a final pair of wool socks into my duffel bag and remember to grab my birth control pills along with my pairs of underwear. I reach into the drawer and pull out what I’m looking for.
That’s when I notice that my pill container is slightly to the right of where I usually put it.
Or is it?
Maybe my paranoia is taking over my mind to a severe degree. I’m not entirely sure. It’s possible I nudged it when I moved my underwear.
“Let’s go, Esther!” Tom calls. His family is driving me to the airport on their way south to their home.
“Coming!” I throw my pills into my suitcase and zip it up. The roads are bad today.
The las
t thing in the world I want is to miss my flight and have to spend another single second in this house with my father and spineless mother.
These dark thoughts are my parting gift as I step into the below-freezing air outside.
I’ll just add it to my list of things to pray to God about.
My sins could fill Lake Erie.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
SAINT
“And we give all glory to God, blessed be his name. Amen,” I say to the entire chapel. “And welcome back after what I hope was a safe and prayerful Christmas break.” I glance at the Dean in the front pew. He’s eating this shit up with a wide smile on his face.
I can do no wrong.
“I also hope that we can really come together this semester and be one with the body of Christ.” I glance at Esther at the words come together and she blushes.
I close up my Bible and find my seat again as Pastor Blevins leads the final closing prayer of the service. I’m barely listening. I’ve been jerking off to my memories of Esther’s naked body for the last four weeks, and we’ve had no time on this first day back to see each other.
All I can think about is her and her voluptuous body.
The final prayer ends, and everyone clears out of the chapel, including Esther. I hang back to help a freshman clean up the chapel. The kid nearly wets himself when he realizes it’s me. “I really don’t mind helping,” I say to him. The truth is that the faster this is done, the faster I can go see Esther.
I practically push the kid out of the chapel when the last candle is blown out. I step into the frigid January air and look around. I don’t see her. My heart sinks almost more than my dick does. I start walking back to my dorm when I hear a person hissing from behind a tall hedge.
“Saint!”
It’s Esther. I walk behind the bush and see she’s smiling and bouncing on her toes to keep warm. “I was wait-“
I don’t let her finish. I sweep her body up into my arms and kiss her as deeply as I possibly can. This I’m good at. This I can do. This is what I’ve been waiting for.
Dirty Saint: A Secret Baby Sports Romance Page 11
