Heather ducks into the kitchen. “You ready to go, honey?”
“Oh, yeah,” Dad grins sheepishly at me. “Hey, Hails, Heather and I were about to head out and paint the town red.”
Heather rolls her eyes at me. “He means a glass of wine and then humoring me with that new French film down at the art movie house.”
Dad throws his hands in the air dramatically and Heather laughs. “But if any of those football boys of his ask, we were at- oh, I don’t know, a strip club or something ridiculous.”
“Oh, definitely tell ‘em that, I’ll be the king of that practice field,” Dad laughs as Heather punches his arm.
“So what are you up to tonight then, Hailey?” Heather says, grabbing her purse from the back of one of the kitchen stools. “I’m sure there’s a whole bunch of parties back on campus tonight, much to my chagrin.”
Oh, yeah, my wild social life.
I frown as I clear my throat. “I- uh, actually I was hoping I might just stay here tonight?”
Heather and my dad exchange a look before she turns and nods. “Yeah, of course! You know, it’s your house now, too.” She smiles as she puts an arm around me and gives me a squeeze. “Oh! Why don’t you go for a swim or something? We just had the pool cleaned this afternoon and it’s a hot one out tonight.”
“Oh, my suit’s back at the dorms.” I make a face - the pool actually sounds like an amazing idea seeing how muggy it is outside in the late summer night. “Maybe I’ll just watch a movie or something.”
My dad waves his hand. “I’m sure there’s an old suit up in one of those boxes in your room, Hails.”
I shrug, “Yeah, maybe.”
Dad grins as he ruffles my hair. “Don’t have too much fun, kiddo.”
* * *
Oh yes.
The late summer heat fades as I slip into the water. I place my glasses on the edge of the pool and let my head dip back onto the folded towel behind me. The stars are out, and I can even see them here, as opposed to the old house that was a little closer to the city. Certainly more stars than I’d be seeing in Manhattan right now.
Alright, so there are some perks to being here instead of there.
I sigh as I ease back, letting my legs float out as I slowly close my eyes, relax, and-
The scream catches like ice in my throat as something huge hits the pool next to me, but it tears out of me in a shriek when the blurred body comes rushing out of the water towards me with hands and arms outstretched.
I’m still screaming, and scrabbling backwards up the side of the pool when the figure starts to laugh.
Oh my God, are you kidding-
“Woah! Woah!”
It’s Dalton, of course, standing right in front of me in the pool and laughing his damn ass off as I feel the adrenaline rattle through my body. I let the air out of my lungs in a whoosh.
He chuckles, “Jesus, relax, darlin!”
“I can’t see without my glasses, you ass,” I hiss, turning to fumble on the side of the pool.
“Hang on.”
I gasp as I suddenly feel his body right behind me, his skin against mine, his slick, muscled chest against my back.
“Hey! What are you-!”
“Relax,” he says again, his voice deep and even and right by my ear. “Here.” His hands brush my ears, and suddenly I can see as he slips the glasses onto my face.
I blink and look up into Dalton’s grinning face, only a foot away from mine.
He winks at me. “Better?”
I hit him in the arm. “You scared the shit out of me!”
He laughs as he backs away, hands up towards me. “Sorry, you were too tempting a target.”
I scowl at him and adjust the glasses on my face, feeling my heartbeat slowly creep back down to normal. He’s shirtless, his muscles glistening with drops of water in the dim glow from the pool lights. His sharp blue eyes twinkle at me as he runs his hand through his slicked back hair.
“Howdy,” he drawls, winking at me again.
I am suddenly acutely aware of the old, dorky one piece bathing suit I’m wearing.
I’m also acutely aware of how bizarre it is that I even care. Who cares what he sees me in? I’m not trying to impress him or anything.
I frown and shake my head. “What are you doing here?”
He makes a face. “I live here, darlin.”
I roll my eyes. “I meant what are you doing here now, it’s Friday night.”
“True!” He gives me a thumbs-up. “Next question is a doozy though - what month is it?”
“Har har har,” I roll my eyes at him again. “I meant shouldn’t you be out getting wasted with your ‘bros’ or screwing sorority girls?”
“Probably,” he grins at me. “Don’t you feel special that I’m here with you though?”
I give him a look, folding my arms over my chest. “Not really.”
He laughs out loud, “Damn, red, you really don’t like me much, do you?”
I frown. “I don’t know you much, blondie.”
He grins and this time he rolls his eyes. “Oh sure you do, everyone knows me.”
“Wow,” I shake my head at him. “You’re really in love with yourself, aren’t you?”
“Aww, c’mon, you know what I mean. I mean everyone knows me from t.v. or any of those magazines.”
He’s right, of course, but I decide right then and there that Dalton Cole does not need another person stroking his ego by telling him they’ve read about him in an article.
I shrug. “I really don’t follow football.”
“You mean you don’t really like football, and I guess that means players, too.”
“Okay, I don’t really like football so I don’t really follow it, understand?”
“Not at all,” he says with a grin. “You realize your dad is like, the Bill Parcells of high school football, right?”
“Who?”
Dalton rolls his eyes. “I mean he’s a legend, which makes you hating on football sorta weird.”
I dip down a little more in the water, backing into the side of the pool. “It’s my dad’s thing. I’ve never really seen the appeal of a bunch of guys running into each other over a ball.”
Dalton shakes his head. “Glory, baby.”
I raise a brow. “Huh?”
“It’s not the ball, its glory.”
I snort. “You make it sound so poetic.”
“Well, glory and pussy I guess.”
I wrinkle my nose and he laughs. “Little less poetic now?”
“Much; thanks for that.”
He grins. “C’mon.”
“What?”
“You said it yourself, we should be partying and getting drunk.”
I shake my head. “‘You’, I said ‘you’ should be getting drunk.”
He grins at me. “Yeah well if I do it alone it’s a problem, so get out here.”
Dalton doesn’t wait for an answer before he moves to the edge of the pool and effortlessly pulls himself from the water.
And my jaw drops.
He’s not just shirtless, he’s practically naked, wearing just a pair of those damn white boxer briefs. The same ones, I’m mortified to admit even to myself, that I recognize as the ones from that famous advertisement.
Dalton turns, and if I was blushing before, my face goes downright crimson as my eyes drop to the very sizable, very visible bulge between his legs.
I quickly look away.
No way, that wasn’t-
“Prude.”
I jerk my head up, and my eyes go wide as I realize he’s now got his hand down the front of his briefs.
I quickly look away. “God, are you…playing with yourself?”
Dalton cracks up. “Oh, yeah, I always just start jerking it in front of girls, that’s sort of my move.”
“Wouldn’t exactly be out of character.”
He snorts a laugh. “Relax, I’m just warming it back up. That water’s fuckin’ cold.”
I
make a face, wrinkling my nose. “You are so gross.”
“Hey, don’t tell me you haven’t heard the rumors.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I say primly, forcing myself to think of literally anything in the world besides his…bulge.
Dalton chuckles again. “Sure, darlin. Anyways, I’m decent now.”
I look up and shriek as I realize he’s bent over and mooning me.
“Damnit, Dalton!”
He hoots as he yanks his briefs back up over his very sculpted ass and struts over to the table and chairs by the pool. “C’mon, have a drink with me.”
I sink down in the water. “No way.”
He slumps into one of the chairs and kicks his feet up on the table as he grins at me. “Let me guess, you’re a college freshman and you’ve managed to never drink before.”
“That is not true,” I lie.
“Sure it’s not, darlin,” he drawls, flashing that damn farm-boy grin at me.
That will NOT work on me, I growl to myself.
“Will you just get out of the pool before you turn into a prune?” He holds up a towel and waves it at me. “I’ll even close my eyes if you’re that bent out of shape about that goofy one-piece you’re wearing.”
I groan as the heat flushes my cheeks. I grit my teeth - I will not let this boy get under my skin like he seems to be hell-bent on doing. I am not effected or “taken in” by his charming little bullshit act that seems to work on everyone else.
And that’s why I get out of the pool. That’s why I shrug and step out, heedless of whether he’s looking or not, to go have that drink - because I will not let him under my skin.
At least, that’s what I tell myself.
8
Dalton
You get a lot of shit as king when you leave the court early, let me tell you.
But the party tonight back at the football house was damn boring. I mean, the booze was flowing, your’s truly was at the center of attention where I do so love to be, and the girls were going gaga over me with mouths open.
Except somehow, for some damn reason, it bored me. And I was bored because I couldn’t focus straight, and I couldn’t focus because I couldn’t get my mind off that sassy, annoying brat of a girl back at Mom’s house.
Hailey.
The girl that won’t go gaga over me, the girl that won’t give me the time of day, and the girl who most certainly does not place me at the center of her attention.
I’ve learned to play a certain kind of male-and-female game my whole life - or at least, my life since I realized my arm was a Goddamn laser-guided cannon that could send footballs as far and as deep down a field as I wanted.
And Hailey isn’t playing that game. Hell, Hailey doesn’t even care to know the rules of that game.
She’s not hanging off my words, or laughing unreasonably hard at dumb shit I say, or fawning all over me, or any of the other utterly predictable shit women have been doing around me ever since I picked up a ball. She’s not all painted and dressed up either like some sort of show-dog begging for attention, which is more than I can say about pretty much every girl at that party tonight.
She’s Hailey - Hailey who doesn’t care about football, doesn’t care that I play it, and doesn’t seem to care much for me at all.
Which is uncomfortably refreshing.
I lie about closing my eyes, of course, and instead I openly watch her as she climbs up the steps of the pool. And at first, I’m doing it just to be a dick since that’s just the kind of swell guy I am, but the second she slides out of that water, my reasons rapidly change.
Well, shit.
Because if I thought Hailey Garrison looked good in a summer dress, or in jean shorts and a tank top, let me just say none of those things hold a fucking candle to her in a bathing suit.
I can feel my cock throb between my legs, and I frown. I mean, her suit leaves everything to the imagination - it covers half her damn body for fuck’s sake. I swim with girls in thong bikinis, or no bikinis at all for that matter, and yet there’s something extremely sexy about her in that damn one-piece.
Maybe because a one-piece bathing suit has literally never been hotter in the history of modern swim technology than it is hugging Hailey Garrison’s tight little body as she pads across the patio towards me.
I let my eyes roam hungrily over her, up the porcelain skin of her legs, over her hips, and up her toned body. I mean shit, it’s not even like she’s got this big rack like most of the girls I’ve ever gone after. Hailey’s downright small up top, and yet there’s something mouthwatering about those tits.
And my cock seems to agree, by the way it starts to grow in my jockeys.
“You done?”
I blink and jerk my eyes away from the points of her nipples clearly poking through the dark black of her suit, up to her face and grin - busted.
“Don’t suppose you want to jump back in and walk over here one more time, huh?”
She rolls her eyes as she snatches the towel out of my hands. “You’re gross.”
“So…is that a yes?”
Hailey groans as I grin at her, turning away to wrap the towel around her waist.
The grin fades from my face the second she turns.
Get your shit in line, dick, I think to myself, adjusting the now half-hard cock in my wet briefs before wrapping my own towel around myself. I sit back into one of the patio chairs and pat the one next to me.
Hailey eyes me warily.
“Aww c’mon, red, what do you think I’m going to do, tackle you?”
Her cheeks blush a deep pink and I laugh. “See, I knew you had a dirtier mind than you let on.”
She rolls her eyes and makes a face. “Yeah, I’m going inside.”
“Hey, hey, I’m only kidding, darlin.” She stops and turns back to me.
“C’mon, sit with me.”
She glares at me for second, like she’s mulling it over.
“I’m on my best behavior, I swear to you.”
“Why do I get the feeling that’s a low bar?”
I laugh, but she lets out a sigh and slides into the chair next to me. I reach behind me for the bottle of Fireball I left the party with and slide it her way across the table.
Hailey makes a face. “What the heck is that?”
“Red-hot whiskey, it’s delicious.”
Her nose wrinkles in this not altogether unattractive way. “It looks awful.”
I grin. “Sorry, I know a seasoned imbiber like yourself probably has much more discriminating tastes.”
She stiffens a little and then shrugs like it’s no big deal. “Eh, it’s fine.”
Lord is she a bad liar.
A damn cute one, but still terrible.
I grab the bottle and tilt my head back to take a swig, feeling the cinnamon-whiskey liquid burn down my throat. I smack my lips dramatically as I set it back down on the table, pushing it her way.
Hailey eyes it warily.
“Hey,” I shrug. “I get it, you’re daddy’s girl, you play by the rules.”
“I know what you’re doing, and it’s really not going to work.”
I grin. “And what’s that, darlin?”
She looks down her glasses at me in this hilarious way that sort of makes her look like some sort of librarian.
A distractingly sexy librarian, I might add.
“You’re trying to get under my skin.”
I cross my arms across my bare chest and lean back in the chair. “Trying? Oh I think I’m straight-up succeeding.”
“Well, you’re not.” Hailey snatches the bottle up, brings it to her lips, and tilts it back. She coughs almost instantly, dropping the bottle back to the table as she chokes on the gulp of whiskey, her eyes watering.
“Shit, you alright?”
She frowns and waves me off, coughing once more before looking up at me with this totally forced look of ease on her face.
I laugh. “I thought that it wasn’t working?”
I take a quick sip, keeping my eyes locked on hers as I do before setting the bottle down and sliding it back.
I’m suddenly regretting my choice of swimwear as the wet cotton of my boxers sticks to my skin. Regardless of my paid endorsement of this very brand, they’re not the most comfortable thing. I frown as I reach under my towel and start to yank the soggy wet briefs off.
“Oh my God, what do you think you’re doing?”
Hailey starts to get up from the table, but I shoot her a look. “Not sitting around with wet briefs creeping up my ass, that’s what. Relax, I’m keeping the towel on.”
She snorts out a laugh as she reaches for the bottle of Fireball.
“You’re more than welcome to join me, you know.”
Hailey rolls her eyes, even as her cheeks blush red. “I’m sure I am, but I think I’ll pass.” She takes a second swig of the whiskey, not quite choking so hard this time.
“You sure?”
She swallows quickly, her eyes darting to mine. “Um, yes, quiet sure.”
I grin, pulling the briefs the rest of the way off my legs from under the towel and tossing them behind me. “I’ll show you mine if you show me yours.”
She blushes again and looks away. I decide right there that this girl looks entirely too good when her cheeks go pink like that for me to worry about crossing any lines.
I look at her. “You can ask, you know.”
“Ask what?”
I shrug. “About the rumors.”
Hailey wrinkles her nose adorably. “Eww.”
I laugh. “I like how you knew exactly which one I was talking about.”
She frowns, straightening up in her chair. “I did not, I just figured most of the rumors about you are gross.”
I arch a brow at her as I take another pull of whiskey. “But you had a pretty good hunch which one I was talking about.”
She blushes again, looking away and pushing a stray lock of her hair behind her ear. “Maybe.”
I chuckle, feeling bold, and reckless. Feeling like I really like pushing this girl’s buttons. “I bet you’re dying to know.”
Jock: A Secret Baby Sports Romance Page 30
