Chapter Nine Saylor
Chapter Nine
Saylor
Of all the people in the world I didn’t expect to meet at the annual cornhole tournament, Cash Donovan topped the list. Though I’d never said anything to my friends about my encounter with him, somehow they knew I’d met someone at the Mardi Gras party who’d grabbed my attention.
And hadn’t let go, dammit.
Maybe it was the anonymity of meeting behind our masks, or the fantasy of him, but the masterful way he’d kissed me as he’d pinned me to the wall still sent phantom tingles rippling over me whenever I allowed myself to think about that night.
The situation was only tolerable because even though Dalton had called him by name, I didn’t have a clue who Cash was, which allowed me to pretend he hadn’t gotten to me.
Meeting him again without the benefit of our masks had almost knocked me on my ass.
Since February he’d let his raven-black hair grow down to his collar where the ends curled up slightly.
His sculpted cheekbones were sharp enough to cut glass, sitting above hollowed cheeks and a square, take-no-prisoners jaw only slightly softened by a shadow of dark stubble.
His aquiline nose might have been broken once—a feature that only added character to his arrestingly handsome face.
But it was his gunmetal-gray eyes that snagged me and wouldn’t let me go. The way he gave me his full attention was both flattering and unnerving, as though he were trying to see inside me to figure out what made me tick.
So he could claim me.
He didn’t even bother to hide his interest, blatantly staring at me, stealing little touches over my skin when we were standing beside each other, subtly insisting on me accompanying him when it was time to refresh our beers rather than offering to grab me one when he went for his.
It seemed now he’d discovered who I was he was determined to spend time with me, and I didn’t think his intentions ended with this one night.
All of which meant even as I flirted with him, because I couldn’t help myself, I had zero plans to let things go further than flirting. Something about Cash Donovan said serious, and while my friends, apparently, were all on board with serious these days, serious was not in my wheelhouse.
He stepped closer. Lowering his voice, he said, “You’re right. I do know something you do exceptionally well.”
The rumbly timbre of his voice sent shivers skittering over my skin. Attempting to cover my reaction, I took a long pull from my beer. He waited me out until I murmured, “Hmm?”
“Disappear right when things are getting interesting.”
“Excuse me?” I asked, stretching the first word nearly to its snapping point.
“Kissing me lit you right up.” His grin was positively wicked.
“I beg your pardon.” I injected my tone with enough disdain I could pass for a Delta Chi.
With a nonchalance that ignored my tone, he drank from his beer, and my eyes followed his tongue as he ran it over the foam on his lip.
His gaze heated as he caught where my attention had gone.
“I didn’t reach for your silky-smooth thigh until you hooked it over my hip.
But I was definitely happy to enjoy where that move was headed. ”
He had the damn audacity to wink at me.
Before I could sputter a response, he said, “Then Dalton showed up, and poof!” He made an exploding gesture with his free hand. “You disappeared downstairs, and I couldn’t find you anywhere for the rest of the night.”
“Dalton reminded me I had somewhere I needed to be.” I sniffed.
“Ah, yes.” He gave a sage nod. “The ‘secret’ but not truly secret poker game. Only, I didn’t find out about it until Dalton mentioned something long after the party.
” The corner of his mouth quirked up. “Now both of us know exactly what the other one looks like, and we have each other’s full name, which means we don’t need to depend on an SCR party to hang out together. ”
A roar went up in front of us, and I caught Piper clapping her hands at Bax’s happy dance. Guess Bax and Dalton had won their match and were headed to the finals. I thought I’d be able to slip away from Cash in the crush of SCRs gathered around to cheer on our last team.
Yeah. No.
Though he was casual about it, he stayed right beside me, the heat of his body warming the entire side of me next to him even with a couple of inches of air separating us.
“Looks like my boys are going to do the Wildcats proud,” Cash remarked as we moved with the rest of the crowd to where the final Sigma Nu team awaited the winners of the match.
“You mean the SCRs. The tournament is between fraternities,” I said. “After all, we’re all Wildcats.”
“Yeah, but this is coming down to football versus wrestling, so it’s a good thing we have two football players on the SCR team.” He shot me a sideways grin.
I sighed. “It all makes so much sense now.”
“What does?” His eyes sparkled above the rim of his cup.
“Dalton and Taco dragged you here, didn’t they?”
He nodded.
“I should have figured it out when you were standing with football players when my friends and I arrived.”
Because of course Cash was a football player. For a while, I forgot. Grr!
I should have seen it coming from a mile away.
My friends all had things for football players, and no matter how hard I tried to convince them otherwise, they thought I needed to be dating someone too.
Since when was it a problem to be happy with just hooking up?
Why couldn’t my friends be happy for me even when my hookups weren’t with football players?
What was so freaking special about football players?
As though he’d read my mind, Cash brushed his arm along mine as we crowded toward the front of the spectators ringing the final cornhole game.
The tingles radiating through me from that minor contact of our skin set my teeth on edge even as heat flooded my core, and my panties clung to my suddenly wet clit.
No excuse—none—existed for my body’s reaction to this man.
Sure, he was handsome. Probably the best-looking guy I’d ever met.
Sure, he kissed a girl like she was his whole world; like he couldn’t live without her life-giving air.
Sure, flirting with him was fun, as though he anticipated my snark and couldn’t wait to hear it.
Didn’t mean I should form an attraction to him.
Then I made the mistake of looking at his hand, which encased the entirety of his Solo cup as he raised his beer to his lips.
Phantom heat warmed my skin as memories of his plate-size hands completely enveloping my hips invaded my thoughts.
Furiously, I forced the memories to a back corner of my brain.
I was not in the market for a repeat performance.
I most definitely was not.
“What? You’re not cheering on the team?” Cash asked, his breath whispering over the shell of my ear.
Shaking my thoughts back into the moment, I nonchalantly straightened my shoulders, ignoring the shiver that ghosted over me with his breath on my skin. “It’s early in the game. I’m saving my voice for when things get serious around point seventeen.”
“As opposed to the semifinals where you shouted encouragement throughout the game.” I couldn’t miss the sarcasm in his sage nod—nor the wicked glee sparkling in his gunmetal-gray eyes.
It was as if he’d been reading my mind and didn’t believe a word of my convictions.
Right then, Bax dropped a perfect bag through the hole, and the entire front yard erupted.
While I’d been lost in my errant thoughts, Piper’s not-really-real-but-totally-real boyfriend had nailed all four of his bags, scoring twelve points after his opponent had only managed single landings on the board and no offsetting drops through the hole.
“In case you missed it, the score is now 17-9. Guess it’s time for you to start cheering.” Cash’s eyes glittered down at me.
Deliberately, I focused my attention on the game as I stepped closer to the action. “Let’s go, Dalton! Time to put these boys away,” I cheered.
He had two bags on the board, his strategy obvious even to the drunkest observer.
Then the Sigma Nu player bumped one of Dalton’s bags into the hole, which put him over the points value, jeopardizing a win.
When Dalton let go of his last bag, he did a silly twisting move with his back while the bag was midair, which seemed to do the trick.
The beanbag landed with more velocity than I thought possible, shoving one of his other two bags off the board as it slid to a rest at the top.
Its landing spot made it safe from the Sigma Nu forcing it into the hole for six points, thus putting our team over the top.
Instead, the guy aimed to knock the bag off the board, but his beanbag slid to a stop a breath from Dalton’s bag, negating only one of our points. Final score: SCR 21-Sigma Nu 9.
A roar went up from the SCRs, who ran en masse to the scorer’s table to hoist up the Panhellenic cup and parade it around the front lawn.
Raucous cheers proclaimed the SCRs the best frat on campus.
Most of the Sigma Nus headed to the bar with a clear intention of draining the keg, which surprised no one.
Their house would want to leave with something.
As we watched our team’s antics, the president of Sigma Nu sidled up beside me. “Looks like your good-luck charm abilities extend beyond the poker table, huh, Saylor?”
I shrugged. “I don’t know. My partner and I lost in the round before the quarterfinals.”
“Yeah, but the second you stepped closer to the action, Dalton played like a star.” One of his brows went up in silent question.
Cash inserted himself between Jess, the president of Sigma Nu, and me. “Dalton played the entire game like the badass athlete he is. He literally kicks ass on the football field, and now he’s kicked your ass at cornhole.” Cash raised his glass. “Go ’Cats!”
Jess eyed him with a speculative gleam. “You a new SCR pledge?”