Prologue
JEREMY FLETCHER
She was sinfully beautiful.
Curvy and toned. Tanned from her heritage and time outdoors and on the field.
That easy commodore she had with her teammates pissed me off.
If I was honest, everything she did rubbed against the grain.
Infuriated me to the point of frustration.
Not because we didn’t get along or because I didn’t like her.
I wish that was the case.
If it were, my eyes wouldn’t seek her out anywhere I walked on campus, trying to catch just a mere glance of Teresa Reynova.
It was the opposite, actually.
I was in love with the star mid-fielder.
Head over ass, stupid chump in love with a girl who looked at me and glared at my like I had run over her puppy with my dog. On purpose. Which of course, I hadn’t
But she didn’t like me for some reason. Teresa can’t stand me. The moment she sees me coming, no matter where we’re on campus, she turns and goes the opposite direction.
I shook my head and forced myself to walk through the shared athletics gym. To look away even though every damn bit of me yearned to just watch her, to enjoy her smiles and laughter.
Even if they weren’t for me.
I was a fucking idiot.
The whole day went by in a blur.
I was on edge. I had to try again. One more time.
I headed down to the dining hall and like I knew she would be, there she was.
Sitting on her own in one of the back tables.
A stack of books surrounding her like she was inside a library.
I licked my lips at the sight of her. in a thing almost sheer white threadbare tank top that looked like it had seen better days stretch over her chest, the bright blue strap of her sports bra underneath pushing her prefect breasts together almost like a damn offering to the gods. And I was dying for a taste.
As if sensing me she looked up from where she sat and glanced around. my breath seized in my lungs, but I forced myself to walk towards her. The grin on my face grew with every step I took before I loomed over her.
“What do you want, Fletcher?” She muttered quickly looking away from me as if she hadn’t just almost drooled as I sauntered straight to her without breaking eye contact.
“Studying?” I asked, ignoring the attitude in her voice that made me hard. For some fucking reason when I was around Teresa my damn brain wasn’t capable of stringing two words together.
Her head moved up, those damn dark eyes of hers locked with mine like I dreamt of every time I closed my eyes. Fucking hell, she was pretty. Beautiful. Gorgeous. Stunning. The woman had a way of short circuiting my brain with one damn glance.
“Yes, Fletch.” Her lips tipped upward and even though it wasn’t a real smile like the million and one I had seen her give her friends, I felt it in my fucking dick.
“Books are for studying.” She said sarcastically. Reaching over to her binder she pulled something out and before I knew what was what, she stood and patted my chest with a warm open palmed touch I felt all through my body.
“Gold star, baseball boy.” She spoke as if she was talking to a kid before she rolled her eyes and sat back down. I glanced at my chest and the smile on my face broadened wider. Right there, in the middle of my chest was a gold fucking star.
A sticker.
She’d given me a gold star. Literally.
“Now that you have Scooby Doo’d this mystery” she continued, ignoring the way I looked at the sticker on my chest and at her as she settled back down into study mode–– “Why don’t you go have a protein bar, and I don’t know, go look for one of the many jock bunnies that like to follow you and your buddies around and bug them. I’m busy tonight.”
“Jealous?” I stupidly asked yet couldn’t get myself to regret the words when she gifted me one of those sexy as hell eye rolls and soft chuckle.
“Oh, please.” She scoffed and I knew I’d be hearing those two little words in my head later on while I jerked off thinking about other ways she’d sound that while my head was buried between her thighs.
“I mean if you ask nicely again, I’d do pretty much anything for you, Teresa.
” The flirtatious tone in my voice was foreign to me.
I had no idea why I tried so damn hard around her.
Liar, the thing that she’d waken up by just existing whispered in my head.
You want her as infatuated with you as you are with her.
“Tere.” She corrected and slammed her book shut and once again I was granted the gift of her attention soley focused on me.
And fuck, I was a god damn simp. A fucking head-over-heels chump just staring at her like she was the responsible for everything beautiful and that held meaning even existed on this god’s green earth.
“Look, Fletcher. I don’t know what your deal is but––“
“Go out with me. Let me take you to dinner.” I cut her off.
It was risky.
Ballsy really.
But I had to do something drastic. Just trying to talk to her at the gym or forcing myself next to her on her morning runs wasn’t cutting it. no matter what I said or did, pissed or annoyed the hell out of her.
“No.” she answered way too quickly, shaking her pretty head at me.
“No?” I repeated and she bit the inside of her cheek with what I could only hope was a smile. One that let me know she thought I was cute in the very least. “Why not?”
“You’re a baseball player.” She said, as if that was reason enough. I leaned forward and watched as those big brown eyes turned bigger, wider. Who could blame her? I hadn’t invaded her personal space like this before. Not even on those quiet early morning runs.
My hand rose and stroked her cheek and I quickly realized my damn mistake.
Touching her was stupid.
Not only didn’t I have that kind of privilege, she wasn’t the kind of girl you crossed boundaries to push and see what you could get away with. Yet, the silky soft feel of her skin under my fingers made me hunger for more.
“Who hurt you, Teresa?” I asked quietly and she blinked. Once. Twice. I could have sworn she might have even started to sway in closer, leaning into my touch just a smidge but it was too quick to know for sure before she pulled away and pointed at me.
“Knock it off, Fletch.” She huffed. She might have been pissed at me for touching her but there was no denying the way her breathing had changed. The way her lips had parted with desire.
“Go out with me.” It wasn’t worded as a request this time and it earned me an honest to goodness snort. A motherfucking snort! When was the last time a girl had snorted around me on accident much less on purpose?
“?En serio, que te piensas?” she rapid fired Spanish, my brain worked overtime to translate. Seriously, who do you think you are? I opened my mouth to answer but her eyes narrowed and she sighed.
“I have to study.” her fingertips tapped the top of her book but I didn’t miss the way her eyes skirted to the biology book next to her and her shoulders slumped over with almost defeat? “And unlike baseball players who get a walk on their grades.”
“A walk on their grades, I see what you did there.” I mumbled proudly because it meant she knew the sport I loved so much.
“Soccer doesn’t.”
“I don’t––“ I started to say to share about my grades but she cut me off.
“So, let’s please not play whatever cat and mouse game or thing you’re doing.”
“I’m not––“
“I get it.” she said sitting back into the booth, crossing her arms over her chest and making me have to stifle away a deep guttural groan as her beautiful breasts pushed together making my mouth water for a taste.
To shove my face between them and breathe in deeply before dropping my mouth onto her… .
“Hey!” She snapped. “My eyes are up here, Fletcher.”
“What?” I shook my head, slightly embarrassed about being caught staring at her tits.
“You’re a real piece of work, you know that?” she glared and because she poked something inside of me that couldn’t keep his goddamn trap shut when it came to her I leaned a little closer and grinned.
“Thank you.” I winked and I knew she started to grind her teeth before exhaling heavily.
“Look, I get it.” she started again.
“You do?” I asked because fuck, I had no idea what it was about her that drove me this damn crazy. Teresa breathed in as if she was trying to slowly count down to three to not get annoyed.
“Let me guess?” she finally said leaning closer to me, her fingers skimmed the top of my forearms, and my heartrate started to pick up speed. “When it comes to girls, a guy like you. All hot––“Score! She thought I was hot!––“ and muscled up with aspirations of something more––“
“Aspirations.”
“Dreams. Goals.” she explained as if I was some stupid dumb jock.
“Hmm,” I grunted, let her believe that. I could use it to my advantage.
She wouldn’t be the first or last person to think I made it to where I was because of how great I played ball.
“Look, you’re not really used to hearing a girl say no.
Or that they’re not interested or falling over themselves for a shred of your attention.
And I’m sorry, but… im not.” It was that slight hesitation that fed my ego, that told me my girl was a little bit of a liar.
“And maybe now because I turned you down, multiple times, it’s what?
The thrill of the game? You’re on your off-season training, maybe a little bored––“
“Teresa––”
“Tere.” She clipped and didn’t stop, “And I wasn’t done speaking. I on the other hand, am in season. And I do have a full load of classes and three practices a day and PT on my ankle. Because unlike your sport, for me to play professionally, I have to want it more than anyone else.”
“And you don’t think I do, mi cielo?” I’d been dying to call her that. My sky, hell, she was my entire world.
“Oh, uh-uh, nope. Don’t do that.” she pointed at me as a pink bloomed over her cheeks.
“Do what?” I smirked. She doth protest much for someone not interested.