Chapter 8 #2
Paxton nodded, even though it would take an army to make her come back into these stands. She jogged down the stadium steps to the path below, which traveled underneath the bleachers to the stadium exit.
“Paxton! Pax, wait up!”
She turned, stunned to see Sawyer jogging up behind her.
“What are you doing here?” she asked. “Aren’t you supposed to take to the field in a few minutes?”
“I was, until I saw you leaving. Where are you going?”
She shook her head. “I don’t belong here, Sawyer. I don’t know why I let Shayla drag me to this game.”
“Paxton—”
“Don’t.” She put her hand up. “Don’t feed me lines about how I belong here just as much as everyone else does, or any of that other crap.”
His deep chuckle came as such a surprise that Paxton jerked back a step. “What’s so funny?”
“You,” he said without hesitation, without one ounce of remorse. “You’re so clueless that it’s actually comical.”
Yet another person calling her clueless today.
Before she could retaliate, he took her by the arm and tugged her deeper beneath the bleachers, away from the concrete path leading to the parking lot. Splotches of the gleaming stadium lights filtered through the stands, illuminating people here and there, mostly teen couples making out.
Sawyer positioned her against the steel leg truss. Gripping the metal above her head with one hand, he caught her chin with the other and nudged her face up. Instead of pissing her off, the humor sparkling in his eyes made her want to smile, too. But she fought the urge. Just barely.
“Do you have any idea how often I sought Shayla out in the stands back when we were in school, hoping that she had somehow convinced you to come with her to a game?”
Paxton blinked hard, dumbfounded by his admission. “Why? You played in front of packed stadiums every Friday night. I remember the frenzy surrounding you back in our senior year. People who had never heard of Gauthier before would travel from as far as Covington and Picayune to come see you play.”
“I didn’t care about those people. You’re the one I wanted to impress.”
“But why? I didn’t even like football. I still don’t.”
He shrugged. “Nothing else I tried to do ever got your attention. I thought maybe if I impressed you with my football skills, you’d finally notice me.”
“I noticed you,” Paxton said before she could even think to hold the words back.
The crazy-sexy smile that gradually lifted the corners of his mouth did unbelievable things to her insides.
“You did a damn fine job of pretending that you didn’t.” His eyes roamed her face, his fingers brushing her cheekbone. He leaned forward, his breath skimming along the sensitive skin of her neck. “You want to know a secret?”
Paxton sucked in a deep breath. Swallowed. Then nodded.
“When we would fall behind, I would pretend that you were there,” he whispered into her ear.
“Coach Jackson may have thought it was his pep talks that got me going, but it wasn’t.
I would pretend you were in the stands, watching me, and it was all the encouragement I needed to turn the game around.
So, even though you weren’t there, I still owe that senior season to you.
Because just the thought of you was enough to make me want to be better. ”
Her heart flipped twice, did a waltz, and then collapsed in flat-out exhaustion from the tailspin his sweetly whispered words induced.
She tried to avert her eyes, but he wouldn’t let her.
“Now tell me,” he said. “Why were you really leaving?”
“I already told you. Because I never fit in here. And…” She shook her head.
God, if she started to cry she would never, ever forgive herself.
She didn’t cry. Especially here, of all places.
“Seeing all of you on that field tonight—the cheerleaders, the homecoming queen—it just reminded me of how much I don’t belong.
” She looked up at him, and as much as she tried, she couldn’t mask the hurt in her voice. “I was never that girl, Sawyer.”
He leaned in so close that their heads nearly touched. With his intense eyes locking on her gaze, he said, “You were always that girl for me.”
Paxton went liquid as a warmth she’d never experienced before embraced her, wrapping her up in a blanket of sheer enchantment.
“You know what I just realized?” Sawyer whispered, trailing his lips along her jawline. “I can finally live out a fantasy I’ve had since high school.”
“What fantasy?” she asked.
“To kiss a girl under the bleachers.”
Sensations in all makes and models fluttered through her stomach as his strong fingers gently gripped her waist.
“In four years of high school you never kissed a girl beneath the bleachers?” Paxton asked, her voice thready. She was trying her hardest not to gasp. “Isn’t that, like, a rite of passage or something?”
“The only girl I wanted to kiss beneath the bleachers was never at the games. But since she’s here now, it’s only fair that I get to kiss her.”
Her heartbeat escalated as Sawyer slanted his lips over hers.
“Eww, gross,” came a teenage voice from somewhere in the darkness. “Let’s get out of here. I’m not here to see some old couple making out.”
Paxton nearly backed away from the kiss so she could tell the kid off for calling them old, but when Sawyer’s wet tongue started a hot trail along the seam of her lips, she forgot teenagers even existed.
She forgot about everything but the man whose splayed hand was slowly making its way up her spine.
He pulled her closer, and the telling bulge pressing against her stomach told Paxton all she needed to know about how incredibly turned on he was.
He wasn’t the only one.
A roar erupted above them, and the bleachers shook with the crowd’s rowdy cheers, but Paxton could not care less about whatever was happening above their heads or on the field. Apparently, neither could Sawyer. He never lost stride as he parted her lips and found his way inside.
Paxton closed her eyes and soaked in this moment as her girlhood dreams were brought to life within Sawyer’s arms. Back and forth her tongue moved in rhythm with his as she rediscovered his texture, his taste.
She moved her hands inside his letterman jacket, trailing them along his sides before settling them at his waist.
Sawyer narrowed the distance between them even more, his big, solid body pressing against hers as his tongue delved deeper, the gentle yet sure thrusts awakening those same feelings she’d experienced when he kissed her in the arbor.
Paxton moved her hand to the back of his head and held him in place.
She sucked his tongue, wanting it, needing it to fill her mouth.
Her entire being grabbed hungrily at this small glimpse of heaven on earth.
“Okay, you two. Break it up.”
She and Sawyer both jumped and pulled apart at the strictly spoken command.
Zoe Taylor, who had been a senior and student body president during their freshman year—and who had just been hired as the new assistant principal at Gauthier High—crossed her arms over her chest and cleared her throat.
“Really?” she said. “I expected better from the two of you.” Then she smiled, winked, and walked away.
“I can’t believe we got caught kissing under the bleachers by the principal,” Paxton said.
“I think that’s another of those rites of passage. We’re hitting it out of the ballpark tonight.”
“I’ll check it off my bucket list as soon as I get home.”
His deep chuckle caused goosebumps to pop up all along her skin. Or maybe those were the lingering effects of that kiss. Paxton had a feeling she would be experiencing those for the rest of the week.
“Do you still want to leave?” Sawyer asked.
She pulled her bottom lip between her teeth and nodded. “I do. I just don’t like football.”
He put a hand over his heart. “You’re killing me, Pax.”
She laughed. “Sorry.”
He smoothed his hand up her arm and to her neck, fitting the back of her head in his palm and brushing his thumb back and forth along the pulse point behind her ear.
“Would you mind if I walked you to your car?”
She frowned. “Actually, I don’t have a car. Shayla was my ride.”
He arched a brow quizzically. “So how exactly were you planning on getting home?”
“I guess I hadn’t thought that far ahead.”
A low, deep laugh rumbled from his chest yet again. Paxton would be annoyed with him if she didn’t find the sound so sexy. He caught her by both hands and started to walk backward.
“Where are we going?”
“I’ll drive you to your mom’s.”
Paxton stopped short. “But don’t you want to stay for the rest of the game?”
He shook his head. “I’ve had my time on the field as a Gauthier Fighting Lion.” He pulled her in closer. “Besides, I’m hoping I can convince you to take a detour.”
Her stomach did that flipping thing again.
“Where are you looking to take me?” she asked.
His brow hitched again.
Oh, she was so there.
“Oh my God! This is so good.” The moan that escaped her lips drizzled down Sawyer’s spine.
“I told you it would be,” he replied.
“It’s been so long since I had it. I just didn’t think it could still be this good.”
“It’s always as good as the first time.”
Paxton let out a satisfied sigh and sat back in the chair she’d occupied for the past hour on his rear deck. As she licked her fingers clean of the sticky remnants of the roasted marshmallow she’d just eaten, Sawyer had to stop himself from going for her lips. He wouldn’t move too fast.
But he would make his move tonight.
He threw another log into the built-in fire bowl that he’d never used once since moving into this house. It was only fitting that he christen it with Paxton. Picturing the two of them spending countless nights together like this had become his new favorite pastime over the past hour.
She reached for another marshmallow, speared it with a kebab spear, and placed it over the fire bowl.
“Here,” he said, handing her the one he’d been roasting for several minutes.