8. Carter #2
Nate listened to me. He didn’t poke holes in my plan, even though we both knew a lot depended on luck.
He didn’t discourage me. He didn’t act like I was sharing some childish dreams with him.
“Rigby did well with that video,” he suggested after a time, his gaze on my eyes so intense that I swore I could feel its weight.
“That, too,” I agreed. “We’re nothing without a little bit of online whoring.”
Nate barked a laugh and shook his head, and it was scary how proud I was that I’d made that happen. I rubbed my open palm against my pants, wiping off the sudden slickness of perspiration.
I could sense his proximity in more ways than one. He was there, next to me, with all his glorious beauty and the heat radiating from his body. He was mostly facing me aside from one leg that he stretched away from me.
“I hate to lose a good player,” Nate said carefully. “But it would be worse to cage you and force you to play against your will.”
I bit my lip and looked into his eyes. The quiet moment that followed made me aware of my own heartbeat. “On the upside, you’re not my coach anymore.”
A tremor passed over his brow, his eyebrows curving for an instant before he smoothed his expression. I could see the tension in the way he gripped his knee with one hand. “I’m still college staff, Carter. It changes nothing.”
“I’ll drop out,” I offered.
“Why would you do that?” he demanded in a tone that was abruptly loud and frustrated.
His voice triggered my annoyance, and I held nothing back. “Don’t act like you don’t know.”
Hastily, Nate lifted his hand from his knee and rubbed his face. “This is wrong, Carter. All of this is wrong. You’re putting me in an impossible position.”
“Because you like me, too?” I asked, my voice thin and high.
He pressed his lips tightly. I saw now that the anger this caused wasn’t simply because I was annoyingly forward. He did like me. The sparks flaring from his eyes weren’t fueled by hate. They were sad, in part, but they were also lustful. I had always wanted him to look at me this way.
“Because you know we are the two sides of the same coin,” I said, putting my Coke on the table and shifting to face him with my whole body.
In doing so, I gained an inch or two of space between us.
“We keep running from the truth, Nate. But I’m done running.
It’s fucking liberating to tell you this. ”
“Carter, I’m…”
“If you say you’re too old one more time, Nate, I swear to God…” I rolled my eyes at him and still leaned in a little closer.
“But I am,” he said firmly. I wondered what it cost him to keep doing this. The beads of sweat on his forehead were telling enough that his resolve was beginning to crack.
“And Dana’s your oldest friend. I know, I know.” I pouted for only a second. “You keep flinging these reasons at me, Nate, but I’m done playing by anyone’s rules.”
“Even if they’re my rules?” he asked in a voice slightly louder than a whisper. He closed his eyes while a frown creased the space between his eyebrows.
“I would if they were really yours,” I admitted. “But they’re not. It’s your loyalty to my dad and some foolish idea that you’re doing me a favor. I don’t believe it.”
His lower lip trembled, and I could feel my heart splitting for him.
I put my hand over his, expecting him to jerk it back and send me away at any moment, but he didn’t. He was still and silent, not even breathing.
“If you tell me there’s no chance at all, I’ll believe you,” I said. It was a gamble, but I would respect the outcome. “Not even the slightest chance. If you really think that, I’ll get up and go away. I won’t bother you again.”
“You’re not bothering me,” he whispered.
I needed a second to still my heart a little. “So you don’t think it’s totally doomed.”
He opened his eyes, and a storm of emotions was raging in them. “Do you have any idea how hard you’re making this?”
“Tell me,” I dared him.
He flipped his hand over, suddenly controlling my wrist. It made my stomach leap to be at his mercy.
“If you can think that I’m immune to someone as sweet and good-looking as you, Carter, then you don’t consider me human.
But that’s not what you actually think, right?
You think I’ll cave in if you push hard enough. ”
I nodded. My breaths were too shallow to let me speak at all.
His grip on my wrist tightened, and he leaned closer.
“You keep teasing me, flirting with me, torturing me.” His face was getting closer to mine.
His smooth, clear skin still had a bit of that summer tan.
His cologne crawled into my nostrils, reminding me of a forest breeze in the mountains.
“Do you have any idea what that does to me? I’m trying to do the right thing, Carter.
I’m trying to be a good person, but even I have a limit to what I can take. ”
I bit my lip hard. With every word he said, the distance between us closed.
I realized that I was leaning in, too. The room was getting hotter every second.
Or it was my body that was heating up. I gazed into his eyes and read the pained expression as the full admission.
“I don’t want you to obey the rules, Nathan,” I whispered.
Where he gripped my wrist, my skin burned.
“We’re screwed, Carter,” he whispered and looked at me as if he was asking me for one final confirmation.
I don’t care, I might have said. At this point, I no longer knew where the line was between dreams and reality.
I only knew that I was questing with my other hand to feel the bulging pec under the black shirt, my torso leaning in, head looking up.
When I brought my lips a fraction of an inch away from his, I paused.
This moment before the contact, the suspense of something incredible about to happen, turned me on as hard as the act itself.
But when Nate released my wrist and pressed his hand against the back of my head, my world turned upside down. In the time it took my heart to beat once, the suspense reached an unbearable height, only to snap like a rubber band when Nate smashed his mouth against mine.
My heart beat so hard I half expected it to break out of my rib cage.
Nate’s hand was firm on the back of my head, fingers dragging up the cropped hair on the back and rising into the longer hair on top.
His lips were heated, and the faint scent of whiskey made him ten times sexier.
The warm, wet tongue that ventured from his mouth into mine was sexy enough to make me want to pass out.
I welcomed it, parting my lips and letting my tongue brush against his, battling him playfully while he kissed me hard enough to suck the soul out of my body.
I shifted on the sofa to be closer to him, my chest touching his, and I moved my hands to feel his upper back.
His muscles were tight and hard, his breath like a shudder when he pulled his head away to exhale.
His deep, rumbling voice was like a distant thunder as he pressed his brow against mine.
At that moment, I pushed his upper back hard to make our bodies press closer.
“What are we doing, Carter?” he whispered.
“Whatever the hell we want,” I said, lifting my ass off the sofa and pushing Nate back until we tumbled down flat.
He sprawled on the sofa, and I lay on top of him.
I wiggled my hands from under his torso and pressed them against his chest. I could feel his pounding heart under my right hand when I leaned down and kissed him again.
He didn’t fight me. Instead, his muscular arms wrapped around my body, pressing me tightly against him.
If I had doubted him being attracted to me before, I couldn’t doubt it any longer.
My crotch pressed against his, and I felt his excitement bulging in his pants.
He was hard as marble when he pushed his hips up, rubbing his crotch against mine.
It dragged a moan out of me when I felt how stiff his cock was.
“Fuck, Carter,” he whispered. “You’re killing me.” He quickly pressed his lips against mine again, rubbing himself from beneath me, kissing me, sighing over my lips while I moaned and groped to feel as much of his body as I could.
Since the moment I realized I had tripped and fallen hard for this man, I had only the big library of photos that online magazines shared.
And aside from running into him in the locker room that one time, I had never had a chance to truly admire his physique.
I was hell-bent on drinking it all in now.
Before I knew it, I had undone the top button of his tight black shirt.
The next one popped a moment later as I crawled against him to sit on his crotch.
It dragged a growl from his throat when I settled my weight against his hard cock.
I only wished we were naked already, but I could be patient for a few more minutes.
As I ran my fingers down the middle of his torso, revealing his smooth skin and chiseled body, I became light-headed.
My focus narrowed to exclude everything else in the room.
All I saw was Nate’s body; his flesh was revealed in inches until I dragged the hems of the shirt out of his pants and spread it over his torso.
Nate sat up, nearly tipping me onto my back, and shrugged his shirt off.
His bare arms wrapped around me to support my torso while I hooked my fingers under my T-shirt.
As I pulled it over my head, my heart stumbled.
Was this really happening? Was I making out with my biggest crush and the man who had acted like he would rather die than give in?
It felt like taking a deep dive into warm water and then swimming freely toward the surface.