Chapter 8
Icouldn’t believe what I was about to do.
I’d known this was what was going to happen the moment he stepped into the elevator after those girls were all but peeing on him to mark their territory. You hook up with every jock bunny that crosses your path. The drunk Omega’s words had been long forgotten until that moment.
I’d be one of many.
I wasn’t stupid. A guy like him, one who was obviously good at his sport, who was known by the girls the way he was, wasn’t the kind to settle down.
At least not at his age. Which I assumed made him a senior?
Maybe a junior if he wasn’t that great in his classes, though something told me he was more than a pretty-faced jock.
For all I knew, this was his schtick.
His game.
A way to keep things interesting, though I was hardly a jock bunny.
But from what I felt press against my belly, it didn’t seem he needed someone fawning over his baseball skills to be interested in them.
Maybe it wasn’t only jock bunnies he liked to hook up with?
Maybe it was just the challenge? Saying all the right things for the love of the chase.
But the moment he had you, he’d be done, since the challenge was long gone.
And I knew that.
I was ready for it.
Or at least that’s what I had been thinking about in the elevator ride and the short walk down the hall.
I had no idea why my self-preservation had kicked in and asked him to be honest with me.
I hated liars. I’d seen what lying did to relationships, the way it shattered trust and no matter how hard you tried to build around it, the chipped edges always showed.
“No lies.” His voice was steady and so damn genuine, I couldn’t not believe him. Good god, if he was playing me and for whatever reason baseball didn’t work out, the man should look into acting, because he could sell just about anything with the way those light brown eyes shone down on me.
“Okay. Good,” I whispered. Then, like I was taken over by the spirit of a seductress, I rose to the tips of my toes.
With a hand resting in the center of his hard, muscled chest, I heard the sharp intake of his breath.
He hadn’t expected this from me. Honestly, I hadn’t either.
His hand on my lower back firmed its hold on me, pressing our fronts closer together.
Our height difference was laughable, even with the boots Tere let me borrow, but like this, with how he’d bent, I brushed my nose against his and exhaled slowly with a small little moan of pleasure.
The hand he had on the wall moved to my hip, and the way it fit against the soft curve made me want to melt into him.
“Would you like to come in?” I whispered a breath away from his lips.
I didn’t kiss him.
I didn’t have to, to know the chemistry between us was real.
The only question now was whether it was strong enough to last over a twenty-four-hour period before it fizzled out for him.
“Come in,” he rasped, his brows bunched together. I nodded. It was the easiest decision I had ever made. “Little bird, if I go inside with you—“
“We might have sex?” I asked bluntly, meeting his light brown gaze head on. “I have condoms.” I ignored the heat that hit my face. If you couldn’t talk about it, you shouldn’t be having it.
“Why do you have condoms, little bird?” His eyes searched my face. I couldn’t help but laugh.
“Did you think I was a virgin?” The giggle slipped past me. “Really? After the girls downstairs? You want to be judging—“
“Not judging. I just want to know who you’re currently hooking up with.” A tinge of vulnerability laced the deep tone of his voice that made me relax slightly. My hand on his chest stroked up and down his sternum gently.
“I haven’t been with anyone in a while.”
“How long?”
“I don’t—“
“Don’t do that. You know. I haven’t been with anyone in two months.”
“Oh.”
“I’ve been tested, and I’m clean.”
“It’s been a little longer than that for me,” I confessed.
“How much longer?”
“Why does it…” I made a small, frustrated sound.
Of course, this would be the conversation that would happen to me!
Why couldn’t I be like other girls who could just have a hookup without all the logistics having to be put down on the table?
His hand left my hip, and for a split second, I worried he was going to change his mind.
But I shouldn’t have. Jason tenderly held my cheek, his thumb stroking my bottom lip before he spoke.
“Baby, I need to know so I know how gentle I need to be.” His hand dropped and took mine before he brought it between us and right on... My eyes widened.
“You feel that, little bird? I think you get I’m a big guy and this part of me matches the rest. You’re fucking tiny, and I don’t want to get carried away.
As for not being a virgin, I don’t give a fuck about that.
You know I’m not a choirboy, honey. You saw that when we got into the elevator.
Had to deal with it, and I’m sorry.” His apology sounded genuine.
“As much as I would wish I had one, I don’t have a time machine to go back in time and erase either of our pasts. And honestly, I wouldn’t want to,” he kept talking.
“You wouldn’t?”
“Nope.” He swallowed hard, his gaze turning intense as he focused on me.
For a beat, everything inside of me braced for whatever he might say next.
“I don’t have to be first when all I’m striving to be is your last. Last first kiss you’ll have, the last man you sleep with.
The only one who has you from here on out.
And you’ll be the only one who has me in turn. ”
“Jason.” I opened and shut my mouth. He wanted me to be his last first kiss! Holy shit. This couldn’t just be sweet nothings, right? I knew athletes were different, but this was somewhat crazy.
“Tell me,” he urged.
Something was happening.
I might have thought I was a simple itch he wanted to scratch, another notch on his belt, but this was different. It felt… big. Monumental and possibly life changing.
“A year and three months,” I whispered. He swallowed before suddenly, my feet were no longer touching the ground. He lifted me up, and my legs instinctually wrapped around his middle.
“Ask me again, little bird,” he demanded. Without overthinking, the words slipped out.
“Would you like to come in?” I breathed, and something flashed in his brown eyes.
Without missing a beat, Jason carried me right over the threshold into my dorm, shutting the door behind him with his booted foot.
“I’m the second door to the left,” I said, holding on to his face while doing everything I could to memorize every little detail.
He carried me down the small hall from the apartment-style dorm and into my small private room.
After shutting the door behind him, he slowly put me down on the floor, making sure my body felt just how hard he was for me.
“Jason.” I licked my lips and found myself with my back pressed against my bedroom door.
“I kiss you, there isn’t any turning around, Sadie.”
“Literally or figuratively?” The sassy comment slipped out, and he closed his eyes. I could see with how he pursed his lips that he was fighting from laughing out loud. When his eyes opened, though, and one of his hands dropped to cup the side of my face, I forgot what had been so funny.
“I haven’t even kissed you, and I feel like we’re already at the line of no return,” he admitted.
“Hmm…” I breathed. Weirdly enough, I agreed with him.
I had always trusted my gut, and it was aligned with my heart for the first time, yelling at me to take a chance on the hot baseball player in front of me.
“Then maybe you should just seal the deal,” I bravely said, for once asking for what I wanted.
His head dipped lower, and with a raspy, almost scratchy tone, he asked, “You sure, little bird? I kiss you, you’re stuck with me. Forever,” he said like a threat I took as a promise.
“Kiss me, Jason.” My voice might have sounded steady, but my body trembled with anticipation.
I’d had sex with a total of two guys. The first was my freshman year.
It had been a blind date one of my friends in Kappa Sweets had set me up on.
It was okay but nothing to write home about.
The second guy, the last guy, I’d thought had been genuinely interested in me.
Spent a whole semester flirting throughout late night study sessions, and we hooked up after finals.
I’d thought it was the beginning of something.
Too bad that was his thing—flirting for the thrill of the chase until he conquered it, and then he was done.
I wouldn’t lie. It had bruised my ego a little, and maybe that’s why I hadn’t gone on any more dates since.
Neither of them was anywhere near the kind of guy Jason was. Not in looks or what I assumed, and would probably be right, experience. I knew, without a doubt, kissing him would feel unlike anything I’d ever experienced.
His head dipped and my eyes slowly fluttered shut. The soft warmth of his exhale brushed against my lips, and the moment his mouth touched mine, I knew I was right.
His lips were firm but tender.
Explorative.
My hands pressed against the soft material of the tee he was wearing.
Not to push him away but to hold on. Once again, he picked me up, and I was so lost in the kiss, he could have taken me to a whole other building with how completely focused I was on his lips.
Heat and need simmered, and before I knew it, the kiss that had started so sweet and almost innocent turned almost feral.
Primal need washed through me, making me feel so empty and achy my hips started to grind down on his length.
When we pulled apart, my eyes half open, I realized he was sitting on the edge of my bed with me straddling him like a cowgirl ready to go for a ride.
“Wow,” I whispered.