Chapter 40
forty
ROOK
Grades post in twelve minutes and thirteen seconds, and I can't even focus on it.
Because I've got Morgan's weight pressed across my chest, her red hair fanned out like some kind of beautiful emergency flare, making me forget about the university portal waiting to tell me whether all the studying for the exam got me over the line.
The last three days blur together: her apartment becoming our space, those tiny humming sounds she makes when she’s concentrating, the revelation that she keeps her socks on during sex when it’s cold (which is somehow the hottest thing I’ve ever experienced), and learning she's soft beneath the hard exterior.
Morning light filters through her blinds, painting lines across the bed.
She's still fast asleep, though, which isn't surprising after our marathon effort last night…
and this morning at 3 a.m.… and again at six, because apparently three years of sexual tension compounds interest like a really aggressive loan shark.
She stirs against me, her thigh sliding between mine. “Morning,” she mumbles against my chest, breath warm on my skin.
“Morning.” I pull her up for a kiss, slow and thorough, morning breath and all. “Grades post at noon.”
Morgan props herself on her elbows, her breasts pressing against my chest in a way that shoots blood south to my cock. “We knew this was coming.”
“Yeah, but knowing and knowing are different things.” My hands find her hips, needing an anchor. “What if I bombed it? What if—”
She silences me with a kiss. “You didn’t bomb it. You knew every answer during our… innovative revision sessions…”
“Morgan, I’m serious.” My words tumble out raw. “I need to know I can do this. That I’m not just some dumb jock who lucked out with the exemption policy, and that I deserve to lead those guys on the ice, even if I only do it half as well as you do…”
“Stop.” Her hand presses over my racing heart.
“You’re not dumb, your brain just works differently, with a chaos processor instead of a linear one.
You did the work, James, with both the study and the captaincy, babe.
Every late night, every practice question, every extra ice session, every time you didn't quit.”
"But, I—"
"No," she says. "Your guys love you, both as the joker and as the captain they'll follow now that they understand your rhythm and see you taking it seriously."
The sincerity in her voice makes my throat tight. I pull her down for another kiss, pouring everything I can’t say into it. Halfway through the kiss, just as things look like they might detour to sexy town again, my stomach growls loud enough to wake the neighbors if it weren't already noon.
“Jesus, was that you or a bear?” She rolls off me, and I immediately miss her warmth. “Come on, you need food before you waste away.”
I don't make any move to get out of bed, instead just watching as she stands and pulls on my jersey and nothing else. The hem barely covers her ass, and when she stretches for her hair tie, I get a flash that short-circuits my brain and has my cock at attention again.
“Food," I say. "Definitely thinking about food.”
She throws her hairbrush at me, but she’s laughing. "Perv," she says.
In the kitchen, sunlight illuminates her surgical organization system. Everything is alphabetized and arranged. In the three days I've been sharing her space, I've made a little game out of leaving evidence of myself in every perfectly ordered corner.
“Your job,” she says, pointing at the toaster. "It’s got two settings, raw and charcoal, with a three-second window between them.”
“Division I athlete." I shrug. "I think I can handle bread.”
She gives me a look that suggests serious doubts, then turns to her coffee maker—some Italian spaceship with more buttons than my PlayStation.
But even though I'm on toast duty, I can't help watching her bent over, searching for filters in a low cabinet, the jersey riding up, revealing the perfect curve of her ass.
The toaster can wait, my brain demands. In fact, the toaster can fuck right off.
I come up behind her, my hands finding her hips, pulling her back against me so she can feel exactly what that view does to me. "I want you…" I say.
“James, the toast—”
“Fuck the toast.” I find that spot behind her ear that makes her melt. My hands slide under the jersey, over warm skin, up to cup her breasts. Her nipples are already hard against my palms, and when I roll them between my fingers, she arches back.
“We have like five minutes before—”
“Before grades post. I know.” I spin her around, lifting her onto the counter.
The cold makes her yelp, but then I’m kissing her and she’s kissing me back, legs wrapping around my waist, pulling me closer.
Then the jersey comes off, revealing all that pale skin marked with hockey bruises and my fingerprints.
I kiss down her throat when the memory hits, sudden and vivid. The exam room, fluorescent lights buzzing overhead, my hand cramping as I stared at question thirty-seven: Explain Foucault’s theory of power and its relationship to knowledge.
My mind had gone blank. Then I remembered Morgan on her knees, my cock in her hand, looking up with those challenging eyes as she asked a very similar question. She’d rewarded me by taking me deep into her mouth, and that memory is what got me over the line to write the answer in the exam.
“James?” Morgan’s voice pulls me back. “Where’d you go?”
“Thinking about your teaching methods.”
Her eyes darken with memory. “Effective, were they?”
“Nobel Prize worthy.” I step between her legs. “Need you.”
“Then stop talking.”
I shove my boxers down and slide into her with one thrust, both of us groaning. She's already soaked, and I bury myself deep like my cock is going down a waterslide. After three days, you’d think the novelty would fade, but every time feels like finding exactly where I belong.
We find a rhythm between worship and desperation. She’s making these sounds that bypass my brain entirely, and soon I feel her getting close, muscles fluttering around me. I reach between us, finding her clit, circling with my thumb with the steady pressure that I've figured out drives her insane.
“James, I’m—fuck, right there—”
That’s when I smell it.
Smoke.
Real smoke.
Not metaphorical sexy smoke.
Actual something-is-definitely-on-fire smoke.
“Is something burning?” I say.
Her eyes shoot open. “The fucking toast!”
Black smoke billows from the toaster like we’re signaling our location to nearby rescuers, and a second later the smoke alarm fires up, shrieking at a frequency that could shatter glass and possibly my will to live. Because there's nothing like a literal fire to kill the metaphorical one.
I pull out, my cock throbbing in protest, and we scramble into action. She’s grabbing a dish towel while I yank the plug. As we move, we're both completely naked, my erection bobbing around like it’s personally offended by this interruption and her breasts jiggling as she moves.
“Open the window!” she shouts.
“I’m trying!”
I yank at the window, but it’s painted shut by generations of landlords who’ve never met a maintenance request they couldn’t ignore. Giving up on it, I watch as Morgan climbs onto a chair, still naked and sexy as hell looking like this, pressing the button until it finally shuts up.
We stand in sudden silence, surrounded by smoke, looking at each other. Her hair’s wild, there’s soot on her cheek, and she’s got one hand on her hip like she’s about to give the toaster a performance review. Then she starts laughing—real, uncontrolled, tears-streaming laughter.
“Your face,” she gasps. “You looked so personally betrayed, like the toaster conspired against your dick specifically.”
“It did!" I protest, although my dick is still every bit as hard for her. "We were having a moment! A beautiful, Foucault-free moment!”
“We almost set my kitchen on fire!”
“Aggressive toasting at worst. The smoke is just… enthusiasm vapor.”
She’s still laughing when her phone buzzes. She checks it. "Mills came through a minute early," she says, turning the screen toward me. "She's got a contact."
FITZGERALD, JAMES R.
SOCIOLOGY 421 - FINAL GRADE: B-
The world stops. “I…” My voice cracks completely. “Holy shit.”
Her arms wrap around me before I realize I’m crying—not sobbing, but tears are definitely happening, and I don’t even care because I got better than the C+ average I was begging the universe for.
It's an actual, legitimate passing grade, that means I would be able to keep playing even if we hadn't foiled Galloway.
“I passed,” I breathe into her neck. “Morgan, a B- final means I got at least an A- on the exam!”
She pulls back, hands framing my face. The pride in her eyes makes my chest expand dangerously. “You did the work, James. This is yours.”
“No,” I correct, setting her back on the counter. “This is ours, because I'd have been Foucault-ed without you.”
Her surprised laugh is better than any gift. “Look at you, making jokes about dead academics…"
“B- sociology student now, so I'm practically a scholar." I grin. "Might start wearing those tiny glasses and carrying books around.”
She kisses me then, slow and deep. “We should celebrate,” she says, her hand wrapping around me.
“The game—”
“Is in three hours.” She strokes slowly, deliberately. “We have time.”
“Morgan—”
“Shut up and fuck me, Fitzgerald. I'm your academic achievement award.”
So I do. Right there in her smoke-scented kitchen, with burnt toast as incense and a B- proving I’m more than anyone thought. I fuck her slow and deep, memorizing every expression—the way her mouth falls open, the flush spreading down her chest, how she bites her lip when she’s close.
When she comes, my name on her lips, clenching around me so tight I see stars, I follow her over.
Later, after we’ve aired out the kitchen and she’s made eggs that don’t require a fire extinguisher, we sit at her table looking at my grade on her laptop.
She’s wearing my jersey again and I’ve got on boxers, and we look like a commercial for domestic bliss directed by someone with questionable safety standards.
“You know what this means?” she asks, her foot finding mine under the table.
“That my brain occasionally cooperates?”
She flicks my ear, but gently. “It means you’re eligible. Officially.”
I smile and nod, because in a few hours, I’ll step onto the ice for the last home game of the semester.
And, maybe for the first time all year, I’ll know I deserve to be there.
I'll be a man who's earned the captaincy, the respect of his teammates and his school, and who can be both serious and jovial when the time is right.
“Thank you,” I tell her. “For believing in me, for the creative teaching—”
“Especially that?”
“Especially those.” I kiss each knuckle. “But mostly for seeing me. The real me.”
Her eyes soften. “That’s who I fell for.”
“Good. Because he’s yours now. No returns, no exchanges."
“Lifetime warranty?”
“With extended coverage and free maintenance.”
She laughs. "James I—"
"I love you,” I tell her, cutting her off.
She smiles, bright and real, and I think about how three years ago, I ran from this feeling.
Now, sitting in her kitchen with ghost-toast still lingering, with her wrapped around me, I can’t imagine being anywhere else.
And even if she's not ready to say it back yet, that's OK, because she knows I'm serious.
And I know she's not running.
“Come on,” she says, standing, pulling me up. “Can’t have our starting goalie late because he was celebrating his mediocre sociology grade.”
“B- is above average!”
“For hockey players, maybe.”
I chase her toward the bedroom, both of us laughing, dodging furniture like we’re running drills, and think maybe this is what winning really feels like.
Not the roar of crowds or weight of trophies, but this—Morgan’s laughter echoing off the walls, a passing grade proving I’m more than anyone thought, and the knowledge that I’m finally, exactly where I belong.
Comfortable with her, with my team, and with myself.
The quiet one and the ice queen, learning how to be loud together.