Page 18 of Stalked By the Linebacker

Then, because I couldn’t help myself, I took her in my arms, tucking her body to my side. She stiffened for a slight moment before she relaxed. Not a minute later, mi vida was asleep in my arms. I stayed awake, listening to her steady breathing. My head dipped down so I could sniff the top of her head while my fingers played with the silky-soft ends of her hair.

I didn’t want to fall asleep. I wanted to remember every second of that moment. But before I knew it, my eyes grew heavy and I drifted right off, dreaming about the girl in my arms while sleeping next to someone for the first time.

CHAPTER 5

LIBBY

I couldn’t stop laughing.

My sides and face hurt, and my eyes had started to water.

“And that’s why I will never have a milkshake in my life,” he shared, and I snorted.Snorted!

Hector ‘Crank’ Dominguez had always seemed so serious to me. Growing up, watching him from afar, he’d always been crazy intense and focused. Determination and discipline had seemed to be his major attributes.

But this side? The goofy, funny guy? That was new to me. But by the way his roommates laughed along with us, it wasn’t new to them.

“Alright, guys, we better go,” Jason, a baseball player, said, and Hector’s two other roommates stood up.

“Libby, it was great to meet you.” Dylan, the cornerback for the football team, said with a genuine smile. I took the hand he extended and shook it.

“You, too.”

“Same.” Jeremy, the other baseball player, saluted. “See you guys at the party later?”

“Oh, umm…” I still hadn’t figured out how to get out of that.

“For sure,” Hector said, giving the three guys the universal man chin nod that could mean anything from hi to bye. A moment later, his three roommates walked out and left us all alone for the first time since we’d woken up.

Waking up tangled in his arms after getting the best sleep ever on one of the most comfortable mattresses I’d ever slept on hadn’t been on my bingo card. But man, there was no way I could think about regretting it. There was a lot, almost too much, on the line with us just being friends. I worried constantly about that.

What if things turned sour?

What if I said the wrong thing and he disappeared and in turn, his mom and sister turned their backs on me?

“Penny for your thoughts?” His lips brushed the edge of my ear, and I jumped, surprised he had come so close without me noticing.

“I don’t know they’d be worth that much,” I muttered. He frowned, and I knew he was about to argue, so I kept talking. “Listen, I should get back to my dorm and––“

“Get ready?” he guessed. I opened and shut my mouth before sighing.

“I don’t think I should go.” There. I had said it. I was going to cancel this whole thing!

“Why not?” His frown deepened, forming lines over his brow I wanted to smooth out. Instead, I shoved my hands back into the jeans I’d worn to work and had put on when we woke up.

“I’ve never been and––“

“There is a first for everything.” The statement felt heavy, and I shivered.

“A first for everything,” I repeated softly because my breath suddenly felt choppy. He moved in closer. My hands slipped out of my pockets and rested on his forearms.

“Yeah,” he murmured, and for a long moment, I left myself drown in the pools of his dark eyes. I wanted to experience all my firsts with him.

“Please?” There was that magic littlepleasethat could get a girl to do anything. “We can go hang for twenty minutes, and if you don’t like it, we can go… bowling.” The offer made me giggle.

“Bowling? You like bowling?”

“No.” He grinned like a kid on Christmas morning, which fit because that’s exactly how I felt around him. “But I remember you and Blanca bugging my mom to take you when you guys were in middle school.”

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