Page 8 of Scoring Position

She makes her way to the table in the corner of the room, putting her bag down as I follow with her laptop and books. “I hope it’s okay that I showered and got ready for bed before I came,” she says. “I’m pretty lame, so I’m not used to being out this late at night. I’m thinking we’ll probably need an hour or two to get through this lesson, and sadly, that’ll put me way past my bedtime.” The corner of her mouth tips up in a smile, and I can’t help but return it.

“Sorry,” I reply. “My schedule is awful with practices and games, so we kind of have to work when we can. I’ll do my best to get through everything fast so you can get back to your room.” I feel bad that she has to work around what I have going on, but I guess she would’ve declined my offer if she was really that concerned about it. Plus, since I’m usually out of here pretty early every morning, she’ll get to sleep in most days.

Her eyes go wide. “Oh, no. I didn’t mean— You’re fine, Ace. I’m thirty-one, not eighty. I have no business being in bed this early. Maybe working with you will remind me that I’m still young enough to hang if I ever want to rekindle my old social life.”

“What do you like to do for fun?” I ask. I hope I’m not crossing a line with the personal questions, but I want to get to know her.

“Fun?” she asks, eyebrows furrowed as if she doesn’t understand the word. “What’s that?”

“Wowwwwww,” I say, drawing out the word. “That sounds bleak, Sweets. Am I going to have to show you how to have a good time?”

“I’ll have a good time if you pass this class,” she shoots back playfully as she sits down.

Shaking my head and taking the seat across from her, I smirk. “How about we make this interesting? For every assignment I pass, you have to do something fun with me.”

Her jaw drops open. “Are you bribing me? If I recall correctly, you need this class to graduate. Shouldn’t that be the only motivation you need?”

I shrug, sitting back in my chair and crossing my arms over my chest. “I respond best to positive reinforcement. I’m just saying, a little reward would make this a lot easier on both of us. If I get the work done right the first time, you can be in bed by nine when I’m not showing you the time of your life.”

“Anyone ever tell you you’re a master at sweet talk?” she asks, pausing to think. She chews at the inside of her cheek, and I cross my fingers under the table, hoping she’ll agree. “Okay, fine,” she relents, rolling her eyes. An ear-to-ear grin spreads across my face, and she points a serious finger my way. “But we aren’t going out every time. You’re going to have to come up with some hotel room activities because I’m not trying to die from exhaustion here.”

I give her a tight nod, trying my best to keep my composure even though I’m internally celebrating like I just won the goddamn lottery. “Of course. I can think of lots of fun things we could do in my bedroo—” I cut myself off, my eyes going wide as I realize what I’m saying. “I mean, my hotel room. Or yours,” I rush out on a nervous laugh. “There doesn’t have to be a bed. It’s not like we’ll be fu?—”

“Ace,” she says, stopping me from word-vomiting anything else that’s going to make me want to crawl into a fucking hole any more than I do right now. What the hell is going on with me? My limited sexual experience is a personal choice. It doesn’t mean I don’t know how to talk to women. I flirt all the time, but I never get flustered like this. Lark is completely off-limits, andeven if she wasn’t, she’s way out of my league. I need to relax and stop thinking about what she’d look like in my bed.

“Yeah?” I answer, taking a deep breath and reeling myself in before looking back up at her.

“Do you want to get started? You were a little late on the last assignment, so the professor will definitely dock some points. But this one should get you full credit as long as it’s in by midnight.” She gives me a confident smile, tucking a strand of golden hair behind her ear. The gesture calms my nerves, making me jerk my head in affirmation.

“Good idea,” I reply, reaching into my backpack to take out my laptop. I pull up what I have so far, sliding my chair around the table so she can see the screen. “I tried to get some of the essay done during batting practice, but I was kind of distracted.”

She leans over, using her fingertips to scroll along the document. It’s supposed to be five pages, but I barely got three paragraphs down before I gave up. “Okay,” she says when she’s done reading what I’ve written. “So, this assignment focuses on the physiology of sexual response. In nineteen-sixty, Masters and Johnson conducted extensive research on the way we respond physically to sexual stimulation. They came up with the EPOR model, which says that there are four phases the body goes through during sex. The first one is the excitement phase. This can occur from kissing, touching, fantasizing, or any other activities that get us aroused.”

She looks my way, and I shift in my seat. I can read the smuttiest books all day long by myself and not blush, but the way she’s talking aboutusgetting aroused has me unable to sit still. I know she means humans—not me and her—but for some reason, I can’t stop my brain from wandering.

I’m acting like a horny teenager. This poor girl has put her life on hold to tutor me, and I’m over here thinking about all the ways I want to make her wet.

Calm the fuck down, Mathers. You’re an adult.

If she notices my internal battle, she doesn’t let on. Instead, she continues her explanation.

“Phase two is called the plateau phase. This is when we’re at the height of our excitement, and where we see the physical changes that happen to our bodies. Erectile tissues fill with blood, causing the penis to get hard and the vaginal opening to reduce in size, making it tighter.”

Dear God, it’s me, Ace. If you get me out of this lesson without popping a chub from the way she says the wordtighter, I promise I’ll never swear again. I’ll brake for squirrels. I’ll even send a Christmas card to my seventh-grade archnemesis, Riley Fletcher, who told the whole school that I peed myself after spilling a cup of yellow Gatorade on my white baseball pants.

I clear my throat, doing my best to focus, but it just gets worse. So much fucking worse.

“The third phase is orgasm,” she says, looking me dead in the eye like we’re discussing the weather. “It’s the shortest phase, lasting only about fifteen seconds. Leading up to orgasm, respiration and blood pressure increase, pulse speeds up, and there’s usually some loss of muscle control throughout the body, especially in the hands and feet. Fists clench, toes curl, and shaking can occur, depending on the intensity of the impending climax.”

I’m sweating at this point, having completely abandoned any plans of pushing her out of my mind as my thoughts go from somewhat innocent to utterly pornographic. I imagine pounding into her, watching as her fists grip the sheets and her tits bounce with every thrust before she soaks my cock, screaming my name so loudly that the hotel kicks us out.

“Ace?” she says, breaking me from my creepy-as-fuck daydream, staring at me as if she’d definitely been trying to get my attention for a lot longer than I’d noticed.

I swallow thickly. “Yeah?”

“Are you okay? You look flushed.” She reaches out, pressing the backs of her fingers to my cheek, and I have to fight my instinct to lean into her touch. Her sugary perfume envelops me, and a quiet groan gets caught in the back of my throat as I breathe her in.

“I’m good,” I reply, locking my eyes onto hers. She’s sexy as hell, but there’s also a comforting quality to the way she looks at me—like I know I could tell her anything and she wouldn’t judge. Not that I’d ever unload all my baggage onto her. To this day, the only people I ever talked to about what happened the night of the MLB draft are my grandma and my lawyer—and that’s only because I didn’t have a choice. The last thing I want to do is dig all that shit back up and tell Lark what a mess I am.

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