Page 24 of Game Face

“Oh!” I barely get the tiny word out of my mouth before the first wave hits.

“All. Night. Long,” he says, flicking his tongue against me and sending me over the edge. I lift my hips out of need, but he presses them down, forcing me to take every tease and lick at his pace. It’s no sacrifice, and I feel spoiled that I’m the one getting this attention after the day he had.

But when he utters, “I love you so fucking much,” against my sensitive skin, waking every nerve to life once again, I realize this is what makes him strong. Pleasing me. No matter what form of happiness I want or need. And right now, I need this. I need this so fucking badly.

Chapter Eleven

Ican’t imagine ever getting tired of watching Peyton get ready in the morning. I don’t even care that it’s five o’clock. Okay, I care alittlebit. But not enough to pull the blanket back over my head and shut out the last few glimpses I will get of her for the day.

“Why do you all practice so early?” I rub a fist in my right eye so I can keep the left one open as she zips up her sports bra and slinks into her off-the-shoulder T-shirt.

“Uh, probably because all of the facilities are in use by various men’s teams during normal hours,” she says over her shoulder.

I give her a tight-lipped nod.

“Fair point.” She’s right. It’s not even basketball season, but they get to dominate the gym facilities during the day. Even wrestling gets the space before women’s basketball. Then it’s cheer.

“Maybe if you had men on the stunt team,” I joke.

She shoots me a hard look, and I retreat fast.

“Right. Not funny, and just . . . you’re right.” She is. It was alittlefunny though.

She flips her head forward to braid her hair from the base of her neck. I don’t even understand how a person learns to do some of the things she does to her hair. She puts a band around the end of the braid and twists it into this intricate-looking bun that she locks in place with a hairpin.

“What?” She giggles when she catches me staring at her.

“You woke up seven minutes ago, and I swear you already look ready for the Oscars.”

She laughs and moves toward the bed, kissing the top of my head as I wrap my arm around the back of her legs.

“What if you call in sick? Just once.” I make pouty lips at her and tease her skin along the hem of her panties. She’s wearing the plain cotton bikini kind, in red. My favorite.

“Mmm, tempting. But—it’s the last full practice before the rally. Don’t forget,” she says, peeling my fingers away one by one. She brings my hand to her mouth and presses her lips to my fingertips before backing out of reach.

“Rally, right. I’m there,” I say, not doing a very good job at masking the fact I forgot.

Peyton eyes me in the bathroom mirror across the room, her mouth open as she dabs pink gloss on her lips.

“It’s for the alumni party, and your coach should really encourage you all to go anyway.”

She’s right again. He doesn’t, though. Coach, in fact, has great contempt for all things tailgate, donor-appreciation, fundraisery. He would rather just win games to get butts in seats. I see both sides of the coin, probably because I’m beholden to people on both sides.

“I’ll be there. I might be sweaty and gross, but I’ll be there.”

I cross my chest, drawing an X with my finger as she steps into her black leggings, then stuffs her sock-covered feet into hersneakers without bothering to untie them. It bends the heels of her shoes when she does that, and I’ve been preaching to her about ruining her shoes for as long as we’ve been dating. At this point, I think she does it to spite me. What she doesn’t know, though, is I secretly think her small acts of defiance are adorable. She scrunches her nose even, as if she’s quashing my advice with her foot as she works on her shoe.

Fucking adorable.

“Four o’clock. Arena.” She snags her bag from the chair and tucks her laptop and a binder from her animal therapy class inside.

“No break between practice and class?” I quirk a brow.

“We don’t all get the football player accommodation schedules, you know. Some of us have to take the classes we need to graduate when they’re offered. All of mine happen to be ass-crack of the morning.”

I kick off the blankets and swing my feet to the floor, stretching my arms over my head as I let out a big yawn. Before Peyton looks away, I pound my chest with my right fist and grunt out, “Caveman like his online classes with no real due dates. Make him real good at business one day.”

She rolls her eyes, but we both laugh. It’s an ongoing joke we have with her family about the total scam the business education track is for football players. It’s the one degree that can be “massaged,” according to the booster members who demanded it when Reed was a student here. Most of the guys on the team who go this route figure they’ll either land in the NFL or end up in sales and make big bank on their winning personalities. Personally? I actually want to learn valuable business skills so maybe one day I can build something like Peyton’s parents have—a business that honors my father’s name.

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