“Ha.” I shake my head. “Yeah, that’s never going to happen.”
“Uhh . . . it sure as shit better, because I have plans of nestling my cheeks between your legs.”
“Jesus,” I whisper, looking around. “Can you not say that so loud, or around my friends?”
Lindsay waves her hand over her face. “God, that’s so hot. He straight-up claimed your vagina in front of our whole dorm.”
I press my hand to my forehead, willing this moment to go away. “Can we please talk about something else?”
“Did you know no one has ever gone down on her before?” Dottie says, stealing the breath right out of my lungs as I drop my mouth wide and turn to my friend in shock. In what crazy world would she think that was okay to say?
“I gathered that,” Knox says with a pinch in his brow.
“You know what?” I hold up my keycard to everyone. “I’m going to get some coffee.”
I take off, making a promise to myself to have a firm conversation with Dottie about boundaries. I would expect Lindsay to say something like that, but Dottie? She’s usually tight-lipped, so Lindsay is starting to get to her. I’m mortified. Completely and utterly mortified. Why say that?
“Hold up,” Knox says, catching up to me. He moves to block my progress to the coffee kiosk in the dining hall, cutting off my path. “Where do you think you’re going?”
“Removing myself from that awkward conversation.”
“It’s not awkward unless you make it that way. So what, no one has ever gone down on you? We have ways of fixing that.” He moves in closer, taking me in by my hand.
“Can we not talk about that right here? If you haven’t noticed, all eyes are on you right now, which means our conversation isn’t exactly private.”
“Who cares?”
“I do.” I point to my chest. “I care. You might be this overtly confident man when it comes to the bedroom, but I’m more reserved, okay? I don’t like the term fuck buddies, and I don’t want to be referred to as that. I find it demeaning. I know we’re just having fun, but—”
“Wait, hold up. We’re not just having fun, Em. I know I joke around a lot, but this is serious to me. I want to date you.”
“Yeah, casually, I get it.”
“Fuck, no. Not casually.” He grows stern. “If we’re dating, then we are full-on dating and that means exclusively.”
I bite my bottom lip and look away. Exclusivity is more important to me than anything, for obvious reasons, but serious dating, am I ready for that?
“Do you not want to be exclusive?” he asks, looking hurt as I look back at him.
I press my hand to his chest and look him in the eyes. “I would need things to be exclusive, but I don’t know about everything being so serious. I just got out of a six-year relationship. That’s going to take some time for me to recover from.” He doesn’t know. No one really does. I became such a shell of my former self that for all intents and purposes, my friends probably thought I was fine. But I wasn’t, and I’m still not. Someone I thought I could trust with my heart and body threw that away. Viciously. It may have been incredibly naïve to believe that Neil and I were forever, I know that now, but it didn’t negate the years I thought we were. There’s a crack in my heart I’m still trying to heal. I’m much happier now. More assertive. More decisive. I’m finding out who I am away from coupledom, and I like the girl I’m seeing. But, I’m still recovering. I’m still a little raw. A little timid to give my heart away again. And as much as Dottie and Lindsay know I’m cautious, they don’t understand the depth of pummeling my heart took. They didn’t see me the days after I found Neil and the other girl. They didn’t see the texts.
“Then let’s take it slow.” He clamps his hand around mine. “We can keep things casual as you like to say, but exclusively casual.”
“Exclusively casual.” I smile, liking the sound of that. “Okay, what does that entail?”
“Do we need to write down rules? Is that what you’re asking?”
“I mean . . . maybe.”
He shakes his head then pulls me into his side. “You’re going to be the death of me, Ealson.”
He guides us toward the dining hall and I ask him, “What are you doing?”
“We’re about to lay down the foundation of the best thing that’s ever happened to us while we eat breakfast, because damn it, I’m starving. But I have thirty minutes, so we have to make it quick. I have morning study hall to run.”
“Morning study hall after a Saturday night? That’s brutal.”
“Tell me about it. Every one of my teammates wanted to punch me in the nuts.” He kisses the side of my head. “Breakfast is on you, Ealson. I hope you’re ready to light up your dining hall card.”
Chapter Fifteen
EMORY
I’m gobsmacked.
Utterly gobsmacked.
Sitting across from me is a man who can take down a breakfast burrito the size of his head full of eggs, potatoes, refried beans, bacon, and fajita veggies in five minutes. I’m pretty sure he unhinged his jaw and slid the whole thing in, chewing occasionally.
He reaches across the table and starts picking at my fruit. “Okay, do you want to get down to business?” he asks, casually popping a piece of pineapple in his mouth.
I blink a few times.
“Now that you swallowed that burrito whole, you’re ready?”
He licks pineapple juice off his finger. “Did I impress you with my eating abilities, because there’s more where that came from.”
“You horrified me,” I say, still in a state of shock.
He chuckles and pulls out a pen and notebook. “You learn to eat fast when you have little time in between practices and classes.”
“Still . . . that thing was huge.”
“If you’re impressed with that, just wait until you see what else I can do with my mouth.” He winks, sending a wave of heat up the nape of my neck. I can only imagine.
Just what I need, to be turned on in the middle of the dining hall. Hello, fellow students, this is me, Emory Ealson, wet and ready for the man who can swallow a five-foot burrito whole.
I take a sip of my water, ignoring his innuendo, which only makes the cocky and confident man laugh to himself.
“Okay, let’s get these rules laid out so we can get to the good stuff.” He lifts his gaze to me. “You know, like kissing and all that shit.”
“How romantic.”
He points his pen at me. “Exactly. Very romantic.” Like an idiot, he clicks the pen, dots the tip on his tongue as if wetting the ink, and makes a dramatic wave of his arm to get to the paper. Seriously, what am I getting myself into? “Okay, rule number one.” He lifts a brow at me, looking super sexy as he says, “Friends forever and always.”
Shit, that look, his soft voice as he said those words . . . it strikes me hard in the chest, a feeling I wasn’t expecting right away. Yes, he might be very outgoing and personable like Neil, but there’s a softer side to him, one I can’t wait to explore more.