“I’m sorry. I didn’t know what else to say, so I resorted to giving you shit. Seemed fitting.”
I look at his mouth and then force my gaze up to his eyes—which are sparkling knowingly. “It worked. Thank you. I uh . . .” I grip the back of my neck, feeling pretty damn useless. “I’m not good with that kind of stuff.”
“Lying?” he asks with a grin. “I’m fully okay with that as your boyfriend.”
I still can’t get over how good that sounds. “I don’t want to hide it anymore. I’m so damn tired of it.” The conversation turns sour quickly. I know he’d rather joke and tease, but it’s not that funny anymore.
I want to be free to kiss him wherever I want, and it’s not fair to him to hide away to protect my reputation in the town.
“I know you don’t. Let’s get the football season finished at least. Maybe even get these boys to state.”
I nod slowly, but I still feel like I’m letting him down. He moves to me and lifts my chin with his hand.
“Noah,” he whispers.
I look at him, hating myself for not being able to give him the world. “I’m so sorry. I want—”
“I want that too,” he interrupts. “I want it all with you, but we have time. Lots of time because I’m not going anywhere.”
“Thank you for being patient with me.”
He quickly glances behind him, then turns back to me, leaning down and placing a hard kiss on my lips before pulling back. “Always.”
“I won’t make you wait much longer,” I say firmly as he drops his hold on my chin, but he only smiles at that.
“You brought me Halloween donuts.” He’s grinning wide. “How difficult was that for you to order?”
I feel my cheeks pinking, but I just grunt something incoherent, and he laughs it off.
“You’ll have to tell me all about it tonight,” he says, and once again, I feel light and happy because I know he’ll be in my bed tonight. After watching many, many horror movies, I’m sure. And I really can’t wait for it.
He may be fine with hiding, but I’m not.
I have to find a way to tell everyone very soon that this man is mine.
And I’m his.
TWENTY-NINE
CHANCE
Halloween was great. It was everything I ever wanted but never actually allowed myself to think I could have. I think I had almost resigned myself to believing I’d be stuck with meaningless hookups for most of my life.
Unless I finally got the balls to move out of the small-town world I grew up in. But with Noah, everything has changed for the better.
Yes, we’re still keeping our relationship a secret, but it doesn’t really feel that way. I spend most nights at his place. I even have a designated drawer for my pants and have shirts hanging in his closet.
My shaving things are here. It’s starting to feel like home, which also feels a little risky, but not so much that either of us are willing to change it any time soon.
After school on Halloween, we went back to the house and watched horror movies before he took me right there in the living room. He teased me for what felt like hours before he slid into my body with effortless grace and turned me into a panting, begging mess before he finally let me come.
It was perfect.
He didn’t have many trick-or-treaters, but a few of his former players have kids now and always bring them by. He answered the door while I stayed in the living room, but I could picture a day where we’d answer the door, standing side-by-side.
Today is the day before Thanksgiving, so school is out until Monday. Though we did have practice this evening because there’s a game on Friday, and high school football stops for nothing and no one.
The kids seemed to have fun though, and Noah went fairly easy on them.
I can’t believe my first semester as a Kensley Panther is almost over. It feels so new, and yet, like it’s been a lifetime.
After a dinner of baked chicken Noah threw together, we go for a walk around his property, bundled up in heavy winter coats because it’s damn cold tonight. We check on the kittens before telling them goodnight and then go inside, stripping out of our coats and hanging them in the closet by the door.
“So what are we watching tonight?” I ask, but Noah must have other plans because his hands are on my face, and his lips press against mine in a hungry kiss as he plasters his hard body against mine.
“No movie.”
I grin against his mouth and run my hands up his back, pulling him closer to me by his shoulders and kissing him hard before he drags our entwined bodies toward his room.
I remove his shirt and kiss down his chest, and he flicks on the bedroom light. “You’re so fucking hot.”
“You have no idea how damn hot you are,” he breathes, and I kiss over the thick bulge in his jeans after lowering myself to the ground before him. I mouth his hard cock through the denim.
“I love how hard you are for me.” I grasp his ass in my hands, squeezing the firm cheeks and teasing him.
“Jesus, Chance. Please.” He sounds breathless, and it’s sexy as hell.
I slide my hands down the backs of his thighs and calves and then remove his shoes and socks so damn slowly, I’m pretty sure he wants to throttle me. But he remains still while I undo his jeans and tug them down, leaving his black briefs on.
Again, I can’t keep my mouth off him. I tongue his erection through the fabric, getting it dripping wet. His cock tries to escape, the glistening tip sticking out of the top of his briefs, and I can’t resist teasing him more. I drag my tongue through the sticky, delicious precum and moan as his flavor bursts on my tastebuds.
“Please,” he pleads with me, and it’s so damn hot, I nearly combust right then and there. I drag his briefs down, and he kicks them away, leaving him gloriously naked while I still have all my clothes on.
I tease the head, kissing and licking the tip, sucking on it as his fingers thread through my hair.
“Chance?” There’s a question in his tone, and I look up at him, the head of his cock still in my mouth. “Can we do something a little different tonight?”
I’m literally up for anything. I nod my head, licking down his shaft to his balls before licking all the way to his tip again, then standing up to grab the back of his neck to pull him into a heated kiss. “Anything.”
He nods and is breathing heavily. I feel his nerves from here, but I wait for him to tell me what he wants. “I want you inside me.”
My eyes snap to his as I pull back enough to look at him. “What?”
I never in a million years thought he’d want that. We’d just naturally gone to him being the one to fuck me, and I was deliriously happy with that, but now that he’s put it out there, I think he might have melted my damn brain.
His brow furrows, and he looks even more nervous, nibbling on his bottom lip. “I mean, if you don’t do that . . . or you don’t want to do that,”—he closes his eyes, his voice shaky—“I understand. That’s totally fine. Good. I mean it’s good.”
If he hadn’t broken my brain with his request, I probably would have laughed at the normally stoic Coach losing his shit right now. “I do,” I finally manage to say. “I mean, I have. I will. I want to.”