TackledP: A Sports Romance(39)

I open the text message.



Get your hand off my leg, you perv, or I'm going to stab you.





I type a response.



My hands are going to be on a lot more than just your leg.





I don't hear her phone vibrate after I hit send. She must have turned the sound off. But when she glances at me, I can tell she got the message loud and clear, which is good, because I'd hate to be less than clear about what I want.

My mother is busy interrogating my roommates, making sure everyone is making decent grades and asking about what they think of the pre-season hype surrounding our schedule this year. Meanwhile, all I can think about is how much I want Cassie naked again. I want to run my hands over her skin. I want to breathe her in. I can't wait to see her come.

Now my dick is hard, sitting here at the table with all of these people. Including my mother.

Cassie looks over at me again, her gaze falling to my lap. When she sees the hard-on I clearly have for her, she arches an eyebrow and turns away. I get a text message another minute later.

Really? Your mom is at the table.



I text her back.

What can I say? When I think of you naked, I can't help it.



She texts again.

I'm not texting you anymore.



I respond:

What if I'm texting to tell you how much I want to be inside you?



When she gets it, she gives me a wide-eyed glare.

"Cassandra, how much more school do you have left?"

Cassie clears her throat. "Four years," she answers. "Maybe three. I'm taking summer classes and adding an extra class during regular semesters here and there."

Four years. Damn, that's a lot. I find myself suddenly irritated by the fact that my mother has known Cassie for all of five seconds and she knows more about this girl than I do.

"Four years?" my mother asks.

Cassie nods. "Sable and I are getting our Ph.Ds."

My mother practically beams with approval, casting a meaningful look my way. I already know full and well what that look means — that's the look that says, "You had better snap this girl up right now."

"So you'll be doctors," my mom says. She gives me the same look, but with raised eyebrows this time, as if I wasn't already clear on her meaning.

"Not the medical kind," Sable clarifies. "But yeah. Cassie will be a professor in a few years."

"You won't, Sable?" my mother asks.

Sable shrugs. "I don't know what I'm going to do," she admits. "I might set up a foundation or run a non-profit or something. That's pretty much what people in my family do."

Tank finally speaks. "That's cool," he says to her. "A foundation. Helping people is cool."

Cassie wants to be a professor. My mother asks her questions about what sociologists do and when Cassie speaks, she's so enthusiastic about what she does – and so damn sexy explaining it — that all of us jocks who don't give two shits about academics are sitting around the table practically slack-jawed listening to her talk.

She really likes teaching. I can tell.

And not just in the way she's been teaching me.



* * *



"Cassie!" I catch up with her outside the house where she's walking with Sable toward their cars.

Sable waves. "I'll see you at home, Cass," she yells before ducking away quickly.

Cassie pauses at the door of her car, looking around. "Don't, Colton," she warns me before I even try to touch her. "It's not even dark outside. Someone will see you."

"What if I don't care if they see us?"

"I lose my job if someone sees us," she says, her lips pursed. "So it matters to me."

"All right." I suddenly feel badly for pushing her like I have been without considering the consequences for her. I'm not used to thinking about them. I do what I want and let the chips fall where they fall. Being a star athlete means you get away with a lot of shit. I definitely don't think about them when it comes to women — easy hookups with no strings attached mean no consequences.

"Okay," she says, nodding. "I had fun. At dinner, I mean, not ... the other part. I mean, I didn't not have fun in your room."

I think this might be her way of blowing me off and suddenly I feel defensive.

"Yeah, totally fun," I agree with a careless shrug. "I mean, you know, it was no big deal. If you want to do it again sometime, text me."

Shit. The words sounded okay in my head, but as soon as I hear them, I realize I sound like a total asshole. And what's worse is that I realize I don't want her to think I'm an asshole.

She gives me a weird look, then opens the car door. "Yeah. No big deal."

Back inside, my mother gets right on my case about Cassie as I help her load the dishwasher.

"Cassie is a catch," she says.