ROMANCE: BAD BOY ROMANCE: M.V.B. - Most Valuable Baby (Sports Secret Baby Romance) (Contemporary Interracial Pregnancy Romance) (28 page)

Jasmine slipped her hand into Brian boxers and grabbed his shaft firmly. She whispered how she couldn't believe how hard he was; that it wasn't all the time that guys had this kind of reaction to her. Brian couldn't tell if she was just being modest or if she was being truthful. He couldn't imagine anyone on the planet not having much the same reaction he was having to her right then.

Without speaking Brian arched his back so that his ass was off the bed. Jasmine wiggled his boxers off, freeing his throbbing member. Jasmine looked like she was excited about the idea of playing with it, and before Brian knew what was happening, Jasmine already had it in her mouth. She bobbed her head up and down on, although because he was decently hung she wasn't able to take all of it. Brian didn't need to be deep throated like in porn though. Jasmine really got into it, and Brian appreciated her attitude. In the past he'd dated several women who hated going down on him and it had put a real damper on things.

“How is it,” Jasmine asked. “Do you like it?”

“You're amazing,” Brian said.

Jasmine laughed and mounted Brian. He couldn't believe how eager she was, but in no time at all she had slid onto him like her life depended on it. Maybe she needed the release just as bad as Brian did because lord knew that it wasn't easy having to lead the team and never have a sexual release, or a partner to be intimate with. He didn't want to make girls a priority during his senior year, so he didn't sweat it, but now things were looking like they were turning around. Jasmine seemed like she liked what he had to offer, and now they were going to make sweet love. It was something that he'd been looking forward to without even knowing it, and now that it was happening, it was all he could do to arch his back in rhythm with her grinding down against him, all he could manage to run his hands up and down her body. She felt so good, and made him feel so much better about life in general. Brian wanted it to last as long as possible, but when Jasmine arched her back and moaned loudly, gyrating her hips, all he could do was hang on for dear life and join her in ecstasy.

When they finished they both curled up around each other. Brian didn't realize how tired he was until he felt Jasmine's breathing adopt the steady pace of sleep. He glanced at the clock and saw that it was only noon. They had plenty of time. And without realizing it, Brian closed his eyes. It wasn't until he was already drifting off to sleep that he knew it was too late.

Brian dreamed of the game that night. The Falcons were down by a point, and on their own fifteen-yard line on third down. The Alligators were going to run a trick play against the defense; he knew it. But when the Alligators did, one of the defensive backs made an interception and returned the ball to the fifty-yard line.

Now it was Brian's turn to do the dirty work, and he looked forward to it as he headed to the line of scrimmage with the rest of the offense. That's when the dream got hazy, though, and he wasn't sure what was going on anymore. He had the center hike him the ball, and things slowed down to the point where he wondered how long the play was going to take—it was like being in an action film where things start going in slow motion, but instead of just regular slow motion, this was super slow motion.

Then the Alligators turned into actual alligators, and the Falcons into actual falcons. Brian knew for sure that he was dreaming then. He wondered what time it was, and if he was oversleeping. That was when he started to wake up.

But Brian wasn't jerked from the dream suddenly, as some people are when they realize they are sleeping in and have to be to work soon. Instead, the dream started to dissolve. First, the grass became nothing more than a light green fuzz that hovered above the ground, then the lines and all the other markings on the field lifted up like tape, floating up and up into the sky. All of the fans disappeared, and then the stadium itself started breaking up into little pieces that were sucked up into a cyclone somewhere above them. Brian tried to run, but his feet weren't touching the fuzzy ground, so he couldn't get any traction. All of his former teammates, now animals, were making long, drawn out screams like falcons do when they dive from a cliff to snatch a fish from the water.

By the time Brian woke up, he knew it would be awhile before he went to any zoo.

“Are you all right?”

It was Jasmine asking him if he was doing OK.

“I'm fine,” Brian said. “Just game day jitters playing themselves out in my dreams, is all.”

It had been Jasmine who had woken him up. She'd reported that he'd woken her up first by thrashing around, and then he'd started yelling. She'd waited a little bit to see if the nightmare would pass, but when it didn't, she woke him up. It was a good thing, too, because he had to be at the stadium in just a little less than two hours.

“Two hours is a long time” Jasmine said as she sat naked on his bed. She looked so good there that Brian didn't ever want her to leave, or put clothes back on.

“It sounds like a long time, but it takes about half an hour to walk there,” Brian said. “I'm not trying to say that you need to leave right now or anything, I'm just saying that I'm glad you woke me up when you did because if I had slept in anymore, I'd have to run downstairs and out the door as quick as possible. But right now I'm square to hang out.”

Jasmine smiled and beckoned him back to bed. He made a motion that he was going to go back to the kitchen and grab their coffees, and by the time he returned Jasmine had all of her clothes back on, although not all buttoned up. Brian was a little disappointed, but completely understood. Being so attractive likely had made Jasmine a little self-conscious. Brian went ahead and started to put on his football uniform as they both sipped coffee. They talked a little bit, but they were both careful not to bring up the game. Neither of them wanted it to have any more impact on their time together than it already had.

By the time their coffee was finished it looked like Jasmine had something to say. Brian felt a pang of regret, thinking that maybe they had rushed too quickly into sex and that had made her think twice about everything, after the fact.

“I just want you to know that I'm not looking to just hook-up or anything,” Jasmine said. “I want to have a solid friend, a boyfriend who isn't just some guy who wants to use my body.”

Brian nodded, but didn't say anything, knowing that Jasmine was far from done talking. Even if she didn't talk a lot, when she did, he knew that he needed to give her the room to speak.

“So I don't want you to think that I'm easy or anything,” Jasmine said. “I'm not. And usually I wait until a lot longer into the actual labeled 'dating' relationship before I fool around with anyone.”

“Even longer!” Brian said. “Holy jeez, lady. How long do you make people wait?”

Jasmine blushed and hid her face behind her coffee cup for a second.

“I mean, I think I wait the right amount of time,” Jasmine said. “The rest of the guys on this campus aren't exactly like you, as I'm sure you're aware. You're somewhat of an outlier when it comes to maturity. Most guys can't wait even a few days after the first date, much less the weeks I made you wait. I think that waiting is a pretty good way to weed out the dudes who are shitty. Because, let's be real, there are a ton of shitty dudes in the world and a girl can't really know if a guy is shitty until she gets to know him. I just don't like it to be too late at that point.”

More real talk from Jasmine, Brian realized, meant that she wasn't regretting what they'd done. She just wanted him to hear her out, and to understand where she was coming from. Brian had a lot of respect for that, and a new found respect for her—not that his respect for her had been lacking, it was just even more so now—knowing that she was trying to keep things in her love life in order so that her life in general wasn't a wreck.

Early in his college life Brian had learned the hard way that he needed to avoid all of the pitfalls that Jasmine was avoiding, in her own way. It had taken him a long time to figure it out, and from how few boys Jasmine had been with around campus, Brian knew that she'd figured it out a lot faster than he had. Brian realized he needed to say something back, and stepped into his closet, pretending to grab a piece of his uniform when really he was just buying a little bit of time to collect himself. He knew that he had to say something intelligent or Jasmine might write him off. After he stepped back out, fiddling with his clothes, Brian spoke.

“You know,” Brian said. “I want you to know that I try to run my life in a similar manner. I guess, as of recently, I've just stopped seeing girls all together. And you know what I realized? That, Jasmine, you are one hell of a woman and I’d love to be with you.”

Jasmine let out a little yelp of pleasure at what he was saying and bounced off the bed to throw her arms around him. Brian hugged her back, swinging around in a circle while she picked her feet off the floor and pressed her face into his neck. It felt so good to have everything click into place like they just had, and they were both enjoying the moment. There was a part of Brian that wished that he didn't have to go to the game and be everyone's hero. He wanted to be able to lounge around all day with Jasmine. That wasn't real life, though. He couldn't believe how good his life had just become with the addition of Jasmine as a soon-to-be-serious girlfriend, right now in the budding stages of the romance, but he still had to go to the game. He wanted to go show these Alligator clowns the way football was really played. Not with a bunch of sleight of hand, or low down dirty tricks. He was gong to show them how to play straight up football, the kind that people used to play all the time back in the day, back when a team had to be stand-up about how they did business because if they were low or base about it they wouldn't get invited to bowl games, and other events.

“It's been good hanging out,” Brian said. “Will you be at the game tonight?”

“I can't make it,” Jasmine said. “I got a text that I have to go into work. I'm so sorry!”

Brian just laughed, and shook his head.

“Don't be sorry!” Brian said. “Work is always going to be more important than the little games I play.”

“I know,” Jasmine said. “But I also know that you are a little nervous about this one and I wanted to be there for you is all.”

They hugged again, longer this time, then left. Jasmine headed back toward campus, saying she'd left her car in one of the free parking lots. Brian pecked her on the cheek and then headed toward the stadium. Already he could hear the crowd in his mind, roaring while the final moments of the game came down to some decision he would have to make. Or maybe this game would be another that was essentially decided by the defense. If that was the case Brian felt bad for the Alligators. The Falcon's defense was as good as they came, real good folks running the line and all of the defensive back positions. And now that they were all going to be on the lookout for the Alligators little tricks, nothing could stop them.

It was near the end of the fourth quarter. Time had flown during the game, and it came down to just what Brian had dreamed. He was on the fifty-yard line, and the center was hiking him the ball. The defense had just returned an interception, and the Falcon's were down by a point.

When the ball hit Brian's hands he turned to his right and started running. As his teammates set up blocks for him there was nothing that could stop him now, he told himself. There was a moment at the end, near the end of the run to the touchdown that would end the game that Brian thought he might have been tackled. But he'd made it past the defenders, faking them all out with his deft movements. When he crossed the line for the touchdown he dropped the ball and pointed both fingers up in the air.

“Where Falcon's soar,” he cried to the crowd.

The stadium went wild, rocking the arena with their wild applause. It was a moment that Brian took a moment to enjoy before turning to shake hands with the other team. Coach was so happy with him, kept slapping him on the back, and when he got to the locker room, Coach gave a short speech.

“You men are a hell of a football team,” Coach shouted. “Do you know that? Do you have any idea how much film those guys watched of you? How much they tried to corner you at the end of your own field to run a trick play for the win. Because that's what they were going to do! They were going to run some Mickey Mouse horseshit play like we don't have a gentleman's code in this game. And you know what you boys did! You beat them, fair and square. And the whole nation watched it happen!”

The team cheered and Brian cheered with them. By the time he made it out of the locker room, and by the time everyone was done having their chance to talk to him and tell him what a good job he was doing it was already pretty late. And Brian, hero though he was, still had to walk back to his place in Campus Town.

People offered to give him a ride home more than a dozen times, and that slowed him down. He wasn't in hurry though, he reminded himself, and tried to pace out the trek so it wasn't over too quickly. He wanted to savor every moment of the win, and that meant taking his time on the way home. That was one of his little rituals that he'd never told anyone—well, anyone save Jasmine. Jasmine knew, and the more Brian thought about it, the more he ran into things in his mind that he'd opened up to Jasmine about naturally over the last few weeks. He'd talked to her about how his father was on his case about not letting grades slip. He'd told her all about how he enjoyed school more than he liked football, but football to him was like a kind of breathing and dancing that made him energized instead of tired. He loved every part of it.