Sacked (Gridiron #1) (17 page)

“No, baby. This is awesome. Fuck my face,” I order her.

“Are you sure?”

“I’ve never been more sure of anything.”

I don’t need to tell her twice. Her thighs clamps round my ears and she grinds down on my tongue.

“Oh, Knox, your fingers…use your fingers.”

“Where, baby?” I like her telling me how to make her feel good. She’s coaching me to do my best and I’ve never wanted to perform so well my entire life.

“Inside of me.” She pulls on my hair and thrashes her head from side to side. “My clit. Everywhere. I need you everywhere!” The last word comes out a thin, reedy cry.

When I slide my first finger inside of her, I nearly come all over her nice rug.

God.

Fuck.

Christ.

The wet heat of her against my hand has me nearly coming. Sex with Ellie requires more discipline than anything in my entire life.

She’s so tight. I have a moment of panic. Will I fit inside her? Peering up, I check in with her. She’s grimacing but it doesn’t appear like it’s in pain because she’s pushing against me.

“Knox, yes,” she says and thrashes her head from side to side. “More.”

“Anything you want.” I lean down, still clutching her two hands in one of mine, and suck her clit into my mouth. She screams and the snug channel around my fingers spasms, giving me tiny hugs. I swallow hard. To feel that around my cock? My brain nearly short circuits.

I feast on her, flicking her little swollen sex with my stiffened tongue. Against my thrusting fingers, her blood pounds out a swift, relentless rhythm.

“Knox, Knox,” she chants.

I pull my fingers out abruptly. It’s too much. I rear up and grab the packet of condoms I’ve been carrying around since the blow job.

Her eyebrows shoot into her forehead. “A whole strip?”

“I didn’t want to run out.” I grin.

She huffs out a small laugh. “You’re such an overachiever, but…” She reaches for my hand. “I’m on the pill, and I know you’re clean.”

“I am.” It’s an obvious statement.

She licks her lips. “I’m clean, too. I went to the health center for a test this week.”

“Are you saying—” I can’t even finish the question. All amusement is wiped away as I think about sliding into her raw.

Nodding, she plucks the condoms out of my hand and tosses them aside.

“I’m ready, Knox.”

So am I.

I spread her thighs and take myself in one hand. We both watch as the blunt head of my cock pierces her. She cries out and I freeze. “Fuck, am I hurting you?”

“Oh, Knox, no. But you’re so big. Give me a minute,” she pants.

I start counting backward from a thousand. She wriggles a bit and then taps me on the wrist to let me know I can move.

I slowly sink into her inch by excruciating inch. Her legs widen even more, and my wire thin control snaps. Her velvet embrace burns me up. I push all the way in until my balls rest against her ass.

I’m not sure if I’m in heaven or hell.

No, I know exactly where I am. I’m home. Where I belong. Where I’ve always belonged.

The rightness of it all clicks into place. I was right to have waited. I was right that Ellie was the one.

I’d fantasized about this moment a million times, but the real thing is indescribable. None of those things I’d read prepared me for what it would feel like for her walls to cling to my shaft. I couldn’t have ever conjured up what kind of rush it feels like to get sucked into her body. Or how I’d feel like a fucking conqueror when she writhes beneath me.

The sensations roll over me. Nerves that I didn’t know existed come alive and tell me that I’m two seconds away from coming in her so long and so hard her ancestors will feel it. Her nipples are tight, fat buds begging for my mouth. Grabbing a hip in one hand and bracing myself with my other, I lean over and capture one bouncing beauty between my lips.

“Ellie. I—” I break off when the walls of her pussy tighten around me. Is she doing that on purpose? “I can’t…hold…off.”

She slaps her palms against the wall as the force of my body drives her across the bed. “Harder, Knox. Let go. I won’t break.”

I dig a knee into the mattress for leverage and go at it. My hips jackhammer into hers. My balls slap against her ass, and her fingers dig deep into my shoulders, marking me. I completely lose it. I don’t know my name, where I live, what position I play. I only know that I’m balls deep in the sweetest, tightest grip in the world, and I’ll die happy here between Ellie’s legs.

Underneath my frame, Ellie’s body writhes and bucks in rhythm with mine. Her mouth opens, gasping out pleas for me to fuck her faster and harder. My body responds as if she owns it.

Blood pounds in my ears, an ocean of sensation floods my nervous system, and the loudest, fiercest roar that has ever left my mouth pours forth. Her mouth finds my neck while I shudder and jerk as my come jets into her welcome pussy. I collapse on top of her, a heavy spent
thing.

“Oh, Knox.” Her breath sounds unsteady, and her heart thuds against my chest.

“Is this heaven?” I mumble into her damp skin.

Her arms tighten around me. “No it's Iowa.”

My breath catches and then roars out. I can't stop laughing. I'm shaking her tiny mattress and she's laughing with me. Of course Ellie quotes a famous line from a classic sports movie to me right after we have sex. Right after I lose my virginity to her. Of course.

Of course.

Because she knows sports. Loves it like I do. She's so perfect for me. I mouth my thanks to the man upstairs for sending Ellie down to earth and letting me find her. I knew she was the right one.

Knew it.

“Sorry,” I say, apologizing for crushing her but unable to move. “Please tell me you enjoyed that even a little. Lie if you have to.”

She’s still laughing, her smaller frame vibrating under mine. “I came, Knox. Didn’t you feel it?”

“I don’t know what I felt,” I admit. “I think I saw that light all those people who have a near death experience claim to have seen. I’m okay if this is how I go out.” I find some small reserve of strength and roll off her, pulling her with me so my still-hard dick gets to stay inside that warm, tight embrace. I wonder if I can wear her. Whether there’s some campus provision that would prevent me from walking around with her attached to my dick. I should get my student liaison to look into that for me. “Christ Almighty, I've never felt so good.”

“Not even when you got the offer from Western?” Her lips move against my chest, inches away from my nipple.

I tip her head up so I can look into those big brown eyes of hers. I shake my head in dismay over her sad comparison. “Not even close. This is the best thing ever.”

“Better than winning the championship?” She grins.

I think for a minute. “That would be a close second.”

She tucks her head under my chin again. I rearrange her legs so that I don’t slip out. Although given how hard I still am, I don’t think there’s any danger in that.

“Are you sorry you waited?” she asks softly.

“No way. This was perfect.” I kiss the crown of her head. “You were perfect.”

“Are you sorry I didn't wait?”

Ah, is that where her uncertainty came from?

“Why should I be? You had different circumstances. Besides, I tell myself that all your previous experiences were terrible. Don’t correct me if I’m wrong. I’m happy to be wrong and ignorant in this matter.”

I stroke her back, running my fingers along the sharp edges of her shoulder blades and tracing the bumps of her spine. I circle her waist with my hands.

“Your fantasies aren’t that far off the mark,” she admits. Her fingernails scratch over my nipple, my pec, and down my side. My dick perks up even more.

“Really?”

“Yes. Watching you touch yourself in that bathroom was hotter than anything I've personally experienced. It's why I couldn't stay away even though I knew I should.”

“I’m glad you didn’t.”

“I’m glad you didn't give up on me.”

“Never.” I tilt her head up and capture her mouth. “You ready for round two?”

“Only if I get to be on top this time.”

The sacrifices I have to make…

After Sunday, it’s like I can’t get enough. I stalk her around campus. I drag her down four flights of stairs after one of her creative writing courses, shove up her skirt, and take her in the corner of a stairwell.

Her heel digs into my ass as I pound into her as if the entire universe’s rotation depends on how fast I can make her come. When she does come, it’s usually with this tiny gasp. It’s a sound that I hear in my dreams. I replay it when I’m on the road, along with all the other noises of our sex: The sweaty slap of our bodies as I jam against her. The sweet suck of her pussy as it hugs me tight. The feral grunts from my own throat as the orgasm overtakes me and I lose all control.

I sneak her into the athletic center because I want to christen my locker. She rides me, rubbing her body all over mine while she comes on my dick. That may be a mistake, because every time I sit in my locker, I think of her, us, and I get hard. Getting hard in the locker room is not a good idea. But she has her own problems. She’s taken to wearing skirts and thigh high tights because I’ve ripped the crotch of so many of her regular tights, and because, she admitted, she’s tired of her tights having a wet crotch after an encounter with me.

The new obsession I have with her doesn’t affect my play on the field. If anything, my focus is sharper there. Things happen in slow motion. It’s like I know the play before the ball even gets hiked. I start racking up ridiculous numbers. Two sacks in one game. Three in another. I get an interception and run it in for a touchdown in three different games. It’s unheard of. ESPN’s
College Game Day
becomes a Knox Masters highlight reel.

Life is fucking good.

“
Y
ou look exhausted
,” Riley observes as I drop onto the sofa by her. She’s studying some kind of ethics and law, based on the paperwork strewn about. “Is it all the sex you’re getting? Because I swear if I was getting it as much as you do, I’d have trouble walking.”

“I wish.” Although truthfully some days I am sore. It’s been five weeks of non-stop sex whenever Knox can find a spare minute from football and classes. The team is still undefeated and there are only five weeks left in the regular season with a conference title game in December.

Knox had suggested we visit his brother over the bye week—the week that the team has no game, but I had softball practice. Knox took my rejection with ease and we spent that entire weekend in his apartment, trying out as many positions as he could dream up. I did not like the one where my head was lower than my hips but all others were a go.

He has the stamina of Secretariat, not to mention that he’s hung like a horse, too. Apparently my sex has muscles in it that can get bruised and worn out. Complaining about this to Knox results in more oral. He loves giving head. It’s kind of amazing. Sometimes he acts like he enjoys going down on me more than anything else, which can’t possibly be—

“Earth to Ellie. Come in, Ellie. The little people who don’t have sex are pretending not to be jealous of your nonstop action, but your horny face isn’t helping.” Riley waves a hand in front of my face.

“Sorry.” I try to look repentant. “It’s the game theory class. I barely understand it myself.”

“Which makes it difficult to help Jack,” Riley finishes.

I swing around in surprise. “You know?”

She grimaces. “I’ve suspected for a while, but since you didn’t want to say anything, I didn’t bring it up.”

Panicked, I grab her wrist. “You can’t say anything, Riley. If it got out…Jack’s eligibility would be gone. He might get kicked off the team, lose his scholarship.” I swallow. “I could get kicked out, too. If you saw him in class, Riles.” I scrub both hands down the sides of my face. “It’d break your heart.”

Riley turns her hand over and grips mine. “I’m not saying anything. Why’d he take it anyway? Isn’t it supposed to be hard? Every time I mention it to someone they get this haunted look in their eye. It’s like the class causes PTSD.”

I lean my head back against the rolled edge of the sofa. “It’s the name. Politics and Games? People sign up thinking that it’s this fun class that will give them something semi-coherent to talk about at networking parties when we graduate. Instead, it’s this soul-sucking combination of applied mathematics and theoretical behavioral studies. Jack took it because his stupid liaison told him it was math heavy, but it’s not. It’s not about numbers and equations at all, or at least not in a way that he understands it.”

“What are you doing? How much trouble could you get into?”

“I’m changing some of his answers. Not all of them, but he plans to write a paper about the Super Bowl, and the decision that the coach had to make at the end of it whether to run or pass during a short yardage play. I wanted to make sure that his worksheet answers match up with the paper he’ll turn in at the end of the year.”

“How are you substituting your paper for Jack’s?” She nibbles on the side of her thumb. How ironic that she’s studying ethics and I’m detailing the way I’m cheating for Jack.

“I suggested the topic to him. He’ll write it and I’ll proof it.”

“So, you aren’t really cheating.”

“I am.” I hang my head. “He’s got all the concepts down, but he doesn’t articulate them well. So I rewrite sentences or sometimes whole paragraphs…or whole pages.”

“Oh.” She wrinkles her nose. It’s the perfect summary of my terrible situation.

“What do your ethics books say about this?” I try to make a joke of it but it comes out bitter. I regret immediately but Riley doesn’t take offense.

“How long have you done it?”

“When haven’t I? My parents are not the warmest people. Dad has very high expectations of Jack. In eighth grade, Jack came home with two Ds on his report card. One in English and one in history. Dad lit into him. Called him every name in the book. Said he was so dumb that it’d be a shock if he could even get a job pumping gas at the local convenience store. I couldn’t sleep that night. Jack’s face, the terrible expression on his face, like he was worthless, kept me up. I couldn’t let him be a target for Dad again, not if I could do something about it.” My face is wet from tears I didn’t even realize I shed. I dash them away. “My mom found out and suggested—” more like demanded, “—I keep it up.”

“So you’ve covered for him for years.”

I nod.

“I suppose he never got tested because of your father?”

I nod again.

Riley whistles. “Wow. I guess my ethics class would say to look to the harm. Is it affecting the curve of the class? Probably not. Is his getting a passing grade diminishing opportunities for someone else? No, he’s not taking away any academic scholarships. The only person who could be hurt would be…” She pauses, not wanting to say the obvious so I finish for her.

“Jack. Jack’s the one who gets hurt by my doing his work for him. But the entire team would get harmed if it got out.” The hard lump that lives in my stomach travels up to my throat. Hoarsely, I continue, “Not only does the cheating endanger his right to play, but the entire season could be affected. The Warriors could be excluded from bowl contention.”

“This sucks,” Riley sympathizes.

I spend two seconds internally debating the rest of it, but figure if I can talk to anyone, it’s Riley.

“Riley, I’ve been writing this mock grant for the learning center, remember?”

She bobs her head. “You’re writing a proposal for your grade?”

“Yes, that’s the one. So I’ve been doing all this research, and did you know that colleges have to offer accommodations for people who have learning disabilities?”

“I suppose that would make sense.” Her eyes grow wide as she gets exactly where I’m going with this.

“I want to tell Jack, Riley. At Western—or heck at any school—if he’s determined to have any kind of disability, they have to make special arrangements. It’s the law! He could do an oral exam, instead of a written one. Instead of a paper, he does a presentation. We haven’t done anything wrong…yet. I’ve changed some worksheet answers, but nothing’s graded. He gets one grade based on a final paper.”

“But you’re afraid,” she guesses.

I nod slowly. Each time I’ve approached it with Jack he’s shut me down. I don’t want the only member of my family to turn his back on me, but like Riley said. The only person who I’m hurting right now is Jack. “I am scared. He’s the iron at my back. He’s supported me and cared for me. I don’t want to lose his love or respect. And I don’t know what Knox would say either.”

“Oh, honey.” She places an arm around my shoulders. “This is tough. If you keep quiet, you’re hurting Jack. If you tell, you’re hurting him. Any way you slice it, someone is going to be unhappy, including you.”

But that’s no reason to stay silent.

“You look stressed, baby,” Knox declares over dinner. I tug my sweater down. The late October weather is chilly. “You worried about meeting my brother?”

That’s absolutely the last thing on my mind. Knox’s brother, Ty, is coming to visit him this weekend for the game and he’s staying over for a Halloween costume party that night. Really, I think it’s a test to see whether I can tell the two apart in person. I’m certain I’ll pass, although part of me wants to pretend, for a moment, that I’m confused. So Knox won’t bring it up again. But I won’t because that’s probably over-the-top mean.

"“No,” I answer tersely. I wanted to talk to Jack tonight but he said he had a study group for his stats class. I felt immediately relieved and then guilty for feeling relieved. It’s a vicious circle of awful. The sooner I confront the issue, the better for all of us.

“The game?” he presses.

“Should I be?” I counter.

He shakes his head and leans forward. “Nah, we’ll crush them.”

“They’re the number four team in the country.”

Knox’s unshakeable confidence would probably be irritating if he didn’t back it up every Saturday.

“What is the Warriors’ ranking?” He cups his ear.

“Number one.”

He winks. “That’s right.” A mischievous look crosses his face as he leans forward. “Why don’t we go back to my room and I’ll give you a nice rub down to help get rid of all that stress.”

“The last rub down lasted all of five minutes before you had me plastered against the wall.” I brush a hand over the back of my sweater—the tight red one that Knox likes so much. “I think I still have drywall in my shirt from that.”

His eyes gleam. “I like standing up. Good leverage.”

I should explain how it’s also nice to have a soft mattress at your back, but as long as I have Knox here, I might as well ask him a question that’s burned at the back of my mind all day.

“Knox, if something happened on the team. Like a guy got caught cheating or he got arrested for drunk driving, what would happen?”

“He’d be kicked off,” Knox replies immediately.

“No questions. No second chances?”

“No. Coach Lowe doesn’t tolerate that kind of stuff. If there’s a distraction, the distraction gets eliminated.”

God.

“What about if he had problems making grades?”

Knox leans forward and his face takes on a concerned expression. “You got something to tell me, Ellie?”

“No. I’m just, um, thinking about topics for a creative writing class on team unity.”

The side of his mouth curls up in slight disbelief.

“Really,” I insist.

I don’t think he believes me, but he doesn’t press. “A guy with academic problems would probably get suspended until he could get his grades up.”

“What would happen with the team?”

“It’s hard to say.” Knox drums his fingers lightly against the table top as he studies me. I try to look as innocent as possible. “It could mess with the team dynamic. If it was a player on
my
list, Coach Lowe would be pissed at me because I’m supposed to be on top of that. If there’s anything I should know about Jack…”

Inwardly I wince. I don’t want to lie to him, but I need to tell Jack first. He deserves that from me.

“If I had something I could tell you, I would,” I end up saying.

Knox cocks his head and then reaches across the table to grab my hand. “Okay. I trust you.”

Talk about a knife to the heart. There’s almost nothing he could have said that would make me feel worse. I struggle to put a smile on my face. Briskly, I change the subject. “How are your classes going?”

“Good. It’s interesting, because I thought I’d get completely bored this year, knowing I wasn’t planning on graduating. Instead, the classes got more entertaining.”

“Are you rethinking your plan to declare early?” Knox had told me a week ago that Coach Lowe agreed that he should enter the draft after his junior year. The hype around his play is very high right now and there’s always the risk of playing another year of college ball. Knox can always go back and finish his last year of college. He might not ever have another chance at being drafted in the top ten, which is where he is currently projected.

“No. I want to play with the best and the best play at the next level,” he says simply. “It’s good that Coach supports me. If he didn’t, I guess I wouldn’t get to go early. Scouts rely on his assessment. He’s told them I’m mature enough to go early and that I can handle the extra responsibilities.”

The Warriors have sent several players to the NFL ever since Coach Lowe took over the program, so it’s not surprising that pro scouts rely on his word.

“I can’t believe his endorsement matters so much.” I wonder what Coach Lowe would say if he knew that Knox allowed me to shield Jack’s progress from him. Nothing good. I scowl into my basket of untouched food.

“It’s not just Coach. These scouts investigate everything about you, down to how many times you go see a trainer during the week, what you write on social media, which is why I don’t have any accounts, how many protein supplements you take. I heard that they even rate your girlfriends.”

I gawk at him as he nods in rueful agreement. “I know. It’s wrong. It’s part of their confidence calculation. If you have a hot girlfriend that means you’ve got the swagger you need to play pro ball.” He winks at me. “Don’t worry. You’re a ten.”

I can’t even muster up a smile at his compliment. “I guess when you’re looking at spending seventeen million plus, you want to make sure you’re getting your money’s worth.”

“That’s right. I’m not worried about it. I don’t have any character issues or skeletons in my closet. It’s all good.”

He holds his arms out wide in careless, happy abandon. I’m going to end up hurting everyone I care about.