Fourth Down and Dirty: A Bad Boy Sports Romance (8 page)

The following day,
Landon wore one of his best T-shirts to show off his stunner body and walked
confidently into the tutoring center. He got there a couple minutes early, but
walked back to my desk anyway, noticing I wasn’t with another student. I looked
at him curiously, head tilted.

“You look like you
pulled an all-nighter,” I commented. “Were you up late?”

 
“I was thinking about you so I couldn't sleep.”
He smirked.

I immediately got
flustered. After our previous session where he basically admitted to feeling
jealous, I had worked very hard to put him out of my mind. My resolution was to
keep things strictly professional between us, but now he was here using lines
and blatantly flirting with me yet again. It made it a lot harder for me to
ignore my thumping heart.

“Uh-um,” I
stammered as I shakily shuffled through the papers in the folder I had put
together for him. “I can’t find the notes I wanted to use today,” I mumbled. My
face and ears burned, my breathing was shallow and rapid, and I was doing
everything possible not to make eye contact with him. It was obvious that he
had gotten a reaction out of me, but indulging in his behavior was too dangerous.
Losing my job just so I could be another notch on his bedpost wasn’t worth
it—at all.

Besides, Stella
was nearby without a student to tutor and it wouldn’t be all that difficult for
her to overhear anything either of us said. Stella would never put my job at
risk, but she would definitely ask questions that I had absolutely no interest
answering. Hopefully Landon would keep his sexual innuendos quiet today.

He leaned back and
watched me with an amused expression on his face as I continued to mumble under
my breath, looking completely out of sorts. He leaned back and closed his eyes
as a satisfied smirk spread across his face. I could only imagine how much he
enjoyed watching the very obvious effect he had on me.

"Does the
big, bad football player need a nap?" Stella teased from her desk.

Landon opened his
eyes and looked over at her with a laugh. Leaning forward, he shook his head,
"Actually, I need to do something else in my bed." He winked.

"Oh yeah?
What's that?" Stella asked, feigning innocence.

Landon gestured
toward me with a nod of his head, "Her."

I stopped cold,
willing myself not to look up at him and much less to look over at Stella. My
skin felt ice cold as I held my breath. Did he really just say that out loud? I
prayed Stella would take it as Landon just being, well, Landon. She didn’t need
to read into it any more than a crass off the cuff statement by Mr. Jock
himself.

"
Really
?” Stella asked, “So you do like a
challenge, huh?"

"I'm an
athlete,” he winked, “I like to challenge myself every day." Stella let
out a loud laugh and Landon followed suit. My face was probably as red as a
lobster as I gripped the papers I was holding so tight I nearly punched a hole
through them.

I heard Stella’s
chair scrape against the hardwood floor and let out a sigh of relief. Maybe she
was heading off to the break room, but at least that conversation was over and
I could be spared further panic and embarrassment. I couldn’t help the tinge of
jealousy I felt at their easy banter. I was flustered about being the subject
of it thought. I found myself wishing, for once, I had Stella's bubbly wit and
easy way of chatting with others.

Then I paused for
a second.

It was crazy to be
having those thoughts—I
couldn’t
want Landon. Finally, I found the notes I was looking for. It was time to try
and get down to business.

“Here they are,” I
announced, waving the papers in celebration. I opened my mouth to get started,
but felt Stella’s hand on my shoulder. I froze. When I had heard her chair
scrape it had only been for her to come stand at our table. Was this really
about to get worse?

“Physical
challenges and academic challenges are different,” Stella teased.

“Well, wouldn’t this,”
Landon nodded toward me, “Be
highly
physical?” He stared me dead center in the eyes, making my skin erupt in
shivers. They were just going to continue their humorous little conversation,
with me being the subject of it. I wanted to put a stop to it but, like always,
words failed me. Somehow, I always managed to clam up during social situations;
especially when I was the topic of conversation.

Landon smirked,
obviously amused at my anxiety. His eyes flew up to Stella and he looked at her
expectantly. Stella giggled, “Well, yes, but you have to pass the academic
challenge first.” She patted me on the shoulder and added, “Maybe this one is a
bit too much for you to crack.”

“You think so?” he
asked, only he was looking straight at me yet again. My face burned a bright
red, something that neither Landon nor Stella failed to notice. They both
laughed. Stella nudging my arm. Landon continued to stare at me before finally
asking me point blank, “Is there something bothering you?”

I opened my mouth
and closed it several times before letting out a breath. I had to say
something.

“Nothing,” I
mumbled weakly, averting my eyes from his green gaze, but being careful not to
look at Stella. I was extremely aware of the sudden silence between the three
of us. I had a paralyzing fear of what Landon could say next.

He leaned in even
more to ask in a very quiet voice, “Oh. Are you thinking about how much you
liked kissing me, then?” There was a brief moment of dense quiet before Stella
smacked my arm.

“What the hell!” I
demanded, looking up at her for the first time and immediately regretting it. I
quickly looked away.

“Oh no you
didn’t!” Stella cried out. She crouched down and looked at me until I finally
turned to reluctantly meet her gaze. “Why didn't you tell me you guys kissed?”

She smacked my arm
again and shook her head. Her eyes were wide with surprise. She was outraged I
never filled her in with this juicy tidbit of gossip. But then again, why the
hell would I? I was embarrassed and nearly wanted to rid it from my own memory.

 
Of course it was exactly the sort of thing
Stella would want to know about. It was completely out of character for me. I
could understand how it was inconceivable to her that it had actually happened.
I gulped and turned to look at Landon, who was watching us with intense
interest. He had a permanent smirk curling up the side of his face. I could
tell he was enjoying my discomfort.

 
This had quickly turned into a nightmare
situation I couldn’t wake up from. I looked around to make sure nobody else
overheard our conversation and felt a small sense of relief when I saw only two
other tutors in the center, both of which were seated far away and busy
working.

“I– I…” I
stammered, meeting Stella’s gaze again, but worlds failed me. I didn’t have the
heart to honestly answer my best friend’s question, much less with Landon
sitting right in front of us.

Stella rolled her
eyes and grabbed my wrist, shaking it. She looked over her shoulder at Landon,
“Is Landon as good of a kisser as I’ve heard he is?”

I grinned widely,
not taking my eyes off him for the first time. He was looking directly at me.
He cocked his eyebrow and crossed his arms, waiting for me to respond. The
cocky smirk turning up the corners of his lips made it clear he was not very
concerned about my rating. Naturally, his unwavering confidence extended to his
kissing abilities as well.

I wanted to
respond with a long, drawn out “yes”. No matter how sure I was nothing else
could happen with Landon again, the fact remained, I had never been kissed that
way before. But it would have been inappropriate for me to say that to Stella.
More importantly, I couldn’t risk clueing in Landon on how I really felt about
our little encounter. Then I thought about exactly what she had asked and
paused.

"Heard from
whom
?" I asked as I turned toward
her.

Stella smirked,
looking over at Landon meaningfully before turning her attention back to me.

 
“Well, from…Everyone.”

There was so much weight
to her words and it all landed on me like a ton of bricks. All the animosity I
originally had toward him came screeching into my mind and the loudest part was
him being a highly arrogant, hugely popular football player.

Of course he was
extremely experienced.

What I didn’t
bargain for was actually feeling jealous about it. I was jealous he had been
with so many other girls. I had a sick feeling at the pit of my stomach. If for
even a second I thought I wasn’t just another conquest for him in the bedroom I
must have been crazy. I didn’t even know I was capable of feeling jealously
toward a guy like Landon Bryce.

It felt awful—like
a ball of rotten ugliness in the pit of my stomach.

 
“You’re an asshole.” I said, unable to hold
back the feelings bubbling over inside of me.

Stella gasped and
jerked her head back. She stared at me in disbelief. I was acting like he had
betrayed my trust in some sort of way. Now It was impossible for me to pretend
the kiss was meaningless. Now Stella felt like she was in the middle of
something, so she quietly got up and walked back to her own desk.

My eyes were still
trained on Landon, who was looking at me in shock. If Stella was surprised by
my sudden outburst, it was no match to how Landon must have felt. He opened his
mouth just a sliver as if he had something to say, but remained quiet. I, still
seething, decided to go on.

“You’re a dog. A
man-whore.” At any other moment, I would have realized I was irrationally
angry, but that was far from the case now. The grip of jealously was too strong
for me to have any kind of rational thought. It wasn’t until there was a loud
slamming noise from the other side of the Tutoring Center that I snapped out of
it. Immediately, I turned to look. A student on the other end of the room had
dropped her heavy textbook on the linoleum floor.

I took a deep
breath and curled my fists. I was still at work and that was far more important
than letting Landon know how much of an asshole he was for the way he toyed
with women—me being one of them. Even so, the heat wouldn’t leave my cheeks. I
may have snapped out of it and realized this was definitely not the time or
place to make a scene, but that didn’t mean I had calmed down.

“The session is
over,” I told him curtly. My tone of voice and the look in my eyes made it very
clear I wasn’t to be argued with.
  

“You’re right,”
Landon said.

It took me a
moment to register the disappointment in his voice, as if my words had cut him
deep.

He stood up and gathered
his things, but before he walked away he leaned in close enough to whisper, “I
may be an asshole, but you like me that way.”

The following day
at practice, Ivy was still a heavy weight on my mind. As much as I tried to
force the last tutoring session out of my head, I wasn’t able to. We didn’t get
anything done and she also made it quite clear what she thought about me.

My performance
during practice suffered with slow runs and a lot of fumbles. I was aware of
the questioning looks from my teammates and the frustration from the Coach, but
I couldn’t help it. For once, my mind just wasn’t on football. I was thankful
it was practice and not an actual game, otherwise I would have really get an
ass-chewing. That would have been disastrous.

As I stood under
the bright sun and ignored whatever one of my teammates was saying to the
Coach, I couldn’t stop thinking about her. More specifically, I couldn’t stop
thinking of her calling me an asshole. I played it over and over again in my
mind. She had said it with such force and conviction.

Never before had I
cared about the insults flung at me from a girl, much less from a woman pissed
off that I wasn’t able to commit to a relationship. Even though I always made
it clear what my intentions were, some of the girls I got involved with still
got upset at the end of the day. But none of them were like Ivy. We hadn’t even
slept together and she acted like she had a right to be pissed off at me.

I tried to be
angry instead of being so upset. All we did was kiss. It was a really hot one,
but it was only a kiss nonetheless. It was impossible for me to be mad when I
thought about it some more. The way her lips felt against mine and how she sunk
into me completely made me feel something I had never felt before. I didn’t
even know what that feeling was. I couldn’t put it into words. One thing was
true however, no matter how I tried to frame it in my mind, I hated her
thinking that I was some jock-asshole.

I was lost in my
thoughts of Ivy as I sprinted towards the thirty-yard line and stretched out my
hands. I managed to reach just far enough for the ball to scrape my fingertips
before landing on the ground with a thud.

“Fuck.” I panted
as I came to a stop.

“Shit! Bryce! Get
your head in the fucking game!” Coach Kingsley barked with a red face.

I looked around to
see if my teammates were as pissed off as Coach. I was caught off guard when I
saw the concerned look on Noah’s face. The two of us looked at each other for a
moment before I looked down at the ground. I had to brush it off. I didn’t want
anyone to know what was running through my mind, much less why. There wasn’t a
single fiber in my body that wanted to invite any questions, but from the looks
of it Noah had already come up with a few.

“Guess I was just
thinking about the Homecoming Game,” I mumbled. I didn’t want to apologize or
admit I fucked up; even if everyone knew I did. The Coach blew the whistle
effectively ending practice for the day and I knew a lot of it had to do with
me.

I took off at a
sprint and grabbed my bag before heading off to the car. I hated going home in
my dirty uniform, but I much preferred it to sticking around for the third
degree from the guys. I zoomed to the house, parked it in the garage, and
darted straight to my bedroom. I threw my dirty uniform in a bag and walked
into the shower, letting out a long breath when the warm water landed against
my back.

I stood in the
shower for a while thinking about the way Ivy’s face looked when she insulted
me. She was so angry. I started to wonder if I should send her a message with
an apology. Did I need to apologize to her? Did I actually do anything wrong?
Did she even have a reason to feel the way she did? The more I questioned
myself, the more I actually started to get angry. At first I was trying to
force some kind of anger, but now that I was
actually
thinking of apologizing for doing nothing wrong, it was
too much.

It was already a problem
that she had managed to screw me up at practice, especially so close to the big
homecoming game. But now she had me thinking of doing something totally out of
character. I hopped out of the shower, toweled off, and changed into the first
pair of jeans and a t-shirt before getting into my car and quickly making my
way to the Tutoring Center.

After parking in a
conveniently free spot, I jumped out of my car just in time to see Ivy walking
out of the building. She didn’t see me as she turned to walk in the opposite
direction. I jogged to catch up to her. As soon as I could reach her I pulled
her into an alcove for a stairwell that lead down into the building’s basement.

“What do you think
you’re doing?” she demanded as soon as her eyes locked onto mine. I had never
seen such anger in her eyes, not even when she called me an asshole. Her
scathing look probably had a lot to do with me scaring her when I tugged her
toward the stairs.

“What the hell do
you
think you’re doing?” I spat back.
“You think you can just insult me the way you did and I won’t have a damn thing
to say about it?”

She took a step
back, but not before jabbing her finger in to my chest, “You think you can stop
me?”

“Yes,” I shot
back. She took another step back and I quickly realized I needed to explain
further. “Every assumption you’ve made about me is wrong. You think I’m dumb,
don’t you? But look,” I said, lowering my gaze and taking a step forward to
close the distance she created between us. Her breath hitched in her throat and
she stared at me. “One thing’s for sure–I’m smart enough to see you want me.” I
paused, waiting for her to object, but she said nothing. I took another step
forward. She didn’t move an inch. I stared into her eyes until I saw her gaze
soften for a brief moment, even though it was clear she was trying to hold
strong. “Badly,” I muttered, gaze lowering to her lips.

That was all it
took for me to close the space between us. I pressed her back up against the
bricks as my lips landed against hers. She gave in immediately, placing her
hands on my chest and leaning in. There was no way she could ever deny being
attracted to me now. My hands wandered up and down her sides until I slipped
them under her shirt, sliding them up her smooth stomach and dangerously close
to her breasts.
 

In a flash, she
pulled herself away and tugged her shirt back down with a pouty oomph before
looking up at me. “You are an asshole,” she hissed, a stark difference from the
person she was a second ago when I was kissing her.

 
“You may be a hot asshole and a really great
kisser but,” she pressed her hand flat on my stomach to push me away, “I won’t
be just another story of yours in the locker room.”