SPIKED (A Sports Romance)

C
opyright
© 2016 by Favor Ford Publishing

All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

H
e was going
to kiss me. He was going to kiss me, and my body began to shake even harder from the want of it. Jacob’s lips curved into a smile— there was no hiding my shaking, not pressed to him like this, though he pulled me even tighter. Close enough to feel his cock pressed against my stomach, harder than any of the muscles in his body.

I stretched tall to bring my lips to his faster, and then we were kissing, his mouth as powerful as the rest of his body, urging me to let go, to let his tongue past my lips. I did, and as his tongue played against mine, I found myself lifting my legs from the water and wrapping them around his waist. I wasn’t entirely certain how I knew to do that— how I was so confident he would lift me higher— but it was like we were connected, programmed to fit each other.

With my legs locked around his waist, Jacob lifted me a touch higher, so that I was taller than him, then moved his hands down to hold me up by way of cupping my ass. I heard myself moan again, a little longer, a little louder, but I felt almost dizzy with the scent and touch and taste of him. He shifted a little, and I felt something press against my clit— he’d positioned me over his cock, only two thin layers of fabric preventing him from pushing inside of me.

Some voice in the back of my mind kept shouting at me, reminding me that I was a virgin, that I had no idea what I was doing— but I did know what I was doing, somehow, almost instinctually. I pressed my hips against his stomach, forcing his cock to run down my lips, making me very aware of just how wet I was— and not from the pool water.

Jacob pulled away from my mouth, but didn’t release my body; he instead ran his tongue down my neck, along my shoulder, where he took my right bra strap in his teeth and slipped it off.

I tensed— no one had ever seen me naked before, not really, but he was going to expose my breast, and—

“Is this okay?” Jacob asked, pausing. His eyes— they were especially gray-blue here in the pool light— were serious, though no less hungry. Something about the question, about being asked, was intoxicating. Someone as strong as Jacob Everett, as powerful, as desirable, was asking permission to…

To what?

It didn’t matter. I wanted him to do it. I wanted him to take me, I wanted him to do things I’d fantasized about, to have me like no one ever had before. To fuck me for the first time.

A
tlanta was
full of new things.

Strange things.

Confusing things, even.

I’d never, for example, seen so many clubs proudly flying rainbow flags (which delighted me) or so many one-way streets (which horrified me). I’d never experienced traffic as bad as the connector at rush hour, and I’d definitely never had so many dining options at two o’clock in the morning (including a place where apparently one could order both egg rolls and nachos, delivered, which was the trifecta or strange, confusing, and new).

But traffic aside, it was a thrilling place to be— not just Atlanta—but being enrolled at Harton University. Finally, finally, finally, I was out of my tiny town of Tifton and getting my actual life started.

Even as I stood in the middle of Harton University’s beautiful campus, I was blown away by the fact that I was actually there.

Everything felt fresh and new and vibrant. I could smell the grass and see the gorgeous buildings, and it was like a dream I didn’t want to end.

A cheery girl on the school’s north campus handed me a thick folder. “Here you go— Copeland, Sasha, right?” She flashed a smile at me and continued talking. “This is your welcome packet. There’s a campus map, a social calendar for upcoming freshmen, and your housing information. Looks like you’re in Wells. Which…wait. That can’t be right,” the girl said, frowning and pulling the folder back.

“No, Wells is right— that’s the one that was on the letter they sent to my house,” I said.

“But Wells is the upperclassmen suites. You’re registered as a freshman,” the girl said. “You should be in Parks.”

I smiled, though I could tell the expression was more than a little tight. “I’m a freshman, but I’m nineteen and didn’t really want to do all the freshman stuff with the eighteen year olds. So they put me in Wells.”

“Oh! Ok,” the girl said, looking a little baffled. “Are you sure, though? The freshman mixers are a great way to meet people.”

“I’m not really interested in mixers. I’m just trying to get my education,” I replied in my best polite, yet final, voice.

“Sure,” the girl said. She shrugged and surrendered the folder. “If you change your mind, talk to your RA. She can probably get you on the freshman calendars even though you aren’t in Parks.”

“Thanks,” I said. I tucked the folder under my arm and walked away— or at least, I tried to walk away. I was more or less stopped dead in my tracks by a row of cheerleaders who broke into cries of “Go Rams!” as I started down the path. At the end of the path, should I survive the cheerleader gauntlet, was the school’s costumed Ram mascot and a photographer.

“No, thanks!” I called to them, and tried to walk the other direction.

“Come on! You’re joining the herd. You’ll regret not getting a picture to commemorate it,” the nearest cheerleader said. She had a kind face with bright red lipstick and a Rams logo fake tattoo on one cheek.

Cheerleaders and the sports they were attached to weren’t really my thing— but I didn’t hate them either. Everyone needed to find their tribe, after all; the cheerleaders’ tribe was for people who possessed amazing hair and unheard of flexibility; mine was with those who called the library home.

“Come on,” the cheerleader pleaded. “One quick photo with Ramses! We’re supposed to get one with everyone who picks up their registration. They’re doing a big collage in the football program, the sort where they use everyone’s photo to make a giant ram? You won’t want to be left out.”

I really wanted to get to my suite, so I could chart my schedule. But hey, I had come all the way to Atlanta to attend school— why not mark the occasion with a photo? It’d definitely look a lot nicer than one of my infamous scheduling charts in a scrapbook, someday.

“Sure,” I said, finally. The girl slipped her slim arm through mine and led me down the path, cheerleaders on both sides hooting as we went. I was deposited by the Ram mascot’s— er,
Ramses’
— side, and a photographer knelt down to snap a picture.

“Say,
beat the hornets
!” the photographer shouted.

“Beat the hornets!” I said cheerfully. “Whoever they are.”

The photographer lowered the camera, looking stunned. “What? Are you serious?”

I realized that the cheerleaders had gone quiet. “Oh. Um. I just don’t really do the sports thing. Sorry.”

The cheerleaders glanced at one another; the photographer looked at the ground. I turned to Ramses, like his giant cartoon eyes might offer some sort of solace; instead, the light hit the costume eyes in such a way that I could see through them, to the disappointed eyes of whomever was wearing the costume.

“But I hope…we beat the hornets all the same?” I offered.

“Honey, you’re gonna have to do a lot better than that here at Harton,” the photographer said, smiling pityingly, and before I could resume a smile, snapped a picture.

* * *

W
ells was
toward the center of campus, in a fairly new building (unlike the freshman dorm, Parks, with its lack of air conditioning and concrete walls). I spun the keycard around my fingers and thought yet again about how hard I’d worked to get here.

How many hours I’d slaved away at Tifton’s only fancy restaurant— the golf course clubhouse—where in-between tee-times, wealthy patrons could pop in for fried chicken and mint juleps and really get the full Southern dining experience.

It’d taken more than a year of working every available shift at the clubhouse for me to save up enough for Harton. The realization that I was actually, truly in college now, hit me full force as I went up the steps, waved my keycard in front of my suite’s lock. It beeped, lit up green, then whirred open. I turned the handle and stepped into my new home.

Which smelled like hair products.

“Hello?” I called, stepping inside. The front door had opened into a common area, which looked very lived-in, especially given that today was move-in day. I frowned and called out again. “Anyone? Hello?”

A stunning girl with thick auburn hair poked her head through one of the bedroom doors and smiled. Her teeth were so straight that she looked like she belonged in a mouthwash commercial. “Hey! Are you our new Lily?” she asked.

I had no idea what she meant, but decided to play along.

“I guess?” I said, stepping inside and letting the door swing shut behind me. I dropped my two shoulder bags down beside my rolling suitcase, and my arms thanked me for the relief.

The auburn-haired girl stepped into the living area, a towel pulled around her body. I couldn’t help but blush a little— I couldn’t think of a time when anyone had seen me in just a towel. Tifton, like most small towns, was too modest for that.

“I’m Piper,” the girl said, extending a hand, trying to hold the towel up with the other.

“Sasha,” I said, smiling.

“Is that the new Lily?” another voice called.

“Yep,” Piper yelled back. The other second girl emerged from her bedroom in a sundress with so many cutouts, it was a feat of engineering that it held together. She introduced herself as Kiersten, taking care to enunciate the name in a way that told me she was tired of being called “Curr-sten”, “Kristen”, and “Cry-sten.”

“Look at you. You’re adorable!” Kiersten said, shaking my hand.

“Thanks,” I said, unsure when I’d last been called adorable. Elementary school? “What’s a Lily?” I added.

“She was our old suite mate. She isn’t coming back this year, so they filled her room with you,” Piper explained.

“What happened to her?” I asked.

“Flunked out. She was a party girl.
The
party girl, actually,” Kiersten said, looking a little too delighted at her suite mate’s demise. “We moved into Wells right after spring semester, but she was out before July. Not that we aren’t glad to meet you, but we are a little sad that we won’t get to keep using the spare room as a closet. We were going to do it up Kardashian style,” she finished wistfully.

“Oh! So you’ve been here all summer?” I asked. That explained why the place looked so lived-in; the pictures on the walls, the array of empty liquor bottles decorating the top of the fridge, the un-vacuumed floor. It was tidy enough, but definitely didn’t have that new-apartment feel or fresh-paint smell.

“Trust me, New Lily. Once you’re at Harton, you don’t want to go home, not even for a few months,” Piper said wryly. “Everyone basically stays over the summer. Everyone worth knowing anyway. Come on, I’ll show you your room.”

Piper and Kiersten lead me to the back corner room. It was furnished with all the stock Harton stuff— a twin bed, a dresser, a desk and a nightstand, all of which were covered in lint and makeup dust.

“Is the rest of your stuff in your car? We can get some of the guys to help carry it up,” Piper said. She was still wearing a towel, but was doing so with such confidence that if she’d told me it was a new style of dress, I’d have believed it.

“Uh, no. This is all my stuff,” I said, motioning to the suitcase and my shoulder bag. “And I don’t have a car.”

Piper and Kiersten looked at each other, wide eyes. “That’s it? That’s literally all you brought?” Piper asked.

I tried to laugh their surprise off. “I mean, I have more stuff at home. But I had to take a bus up here, so it’s not like I could bring everything.”

“You took a
bus
?” Kiersten asked.

“Yeah. I don’t have a car.”

“You don’t have a
car
?” Piper asked.

I did my best not to show my annoyance with this line of questioning.

“Nope. No car.”
And even if I had one, I could never have paid for a parking pass on campus
, I thought.

“Everyone in Atlanta has a car,” Piper said. “You’re going to have to hitch rides if you want to go anywhere off campus.”

“I guess…I’ll just try to stick to the campus,” I said, shrugging.

“Oh,
honey
. Where are you from, again?” Piper asked sweetly.

“Tifton. It’s near Boone.”

“And where is Boone?”

“Sort of near Valdosta.”

“Oh,” Piper said, finally recognizing a city. “Well, Sasha, you’re in Atlanta now, and more importantly, you’re at Harton. Stick with us, okay? We’re basically experts at this place. Plus, guys are going to be all about this homegrown look,” she paused to motion at my body, “and we can tell you which ones are worth the trouble.”

I laughed a little. “That sounds great. Thanks.”

“So,” Kiersten said, “what are your lottery dates?”

“I…don’t…know what you’re talking about,” I said, sitting on the edge of the bed.

“The football lottery tickets? Oh my god, you haven’t registered yet?” Kiersten said, looking horrified. “That’s okay, it’ll be okay, don’t worry. You’re a sophomore, so you’ll be third tier for dibs. It’s not great, but it’s better than being a freshman. They get shit tickets, and that’s why they always end up selling them— it’s more fun to just tailgate than watch from the nosebleeds. Where’d you transfer from, anyway?”

“I didn’t transfer, actually,” I said. “I’m a freshman. I just took a year off after high school.”

“Oh! So you took like a gap year! Like the British take,” Piper said.

“Sure. Exactly,” I said. Technically, a gap year was more for fun and travel and relaxing, not smiling at smug corporate types who slapped my ass as I walked away from tables. But I had to admit, imagining that time as a gap year sounded a lot more pleasant, so I’d take it.

“Right. Ok. Well, we’re going to get you registered for the ticket lottery, New Lily,” Piper said, shaking her head. “And you’re going out with us tonight.”

“Tonight? I sort of have plans. But that’s really nice of you,” I said.

“Cancel them. What are they?” Kiersten asked.

“I was going to do a walk through of all my classes? I don’t know where the buildings are. Other than on the map,” I said.

Kiersten looked beyond horrified now. “Jesus Christ, no. No, no, no. You’re our suite mate, so what you do reflects on us. You’re coming to Football House,” Kiersten said, shaking her head.

I chewed my lip.

Kiersten sighed dramatically. “Ok, fine. Football House is near the Arts and Sciences building. We’ll take you by it on the way, as long as you promise not to tell anyone about…uh…anything. Let us do the talking, okay? Trust me, New Lily, you’ve totally lucked out getting in our suite. We’re going to show you how to Harton like a pro.”