I kept my eyes closed, stilling my lips from the creeping smile trying to invade my muscles.
The hair traveled up my cheek, and I curled my toes against the twitching tickling feeling.
Then it shoved straight up my nose.
My eyes shot open.
Bathed in the late morning sun, Marisa stared back at me propped up on her elbow grinning with a lock of her hair pinched between her two fingers.
She burst into a fit of laughter.
“What the hell, Marisa?” I knocked her hair away, rubbing at my nose the same way I did on the field when a bug decided that, out of the entire world, my nostril was their new favorite spot.
She doubled over with laughter, curling into the fetal position while flailing and wiping the ends of her hair off on my shirt. “That’s what you get for pretending to be asleep.”
“How is trying to touch my brain with your hair a suitable punishment for fake sleeping after being woken up by your bed-shaking snores?”
Her eyes narrowed and she shoved at my shoulder. “I don’t snore.”
“You’re totally right. The fog horn must have been all in my head.”
“Fog horn!” She charged forward, her fingers diving to my vulnerable sides, digging in and revisiting the tickling from before back on me tenfold.
My legs kicked out and my body recoiled, trying to evade her fingers of punishment.
Her hands sunk lower, going for my stomach. She sat up and got onto her knees for maximum leverage and control. Her hair fell around her face above me like a curtain.
I jerked away, but there was no escape with the wall at my back. Having her this close, even with the tickle treatment, hadn’t totally killed my erection. And I knew the exact moment she found it.
The back of her hand grazed the head of my dick and stilled.
She didn’t yank her hand away. Instead, she kept it there with my dick spelling out precisely how revved up I was in Morse code on the back of her hand.
.. ..-. / -.-- --- ..- / -.- . . .--. / - --- ..- -.-. .... .. -. --. / -- . / .-.. .. -.- . / - .... .- - --..-- / .. .----. -- / -. --- - / --. --- .. -. --. / - --- / -... . / .- -... .-.. . / - --- / ... - --- .--. / -- -.-- ... . .-.. ..-. / ..-. .-. --- -- / -.- .. ... ... .. -. --. / -.-- --- ..- .-.-.-
Her eyes widened. But her hand remained. She didn’t jerk away like she’d been burned, although it felt like my skin was lit aflame.
I groaned, torn between leaping out of the bed and turning her hand, so she could touch me fully.
“LJ.” The breathless half-question did nothing to kill the erection.
As if she’d heard my thoughts, her hand brushed along the head of my cock and she palmed it through my sweats.
We both sucked in a sharp breath.
I reached out and wrapped my fingers around her arm.
Her half stroke drew a groan from my lips.
Through the soft fabric of my pants, the heat and weight of her hand made it hard to breathe. I’d spent so many nights wanting exactly this.
I was tempted to pinch myself to test the reality. It would take a cleat to the chest to wake me if this was a dream.
Her gaze jumped from the blanket still draped over me from the waist down to my eyes.
She had taken the lead, her tentative movements more than a brush, but less than a stroke with the barrier between us. A gap of intention big enough to deny. ‘Oh, I thought that was your hand’ or ‘I was joking and shoved a flashlight in my pocket to screw with you.’
I fought to keep my eyes from rolling back in my head. My mouth and lips were dry and my fingers itched to touch her.
I pulled her closer. “Marisa—”
Her hand slipped into the waistband of my sweats.
I grabbed her wrist and pulled it back out.
A hurried hand job wasn’t what I wanted our first time to be.
I rested my forehead against hers. My lips inches from hers. My blood on fire in my veins and my dick growing by the second to full mast, heavy and ready for her touch.
“Marisa…” My voice came out strangled and tortured like my body was kicking its own ass.
She tilted her head, her eyes hooded with desire. This wasn’t a drunken night of craziness. It wasn’t something we could walk back from and chalk it up to the booze or late night loss of inhibitions. And I wanted it. I wanted her.
A sharp knock broke through the tug-of-war in my chest. “Marisa, you have a…visitor.”
Her head snapped back and she looked at me. Her eyes scanned my body before returning to my eyes like she’d also thought she had been dreaming.
She dropped off the bed, looking more like she’d fallen out instead of jumping out. “It’s probably Liv. I’ll see what she needs.” Her stunned breathless expression morphed into a smirk—a full, plump, kissable one which sent a thundering throb straight to my straining erection.
When she got back into bed, I wasn’t sure I’d be able to tell her no. I wanted her just as much, had wanted her for too long.
All the reasons I’d held back before had been eroded with three weeks of nearly constant contact and nights with her beside me. Our friendship. My plans. Her dad.
Grabbing a hair tie off the knob at the top of my bed where there were at least twenty, she put her hair up before disappearing out the door.
I slammed my head back against the pillow, muttering every curse in the book at her former roommate’s terrible timing.
What if Liv had found another place for them to live? What if she’d broken up with her pro hockey player boyfriend again and planned on occupying all of Marisa’s time with ice cream and nail-painting whisper sessions?
I jumped out of bed and headed after her.
Yeah, I was an asshole.
This wasn’t how I’d planned for this to go. There were so many plans swirling around my head for how to bridge the chasm from best friend to girlfriend. All of them had been flattened like a kicker put on the defensive line.
By the time I was halfway down the stairs, Marisa was standing in the partially opened door.
It wasn’t Liv. The two of them would have been on the couch laughing or cursing someone’s name by now.
Marisa had her arms crossed over her chest and was using her elbow to keep the door from opening any more.
The deep set of her frown was highlighted by the bright sunlight casting harsh shadows on half her face, not reaching the rest of the house with her wedged in the opening.
Who the hell was here?
Every protective cell in my body ignited to get between her and whatever made her fold her arms over her chest like that.
I jumped to the bottom of the steps and tugged open the door, ready to take down whoever stood on the porch giving her shit, but all those feelings withered and retreated as I stared back at the man in his mid-fifties in a Fulton U cap and polo shirt.
“Coach Saunders…” I licked my lips. The ones I’d been seconds from pressing against Marisa’s.
“See, I’m perfectly fine.” Marisa stepped back and stood beside me to fully block the doorway like she expected him to barge in without me there as backup.
Coach Saunders looked from her to me. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Why would I? I’m safe. You were at the combines anyway, so it’s not like you were even here.”
“You could’ve called me.” He wasn’t looking at her. His eyes bored into mine.
My skin felt like it was blistering. Shit.