“Relax. You thought it was your brother. I’ll give you a chance to tell him yourself, sweetheart, but I get that you’re barely eighteen and scared about us. I’m not. From the second I saw you trying to con your way into my party, I knew you were mine and even if you haven’t figured it out yet, I’m in it for the rest of our days. You can take your time and puzzle things out. I have meetings tomorrow throughout the entire day. I’ll be in and out of my office throughout the rest of the week, but will you at least have dinner with me Tuesday night?”
“Yes. I can do that.”
“Good.” He takes my phone and types into it. Suddenly, his phone rings and then he hands me my phone. “Finish your food, babe.” He kisses my cheek and then walks away as his phone goes off. I stand there in awe. The man is all power, commanding, something special that I can’t explain, but I crave more of him. It’s stupid, even juvenile the way I ache for his attention, so I remind myself that he’s just the first man who has touched me so intimately. It means nothing.
I tell that to myself the rest of the day as I sit in my dorm room with Kelly who has been staring at me for hours, waiting for me to say something. I’ve tried to do my homework, but it’s pointless. All my thoughts are on Landon and what he’s doing right now. Is he hosting another party? Meeting another woman to take to his bed? Is he making her promises, getting ready to order her food and wearing his clothes around his place?
“So are you ever going to focus again? You’ve been on that page for twenty minutes.”
“I would if you weren’t staring at me.”
“Girl, you know I left and came back, right?”
“Bullshit.”
“What do you call this?” She waves our dinner in front of me.
“Oh my goodness.”
“Yeah. Oh, you better get your act together. Your brother is calling. You got lucky earlier that he got called away from the phone.” I snatch my phone from her hand and swipe his call.
“Hey, bro. How’s it going?”
“How’s it going? I didn’t hear from you all day yesterday.”
“And so now you’re stalking me? I seem to remember you not contacting us for days on end.”
“It’s different.”
“Because I’m a girl, right?”
“Yes, and because you just moved here with no one to look after you, and your ass doesn’t know how to behave. I already spoke to Bobby.”
“Bobby?”
“Yeah, he’s fucking lucky he didn’t try to make a play on you or he’d never make a play in the NFL again.”
“Whatever. What did that little snitch say?”
“Only that you were at a party. A party that you were not invited to and that you were probably going to get away with it, but he saw you girls leave with security.”
“Yes, we were escorted home.”
“Well, stay the fuck out of trouble, and next time take some meds with lots of water after drinking so you won’t wake up sick again.”
“Thanks.” I feel bad for Kelly’s lie, but it worked like a charm to hide the fact that I’d been out fucking a man I just met. And it’s not quite untrue. I was sick yesterday morning, but Landon’s remedy helped.
“Take care, Lawless.”
“I will. Stay off the bench.”
“I’ll try. See you tomorrow.”
“I can’t wait. I miss you, jerk.”
“Miss you, Lawless.”
“So that wasn’t as painful as I thought it was going to be,” I confess.
“I know.”
“So do you want to talk about that hot ass Landon Black? His hot bodyguard wouldn’t tell me shit, but damn, they hire the sexiest men ever. Anyway, I digress; when are you going to see him again?”
“I don’t know. We said Tuesday night for dinner.”
“Tuesday?”
“Yeah. He’s an adult with a job, you know. I’m having dinner with my brother tomorrow, so I told him I couldn’t.”
“Did you tell him that you’re going to be going to the home opening Monday Night Football game too? Or did you leave that juicy detail out?”
“I might have. It’s not a big deal anyway. He’s not going to care that my brother is an NFL player anyway. He’s super wealthy too.”
“Honey, I don’t think that has anything to do with it. I’m not talking about the money part. I’m talking about you hanging around a locker room teeming with sweaty, buff men half naked, some actually naked.”
“I don’t go into the locker room. You know my brother would lose his shit. Besides, I don’t want to catch Tobias naked.”
“I wouldn’t mind,” she teases, but I wonder if it’s another buff body she’s interested in.
I roll my eyes at her. “I’m going to attempt to study.” It’s pointless, though. I make it through to about eight at night when my eyes grow heavy.