All Lined Up (Rusk University 1)

She turns her head away from the television, pressing her forehead down into the couch cushion, and I know she’s just as affected as I am.

Even though I don’t want to, I take pity on her and stop my ministrations. I rub my thumb over her skin one last time, not kneading, but just a light goodbye touch. Then I leave her legs in my lap and prop my arms up along the back of the sofa, and try to return my attention to the movie.

Out of the corner of my eye, I watch the rise and fall of her back as she breathes. As the minutes tick past, the movement becomes less pronounced and her breathing calms. When she’s completely in control, she sits up. Since I dragged her closer earlier, she’s now sitting on the middle cushion directly beside me. I could drop my left arm forward off the back of the couch, and it would land around her shoulders.

While I’m debating whether or not it will be worth the elbow to the ribs it will surely earn me, she stands and looks down at me. “Right or left?”

I don’t know what she means, and the first conclusion my mind jumps to is that she’s asking which side of the bed I prefer.

She’s not. I know she’s not, but my brain seems to be at least a little divided on that conclusion. My voice thick with all the things I won’t let myself say, I ask, “What do you mean?”

“Your throwing arm? Right or left?”

Oh. I clear my throat and answer, “Right.”

“Scoot.” She pushes at my knees, and mechanically I slide over, making room for her on my right side. I’m only halfway on the middle cushion when she slides in beside me, deliciously close.

She’s facing me completely, her back pressed against the armrest. She has one leg pulled up on the cushion, bent at the knee and touching me from my hip to midthigh. Her touch is tentative, and she can’t decide exactly how she wants to go about doing this. Eventually, she pulls her other leg up on the couch, leaving it propped upward. She lifts my arm and lays my elbow on her knee so that my upper arm and shoulder are completely open to her. I let my forearm hang down on the other side of her knee, my fingertips brushing both her calf and her thigh at the same time.

Her touch is light and exploratory at first, tracing the dips and curves of my muscle. I drop my head back against the couch and concentrate on keeping my breathing even. But it’s a battle I’ll never win, not with her touching me. One warm hand curves over my shoulder, slipping underneath the sleeve of my T-shirt. I groan, and I let the fingers brushing against her leg grip just above her ankle.

She freezes, and I wonder if she’ll repeat the question I asked her, if she’ll make me admit the noise had nothing to do with pain.

She doesn’t.

Instead, her touch turns firm and she expertly works my sore muscles. She starts at my shoulder, pressing her thumb hard against the knots she finds there. It hurts in the most perfect way, not dissimilar from the way this night as a whole feels.

“You’ve got a lot of tension,” she murmurs.

You have no idea, Daredevil.

But at the moment, my mind is on a different kind of tension. With my fingers wrapped around her ankle and the way she’s positioned, I know that one well-placed pull would have her across my lap just like the night we met.

But I told her that we could just be friends, so I’ll have to settle for my imagination. In fact, I might have to settle for my imagination several times tonight before I’ll be able to go to sleep.

She pushes my sleeve up, tucking it into the neck of my T-shirt, so that my shoulder is bared to her.

“How many hours a day are you working out?” she asked.

I shrug, and her hands stay with me through the movement.

“Depends on the day.”

“How many hours today?”

“Somewhere between six and seven.”

“Seven hours! Carson, are you crazy? How are you not dead asleep right now?”

I throw her a sly grin. “There are other things that are more appealing than sleep at the moment.”

Her lips fall open just barely, not in shock, but just for a slow inhale.

“Are most days like that?” she asks.

I shrug again. “Give or take. Not game days, obviously. And less on Fridays when we have to travel. But I try to squeeze in at least five hours on most other days. Since it’s open week, and there’s no game to worry about, I’ve been going extra hard the last few days.”

Her hands slip down and circle my bicep, just holding on to me. “Carson, you’re going to wear yourself out. Or injure yourself. No one can keep up that kind of schedule, especially not when you’ve got school and homework on top of that.”

“I’m okay, Dallas. I promise.”

Her lips purse, perfectly kissable.

She kneads at my muscles, and I flinch a little, sore and caught off guard. Her touch softens, and she leans down to brush a light, apologetic kiss across my shoulder, and I release her ankle immediately, not trusting myself to keep from flipping her over until her back is against this couch and her legs around my hips.

My voice is little more than a growl as I say, “You cannot do things like that, Daredevil, and expect me not to pull you onto my lap and kiss you senseless.”

Her answering look is contemplative. Her gaze drops to my shoulder again, and damn it, I can see her thinking about it. That right there is almost enough to make me say screw it all and take as much as she’ll give me.

But the moment passes and she just replies, “Okay.”

Then she goes back to working on my arm, and I continue my slow descent into madness courtesy of Dallas Cole.

Chapter 15

Dallas

In hindsight, it might not have been the best idea in the world to give Carson a massage. I already knew his arms were my weakness, and if seeing them filled me with lusty thoughts, touching them made my previous urges saintly by comparison.

Two days have passed, and I should have my head on straight. I should not still be obsessing over how strong and devastatingly sexy he is.

I should be kicking in that backup plan and walking away for good.

Tomorrow, I will likely need another powwow with my old pal’s hindsight and stupidity, since I just ditched Stella at her art party in favor of hanging out at Carson’s place again.

I just . . . I was sitting there at that house party listening to discussions on artists and techniques that sounded like gibberish to me. A pretty cute guy in thick, black-framed glasses and a mop of curly brown hair was hitting on me, and I was bored out of my ever-loving mind.