All Lined Up (Rusk University 1)

“I forgive you for all your bastard moments.”

“Good. Means I get to rack up some more.”

I’m in such a hurry to leave that I almost forget my tray.

“Don’t forget, you’re working with Speedy and Blocks in an hour!”

Almost forgot about that, too. I roll my eyes because he’s been trying to make those nicknames for Torres and Brookes stick for weeks now, and he just can’t accept that it’s not happening. “I’ll be there.”

I’m glad he’s not there to see how quickly I take the stairs to the third floor, otherwise he might start calling me Speedy.

I try not to look too impatient as I knock on the door to Dallas’s dorm room.

She opens the door just a crack at first, then when she sees it’s me, she opens it wide.

“I’m sorry about downstairs. Now tell me what’s wrong. Did something happen with—”

As soon as she closes the door, I push her against it and crash my mouth to hers. Her fingers thread through my hair, gripping it tight, and we’re on the same page in seconds.

These are no soft kisses.

We touch lips and tongue and teeth. When she pulls on my hair and moans, I take that as my permission to be a little rough. I lift her up by the hips, and she wraps her impossibly long legs around me, squeezing me between them. I slide my hands around to cup her backside, and she arches out from the door. Her hands leave my hair to wrap around my shoulders, fingertips kneading and pushing at my muscles in a way that releases all the stressful tension and replaces it with the want barreling down my spine.

She is the most intoxicating mix of hard and soft—lean, strong muscles covered in silken skin. That’s her personality, too: combative and shy, bold and insecure.

She pushes off the wall in favor of leaning on me completely. I stand there, completely wrapped up in her, and she clings to me so fiercely that she wrings every bit of frustration out of me.

Gradually, our kiss slows from punishing to exploratory. Her breath is sweet against my mouth, and I relish every slow slide of our tongues together. I loosen my arms. Now that she’s not locked against me, the rise and fall of her breath morphs into a sensual push and pull as she rocks against me.

Every other kiss I’ve ever had is wiped away because this . . . her rubbing herself against me, trusting me completely and abandoning every thought but how to get closer—it’s the hottest f**king moment of my life.

I slip my hand under her shirt and up her spine in what is quickly becoming my favorite way to touch her. She makes a mewling sound, and her back straightens, pulled tight like she’s stretching. Then she melts against me, completely mine.

“That’s what was wrong,” I whisper against her lips.

“Oh.” Her eyes are lazy and hooded, and they remind me of waking up to her lying against me. “Better now?”

“Should tide me over for a few hours at least.”

I leave Dallas’s dorm on a high (and through the back stairwell she says never gets used). And it lasts all the way to the athletic complex, where I enter the locker room with a stupid grin on my face.

That grin disappears immediately when I walk into a freaking circus. All the coaches are there, a few players, two police officers, even more campus police, and several stern-faced suits that can’t mean anything good.

Coach Cole catches sight of me, says something to one of the police officers, and then starts my way.

I really, really should have just stayed in bed today.

Chapter 20

Dallas

It’s never a good thing when you walk into your dorm lobby and there are swarms of people in groups talking hurriedly and staring at their phones. That should have been the first thing to tip me off.

I hear people whispering about the football team behind me before class starts, but I try not to listen because in my gut, I’m terrified someone saw Carson coming out of my room. Surely that wouldn’t cause this kind of buzz. I mean, he’s not even a starter, and it’s not like we did anything crazy scandalous in public.

But our dorm does have windows, and sits directly across from another dorm. I can’t remember if I had the blinds closed or not. But surely . . . surely that’s still not big enough news to have the campus going this nuts.

I get my answer when my phone buzzes.

It’s a text from Stell with a link to a Twitter post.

Under my desk, I follow the link, and my jaw drops.

There’s a slightly blurry picture of Levi in handcuffs, being placed into the back of a police car.

Levi Abrams, @RuskUniversity’s star quarterback, arrested. #theregoestheseason

People are posting theories—everything from drugs to prostitution to murder. Other rival universities have picked up the thread, and it’s been retweeted hundreds of thousands of times.

Holy crap. No wonder everyone is whispering. We have a game on Saturday, the first true conference game and potentially our biggest game of the season just because it’s with the Dragons, our rivals. It’s a home game, and people always turn out in huge numbers. Even during the school’s worst seasons, that game is always a big deal.

And Levi . . . what the hell did he do?

After class lets out, I try calling Carson, then Dad, then Carson again.

I text and call for the entire ten minutes that it takes me to walk to the fine arts building.

Finally, as my dance professor, Annaiss, calls us to our positions at the barre, my phone vibrates.

It’s from Dad.

Can’t talk. Come by my office after your

classes are over, and I’ll fill you in on

what I can.

Shit. That doesn’t sound good. Surely if it were all some stupid misunderstanding, he’d be able to just say that.

I’m distracted, but Annaiss doesn’t say anything. Everyone is distracted. Every time we line up on one side of the room to take turns doing different passes or combinations, the whispers begin.

No one tries to ask me anything. I don’t know if it’s common knowledge everywhere that Levi and I dated, or just on the team. Whether they’re considerate or clueless, I’m glad for it.

I don’t like the guy. I’ve not made that a secret to anyone, Levi included. We barely spoke at all during the four months between when we broke up and he graduated. And I pretty much avoid him at all costs.

But once upon a time, I think I loved him. It’s hard to tell now. There are too many other messy feelings clinging to those memories, but until he broke up with me, I had thought we’d end up together. Everyone thought we would. We talked about college, and what I would do if and when he got a scholarship. We even talked about what would happen beyond that . . . if he went pro. I don’t necessarily think that’s an option for him anymore (especially not with whatever was going on today), but back then things looked like they were heading that direction.