Total pages in book: 78
Estimated words: 77415 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 387(@200wpm)___ 310(@250wpm)___ 258(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 77415 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 387(@200wpm)___ 310(@250wpm)___ 258(@300wpm)
He grunted twice as he spurted, decorating my skin with himself.
“Fuck.”
He said it so quietly that I almost didn’t hear it.
Almost.
I leaned over the counter and rested my head against the faucet as he grabbed a towel from the drawer next to my hips.
He cleaned me up, wiping his release from my body, growling as he did.
“I wish I could leave that there all day,” he told me. “But I don’t think you’d enjoy being wet all day.”
He was right. I wouldn’t.
And it was sweet of him to think of me. Because had he come inside of me, I’d be leaking him for hours to come, even if I did my best to wipe him out of me.
“Go clean up while I take care of your wolf.”
I snorted and waddled to the bathroom, I’m sure in a most ladylike fashion. He was nice and didn’t laugh or snicker in any way, leaving me my dignity.
And as I looked into the bathroom mirror as I prepared to go to him five minutes later, saw the flush on my cheeks that he’d left there from the rasp of his beard, I realized that I was so freakin’ gone already. So gone that I never wanted to find my way back to the person I was only just yesterday.
***
“Oh, my God!” I screamed, jumping up. “You could’ve killed him!”
I was sitting directly behind the fifty-yard line with Tally on one side, and Imogen on the other. All of us were standing now as we watched all of the huge football players peel themselves off of the dog pile one by one.
There was a lot of pushing and shoving as the players tried to jostle the ball from whoever’s hands had it, and my heart started to pound.
One. Two. Three. Five. Seven players peeled themselves off the pile.
Then, finally, I saw the black jersey with the number 88 on the back.
“Move,” I ordered Linc.
Linc didn’t move at all.
That’s when I saw Jessie make his way back up to the top of the railing.
It was the same place I’d seen him in all those months earlier, at a pre-season game when Linc had been hurt previously.
The first day that Jessie had come back into my life, and by default, Linc.
This time I was a whole lot more concerned.
This time Linc meant a whole lot more to me.
“Move,” I repeated.
Linc rolled over onto his side, and I took a deep breath.
When he got his legs under him, I dropped my hands to my knees.
Then, when he was all the way on his feet, the ball still in his hands, the entire home side of the stadium erupted in hoots, hollers and applause.
But not just because he was okay, but because he’d gotten the first down.
“What now?” I asked the two women at my sides.
“Well, where they’re at right now, they can kick a field goal,” Tally said. “Or they could try to run the ball for a touchdown. The touchdown would put them ahead of the other team. The field goal would only tie them.”
“What do you think they’re going to do?” I asked as Linc walked back to the sidelines to his coach.
I saw Jessie get down out of the corner of my eye, and turned my attention to him.
He had his head in his hands as he watched Linc walk/limp toward the sidelines.
I didn’t wait for the women to reply, instead made my way to my man.
The moment I was close enough, I squirmed my way in between him and Tommy Tom, who was being fairly chatty today compared to how he’d been yesterday.
Jessie’s arm curled around my waist and he pulled me to him, but he didn’t say a word as he waited for Linc to come back on the field.
My stomach was in knots.
This game, the state finals for their school’s division, was a nail-biter.
I’ve never, not once, seen a game this close.
There’d been less than three points between each team the whole game. The home team—Linc’s team, even though they were at a visitor’s field—had scored first. The visiting team had scored not even five minutes later, and they’d been trading points back and forth since. Now with only four minutes left in the fourth quarter, I didn’t know who would win.
They were behind, twenty-one to twenty-four, and Linc had just gotten the first down.
But he was also not walking as fast as he normally did.
“Do you think he’s hurt?” I whispered worriedly to the man at my side.
Surprisingly it wasn’t Linc’s father who answered, but Tommy.
“He’s fine,” Tommy said with a surety that I wish I’d felt, too. “Making ‘em think that he’s more hurt than he really is would be my guess.”
I bit my lip and wondered if that really was the case.
Linc came back out on the field as the time-out that they’d called ended.