Possession: A Football Romance (Stone Creek University Book 3) Page 2

  It feels off and I don’t like it.

  I cough and excuse myself to go get another non-alcoholic drink. In line at the bar, all I can think about is how angry Baxter would get if he saw. He’s always worried someone is going to take advantage of me, whatever that means.

  I let the whiskey settle into my blood while I try to figure out what I should do next. While I imagine what it would be like to want someone other than Baxter for a change. Just when had my hair begun to stand on end at the brush of Baxter’s skin against mine? And how do I explain the very different feeling I got when my boss touched me back there?

  Coming back to the booth, I slide into easy conversation with the others. Justin doesn’t give me any more lingering glances and doesn’t touch me again, so I tell myself I probably overreacted. He’s probably getting excited about the game this weekend. As I relax, I find myself talking about research plans with Julia and Gabe. They’re both focusing on knee research, which is good business for people who work with football players.

  I tell them how I’ve always been fascinated by the shoulder. It’s such a delicate joint, connected to so many muscles. I do not tell them my first foray into shoulder trauma was when Bax injured his dodging a blow from his father.

  That night, in the forsythia hideout, I helped massage his joint, stretch his arm, soothe him. That’s when I started checking sports medicine books out from the library and learning all that I could about how all the body’s wonderful parts worked together.

  Out loud in the bar, though, I just tell them how I started shadowing and interviewing athletic trainers in high school when I was tagging along after Baxter Morgan, just like now.

  Before I realize it, the bar tender is calling last drinks. “Shit,” I say. “It’s late.” Julia and Gabe slink off together, his thumb creeping down the waistband of her jeans. I sigh, sort of dreading walking home alone in the dark.

  “Let’s get you home then,” Justin says, slapping a few bills on the table. I nod and smile as he picks up my coat, standing behind me while I shrug into it. He’s looking out for me. This is fine. “You live in McPherson, right? I’m parked not far from there.”

  We walk close together, but not quite touching, and he asks me about the coming week. “We’ve had a pretty uneventful pre-season with practices,” he says. I nod.

  “I didn’t like the look of JT’s thumb this week, though.” I know Baxter agrees with him—the starting quarterback will be missing this weekend’s game. The second string QB is a transfer student named Kevan. I’ve always thought he seemed nice and polite, but Baxter says Kevan stares at me. I don’t mention any of this to Justin, but I do ask him what they’re doing about JT’s thumb.

  As we walk, we talk through the football roster and Justin asks me how I’ve enjoyed the slower pace in the training room this summer. I did a six-week turn working with the soccer team when I got my scholarship extended to summer semester.

  “Those guys are all pulled hamstrings and strained quads,” I say, laughing. “Easy as pie.” As we approach my building, joking together, I see a hulking figure leaning against the door of my dorm. As we approach, he stalks over to us, and I see that it’s Baxter. He looks livid. I feel relieved.

  Justin nods in Bax’s direction. “That you, Morgan?”

  Bax doesn’t register that Justin spoke to him. “Where the hell have you been?” He practically snarls at me. “I’ve been calling you for hours! Hours, Olive.”

  “Oh crap,” I tell him. I turn my phone off when I’m at work and I must have forgotten to turn it back on when we went to the bar. I click the power button and it starts vibrating in my hand with text after text, and voicemails all from Bax. I know this is a big deal because he probably thought I was in trouble. Growing up, I often was in trouble. My parents often passed out drunk and forget to bring me home. Bax always managed to find me. He must have been searching for me all over campus when I didn’t answer my phone.

  “Easy there, big guy,” Justin reaches out to pat Bax on the shoulder. “She was with me.” This does not elicit the desired effect. Baxter’s nostrils flare and he looks, if possible, even more angry.

  “Don’t you fucking touch me,” he says.

  “Woah,” Justin says, with his hands up. “Olive, you ok here with this thug? Need me to stick around til you get inside?”

  “NO!” Bax and I say at the same time, and my eyes whip up to meet his. Justin knows perfectly well how important Baxter is in my life.

  Baxter runs his hands through his curls and drags his palms down his cheeks. “Olive is family, man. And she’s been off the grid, and now I see her coming home with some dude in the middle of the night.” He glares at Justin. “I drew conclusions.”

  Justin doesn’t say anything, but he narrows his eyes and looks darkly at Baxter.

  “Bax,” I reach for his arm. “I’m ok. I just forgot to turn my phone back on.”

  He looks Justin up and down and sighs. I can see his body start to relax, and he pulls me in to a tight hug. “I was worried, Liv.”

  Justin shrugs. “I was just walking her home, dude. Like you said, it’s late.”

  Baxter takes a step back and looks a little ashamed of his outburst, but I’m still on the fence about how to interpret everything that’s happened since I got to the bar. Bax holds out a hand toward Justin. “I’m sorry, man. You’re right. I should thank you for seeing her home safe.”

  Justin puts his much-smaller hand in Baxter’s and looks up into his face. “See you after practice tomorrow, right, Morgan?”

  Baxter nods and, after a few moments of awkward silence, Justin excuses himself and walks off into the dark.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Bax

  MY HEART WON’T stop pounding in my chest. Logically, I knew Olive was probably fine. She loses track when she’s working on someone. She would never admit this, but she basically goes into a trance when she’s with an injured athlete. Her thumbs work along their limbs, assessing until she finds exactly the right spot.

  She thinks it’s cheating that I let her know when someone’s hurting and she lists the diagnosis to her boss, but I’ve seen the way she listens. She watches their gait, observes the way they hop up on the table. She doesn’t need me to tell her that Scotty has shin splints. She’d figure it out in a heartbeat. Olive is going to have a bright future healing people.

  I fucking hate every second of her putting her hands on my teammates, but I know she doesn’t see them any certain way. And even though the guys don’t feel about her the way I do, I know none of them would disrespect her. Ever.

  Tonight, though, when I couldn’t find her…took me back to all those nights in high school when not being able to reach Olive meant that she wasn’t safe. Stranded at school after dark when her parents forgot to come get her, stuck at work when her parents forgot to come get her. You get the picture.

  It’s not like we had public transportation where we grew up, and neither of us ever had any money for a cell phone back then. More times than I can count, I’d sneak my mom’s car out of the garage and make the circuit, searching for Olive. When I’d find her, we’d cling to each other like Velcro. Olive never cried, but she’d tremble in my arms and I knew she felt alone. Frightened. She always gets the shakes after something scary—I think it’s because she puts so much focus into staying cool during a crisis. I hate that Olive has so many crises.

  So yeah. It freaks me out when she’s AWOL. One of the first things I did with my monthly stipend from SCU was buy cell phones for BOTH of us. Olive knows I’m here for her. Always.

  I see the way this Justin asshole is looking at her before he takes off. He might be the head trainer, but he’s officially on my watch list. Olive seems completely unaware that this creep was inappropriate with her. He’s supposed to be her boss.

  I drop a hand on her shoulder, needing to feel a connection with her, even if it’s sort of painful knowing it can’t be anything more than a reassuring touch. As I start to calm down, I rea
lize what has me so freaked out right now.

  “Liv, have you been drinking?”

  She bites her bottom lip—that plump, red lip I’ve been fantasizing about sucking—and I know it’s true. “You never do that. Want to tell me what the hell happened tonight?”

  Liv puts her hands in the pockets of her jeans and shrugs. “We were celebrating. We got the training room set up early, all the restocking done, and the whole staff went to the Dark Horse. I did a shot.”

  I start shaking my head. This whole thing feels off, and it’s late as hell.

  “Look,” she says. “It’s late. I have class in the morning. I’m so sorry I worried you, Bax, but I need to go to bed.”

  There’s no way I’m leaving Olive alone after all this. She’s a small girl, and she’s not used to alcohol. Who even knows how big a shot Justin pushed on her. “You’re staying with me tonight,” I tell her, grabbing her hand and tugging her toward my building. She drops her mouth open to say something, and I stop walking. “Olive.” My heart is still racing. I close my eyes. Get it together, Morgan. “Come stay with me so I can make sure you’re ok when you wake up.” Her brown eyes are huge in the street light. She bites her lip. “Please?”

  We’ve had sleepovers before. We slept together in that hammock for years. This is nothing new. Ok, so I’m usually on the couch these days. But I’m not even thinking of Olive that way. Not tonight. Tonight I just need to make sure she’s safe. She nods and I hug her close, walking her toward my place.

  When I unlock the front door, the guys have all gone to bed. Shit, it’s really late. We have to be in the weight room in a few hours. I’m going to be wrecked in the morning. “Come on,” I nod my head toward my room. I hang Olive’s backpack on the hook in my closet and rummage in my drawer for a pair of sweats for her. “These will be huge, but they’re comfortable as hell.”

  She shakes her head and sighs, but ducks into the bathroom to change. I strip down to my boxers and t-shirt and climb into bed, waiting for her to slide in next to me. When she climbs in bed, she scoots all the way to the far edge of the mattress like I’m going to let her sleep all the way over there. My breath catches in my throat as I pull her in close. She smells so fucking good. Like leaves and fresh air and my deodorant. We shared for awhile when we first went away to school. Olive told me she liked the smell of it and mine worked better than women’s deodorant. I take her word for it. I like that she walks around smelling like me. Maybe it sends a signal to other dudes to keep their hands off.

  I rest my chin on her shoulder and feel her body begin to relax. “I’m so sorry I worried you, Bax,” she whispers. “I got caught up. Maybe I’ll just set my phone to Do Not Disturb next time…if you call it would come through since you’re my favorite.”

  It’s been a long joke between us that, while I’ve got my coaching staff and my advisors saved as favorites in my phone, Olive has only me. I like being her favorite. “That’s a good idea,” I tell her, giving her soft body a squeeze. God, she feels good. But I need to control myself. This is Olive. Not some random girl I take home to meet my primal needs.

  She rolls to face me and we fall asleep curled together.

  I’m ripped from my recurring nightmare—the dream where I plead with my mother to stay with us, with me, after my brother died. It’s still dark in my room, though, and it takes me a minute to figure out what woke me up.

  It’s Olive, and she’s moaning. I take a few breaths to let my heart rate slow down and observe what’s happening here. She seems to be rocking and groaning in her sleep. Maybe she’s having a nightmare, too?

  But then, as my eyes adjust to the dark, I look at her. Her shirt has ridden up and I see the creamy white skin of her soft belly. I see her hips rocking in her sleep. “Oooooh,” she says in her sleep. “Yes, Bax.”

  Fuck. Me. Olive Hampton is dreaming about me. Not a nightmare. That kind of dream. My dick jumps to attention and I have no idea what to do. Every cell in my body is screaming at me to pull her close, let her grind those hips against me until the friction gives us both what it seems we need right now.

  “Shit,” I mutter. This isn’t right. I feel like I have invaded some privacy screen. Olive can’t help what she dreams. She’d probably be horrified if she even found out.

  But I can’t fall asleep again, not with my cock standing stiff against my stomach and Olive moaning and writhing like this. I slip out of bed and go out to the couch. It seems like a few minutes later when Scotty shouts in my face. “Morgan! We gotta go.”

  I groan, because I barely slept a single second. My god, now I know what Olive’s face looks like when she’s about to come. The urge to dive in there and finish the job, take her over the edge and have her screaming my name—fuck!

  But Scotty is standing over me in the living room. “Give me a minute, ok?” He nods and heads off down the hall. I head into the room, where Olive is asleep in my bed. I murmur against her ear, “I have to go to the weight room. Let yourself out whenever, ok, Liv?” She nods and pulls the covers up to her nose. I plant a kiss on the top of her head and meet Scotty in the hall.

  “I thought it wasn’t like that with you guys,” he says, offering me a granola bar.

  I snatch it and tear into it, shaking my head. “It’s not,” I state, emphatically, hating that it’s true. I’m starting to wonder how long I can last this way.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Olive

  I STAY IN Baxter’s bed for another hour or so, but I can’t sleep. I’m enveloped in his scent, remembering the rush of his breath on my cheek as he whispered in my ear.

  And then I had to go and dream about him. Those dreams are the worst, because I wake from them wanting, so hungry for his touch, knowing I cannot have it.

  Baxter is so clear that he’s got just one focus: making it to the pros so he can move on with his life. He won’t make time for a relationship. He says so repeatedly, when he calls me after screwing some nameless fangirl. When he grabs me for lunch in the athletes’ dining hall. Over and over, he repeats: No relationships. No complications. Train, lift, watch film, and smile for the cameras.

  The arms he drapes around my shoulders on the way in to social events are brotherly for him. He makes this clear all the time and besides. As soon as we get anywhere, he immediately finds a conquest, disappears with a woman. He usually dispatches a freshman from the team to walk me home.

  I sigh, neatly folding Baxter’s sweatpants and setting them on the foot of his bed. His room is sparse and tidy. He has almost nothing personal in here except two framed photographs: one of him and his brother Brody taken shortly before Brody died. I smile at the picture and shoot Bax a text. Love that pic of you and Brody. Thinking of him today!

  Sometimes I wonder what our relationship would be like if Baxter’s brother hadn’t died and Baxter’s mom hadn’t taken off. Overcome by grief, she withdrew until she couldn’t bear living in their house another second. I don’t think Bax has heard from his mom in years. What if he’d had two allies at home? Maybe then…I don’t know. I guess it doesn’t do any good to think about what if.

  The other picture on his dresser is of the two of us. It’s from prom night—he went with a cheerleader, of course, and I went with a group of kids from my English class, but he pulled me in for one slow dance, and someone took a pic.

  I remember the feel of my palm on his chest, my other squeezed tightly in his hand, the light pressure of his fingers on my lower back. I rested my head on his chest as the live band played Into the Mystic and I thought maybe, just maybe, I could feel him aroused through the layers of his tux.

  “Dance with me, Livvy,” he’d said. “Just this one time.” As if I’d turn him down.

  The other girls in my dorm have their doors open as I slink back in to change. I see them standing at their mirrors with curling irons, talking to each other as they eat yogurt at their desks. I smile at the two girls who live across the hall and offer a small wave.

  One of them, Elyse I think
her name is, wags her eyebrows at me, noticing me coming IN at this time of day. I don’t have time to correct her misconception, so I dash into my room and quickly change.

  When my classes are done for the morning, I head to the athletic building. The football team has their own training room, but it’s across the hall from the facilities used by all the other athletes at SCU. This lets Justin shift the staff around easily, depending on which sports are hurting the most.

  And today, evidently, it’s the swimmers who are hurting. Football practice is just starting, so we won’t see any acute injuries from collisions for a little while. Justin waves me over to a table where he’s stretching out a lanky swimmer lying face down. The swimmer groans and clutches at his back.

  “Olive,” Justin says, a cool look in his eye. “I assume you made it safely through the night?”

  I bite my lip and nod, then gesture toward the swimmer. “What’s up with this guy?”

  He pauses and motions for me to step in. “What do you think?”

  I squat down to make eye contact with the swimmer while Justin observes. “Hey,” I say to him. “I’m Olive.” I place a hand on his lower back. His skin feels warm. He groans again. “What’s your name, dude?”

  “Tim,” he hisses. “My back is killing me. Jesus.”

  I ask him to roll onto his side, thinking that might ease some of the pressure he’s feeling, and his breathing calms. “Is it ok if I check you over, Tim? You’ll feel my touch on your legs, ok?”

  He nods, eyes closed. His hamstrings are tightly coiled. I tell him we are going to work on some gentle stretches to loosen him up, and then I fall into the trance that always comes over me when I get to work with an athlete. I breathe along with Tim, moving his legs, stretching his tight muscles. Sometime later, I’ve got one of his legs pressed against my shoulder and he’s talking easily. “I broke my own personal record at least,” he says, gritting his teeth as I try to loosen up his long leg.