"Are you...alright?"

Franny's voice was concerned, a tinge of the fear from the encounter with Kalen's dad still coloring our interaction.

"Fine."

I was clearly not fine.

His father had done more than accost me.

He'd taken my confidence and the surety I felt with Kalen and stomped it into the ground.

Because, honestly, what was he doing with me anyway? Satiating some morbid curiosity about the daughter of his father's lover? Toying with me?

Or was it more than that? And if it was, did it even matter because of his future plans? He would either be joining the NBA or taking over his father's company, and though his father's company would be a more feasible option for a relationship between the two of us, I knew what his real dream was.

He was going to become a famous basketball player, someone destined for greatness and to become legendary, not just rot away in a nice town leading his team to the championships year after year until he graduated to an office job.

"Gracie?"

"I said I'm fine, Franny."

The game ended in a flourish with Kalen on the bench and Colby holding a red soaked rag up against his nose from his fight on the bench right alongside him.

The two men were glaring at each other from my vantage point that I could tell, and while one had tried to help the other break up their fight, I knew another one was brewing on the forefront between the two of them.

I couldn't control Colby's emotions, and while I knew that Kalen wasn't some irrationally jealous man, he did have a way of pushing Colby's buttons in just the right way to make him explode, and in doing so, it would only prove to be disastrous for everyone involved.

"You really don't seem fine. Do you want to get out of here?"

The buzzer went off and despite losing our best players, we still won by over twenty points.

The stands emptied as students flooded the court and others exited the stadium, but I was rooted to the spot, watching as Kalen disappeared into the locker rooms with the rest of the team.

"You ready to go?"

"He wants me to meet him, after."

"Okay, well I can go with you? Unless you'd rather go alone?"

"No...no, can you come with me please?"

"Of course, Gracie."

Frannie walked with me through the crowded concourse and waited for the team to start filling out one by one, hair damp from recent showers and gym bags slung over their shoulders while they waled up to family and friends waiting for them.

Colby was out before Kalen, walking up to a girl with red hair and a strikingly beautiful face before meandering up to Franny who stood silently beside me.

"Hey, you waiting on Rush?"

"She is, I'm just waiting with her."

"Rush? You mean Kalen Rush?"

We all turned our attention to the new girl on Colby's arm, who he'd probably replace in three weeks with another girl he only moderately liked just because he apparently had an affliction that made commitment impossible for him.

"Yeah."

She turned to me, her smile bright.

"Oh, that's...interesting."

"Kara, this is my sister, Franny and her best friend Gracie. We all grew up together."

"Oh, this is the girl you were telling me about?"

Kara's face grew both excited and pitying at the same time, and from the guilty look on Colby's face, I could tell what exactly he'd told her about me.

"So you're friends with Kalen too, then? Because Colby is on the team with him?"

"Um...not really. They kind of hate each other."

Kara's eyes widened in what seemed like genuine surprise.

"What? But I thought all the guys on the team were, like, best friends?"

I kept my eyes peeled for Kalen's dad just in case he wanted to come back for a repeat performance to dress me down in front of even more unsuspecting onlookers, only slighting tuning out Kara.

"Hardly. I'm pretty sure Kalen beat the shit out of my big bro a few weeks ago."

"What?! You two got into a fight? Like, a real one?"

"What other kind is there?"

I smirked at Franny's annoyed tone. Clearly, she was tired of Colby's ping-ponging between girls, too.

Spotting a dark head of hair towering over all the rest, some strange restlessness inside of me calmed.

He was searching around, eyes peeled, like he was trying to make sure his father and step-mother wouldn't jump out and go on the attack mode yet again.

"Well, I'm sure you resolved everything, and you're good friends now, right? I mean, with the way he broke up that fight with you and that other player tonight, you had to have made up?"

"Hardly. That was just for the sake of the game, babe. Trust me, if he could've gotten away with it, it would've been him I was fighting with on the court today instead."

Colby's eyes were on my face, but my attention was elsewhere as Kalen strode up to us silently, and then suddenly Franny and Kara were following my line of sight as he closed in on me.

His footsteps shook my very ground and all those silly doubts about his intentions were washed away with the charcoal storm thundering behind his eyes.

His broad shoulder slamming into Colby's to force him out of the way, his hands went around my waist immediately and his face went into my neck, his heavy inhale and exhale something solely for the two of us as my hands wrapped around his neck, anchoring him to me.

He was so tall my feet were almost dangling off the ground while he crushed my body to his.

"Is everything okay? He didn't...say anything worse did he?"

Though I tried to keep my voice down, the others were straining to try and figure out what we were saying.

"No. I made it clear to him that you're off limits. I think he took the hint, considering he wasn't here waiting for me."

Setting me back down gently to the ground, Kalen kept one arm firmly planted around my waist while he turned to face the others.

"We're leaving."

His words were directed at Franny, a shit-eating grin on her face.

"See you back at the dorm."

"Have fun, you two."

She gave us a little two-fingered wave and we left her with Colby and his new girlfriend who looked gobsmacked at the sight of Kalen Rush actually showing affection to anyone, let alone a girl, especially considering his 'no-dating' rule was the talk of the campus most days.

Colby's face, however, was a sort of resigned anger that I would probably have to address sooner rather than later.

My vote was for later, though, especially as Kalen's warmth surrounded me while we dodged fans and friends on the short walk back to his team house, some players peeling off to a celebratory round of drinks at the bar before coming back to the house for the after party.

"You're quiet."

Glancing up at him through the streetlights bouncing off the midnight flecks in his grey eyes, my breath caught from looking at him.

He really was too fucking beautiful for his own good.

"Just...thinking."

"What all did he say to you tonight before I got there?"

I stopped walking and his arm tugged me to his chest, my neck craned upwards in an uncomfortable anger to meet his eyes properly.

"It's not important."

"It is absolutely important, Gracie. Let me guess—he tried to get you to think I didn't give a shit about you, and that I want you for the wrong reasons. He told you that I'm worthless, or that it'll never work between us for one reason or another. Tell me I'm wrong."

A sparking fire was lighting behind those eyes, lightning gathering in their stormy depths, and I knew I needed to tread carefully when it came to his father.

"More or less."

Maybe joking would help?

"Fucking bastard."

Or not.

"Did you believe it? Any of it?"

"Would I be standing here with you if I did?"

Reaching up to place my hand on his cheek, he leaned into my touch and a smile flew to my mouth unbidden at how responsive to my touch he truly was.

"It was obvious when I met him at my mother's funeral that he is not a good man. You, though? You are a good man, Kalen. I'd never believe a word that man told me."

He inhaled deeply, the night air mixing with the sounds of partiers and honking horns from those leaving the game.

"Stay the night with me tonight."

"Well, I thought you'd never ask."

His answering smile lit me up just as much as his own had been ignited not mere moments before.

He never released me from his touch the entire walk back, and even despite the main living area already being cramped full of drunk people, the music blaring, I didn't let it bother me.

Especially not as we reached his room and he locked the door behind him, roommate be damned.

"He'll find somewhere else to crash."

"Nate's room?"

"Oh, yeah. They're not as subtle as they like to think they are."

My laugh escaped me as he grabbed my hands and yanked me towards him, my breath dying in my throat at the intense look in his eye, like he was planning for this for a long time and he refused for anything to delay or ruin it.

"I want to touch you, Gracie."

His words were whisper soft against my lips, and my blood roared at the thought.

I nodded quickly, our lips brushing at the action, and the shiver that erupted down along my spine shook my entire body in its wake.

I'd never been touched in the way he was implying before, and I was more than ready.

He had barely touched me and he was already unravelling me, pulling the pieces of myself apart to lay out into a puzzle before putting me back together again in a way that was somehow better than it had began.

His lips descended on my neck and I arched into his touch, the bass reverberating through the room from the music from downstairs.

The scratch of his short facial hair sent shivers and chills skating down my spine, and I clutched onto him like I was a writhing, desperate creature, frantic for him.

He groaned in my ear.

"God, you feel so good."

My body was crushed up against his in an instant, our hands and lips grappling for each other like it would be the last time either of us ever took another breath if we stopped for even a moment.

His hands grasped my thighs and pulled me up against his waist until they were bracketing his hips and then he fell back against the bed, my legs on either side of his waist as I straddled him, my hands never leaving his hair as our lips moulded together and refused to part.

"Fuck," he hissed out as I struck and caught his lower lip between my teeth and tugged, hard enough for him to cry out from it.

"Oh, so that's how you're going to play it, is it?"

Suddenly he flipped me so that my back was pressed into the mattress and he hovered above me, a mischievous glint in his rain-cloud eyes while a grin spread across his face.

"I'm going to make sure you enjoy this, Gracie."

He peeled off my jeans slowly, torturously, and all the while I was writhing and panting in want and anticipation.

He gently, almost lovingly, pulled my shoes off my feet, and then came my jeans in one swift motion.

"Mmm, and what do we have here?"

His words were soft, but the choked breathlessness in them was unmistakable.

His thumb pressed down against my center and I cried out instantly as he pressed the wetness from my core down into me, making it all too clear just how excited I really was.

"All this, just for me?"

"Yes, yes, just for you!"

"Good."

Then he pulled my panties to the side and pressed his mouth against me so quickly I jerked in response, my legs flailing upward until he grasped them beneath my thighs and anchored them over his shoulders.

"Be still."

I whimpered at his command.

His hands squeezed the flesh of my upper thighs as he licked a strong line from my opening to the sensitive bundle of nerves at the top, drawing an almost animalistic groan from my throat at the action.

He was slow, languid, almost lazy about it as he continued his assault on me, and by the second stroke of his tongue I was already seeing start.

"Kalen..."

"Fuck, you're so wet already. So wet for me."

He drew back and let a line of wetness drip from his tongue to land directly on my clit and I could've orgasmed right there from the sight without sensation had he not immediately distracted me by plunging one finger directly inside of me, stretching me so luxuriously it was all I could do to not burn out right there before him.

His lips suctioned back onto me while his fingers worked furiously, those beautiful eyes staring up at me from his position between my legs and suddenly it was all too much and not enough at the same time, the sensitivity growing stronger and stronger until a pulsing orgasm began low in my back and traveled in tingling waves through my thighs, finally cresting in my abdomen as powerful shocks convulsed through my body.

"Kalen!"

He didn't stop after my climax either, though. No, instead he kept his assault on my body until I was seeing stars, until there was nothing left in my vision except black spots dancing across my eyes.

It was only a little while later when I stirred against his chest that I realized I must've fallen asleep immediately after from the shock and pleasure of it all, his bare chest cushioning my head beneath me.

"Mmm...what time is it?"

"Oh, good morning to you too, sweetheart. Have a good nap? I knew I was good, but I've never made someone pass out from just my mouth before."

I didn't have it in me to be embarrassed about it.

"You should be impressed. You have some serious skills."

He chuckled in my ear, the sound sending new shivers through me as I snuggled in closer to him, the sounds of the party dying down in the background.

"Go back to sleep, Gracie."

"If you say so."

I sighed contentedly against him, not over analyzing what we had just done together.

No, that could wait for the morning.

For now I would just soak up his warmth and comfort and smile against his chest while the gentle thud of his heartbeat rocked me back to sleep.

***

Author's Note:

What did you think of this chapter?

What do you think will happen next?

What do you WANT to happen next?

Fav. scene so far?

What do you think of Colby's revolving door of women?

Until next time my lovely readers,
Kristen :)