Rally (Treasure State Wildcats Book 3)

The house was quiet when I walked inside but the lights were on and the front door had been unlocked. My keys clattered as I tossed them on the console table.

“Faye?” I called without an answer.

Her Explorer wasn’t parked on the street, and she was supposed to have a shift at Dolly’s. She usually worked on Tuesdays.

“Hello?” Nothing.

I’d been the first to leave the house this morning, and someone, probably Mav, had forgotten to lock up. It wasn’t the first time, and I doubted it would be the last. It hadn’t bothered me before now, but with Faye living here, we couldn’t leave the place unlocked. I’d have to talk to him about it when he got home from campus.

Tuesdays were our nights to study and rest. We’d only had a brief meeting for practice, and I’d gone in early this morning to work out. When I’d left the fieldhouse twenty minutes ago, Maverick and Erik had still been hunched over their textbooks in the study hall.

I walked to the dining room table, dropping my backpack onto a chair, then unzipped my coat and hung it on a hook before toeing off my shoes.

It was still early, only nine, but I was ready to crash. I hadn’t slept much last night, not after that fight with Faye.

She thought I was appalled with her. What the hell?

Where had she gotten that idea? I’d asked her out to dinner, but when she’d asked me if it was a date, I hadn’t wanted her to feel pressured. I mean, it could have been a date. I wanted it to be a date.

Maybe I should have just asked her out, put myself out there and gone for it.

Maybe she needed to know that I thought about her more than was healthy.

I constantly wondered what she was doing and how she was feeling. I woke up with a raging hard-on in the middle of the night and wrapped a hand around my dick, picturing her face when I came all over my stomach. I’d folded her laundry last night when it had been finished and contemplated putting it all in my closet so she’d have to step into my room again.

This thing—I wouldn’t let myself call it what it really was, an obsession—wasn’t because of the baby. The way she plagued my thoughts, the way she got under my skin, was all Faye.

And she thought I was appalled at the idea of a date.

What a cluster.

I scrubbed a hand over my face and yawned, then headed upstairs. On the drive home, I’d almost gone to Dolly’s. It had been a while since I’d shown up at the diner. But with the way Faye and I snapped at each other these days, I wasn’t sure how she’d take a visit. And I was too damn exhausted to fight tonight.

The door to my bedroom was cracked. I pushed it open, unbuttoning my jeans so I could crawl into bed, except my bed wasn’t empty.

“What the fuck?” I roared at the same time the brunette on the mattress scrambled to drag a sheet over her naked body.

“Get out!” she screamed.

“You’re in my fucking room.”

“No, I’m—” She glanced around. “This is Maverick’s room. We were talking earlier, and he said he had to finish studying, but that I could just come over and wait. He said his room had all the football stuff.”

Both of our rooms had football stuff.

It had been a while since he’d pulled this stunt, but it wasn’t the first time he’d given a girl from school a key to our house so she could be waiting in his bed for him when he got home.

Fucking Maverick.

The last time he’d done this had been our sophomore year. We’d walked inside, and when I’d asked him if he wanted to catch a game, he’d told me he couldn’t because his bedroom was calling. It hadn’t been until I’d heard his headboard pounding against the wall that I’d realized exactly what he’d meant.

Erik and I had both told him to stop giving his key to random jersey chasers. So much for his promise to stop.

“This isn’t Maverick’s room.” I turned my back on the woman. “Get out.”

“Which one is his?” The bed creaked as she moved.

I pointed to the floor.

“Okay. Sorry.”

“Yeah.” Now I’d have to wash my sheets before I went to bed.

The sound of fabric sliding on skin filled the room, then she tiptoed past me, wearing only a pair of lace panties with her clothes clutched to her naked chest.

Guess this encounter wasn’t going to deter her from fucking Maverick.

“You’re Rush Ramsey, aren’t you?”

“Yes.” Did that mean tomorrow she’d be going around campus telling everyone she’d been in my bed too?

She pulled in her lips to hide a smile. “It was an honest mistake. I swear.”

“Sure.” An honest mistake my ass. If she had actually looked around, she might have noticed the picture of me and my parents on my dresser.

She stepped into the hallway, and I was about to slam the door behind her, except a gasp stole my attention. My gaze shifted past the brunette to the other woman in the hallway.

Faye.

My stomach dropped.

She stood frozen, jaw slack, at the top of the staircase. She was dressed in her Dolly’s T-shirt and a pair of jeans. Her hair was pulled up in a messy knot and her cheeks were still flushed from the cold night air.

“Can I just sneak by you?” The brunette inched closer to Faye.

The movement caused Faye to jerk out of her stupor. Her eyes met mine for a brief second, shock and hurt filling those caramel irises, before she spun around and jogged to her room, slamming the door so hard the brunette jumped.

“Jeez,” she said.

“Please leave.”

I meant the house, but it wasn’t the front door that opened and closed. It was the door to Maverick’s bedroom.

I’d give her points for tenacity.

Maverick wouldn’t have sent her here on purpose, would he? Had he set this up to try and chase Faye out?

No. Mav was a lot of things, but he wasn’t that cruel.

“Damn it.” I stared at Faye’s closed door.

Like all the others in the house, it was white with four inlaid panels. The rectangles at the top were longer than those at the bottom.

It was a standard, simple door. It might as well have been to a bank vault with the way Faye used it to shut me out.

Not today. We couldn’t keep doing this, snapping and clawing at each other’s throats. She couldn’t keep closing herself away in a house that was hers too. This had to stop. Now.

I crossed the hallway and knocked. Hard. “Faye.”

“Go away.”

“It’s not what you think.”

She scoffed.

“It’s not. I came home—” This fucking door. I tested the knob only to find it locked. “Damn it, would you open up and talk to me?”

“Go. Away.”

“No. I’ll stand out here all night if I have to. We both know you’ll have to pee at some point.”

There was a growl, then angry, muffled stomps before the lock clicked and the door flew open.

This time the flush in Faye’s cheeks wasn’t from the chilly November air. It was rage and hurt. The tears welling in her eyes nearly sent me to my knees.

“She thought my room was Maverick’s.”

“Right.” She crossed her arms over her chest. “That’s why she was naked and your jeans are unbuttoned.”

Oh, shit. I clasped the button. “I was going to go to bed. Alone.”

“Why should I believe you?”

“Because I have never lied to you.” Not once. Not even when it would have been easier to tell her I wasn’t scared. That I had everything handled. Instead, I’d laid my fears and truths at her feet.

“Whatever,” she muttered. “It’s not my business anyway. Do whatever you want. Just wear a condom this time. It would be really strange if two of your hookups were pregnant at the same time.”

This woman. I’d never met anyone who could cut my legs out from under me so quickly. It was like being tackled from my blind side and slammed into the turf.

“You did not say that to me.”

“I did.” She jutted up her chin. It quivered.

That little wobble, the crack in her iron shell, was the only reason I hadn’t already walked away. “I’m not your asshole ex, okay? Stop getting us confused.”

Faye swallowed hard.

“I didn’t touch her.”

“You can. Be with whoever you want.”

You. I wanted Faye.

I wanted her so much I’d been turning myself inside out since the start. Since that damn gravel road and flat tire. Since a night of argyle socks and too many drinks. Since cheeseburgers and pancakes.

I was so fucking tired of pretending like this wasn’t real. That I didn’t crave her to the point of distraction.

“You,” I whispered.

“What?”

“I want you.”

“Rush.” My name was a sharp inhale. But there was something else in her expression. Disbelief maybe.

I was foolish enough to hope she might want me the same way I wanted her.

We were already as complicated as it could get. We were already messy. Why not embrace it?

I stepped closer.

She didn’t back away.

My hand lifted and closed around the back of her neck, my fingers squeezing against her pulse as my thumb drew a long line across her jaw.

“I didn’t touch her, Faye. Say you believe me.”

She sighed. “I believe you.”

“Thank fuck.” I bent low. “I’m going to kiss you now so you know exactly who I want.”

Her eyes flared the moment before my lips captured hers.

It wasn’t the hard, punishing kiss I wanted.

But it was the kiss she needed. That we both needed.

Something soft for a change. A truce.

I kissed along her bottom lip, moving from one corner to the other, keeping that hold on her neck. I waited to feel her tense, to pull back, but she didn’t move, didn’t breathe, until I hummed against her mouth.

Then she melted. One moment, she was stiff as a board, the next, she leaned into my touch, her eyelids finally fluttering closed as she kissed me back.

There she was. The spitfire who’d fight me for a moment before giving in. Completely.

My arms banded around her, hauling her close as I licked the seam of her mouth.

She parted for my tongue to slide inside and do a lazy swirl against hers.

Fuck, she tasted good. Better than I remembered. This mouth was heaven.

She whimpered as I tangled my tongue with hers, sinking deeper against my chest. She rose up on her toes as I folded around her.

It was gentle and sweet. It was hunger and pain. This kiss was likely going to bite me in the ass later, but I wasn’t letting her go.

Her fingers snaked around my waist as she explored my mouth.

I nipped at her lips, letting the graze of my teeth draw out a mewl from her throat. Her scent surrounded me, clean, green apples and a hint of bacon from the diner. My body came alive, heat coursing through every vein as my heartbeat pounded for more, more, more.

Faye’s hands trailed up my spine, her hands fisting the cotton of my T-shirt.

We molded to each other, holding tight as the soft, sweet kiss turned to something desperate and aching. We took weeks of frustration and tension and threw it at the other to swallow.

Her nails dug through the fabric of my shirt, scoring my flesh.

I held her so tight she’d never escape.

And damn, the feel of her in my arms. It was better than I remembered.

I needed a thousand nights to memorize every inch of her body. Every line. Every curve. A thousand nights to watch her change.

A thousand nights to make her mine.

I was seconds away from stripping her bare, of laying her on that tiny bed of hers just to see if we could both fit. But before I could pick her up off her feet, a door slammed in the distance.

The front door.

Maverick was home.

Faye flinched, like she’d awoken from a dreamless sleep. Her hands let go of my shirt and she dropped to her heels, wiggling out of my hold. Her eyes were wide, panicked, as she stared at me, raising a hand to touch her mouth. “You can’t kiss me.”

Because she didn’t want me to kiss her? Or because she did?

Whatever the reason, that little declaration, that weak-ass line in the sand, pissed me right the fuck off.

“Well, I just did.” I dragged a hand over my mouth. “You’re still holding that fucking can of bear spray, Faye. What’s it going to take to get you to put it down?”

She closed her eyes, her arms wrapping around her middle.

Fine. Shut down. Put that guard back up.

This time, I didn’t let her slam the bedroom door. I did it for her as I stalked out.

I didn’t feel like washing my sheets. I’d done enough laundry yesterday. So I stormed downstairs. And spent a sleepless night on the couch.