Page 43 of Offsides

I stifle a laugh. It seems I heard her correctly.

Autumn makes no effort to hold back her own laughter. “Well, I’ll see you guys out there. Eventually.” She manages to peek around Eli and give me a wave, and then she disappears.

Eli closes the door slowly, then turns to face me, his expression unreadable. Then a hint of mischief lights up his eyes. He raises an eyebrow. “Well? What do you think? Should we let them keep placing their bets? We could demand a cut of the money afterward. Or should we head back out and ruin their fun?”

A nervous laugh bubbles out of my chest, and I cover my face with my hands. “Oh my god. I can’t believe any of this is happening.”

Eli’s hands wrap around mine, pulling them away, his smiling face filling my vision. “Which part?”

“All of it!” I pull my hands free to wave them around. “You, me, us, this. A betting pool on how long we’ll have sex! How is this my life?”

His arms cinch behind me, tugging me close again. “I, for one, am glad about the you, me, us part. I could do without the betting pool, though.”

I pat his chest, marveling at the firm muscle beneath his shirt. I’ve felt it before, obviously, but not like this. Not with the freedom to touch and pet to my heart’s content. I mean, not that I’ll do thatnow, of course. But Icould. I can later, too. “I think that’s decided then.” I circle one of the buttons with my finger, keeping my eyes focused there. “Let’s go out and ruin their fun. We can figure out the answer to how long you last another time.”

When I raise my eyes to his, his grin has a distinctly wicked tinge. “I’m looking forward to it.”

Oh god. “Me too.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

Eli

After adjusting myself to make my hard-on less obvious, I tangle my fingers with Dani’s and lead her by the hand back out to game night. We’re greeted by a variety of whoops and hollers from everyone, and when I glance back at Dani, she’s blushing and ducking her head, but she’s smiling. And not a grimace of endurance, but the same delighted smile she wore a few minutes ago when we were still alone in my room.

I’m not embarrassed at all. These assholes can place bets on whatever they want. As long as I’m the one ending up with Dani, I don’t give a single solitary fuck.

We make our way to an open spot against the wall. I park myself against it and pull Dani in front of me, wrapping my arms around her and leaning down to kiss her neck, just below her jaw. She tilts her head, giving me free access, but I limit myself to only one more kiss because otherwise I might get carried away. If Dani’s embarrassed by some hoots and hollers, she’d turn bright red if we got truly exhibitionistic.

That’s never been a particular kink of mine, but at this point I’m so excited to finally get to be with her that if public sex were some kind of requirement, I’d do it happily.

Suddenly I can’t wait for game night to be over.

“Do you want me to have Autumn take us off the roster?” I whisper in her ear. “We could leave now and head to your place. Since your roommates are all here, we know we’ll have the place to ourselves.”

She shifts against me, and I swear to god she’s just trying to torture me with her firm ass moving against my dick. But it’s actually her indecision dance. If I weren’t so horny and dying for her, I would’ve realized immediately that her shifting her weight from foot to foot is her weighing the options.

Chuckling, I kiss her cheek. “It’s fine if you want to stay.”

She looks over her shoulder at me. “Are you sure? It’s not that I don’t want to be alone with you. I do. It’s just that I haven’t been to a game night in a while, and I was really looking forward to it. And if we leave now … I’m pretty sure there’d be a new pool popping up immediately.”

“You’re probably right about that,” I murmur against her skin. Hell, there’s probably been one going for years about how long it would take us to get together. Maybe all the guys hitting on her lately have had bets going on who could nail her first.

My jaw clenches at that thought. Dammit, if anyone was doing that …

I need to chill out. I’m making up scenarios in my head to be mad about for no reason. Dani’s with me. No one else is going to nail her while I’m in the picture, so even if there was some kind of bet to that effect, they’ve all lost.

“What I want most is to make you happy,” I whisper in her ear. “If staying makes you happy, then I’m happy to stay with you.”

With a smile on her face, Dani turns and captures my lips with hers. Just for a second, and then she’s facing front again.

Autumn catches my eye from across the room and wiggles her clipboard in the air, then points at Dani and me. “You’re next,” she mouths in lieu of shouting.

I nod in acknowledgment and herd Dani toward the couch so we can take our place. And once we’re playing—Super Smash Brostonight—it’s just like old times, with Dani shouting every time anything happens, whether she knocks me out or the other way around.

God, she’s so much fun to play with. This is one of my favorite things about her, how into it she gets. How she fiercely devotes herself to anything and everything she does.

What will that be like in bed? I’ve half wondered that so many times, but now I allow myself to fully contemplate how it’ll feel to be the recipient of her undivided attention.

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