Page 1 of Yes, Coach

CHAPTER 1

Murphy

I’m practically moaning her fucking name as I wake up, my cock already straining against sweat-soaked sheets.

The dream won't let go. Her honey hair spilled across my pillow. Those hazel eyes, wide with trust as I stuffed myself into her ripe cherry cunt. The way she whispered "Daddy" against my throat, like she was speaking to my fucking soul.

I’m fisting myself again. I'm already leaking pre-cum from the memory of the dream.

Fuck. Thirty-seven years old and jerking off to dreams of a student? What kind of sick bastard does that make me? Yeah, she’s eighteen. I checked that as soon as she transferred in but still.

I throw myself into the shower to finish the job turning the water all the way to the coldest setting, but it does nothing to ease the lust or wash away the guilt. Both trail me to Riverside High like hunting dogs: persistent, relentless. I unlock my office in darkness, hands still shaking. Coffee burns my tongue. Game film becomes a blur of meaningless shit on my laptop screen.

Nothing helps. Nothing ever fucking does anymore.

At 7:47 AM exactly, she materializes in my doorway. I know the time because I've been watching that clock like my life depends on it, counting down minutes until her first-period study hall. She's always early. Always prepared. Always looking at me like she can see past the coach, past the careful walls I've built, straight down to the man who's slowly coming apart.

"Coach Reynolds?" That voice. Breathless and innocent in a way that makes my jaw clench, my hands curl into fists. "Do you have a minute?"

Fuck no.Smart answer. Right answer. The answer that keeps us both safe from the wreckage I’m about to make of this.

I nod, gripping my temples between my thumb and index finger. "Come in."

She slides into my office, closes the door with a soft click that might as well be a gunshot. Today's uniform: pleated skirt hitting mid-thigh, white button-down perfectly innocent except for how it pulls across her chest. Ankles bare except for the delicate lace trim of her socks… Like something out of a vintage ad, sweet, coy and intentional. Standard schoolgirl, nothing special.

Except there's nothing standard about what she does to me.

"I got the scholarship letter." She holds up an envelope, her smile bright enough to power the school. "Full ride to State."

Pride and something darker wage war in my chest. She deserves this scholarship. She deserves everything good this world can offer. But State University sits four hours away. Four hours of highway stretching between us, and the thought makes my hands shake like I'm some lovesick kid instead of a grown man who should know better.

My NFL days taught me about distance. About leaving everything behind when the season ends. About how easy it is to become a ghost in someone else's memory. But this feels different. This feels like losing something I never had the right to want in the first place.

"That's..." I clear my throat, try again. "That's incredible, Taryn. You earned it."

She moves closer to my desk, and I catch her scent. It’s softness and sex wrapped in flowers and sugar, but… Did she wear it for me? Or is that just my fucking ego ramping up a gear? Her blond waves are tied up tight, my fingers fucking twitching to grab hold of it and hear her moan as I fuck her from behind.

Slap,slap, slap. The sloppy smack of wet flesh meeting over and over. My balls swinging back and forth so hard they slap against her drenched folds.

It gets worse. Her gingernails painted pale pink, a deep enough shade to not be all sweetness and I pictures those little fingers gripping my girth, pumping up and down as I unload all over her cute little button nose.

"I wanted to thank you. For the recommendation letter. For believing in me when nobody else did."

The gratitude in her voice nearly breaks me. She doesn't know how she's crawled under my skin and made herself at home there. How I lie awake calculating the hours until I'll see her again. How I imagine being the one she turns to when everything becomes too much, the one who finally tells her she doesn't have to carry it all alone.

I've seen her job applications on my desk when she needs references. Three part-time positions to keep her mother's medical bills from drowning them both. Seen her fall asleep over textbooks in study hall, exhaustion carved into the slope of her shoulders. She's been holding up the world since she was fifteen, long before she transferred to this school, and every protective instinct I possess screams at me to fix it. To fix everything for her.

But I can't. A coach offering money to a student, would raise questions I can't answer. Questions about why I give a shit about one particular girl's struggles more than the rest. Questions that would destroy us both.

She shouldn't have to be this strong. Shouldn't have to be the adult in every room she enters.

"You don't need to thank me." My voice comes out rougher than intended. "You're brilliant, Taryn. Anyone with eyes can see that."

Color floods her cheeks, and she ducks her head. The gesture transforms her and strips away the careful composure she wears like armor, revealing something softer underneath. Somethingthat makes my chest ache with the need to protect her from a world that's demanded too much, too young.

"I should let you get back to work." But she doesn't move toward the door. Instead, she worries the letter between her fingers, teeth catching her lower lip. The vulnerability in the gesture nearly undoes me. "I just... I'm scared, Coach."

There it is.The crack in her perfect facade. The admission that she's not as fearless as she pretends to be.

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