Page 58 of Go Deep (A Bad Boy Sports Romance)
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Slade
We pulled awayfrom the curb, and on the way back to campus, I glanced over at Cassidy a few times. She had a preoccupied look on her face. I couldn’t tell what was bothering her, but I had two or three good guesses.
“Hey, I’ll take care of finishing the write-up,” I told her, starting with the easiest one to discuss.
She shook her head. “Don’t worry about it. If you haven’t done it yet, I don’t mind taking care of it.”
“No, you’ve done enough. I said I’ll do it, and I will. I made good headway with it over Thanksgiving. I can send you what I did so far, but you know me. I like to make a good impression with a finished product. Don’t worry. It’ll be top notch. It’s the least I can do after bailing on meetings and leaving you with so much of this to do on your own.”
“When will it be ready?”
“This Friday.”
“It’s due this Friday.”
“And I’ll have it ready.”
Cassidy stared over at me. “I’ve heard this before, you know.”
“Yes, I know, but you need to trust that I’ll always come through when I give my word. I’ve told you a couple of times not to worry about it. I mean it. I’ve started the work, and I will finish it. I. Will. Finish. It. Got that? End of discussion.”
I meant it the last couple of times, too. It would probably take all night this Wednesday and Thursday to get it completed. I knew if I really needed to, I could probably swing an extension because Saturday was the SEC Championships, and I really didn’t have a whole lot of free time before that. Cassidy would freak, though, so I left that alone. One thing for sure was it would get done. By me.
“Only if you’re sure,” she said.
“End of discussion.”
“Okay.”
“You’ve been great. You know that?” I rested my free hand on her knee and squeezed it gently.
“Thanks.” She placed her hand over mine and looked over at me. “You and Miranda have been a big help, getting me through the last couple of days.”
“Shawn will come around. If he doesn’t, I’ll knock some sense into him over Christmas. If that doesn’t work, I’ll drive to Harvard and beat the shit out of him.”
“You don’t have to do that, but I appreciate the thought.”
“You’re wrong, Cassidy. I have to do something. No one gets to hurt you, mistreat you or disrespect you like that and get away with it…not even my brother.”
“I don’t want to talk about Shawn right now.”
“Fine with me. Want to grab a bite before we get back on campus?”
That smile returned to her face. “Sure. Something really greasy and unhealthy. We earned it.”
“We did.”
She slid her hand up my arm to my shoulder and into my hair before leaning over to kiss my jaw. “Make it takeout.”
She didn’t have to ask twice. My hunger for her went up a notch as she nibbled on my neck on the way through the nearest drive-thru. She had me hard in seconds. I didn’t have to ask her to come to my place when we made it back to campus, not with her fingers sliding up and down my thigh like that. I drove past her dorm and went right to the frat house. Neither of us had to make it to practice today because of this afternoon’s pitch meeting. Coach gave me a pass because it was the only practice I had to miss this entire semester. This gave us the rest of the evening and all night to celebrate. Like she said, we’d earned it.
The house was dead quiet when we got in. No one was sitting on the porch drinking, and the only noise inside came from the TV in the front room downstairs. The house was always like a ghost town around exam week, and when we weren’t partying. We ate quickly in the kitchen, then climbed the stairs to my room.
All the need and desire that had built up during the day had somehow changed for both of us. Cassidy and I climbed into bed, and she snuggled into my side, kicking off her pumps before placing a hand on my chest.
“I’m going to close my eyes for a bit, okay?”
