Page 44 of Lovesick (The Minnesota Mustangs #1)

This can’t be easy for her. I know what I want, but I have less at stake than she does.

As much as I view Coach as the father figure I never had, he’s actually her dad.

I don’t want to create a bigger rift between them, but I don’t want to be her goddamn sidepiece.

Trust makes or breaks a relationship. Merit and I aren’t even together, and it’s obvious that we both have trust issues to overcome if we want to make things work.

I don’t know how much longer I can do this.

I hate letting her parents come between us.

I hate letting my insecurities come between us.

Merit isn’t like my past exes. She’s not doing this out of malice.

She’s doing it out of fear—something I’m far too familiar with.

I can’t fault her for wanting to make her parents happy.

I know I’d give anything in the world to make my dad proud.

I open my mouth to blabber out an apology, but she disbands what would be one long-winded atonement.

“I’m so sorry I didn’t tell them. I should have.

I promised I would. I just keep hurting you,” she says with a shaky voice, that four-fingered tap of hers morphing into an unrelenting grip of the steering wheel.

She stares ahead at the mostly abandoned road, a grim expression muddling her red-washed features.

“You don’t mean to,” I whisper, waiting for her to look at me— praying that she looks at me.

Merit turns to face me, unshed tears teetering on her waterlines.

“Maybe not consciously, but that doesn’t mean my reservations don’t hurt you.

It isn’t fair to you, Crew. The truth has to come out eventually, and deep down, having you in secret isn’t what I want.

I want you in all spheres of my life. I’m just too much of a coward to fight for us. ”

“Don’t say that, baby,” I coo, caressing the side of her cheek with my hand and thumbing the mauve-shaded bag underneath her eye. I wish I’d noticed how much the stress was eating away at her. “You’re not a coward. You’re just trying to make everyone happy, and that’s really hard to do.”

When the light flashes green, I pull away from her, even though I don’t want to. We proceed through the intersection with tires splashing over rain-filled potholes, the windshield wipers screeching in full force.

Now that we’re out of the stoplight’s range, I can see the blotchy, red hives that are stippled all over her neck.

“This doesn’t just affect our relationship. It’s going to strain your relationship with my father— your coach . You’ve worked so hard to get where you are. If my dad even thinks about cutting you from the team, I’d never forgive myself.”

“I know you’re worried about my career, but that’s for me to deal with. I get to decide what’s most important in my life, and it’s not even a competition when it comes to you.”

She sniffs, bidding me a sideways glance. “It isn’t?”

A smile smears across my mouth. “No, Princess, it isn’t. We both have a lot to lose if we come clean. I don’t want to make things worse for you at home, but I also know that I want to be your boyfriend. Officially.”

“You do?” she squeaks.

I grab her hand, intertwining our fingers and resting my knuckles against the center console. “I’ve never been more certain of anything in my life.”

“I want that too.”

My heart squeezes once, twice, and it feels like my mind is a sedge-filled marsh that I’m sinking in, feet slipping into muddy depressions and preventing me from moving forward.

“If that’s the case, then that means we’re an us, and I’m not going to hide us anymore. From your parents, from the world. Why would I when you’re the best thing that’s ever happened to me?” I exclaim.

Merit’s electrifying blue eyes—the kind that can peer into a person’s soul and make them rethink every choice they’ve ever made—are rheumy. “Crew…”

“But you have to tell your parents we’re dating, okay? I can be there if you want—whatever makes it easier. I just want to be someone you’re proud to wear on your arm. I want to be good enough to bring home.”

“You’re more than good enough, and I’m so, so proud to call you mine. I promise I’ll tell them. I don’t care about the damage, okay? All I care about is prioritizing your happiness, and I’ve been doing a shit job of it.”

Forgiveness settles over me. “You haven’t. It’s a lot to ask of a person.”

“But you’re not just any person,” she counters, her words sounding like they’ve been yanked from her throat by an invisible force. Louder than a gun without a silencer, ricocheting off the interior of the car.

I’m not just any person.

Nobody’s ever revered me like Merit has. She treats me like I hung her moon and stars. She sees me for who I really am, and that’s all I’ve ever wanted.

I make sure to obliterate the impasse between us. “It’s not really how I planned on making things official.”

Merit perks up. “You had a plan?”

“Oh, yeah. The whole nine yards. I was going to take you to this beautiful lookout spot in the mountains, surprise you with a picnic, then pop the big question.”

She gets an ooey-gooey look in her eyes, a heartfelt smile sprouting in place of that bothersome frown. “Oh, Crew.”

“I can’t take all the credit for it though. Some of the guys helped me come up with it. God, we spent hours brainstorming the perfect plan,” I laugh.

“If it’s any consolation, I would’ve said yes,” Merit tells me, and in that moment, prismatic colors flare behind my eyelids as arteries of volcanic lightning reach into the obsidian sky and crackle around a mushroom cloud of smoke, ash, and lava.

A phenomenon so rare that it’s hard to predict when it might occur.

A dangerous, beautiful creation of nature.

I feel it all right now—the static, the heat, the lung-clotting breathlessness.

Since a fist pump might be a little more than embarrassing, I settle for a nonchalant shrug, deepening my voice. “Yeah, cool. That’s cool.”

Actually, judgment aside, I want to open the sunroof and scream at the top of my lungs that the Merit Lawson is my girlfriend. I mean, we’d get soaking wet in the process, but it would be so worth it.

I don’t remember a time when I felt this happy before—when I felt that life was worth living .

Merit and I make idle chitchat for the rest of the drive, and when she turns down my street, disappointment punctures my chest like a rusty piece of rebar. I don’t want to say goodbye to her yet. I hate saying goodbyes. They’re so… final .

I wring my hands in my lap, looking out at the darkened houses. “The night was kind of a bust, huh?”

Her tone, strangely, isn’t bogged down by secondhand sadness. “It doesn’t have to be.”

“What do y?—”

Without warning, she pulls over to a row of empty parking spots and kills the engine. I have no idea what she’s doing.

“What’s going on?” I ask. “Is everything okay?”

Merit unbuckles her seat belt, her bright blue eyes akin to two swirling vortexes glutted with lust, and she traps her bottom lip between her teeth. “That depends. Are you going to let me thank you for tonight?”

I admit that I’m not the brightest bulb in the chandelier, but I’m should’ve-taken-a-right-turn-three-miles-back lost. Not to mention that Merit usually throws me off my game, which I’m now questioning if I ever had in the first place.

Her suggestive gaze, the privacy, my rollercoaster of emotions—they all bolster the blazing pressure in my groin.

I retract my seat belt. “Thank me?”

She nods, feigning innocence. “You’ve been nothing but understanding about my hesitation.”

I don’t know why, but I suddenly feel shy, shirking away from the praise. “It’s no big deal.”

“It is, and I want to show you how much I appreciate you, baby.”

Baby. That’s the first time she’s given me a pet name, and I fucking love the sound of it.

Merit climbs into the back seat, making sure that I get an eyeful of the frilly pink panties peeking out beneath the hem of her short skirt .

Fuck me.

When she gets herself situated, she pats the seat next to her, waiting for me to join her with that come-hither demeanor.

I gulp thickly, hooking my finger in the collar of my button-up and pulling it away from my fever-hot neck. Squeezing through the opening with a lot less grace than she did, I bump limbs and mumble an apology. It’s quite roomy back here considering she drives a Mercedes-Benz.

Sensibility thrown to the wayside, I’m caught off guard when Merit marries our lips together in a world-spinning kiss, eager to get her fill, her palm coming up to cup the side of my cheek.

I reciprocate her urgent hunger, crawling my fingers over her side and yanking her forcefully into me. I’m not afraid to bruise her this time.

Breaking away from the kiss, she drags her lips down the steep incline of my throat, perfecting a hickey that I know my teammates are going to give me hell for, and her fingers toy with the zipper of my pants.

I freeze. “What are you doing?”

“What does it look like I’m doing? I want to suck my boyfriend’s cock.”

God, you’ve given your toughest battle to your weakest soldier. This blowjob is about to be over in an embarrassingly short amount of time.

My eyes bulge out of their sockets. “You do?”

“Of course I do. Look at you, Crew. You’re fucking irresistible,” she whimpers, licking over the bruise that she’s kneaded into my neck. “I’m still hungry. I need this right now— I need you .”

“Oh, fuck, baby,” I moan, my swollen cock stressing against the seam of my pants, throbbing in concentrated pulses. “I’m yours. Whenever. Wherever. Take whatever you need from me.”

Merit kneels in front of me, slowly pulling my jeans and boxers down to my ankles, releasing my dick from its tight confines. It bobs upright—the head ringed in sticky pre-cum—and my heavy balls draw up in anticipation.