Page 72 of Try Me
Mark
“Really?” I asked, loping toward Chet. He stood in the center of one of the campus rec center’s outdoor basketball courts. He’d texted me to meet him after giving his shift at Fuego away to a coworker, and while we kept saying we’d keep things casual and on the down low, we were spending more and more of our free time together.
I fought back a smile as he dribbled the ball. “So is this Date 2.0, or you’re just in the mood to get your ass handed to you?”It was hard for me to imagine Chet had kept up with ball since graduating, given how much he worked and how most of his friends seemed to be what I’d kindly call less than sports oriented. I’d never been as good as Chet, but I’d continued playing at least once a week with my fraternity brothers, so I wasn’t exactly rusty.
I caught the ball Chet sent speeding toward me in response, and then got all discombobulated when he peeled his shirt off. I spun the ball on my middle finger to distract myself from the sight of his naked pecs. “Do I need to go over what the different lines mean? Remind you how to dribble?”
He took a step closer to me. The ends of his hair were damp, and a light sheen of sweat coated his chest, suggesting he’d done a little brushing up before I’d arrived. “How about you shut that mouth and show me if you can.”
Arrogant prick. Just like in high school. God, I was a sucker for it, too. “Show you if I can shut my mouth or show you if I can dribble?”
“Either-or. Have my doubts about both. Gotta say lately I appreciate your mouth being open more than I used to.” Chet flashed me a shameless grin and dropped lower as I dribbled toward the three-point line.
“Man on man?”
“You’re still fucking talking. Stalling.”
I was about to break around him when he lunged forward, swatting the ball out of my hands and leaving me scrambling after him down the court. Chet was in the air and sinking his first basket before I could even curse at him.
Knocking him from under the net, I caught the ball as it sailed through and heard him laughing behind me, way too close, as I hoofed it to the other end of the court. The fucker still had speed to spare, and he darted around me so that I ended up smacking into him just as I rose onto the balls of my feet to take a shot. His eyes blazed with that same wild gleam I remembered from high school, cheeks flushed, a crooked grin on his face as he grappled the ball and tried to wrench it away.
I sank another basket, and Chet captured the ball and tossed it back to me when my gaze snagged on something and doubled back for a closer look.
“Need a little adjustment there?” It was probably the wrong move to call out the bulge in his shorts, because the shit-eating grin on Chet’s face wasn’t embarrassed or ashamed. It just widened. I could already feel my own dick responding as he dug a hand behind his waistband and adjusted.
“Your ass was all over my junk.” Chet shrugged, a defiant brow arcing up.
“You were all in my space.”
“That’s kinda how this game works.”
“You ever pop wood back when we were on the court?”
“Actually on the court? Nah.” Chet laughed. “But sometimes if I was sitting on the sidelines and you were still out there it might’ve happened. Maybe. You know, your O face is the same one you make on the free-throw line, right?”
“Bullshit.”
“True facts.” Chet scrunched his face into an expression that would’ve been right at home in a packed elevator after burrito day at the firm. In short: horrifying and not at all sexy.
“That’s not what I look like when I come.”
“Okay.” He shrugged. “Whatever you say, Markus.”
“Is that really what I fucking look like when I come?” I asked, flustered and self-conscious because O faces were serious business. Ask John Mayer. “If so, we might need to call a crisis management team in for the PTSD it’s going to give you.”
Chet tipped his head back and laughed for a solid ten seconds before sobering. “No, it’s not. Your O faceisvery close to the one you make on the free-throw line, but it’s also incredibly sexy. See—” He gestured down to his shorts. “All of me is in agreement about this.”
I dribbled the ball a couple of times and eyed the basket, but my concentration was shot. I kept thinking about his dick, stiff behind those shorts. I made a weak attempt at a fake out that he caught on to immediately.
Giving up, I tucked the ball against my side and reached out after a quick glance to either side of me, snagging his T-shirt in my fist and closing that last foot of distance between us.
Our hot breaths filled the air, and the smirk melted from Chet’s face, replaced by something primal and base. He met my eyes, took another step into me, trapping my hand between us as he lifted his chin in challenge.
“Gonna do it, Farrow? Or just thinking about it?”
I was dizzy with desire. Up close to him, I couldn’t fucking think coherently, and I wanted this always, wanted it to be like this between us forever. The push and the shove, the way he occupied the back of my mind like he’d bought property there, moved in, and repainted. How fucking well he knew me, and how he wanted me despite my idiosyncrasies.
I shove my trapped hand lower, until I felt his stiff length along the back of my knuckles, hard and ready. Jesus. I ran my knuckles up and down the front of his shorts, feeling his cock flexing behind, seeking friction as his eyes went half-lidded and hazy in a mesmerizing expression I couldn’t look away from.