Stone Creek by Davis, Lainey (reading diary .TXT) 📕

twice a week to trade notes, working at strange hours to accommodate his hectic schedule. Tonight, he asked me to come over to his place again to study since it's quiet there.

I arrive in the now-familiar apartment and settle in to the table. Talon surprises me by adding guacamole to the nachos, grinning as he slides the plate over to me. I clap my hands and say, "You remembered my weakness!" I immediately dive in, scooping a huge mouthful.

He forces his hand in to scoop a chip and says, "Pretty hard to forget after what I saw you do to the guac when we studied at Patron." We wrap up our work pretty quickly, working cheerfully together, teasing each other in a way that feels warm and comfortable. When we reach a stopping point I sit back in my chair and sigh. Talon puts a hand on my shoulder and asks, "Do you have to take off or do you want to watch TV or something?"

"I can stay a bit," I say, smiling. "What do you do with your other friends when you hang out?" Since he dialed back the sexual tension, things have been friendly and fun between us.

Talon thinks for a minute and says, "Watch football commentary and talk about football." We both laugh at this, but I grab the remote from him and flick over to ESPN. We settle in to the couch, animatedly arguing with each other and the announcer as they discuss playoff scenarios.

The show cuts to commercial and Talon puts the TV on mute. He tugs on one of my braids and says, "I thought you hated talking about football."

This makes me think for a minute, but I decide to just go with my gut and say, "I like talking with you about football. I still feel really resentful about the way the sport consumed my dad."

Talon drops my hair but keeps his arm on my shoulder. I feel the heat from his strong hand and lean my head to the side against his hand. His voice is almost a whisper as he says, "Football is life for me, too." I look into his blue eyes and see that they've gone dark with intensity. He opens up to me about the pressure he feels to overcome his injury and confesses that he's working harder on school this semester because he doesn't even know if the NFL is an option for him anymore.

His ice blue eyes pierce my heart as he says, "Football is all I've ever known, Serena. It's all I ever saw myself doing."

Not sure what to say to him, I rub his arm. I slide across the couch and draw him into my arms, hugging him close. I run my fingers through his hair and remind him 12/13 NFL quarterbacks have come back from ACL tears. "The stats are with you, Talon," I say. "Just read your own excellent research notes."

I feel him nod against my chest, and I keep my arms around him. A few minutes later, he turns the sound back on the TV, snuggles me tight against his chest, and leans back on the couch. I wake up what must be hours later, my limbs gone numb, entwined in Talon's arms.

I struggle a bit to sit up and my heart swells looking at Talon's sleeping face. His jaw is relaxed, a rasp of stubble growing in along the strong lines of his face. His curls drape across his forehead. Sensing my movement, he wakes up and rubs his eyes for a minute. "What time is it?" he asks.

I squint to see the clock on the TV and tell him, "4am. Shit. I have to go."

Talon shakes his head. "You're not walking home at 4am. Just stay with me." He groans and sits up, taking my hand and beginning to walk down the hall. "I'll be a perfect gentleman, I swear."

I bite my lower lip, certain I'll never be able to fall asleep once I'm lying in Talon's bed with him in it beside me, but my body is heavy with sleepiness and I follow him down the hall. He tosses me a pair of mesh shorts and climbs into bed, turning off the light. "I won't look," he says, lying on his stomach facing the wall.

I giggle, but slide out of my jeans, pull my bra off without taking off my shirt, and tug on the huge shorts. I climb into Talon's bed, thinking I'll just sort of teeter on the edge, but he rolls toward me and pulls me in. I feel his chin on my shoulder, the firm strength of his long body pressed against the entire length of mine. In a few minutes, his breathing slows and I know he's fallen asleep.

My body burns with desire for him. I feel moist heat seeping from my core and it's all I can do not to rock my hips against his groin, adjust his hand on my waist so that it instead cups the eager weight of my breasts. I think about his face when he was opening up about his fears for his future and I know that I am hopelessly in love with Talon Kelly, and there's not a thing I can do about it. Eventually I drift off into the gray light of dawn.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

 

An alarm jolts me awake and I forget where I am. I try to sit up and feel the solid bar of Talon's arm clamping me in place. It's really real, I think. I just spent the night with Talon. It feels so intimate to wake up beside him, to have watched him sleep. I hear him grumble and his long arm reaches past me to slap the snooze bar on his alarm.

The beeping stops and my heart begins to slow. I'm so exhausted I start drifting off again. The