Rusk University: All Lined Up Part 31

I swallow and turn to face him, but I think I might have pushed him a little beyond his control. He's kneeling in front of me, and his eyes are fixed on the bare skin of my waist and the strapless blue bra I've worn for the occasion.

He removes my flip-flops and tosses them over his shoulder before running hands up the backs of my calves.

I lean back, bracing my hands on the bed, and he follows me forward, placing a hot kiss just above the b.u.t.ton on my skirt. My arms shake, and now I'm the one being teased.

"You know," he says, his voice raspy and deep. "I was actually hungry."

"You can go start dinner if you want. I'll wait here." I reach back and unhook my bra, tossing it over his shoulder like he did my shoes.

He growls low in his throat, standing to lean over me until I lay all the way back. "You're playing with fire, Daredevil."

I hook my fingers around his belt buckle and use it to pull him closer.

"Is that why it's so hot in here?"

I drag my nails lightly down his abdomen until I can slip them just beneath the band of his jeans.

He swallows and closes his eyes, and I can see his arms shaking on either side of my head.

"Still hungry?" I ask.

"Yes."

He crushes his lips to mine, and then his body follows, pressing down into mine.

His kisses are so hard and fast and desperate that I'm breathing heavy just trying to keep up. I slip my hands up the back of his s.h.i.+rt, digging my fingers into his lower back in the way I know drives him crazy. When I can't keep up with the punis.h.i.+ng pace, he leaves my mouth to drop kisses down my neck and chest. I've got his s.h.i.+rt pulled all the way up to his shoulders when he sucks the tip of my breast into his mouth, and I buck beneath him.

He uses his teeth just enough that I break out in goose b.u.mps, and I swear if I could tear his s.h.i.+rt off him I would.

"Off," I beg, tugging on it, but he ignores me in favor of switching to my other breast.

I let go of his s.h.i.+rt to grip his hair, and I'm gulping in air as fast as I can.

He flicks me with his tongue, and I cry out. Desperate, I reach for his s.h.i.+rt again and say, "Please."

He lifts up, sliding back until he's kneeling in front of me again.

"It's my turn to tease, love."

And tease he does, the heat of his breath chasing over the sensitive skin of my thighs as he reaches beneath my skirt to tug at the blue panties that soon join their counterpart in being tossed across the room.

In the half a year that we've been dating, we've taken our time learning each other's bodies, building up to this night, and when his tongue touches my center, I moan, gripping the comforter and undoing the pristine way he made his bed.

He's so good at this-dipping and swirling and flicking his tongue in all the right places. His stubble brushes my sensitive skin, and my hips buck up toward him. He alternates among breathing and kissing and sucking, and brings me close to the edge in record time.

Then he pulls back, dragging his lips down my thigh.

I groan in disappointment, and he laughs darkly.

"See? It's not nice to tease."

He pulls my skirt down over my hips, leaving me naked and him fully clothed.

"You're cruel," I whisper.

He leans down, planting a soft kiss on my lips, and says, "No, I just love you."

"And I'd love it if I weren't the only naked one here."

He hums against my lips and then murmurs, "Soon."

I groan and then try to bargain. "The s.h.i.+rt, at least. Please?"

He knows how much I like his upper body. It really is cruel and unusual punishment to keep it from me.

He relents, slipping it up and over his head, and then tossing it to join my clothes on the floor.

His lips return to my neck to tease me some more, but when I get to slide my hands over his skin, I don't mind.

He might think he's in charge just because he's on top, but I know enough about him to give a little torture back. I run my fingers softly down his side, and his mouth on my collarbone presses harder. I lean my head up, placing a kiss on his shoulder before dragging my teeth over the same spot. His breath catches, and I use his hesitation to wrap my legs around him and pull until our hips are crushed together.

I roll my hips up into his and sigh. I love everything we do together, but there's an ache between my legs that's beyond need.

"Dallas," he warns.

I do it again, moaning this time because I know he doesn't like me silent.

"d.a.m.n it."

"Carson, please."

I'm not even really teasing him with my breathy plea. I can feel him against me, and I am wound so tightly that I can barely think straight. I keep pus.h.i.+ng up into him, wanting to be closer, but taking whatever friction I can get.

I don't even realize that my nails are digging into his shoulders, until Carson pulls my hands away, pinning my wrists above my head.

"You don't play fair," he growls.

I drag my heavy lids up and meet his electric gaze. "I'm not playing anymore. I just need you."

His mouth slams down on mine again, and I do my best to fight his hold as he kisses me. When I can't get my hands free, I settle for pulling him as close as I can with my legs, arching my body up into his.

When my bare chest brushes his, the tight buds of my nipples dragging over his bare skin, he shudders and pulls away, releasing my hands and unwinding my legs from his waist.

Apparently done teasing, he undoes his belt with quick hands and pushes off his remaining clothes until he matches me. He pauses to grab protection from his bedside table, and then he's back with me, his face hovering over mine, and his body still not close enough.

"You're sure?" he asks.

I pause from drinking him in to look up into his eyes, and I know positively that I love him.

"Now that you mention it, I'm a little hungry. Maybe we should break for dinner."

He kisses me again and lowers his body to cover my own.

"No more jokes for you," he says.

I don't even have a reply, too caught up in the feeling of having absolutely nothing between us. He's like silk and steel against me, and the tip of him brushes the bundle of nerves at my center, tearing another moan from me. I close my eyes, and I want him so badly that I feel weak with it.

Another thrust, the length of him sliding through my folds driving me absolutely mad. He sinks inside me, and even though it's not my first time, it feels like it is. Because this . . . this is in a whole other world from every other physical experience I've ever had.

It burns just a little as he stretches me, but that all disappears behind the myriad of other sensations. A small part of me didn't believe that things could get better than they already were between us, but I was so very wrong. I can feel him everywhere, and each slow drag of his body against mine has me gasping.

I love you.

I think it over and over again as our bodies come together. He thrusts a little harder, bringing him as deep as he can go. One hand curls possessively around my breast as he grinds down into me. Fire is burning up my spine, and when he plucks at my nipple, I nearly scream.

As usual, I have no filter, so when he moves harder, faster, I cry out, "Oh, yes, that. Like that."

His lips take mine in a hungry kiss, and he gives me what I want, his muscled body colliding deliciously with mine.

G.o.d, I love you, I think again.

Or maybe I say it out loud, because his lips brush over mine, and he replies, "I love you, too."

And out of all the plans I've made for my life, falling in love was the one thing I didn't envision, the only thing you can't really plan for.

I don't know what's next, not for me or him.

All I know is that Carson McClain came into my life and disrupted absolutely everything, but I wouldn't have it any other way.

Acknowledgments.

O h my. Where to begin? There are so many people to thank for this book. I have to mention my dad again. Everything I know about football came from you. And just about everything in this book that I didn't know about football came from you, too. And Mom, you're my anchor. I don't know what I would do without you. Amy and Jenn, thanks for for also being coach's daughters, and providing me with insight beyond my own into that life. Amy, thank you for reading this in its early days and loving it so much. You kept me going.

Kendall Foote, the one and only KDI. Thank you for letting me pick your brain about college sports. Your insight was absolutely invaluable. I adore you. Lindsay, thanks for being my first reader, as always. It never fails . . . I give you my terrible first drafts, and you actually read them and stay my friend. It's kind of miraculous. Patrick and Sh.e.l.ly, thank you for all that you do that allows me to focus and write. And Sh.e.l.ly and Bethany, thanks for helping me brainstorm cover ideas and look at cover models. It was a real hards.h.i.+p, I know.

And thank you to my amazing editor, Amanda. This book almost certainly would not exist without you. Not only because of the way you helped shape the story and characters, but because this was a story you wanted and were drawn to from the moment I mentioned it in pa.s.sing at BEA. Suzie, Kathleen, Pouya, Joanna, Danielle, and all the other New Leaf lovelies- thank you for being my champions and for working so incredibly hard. You're the best! Jessie, Kelly, and Molly-thank you for being so excited about this series. You've all done so much planning and brainstorming and work, I owe so much to you. And thank you to the rest of the Harper team that pieced this book together-from copyedits to cover to awesome behind-the-scenes trailer-you're all incredible.

And to my super awesome fans and the beautiful and brilliant book bloggers who make this all possible-you have all of my thanks! I am constantly amazed at your support. Shout-out to a few of the awesome people I've met in the last year: Alana Lee Rock, you're a super fan and I will always have to say your full name. Elbie, an awkward dragon brought us together, but I think you're all-around awesome. (Can't wait to meet you at RT!) Judy and Jordan from Vegas and Richmond, you are amazing. It was great to see you again. Ursula from Miami, not only do you share a name with my favorite Disney villain, you've also got some pretty cool tats. I'm so excited to see where this new series will lead, and I know I'll continue to meet and get to know some awesome fans! Thank you!

Behind the Book.

I grew up in a small Texas town as a coach's daughter. It's hard to put into words the role that football and sports played in my childhood. All I can say is that my memories of Friday nights are more vivid than anything else. When I think about my childhood, I remember the smell of the field, the bright lights, the concession stands, and the plague of crickets. Football wasn't just a sport . . . it was a social setting, a way of life. I remember tumbling down the bleachers when I was little and hanging out beneath them when I got old enough to run around on my own. I remember being devastated when I didn't snag one of the plastic footb.a.l.l.s that the cheerleaders threw. I remember the tailgate parties, the away games, and the way a win or a loss could uplift or tear down an entire town.

Then, as I got older, I remember when football became more connected to boys. In middle school, going to the game was about as close as you could get to a "date." I also distinctly remember my first middle school dance and how, out of nowhere, older boys I'd never met were asking me to dance. It didn't take long to figure out they were sucking up to the coach's daughter. On the flip side, the boys my age were still petrified of my father. Then there was the time my dad made a rule in practice that my current boyfriend had to do push-ups every time the whistle blew (thanks, Dad).

Texas football is a unique world in and of itself, but being the coach's daughter became part of who I was, as inseparable from my ident.i.ty as my freckled skin and super loud voice. Sometimes I loved football and a lot of times I hated it, but it's the only childhood I know. So when I tell stories (as I so often do), an inordinate number of them are about my life growing up in Texas. It was one such story that led to the creation of this book. At a conference in New York, I was chatting with my editor, agent, and a few other authors and bloggers, and we got to talking about how Texas in many ways feels like a foreign country. There are things that are completely normal in Texas that the rest of the world finds absolutely bizarre. This particular story was about Texas homecoming mums, the ma.s.sive fake flower and ribbon monstrosities that are a rite of pa.s.sage for any Texas girl. If you don't know what they are, google them. It will baffle you. It wasn't until a few months later that my editor brought up the idea of writing a series about the Texas football life that I knew so well.

I told her, absolutely! I can definitely do that. After all, who better to write a story about a coach's daughter than someone who'd lived it? Never could I have antic.i.p.ated how simultaneously difficult and easy this book would be to write. It was easy because as they say, you should write what you know. But writing what I knew also required me to delve back into those years as the coach's daughter, which don't feel like that long ago. The relations.h.i.+p between Dallas and her dad is scarily similar to the one I had with my own father. We're both insanely stubborn and too much alike, and when I decided I wanted to do theater, it caused a rift in our relations.h.i.+p that exploded into arguments at every turn. Unlike Dallas, I did manage to cut myself off from football as soon as I graduated high school. And as soon as I could, I left Texas for the Northeast, desperate to get away from that small-town Texas life that had driven me crazy even as it shaped me into the person I am.

Writing those scenes with Dallas and the coach required me to take a long, honest look at my past. All the while, my dad was graciously answering questions about different positions and types of defense and offense and practice drills. I think we talked more about football within a few weeks than we talked about it the entire rest of my life combined. In fact, it was the most we'd talked about anything period in a long time. Writing Dallas's story was a bit like a do-over for me. Whereas I held onto my bitterness and resentment for many years, I got to free Dallas of it. And in doing so I freed myself, too. This book taught me to love Texas again in a way that I'd forgotten, and it helped me understand a father that I spent too long pus.h.i.+ng away.

So, this is my tribute to Texas and to coaches' daughters and to the coaches themselves. It wasn't the simplest life, but I also wouldn't trade it for anything.

Teaser.

Cora Carmack and Rusk University return with . . .

ALL BROKE DOWN.

Dylan fights for lost causes. Probably because she used to be one.

Environmental issues, civil rights, corrupt corporations and politicians-you name it, she's probably been involved in a protest. When her latest cause lands her in jail overnight, she meets Silas Moore. He's in for a different kind of fighting. And though he's arrogant and infuriating, she can't help being fascinated with him. Yet another lost cause.

Football and trouble are the only things that have ever come naturally to Silas. And it's trouble that lands him in a cell next to do-gooder Dylan. He's met girls like her before-fixers, he calls them, desperate to heal the damage and make him into their ideal boyfriend. But he doesn't think he's broken, and he definitely doesn't need a girlfriend trying to change him. Until, that is, his anger issues and rash decisions threaten the only thing he really cares about: his spot on the Rusk University football team. Dylan might just be the perfect girl to help.

Because Silas Moore needs some fixing after all.

Coming Fall 2014.

About the Author.

CORA CARMACK is a twentysomething New York Times bestselling author who likes to write about twentysomething characters. Raised in a small Texas town, she now lives in New York City and spends her time writing, traveling, and marathoning various TV shows on Netfix. She lives by one rule: embrace whatever the world throws at you and run with it (just not with scissors).

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Praise for All Lined Up.

"Cora's best book yet!"

-Jennifer L. Armentrout,.

#1 New York Times bestselling author.

"Football and falling in love are two of the greatest things ever. It would take Cora Carmack to make them even better. . . . All Lined Up is a touchdown!"

-Jay Crownover, New York Times.