Scored(41)

“Yeah, I want to get married. Have kids. Live in a nice neighborhood like this one and have BBQs. Walk my kids to school. Fuck my hot wife every night and make dinner sometimes.”

“That’s…” I swallow, envisioning him doing all of that with me. “Certainly a plan.”

“You don’t have one?” He gazes at me skeptically.

“I have one, but I’m not ready to implement it,” I admit. “Getting burned by lying, cheating boyfriends tends to do that to a person.”

He crosses the distance between us, cupping my face in his hand. “I won’t lie or cheat on you, Paige. That’s not my style. You got me?”

“Yes, I got you.”

He kisses the tip of my nose. “You’re such a worrier. Let me help with that. Get you all nice and relaxed.”

“Like you?” I ask as he slides his hands down my neck and to my shoulders, where he promptly starts to knead them. “You really do have magic hands.”

“All for you… and the NFL.”

I giggle, then smash my lips together.

“That was a little much, even for me,” he says.

“No. It was just right.” Still laughing, I shake my head and then moan in pure pleasure as he hits a rather sore spot on my shoulder. “Shouldn’t I be doing this for you? I’m not the one who was tackled by an entire NFL team in order to get my ball.”

“You don’t have any balls.” He kisses the top of my head. “And the only one who will be tackling you is me.”

He sounds so serious that it’s hard to remember this is probably only a game to him. “That’s mighty proprietary of you.”

“If you mean I’m marking my territory, I won’t deny it.” He smiles predatorily. “In fact, I’ve been thinking of all the places I want to mark you.”

Before I can say another word, he scoops me up in his arms, in a move worthy of any historical romance I’ve ever read, and moves to his room.

“Is our sleepover starting now?”

“Yeah.” His voice is husky. “You call the shots, bright eyes. Say stop and I stop. Got it?”

“I don’t want to stop, Dallas.”

The corner of his mouth lifts. “I know.”

I want to swoon over this moment. Over how it feels to be carried so securely in his arms, how massive his body is, and how incredibly overwhelmed with desire I am.

As he jogs up the stairs, he holds me tighter against him, like he’s trying to protect me. He’s both defense and offense—something I learned when I read up on his position as tight end, I remind myself. His job has always been to protect, to make a safe path, so it would naturally spill over into his personal life. Just like with his bet to help his teammate and his need to tell me about it so I didn’t get the wrong idea.

“If you’re going to ask me about other women, I—”

“I don’t care, Dallas.”

He arches a brow.

“That much, but how fair is it of me to hold you to a chaste standard that I would be mortified and outraged if you attempted to do that to me?”

“Baby, in my head, those other guys don’t exist.”

“What a coincidence—I pretend those other guys don’t exist either.” I snort/giggle because that’s even cheesier than the line Dallas gave me earlier.

He kicks open his door. “While it doesn’t matter to you, it does to me. I haven’t had any woman, not related to me, spend the night in this house. No one has slept in that bed but me. Or ate in my kitchen. Pretended to watch football on my flat screen either.”

“That’s so swee—wait a minute.” I narrow my eyes at him. “When did you buy this house?”

His ears turn red. “Three months ago.”

“Are you saying that you haven’t had time to have anyone over to do all those things?”

“I’m saying that regardless of the time frame, you’re the only one here and for as long as you’ll have me, it will stay that way.” He tips up his chin, almost daring me to disagree with him.

To my eternal shock, I don’t want to disagree, not even when I dig deep and try to find a reason to be annoyed or turned off. It’s simply not happening with Dallas. “I’m sorry for ruining your moment.”

“That’s okay. I’d rather clear the air now than afterward.”

“I won’t regret this,” I insist, feeling brave. Silly, but completely brave for a woman like me. There are so many things that can go wrong. So many ways our relationship can end up in the public eye. So many ways I can get burned to a crisp while he doesn’t suffer at all.

Men never suffer.

Not my exes.

Certainly not my father, or even Finley or Bond’s… God, why am I thinking about this now?

“What’s wrong?” he asks, still standing at the entrance to his room and holding me like I weigh less than air.

“Aren’t I too heavy for you?”

“My pinky finger can bench more than what you weigh.”

I doubt that very much, but I’m going to go with it. “Nothing’s wrong. I get all quiet when I’m excited or nervous.”

“No, you don’t. You giggle, make cute little weird noises with your tongue, and use lots of hand gestures.”