I nodded. “I’m sure. Coach is very strict about that stuff. I’d be benched for half the season if I got suspended for fighting.” Which was true, just not applicable to my situation. “If you get in trouble with the office, you’re benched. If your grades drop below a C average, you’re benched. I’m hoping for college scholarships on both football and grades.”
Her father nodded, seeming to be satisfied. “I will allow you one chance with my daughter. If she’s late, once, if she fails to check in at the predetermined time, or if she is not where she says she is, then it is over. Do you understand me, Mr. Dorsey?”
I nodded, tamping down the triumphant feeling. “Yes, sir. I do.”
He hesitated, then shook my hand again. “What position do you play on the football team?”
“Wide receiver,” I said. “I currently hold the district record for most receptions in a single game, as well as the most receiving yards in a season.”
He seemed suitably impressed. Glad to know those records were good for something at least.
“What is Becca’s curfew?” I asked.
“Ten—” Mrs. de Rosa interrupted him with a single word, and he suppressed a sigh of irritation. “Fine, eleven on the weekdays. Midnight on the weekends. But if her grades slip—”
“They won’t, Father, I promise.” Becca bounced slightly on her toes, happiness bubbling over but still contained. “Can we go back out, then?”
“Where?”
“Out for a drive, maybe stop and get some milkshakes,” I suggested.
“Do you have any points on your record?” he demanded.
I shook my head. “No, sir. No points, no accidents. I own my truck, actually.” I wasn’t sure why that was relevant, but I wanted to impress him. Stupid, maybe, but if I couldn’t get my own father’s approval, I sure as hell would try to get everyone else’s.
He nodded, then waved a hand in dismissal. “Fine. Go. It’s 9 p.m. now, so you have two hours.”
I took Becca’s hand, and we walked as calmly to my truck as we could. I backed out carefully, feeling Mr. de Rosa’s scrutiny. It wasn’t until we were back out on the main road that Becca cut loose with an excited squeal that startled me into laughter.
She unbuckled and slid across the bench to press up next to me, clinging to my arm and burying her face into my shoulder as she laughed excitedly. “How did you do that?” she asked, her eyes bright and happier than I’d ever seen them.
I shrugged. “I don’t know. I didn’t think it’d work, but I figured it was worth a shot to try and face him directly. Most men respect directness.”
She kissed my jaw, and I was finding it hard to focus on the road. Then she kissed my cheek and over, closer to the corner of my lips, and I had to grip the steering wheel and pretend I wasn’t suddenly aflame. She didn’t stop, though. She kissed my chin, the line of my jaw once again, my neck. Holy hell. My heart was pounding out of my chest, and I hoped to god she wouldn’t look down and see how affected I was by her lips against my skin.
Eventually, I had to pull away from her. “Beck, I can’t drive when you do that.”
“Then pull over and kiss me.”
God, that certainly didn’t help my condition. I had no choice but to obey. I found an empty parking lot, a park deep in a neighborhood. Swings sat still in the darkness, bathed in the faint yellow-white glow of a single streetlight. A merry-go-round, rusted and tilted to one side, a play structure casting long shadows, a chain link fence, and a distant baseball diamond and soccer field.
I barely had the truck in park when she unbuckled my seatbelt and pulled me into a hot, wet kiss. I wrapped my arms around her, pulled her closer, felt my heart ratchet into a frantic patter at the wondrous crush of her br**sts against my chest, her knee sliding between my thighs as she lifted up to deepen the kiss. I felt my breathing catch as her fingers curled behind my head, caressing the hairline on the back of my neck, holding me close, as if I’d try to pull away.
I rested my hands on her hips and couldn’t believe she’d let me touch her like this. Yet she wiggled her hips as if begging for more, so I risked taking more liberties, and slid my hands around to cup her ass. Oh, god, surely she could feel how crazy that made me. I didn’t know where this was going, but I liked it. It also scared me, because I felt consumed by her, taken over by the need for her. Hormones raged, but it wasn’t just hormones. Intellectually, I knew what came next, but I refused to think about that directly. I just knew I couldn’t stop kissing her, couldn’t stop touching her.
And then her fingers drifted up under the hem of my shirt and touched my bare stomach. Lord. Oh, god. I let my hand slide up her back and touched bare skin at the small of her spine. So soft, so warm. I caressed up farther, to her bra strap, each shoulder, stealing touches.
She was giving them to me, though, right? So they weren’t stolen.
My shirt was up around my diaphragm and her hands were splayed on my chest as she sat on my knees, her back to the windshield. Slowly, so slowly, I lifted her shirt up a bit, revealing more of her dark skin. She traced my chest, the lines of my abs, watching my eyes and staring at my body. The look in her eyes matched what I felt in myself.
Then a hint of pink peeked out from the bottom edge of her shirt and my breath was stopped in my lungs, but she didn’t halt my hands as they kept lifting her shirt. Skin, a glorious expanse of breast barely contained in a pink bra. Oh, shit. I was so hard I could explode with a thought. I needed to adjust myself, but didn’t dare. Her eyes were on me, full of daring, fear, nerves.
“God…damn Becca.” I could barely get the words out. “You are…so hot. So sexy.”
“So are you.” She brushed a thumb over my lips, eyes on mine from inches away.
I pressed my palms flat against her ribs, just beneath her bra. It was a question, a silent request. She released a pent-up breath and then nodded, a pair of frightened, excited jerks of her chin. I slid my hands up, cupped the weight of her br**sts, pink cotton soft against my palms, and then I felt the hardened bumps at the center of the bra fabric against the heel of my hands and I knew what those were, and I was amazed that this was happening, that she was letting me do this.
Oh, god. Oh, shit. So perfect. Up, up, and up my hands slid to the slope of her br**sts, skin on skin now, and I couldn’t breathe, but I didn’t need to because she was kissing me and giving me her own breath, exploring my chest and my sides and down to the waist of my jeans.