Next Man Up (Making the Score #2) - Tawdra Kandle Page 0,86

a man.”

“You are so a man. You are more man than anyone I’ve ever known, Eli. Violence and fighting and defending me—that doesn’t make you a man. The way you hold me. The way you comfort me. The way you stand up for me, no matter what—that’s what makes you my man.” She held my chin between her finger and thumb. “Don’t you ever think anything less, Eli. You are everything I ever wanted. You’re everything I’ll ever need.”

I stared down into her huge blue eyes, filled with confusion and fear and need, and without stopping to think or consider, I lowered my mouth to hers, kissing her with lingering fury and possessiveness, the need to brand her as mine drumming through my veins.

“Yes,” she murmured against me. “Now, Eli. Take me now, and let me show you how much of a man you are, in the only ways that matter. Make me yours.”

I rolled to the side so that she was under me, my hand groping for her breast, my lips relentless against her.

“Mine.” I replaced my hand with my mouth, seeking and ravishing, leaving pleasure in its wake.

“Mine.” My hand slid down between her legs, rubbing roughly against her clit and then sliding two fingers into her, pumping until she was gasping my name and begging me to let her come.

“Mine.” I brought her to the edge of reason and plunged with her over that sheer drop, kissing her again and taking every cry, every sigh and every breath as my plunder.

And while my blood still thundered within me, while need and desire thrummed through my body, Zelda cupped my face and pressed the tenderest kiss to my lips.

“Yours.”

Chapter Twelve

Zelda

“Hey, Zelda, pass me another beer, please.”

“Hmmmm?” Hearing my name, I glanced over at Gia, who was looking at me expectantly. “I’m sorry, did you say something?”

“Yes.” Gia wore an expression of exaggerated patience. “I asked you to give me another beer. Are you okay? You’re kind of zoning over there.”

“Yeah, fine.” I bent over the side of my chair and fished a bottle out of the cooler next to me. “I’m just listening to the pregame show.”

“Huh. It looks like you’re texting someone.” Gia craned her neck, trying to see my phone where it was tucked between my leg and the arm of the chair. “What’s so important that you’re ignoring us for the phone?”

“Nothing. No one. Um, school stuff. A class.” I clicked my phone back to the home screen and flipped it over so that no one could see anything. In his wheelchair across the room, I could practically feel Eli laughing at me.

Jackass.

The jerk had been texting me for the last twenty minutes, which doesn’t sound like it would be a bad thing . . . but he was texting me in glorious, sensual detail what he planned to do the next time we were alone together. The man had a gift when it came to description, and the more he texted, the warmer and more worked up I became.

My only comfort was in knowing that despite his relentless teasing, Eli was suffering as much as I was. Since everyone had come back to school in mid-August, private time for us had been hard to come by. It was now October. We were both feeling the strain.

Any other couple might be able to resort to hot and dirty sex in the backseat of a car, but that wasn’t really an option for us, considering Eli’s mobility limitations. We couldn’t creep off to a bathroom or closet or anywhere else. We’d joked about sneaking into each other’s rooms, but it was hard for Eli to come into our room unnoticed, especially because Gia tended to be a night owl who hung out in the living room. Lately, we’d been making more serious plans for me to slip down to Eli’s apartment, but we hadn’t actually done it yet.

“If we told our friends that we’re together, just think how much less complicated this would be,” Eli had pointed out as we’d sat together in the student services café one afternoon. “Then they wouldn’t care that you were staying down with me or I was sleeping in your bed.”

“I know.” I’d dropped my forehead onto my hand. “But I’m not ready yet. They would make a big fucking deal about it, and I don’t want that. I like what we have now. I know that once the world finds out, it’s going to get complicated. People will make