“Tell me you love me,” I say as I push inside Nadine. “Tell me, River.”
“I love you,” she whispers, lids heavy, fingers in my hair.
I roll my hips, hitting the spot that makes her whimper. “Again.”
“I love you, Camden.”
I reward her with a kiss and another stroke, filling her to the hilt. With her right leg up and wrapped around my elbow, she’s wide open and mewling with every slow thrust. I make sure she can feel every single inch.
“Yes, I love you,” she moans. “I love you. I love you.”
I like hearing it because of my ego, but more than that, I needto be reminded that she chose me. Despite my past and my reputation, she is here with me. She lovesme.
“God, yes, there.There, Camden, please.”
I don’t stop, merely watch as ecstasy passes over Nadine’s face, her eyes closed, forehead wrinkled like she’s in pain, when I know it’s the purest kind of pleasure. The same that I’m struggling desperately to hold on to, but it’s too difficult. When she writhes like that, soft sighs escaping the back of her throat, I am completely unable to hold off the impending orgasm.
We both reach the peak together, my panting breaths against her throat, her fingers fisted in my hair, and when we both finally return into our bodies, I lean over to see her eyelids flutter open, a sluggish curl to her lips.
“I think I saw it. What the future looks like,” she murmurs, and I carefully pull out of her so I can lie by her side, though I cup my hand over the soft flesh between her legs, gently pushing the warm trickle of my come back into her.
She doesn’t mind. I’ve done it so often that she spreads her legs a few inches, providing me with more room. For as much as she teases me about it, I think she likes it. Likes that I want tobreedher. Put a baby in her.
It’s going to happen after all.
“What does our future look like?”
She smiles up at me. “Beautiful.”
CHAPTER 35
NADINE
I’m sweating.My custom Founders jacket is long gone, leaving me in only a tank top and jeans. The curls I put in my hair are forgotten about since I pulled most of it up into a quick knot on the top of my head, trying to keep cool. But none of it’s worked.
My nerves have not let me sit down once since the teams took the field, but I don’t think any of the fans here in New Orleans have either. The constant roar of the crowd has become background noise, and I grew accustomed to the tumbling avalanche in my stomach around the third down of the first quarter.
The halftime show was cool, though.
Not enough to keep me from feeling like wanting to puke, but a nice reprieve, nonetheless.
San Francisco has put in the work, and we’ve been trailing them the entire game. After a completed lateral pass from Erik to one of the receivers who was taken out at the fifty-three-yard line, I cheer at the first down, and while the refs move the chains, I glance around at the faces in our box. All of us are here: Mom, Dad, Felix, Emmaline, Benedict, and a few friends, as well asPaisley, Ava, and her family, whom Camden flew in from Iowa for this.
I shake out my hands as the Founders set up for another play. A loud chant of “De-Fense” picks up from San Francisco fans, while I can hear random shouts from Philly fans about “Shove it down their throats!” and “Punch ’em in the nuts, Ship!”
Kenyon Shipley is an outstanding and formidable offensive lineman, and since he often blocks for my brother’s rushing yards, I agree with the sentiment, screaming out, “Take them out, Shipley!”
On the jumbo screen, I watch Erik give the signal, then take two steps for a pump fake, only to streak down the field, gaining twenty yards. Another first down and that much closer to the goal.
“I’m so nervous,” Paisley signs to me, hopping up and down on her toes. She and Ava spent all day yesterday making bracelets, and every single one of us in this suite is wearing one of their woven good luck charms. Erik has one too, on his right wrist, his throwing arm.
“They’re in shotgun,” Benedict says from behind me. “They’re going for a pass.” He makes his way down to my side. My youngest brother and another NFL hopeful, though he unfortunately doesn’t have the height of his peers, but he works hard to make up for it with his speed as a receiver. “Look, look.” He points to the field. “Bet they’re gonna go to Long.”
“Really?”
Erik threw to Camden in the first quarter, and it was picked off. That’s what set the stage for this battle, and I worry about what’s going on in my boyfriend’s head. Hoping that he’s staying focused and in the moment and not letting anything else cloud his concentration. Including a chant of “Flounders! Flounders!” from the San Francisco fans.
“You’ve got nothing, Rivera!” someone shouts, followed up with, “You’re nothing, Long.”
