Gabriel (BBW Shifter Secret Baby Football Romance) (Shifter Football League Book 1) Read online

  “We’re pretty much the same. Bears don’t shift into humans, though.”

  “Right, no, I didn’t think they did.” She chuckled.

  “No. Right.”

  “I think I’m here. There are cars and stuff out front along the street. The blue house?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Is there a window? Can you look outside?” She heard some shuffling.

  “It’s just trees.”

  “Oh. You must be around the back.” She walked beside the house, to the back yard, where a few couples stood talking. She looked up and saw a light on. “Do you see me?”

  A large shadow covered the window. It had to be him. She waved her arm.

  “I think so.”

  “I’m coming up.”

  She went into the house and found the stairs. People were everywhere. Dancing, standing and talking, sitting in corners making out. The music was loud and the kitchen seemed to be full of people cheering each other on to do more shots. No one noticed her come in or go up the stairs.

  “Can you open the door?” she asked quietly. She faced a hall of four doors. She thought there was a light coming from under one of them, but wasn’t sure.

  The door creaked open slightly and he blinked at her. She hung up the phone and put it in her pocket. Then she stepped into the bathroom, closed the door behind her, and drew him into a tight hug.

  He shook as he held her. They stayed in that embrace for a long time. She didn’t move away from him, didn’t try to end it, though her ribs were hurting. It was nothing if it gave him comfort right then. When he let go, he looked at her.

  “Why did you come?”

  “For you. Because I’ve been where you are and worse. I didn’t want to see you go through that.”

  She walked over to the sink and saw the razor blade sitting on the counter. It was clean. He hadn’t cut himself. She put it in the cabinet and turned back to him.

  “Can we get out of here?” she asked.

  “I don’t have a car.” He looked dazed. Maybe he was on pills more than he was drunk. His words didn’t have the drunken slur, but he looked half asleep.

  “I do,” she said. “I’ll take you home.”

  She grabbed his hand and led him from the room. He came slowly behind her, lumbering with his heavy feet. She took the stairs slower, not wanting him to fall. At the bottom of the steps, she turned to him.

  “Do you know where Ryan is?”

  He looked around the landing and shook his head.

  “Get out your phone and text him that I’m taking you home so he doesn’t worry or wait for you.”

  He took out his phone and started punching the message. He put his phone back and looked at her expectantly.

  She reached out her hand and took his again, leading him to her car. When they got in, she asked, “Can you get there from here? Or do we need the GPS?”

  He scrunched his face in thought for a moment. She took out her phone and got his address, then followed the directions.

  It took only a few minutes to get to his house. She walked him to the door.

  “Are you coming in?” he asked.

  “Depends. What are you going to do if I don’t?”

  He blinked at her and didn’t answer. She didn’t know if he didn’t know what he was going to do or didn’t want to tell her. But she felt like he shouldn’t be alone right now. Though she hardly knew him, she opened the door and went inside, looking back to him to follow her in.

  “Do you live alone?” she asked.

  He shook his head. “My roommates are probably sleeping.”

  “Then we better go to your room.”

  He led her down a hall and into a bedroom, walking in and turning on a dim lamp by the bed. She closed the door and sat down in the chair from his desk, sitting backwards so she could face him.

  “Were you going to kill yourself?” she asked. “I almost did after my dad.”

  He sat on the edge of the bed, facing her, mere feet from her. “I thought about it. It seems so much easier.”

  She didn’t miss the present tense. He still thought it was easier. “You’re right. It is. And your parents just lost a son, so it should be nothing for them to get over losing their other son. Now’s the time to do it, really, while everyone is still grieving. That way they can do it all at once.”

  He hung his head and wouldn’t look at her.

  “It only seems easy,” she said. “But do you know that people who feel suicidal almost always find that within a few months, or sometimes years, things are better. I know lots of people who wanted to kill themselves at one point and didn’t and are glad about it.”

  “I guess.”

  “It doesn’t just happen by accident, though. You have to do something about it. What about football? You love it?”

  “Completely.”

  “Then you have to get back to it. Can you still go back to training or is it too late for that?”

  “I think I can. I don’t know. Coach stopped calling a week ago. After he said it was my last chance.”

  “Okay, so let’s assume you don’t make the pro training and become a pro. Isn’t there a semi-pro league or something?”

  “Yeah. And amateurs.”

  “And playing in one of those is better than not playing at all, right?”

  He nodded slowly.

  “Good. Do you have a job, or is that your job?”

  “Football is my job.”

  “Wow.” She stopped for a moment. “That’s really cool.”

  He looked up at her with slight surprise on his face.

  “I mean it, Gabe. That’s huge. Pro ball? That’s serious. How many people would kill for that ability? And the starting quarterback? That’s awesome.”

  He shrugged.

  “You have so much to live for. Your parents need you. The team needs you. Do you have a girlfriend or anything?”

  He shook his head.

  “Okay, well, someone out there wants to be. And whoever she is, she needs you, too. You have your whole life ahead of you. You’re, what, twenty-eight?”

  “Twenty-six.”

  “You’re so young. Think about all you could do. Play football for a few years, then find some awesome career being a coach or teaching gym class or something. Who knows. What would you do when you can’t play ball anymore?”

  “I don’t know. I hope I’d be a dad by then and have a family. I should be able to play for at least ten years. Maybe more. Coaching could be fun. I don’t really know.”

  “So, a wife, kids, coaching. That sounds like a pretty sweet life. I’m sure by that point, you’d be so famous, you’d get to do guest appearances and stuff, too.”

  “Yeah.”

  “The thing is. You won’t get any of it.”

  He pulled his eyebrows together and looked at her.

  “If you give up now, or if you kill yourself, you won’t get any of it. It’s not easy. You have to do the work.”

  “I know.”

  “Are you ready to?”

  He covered his eyes with his hand. “It’s just so hard. Most days, I think, I’m going to get up and go for a run, or go to training, then I get out of bed and the pain just hits me and I can’t…”

  His voice faded as he started to cry again. She moved to sit beside him, putting her arm around him.

  “Gabe, you lost your brother and that’s going to hurt for a long time. It’s never going to stop hurting, but you’ll get used to the pain. It’ll become more manageable. Trust me. It’s not going to be easy, but few things in life are. Is it easy to become a pro football player?”

  He shook his head.

  “But you did it. You did a really hard thing and you’re good at it. This is just another really hard thing. You can be good at it, too. But you didn’t wake up one day and become a pro player. How long did it take you?”

  “Years,” he whispered.

  “Years. And you had to practice and train to get there. You didn’t just wal
k in one day and decide to be a pro player and do it. You had to decide to do it. You had to learn the game, you had to practice and train and get better. But you got there. This is just like that. You’re going to have to decide to go on. Then, you have to learn how and practice every day to get good at it. Just like football. The more you do it, the better you get. If you give up now, then you might as well end your life because you’re just as dead as your brother. I’m sure he’s looking down on you right now. Do you think he’d be happy about what you’re doing with your life?”

  “He’d be pissed.”

  “Is anyone happy with your life at the moment?”

  “No,” he said. “Especially not me.”

  “So, what’s your decision?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Are you going to keep living your life in a way that makes everyone unhappy, or are you going to decide to make a change? To learn how to go on?”

  He sat for a long time, thinking. “Where do I even start?”

  “Start right now. What can you do right now to make things better?”

  He lifted his head to meet her gaze. He looked for a long time into her eyes, then he leaned toward her, slipping a hand to the back of her neck. She leaned toward him, like she was drawn to him. She closed her eyes and felt his lips touch hers.

  He moved his mouth against hers, parting her lips and slipping his tongue gently between them. She pressed herself closer toward him, letting her hand move to the back of his head. He turned his body more to face her, his kiss becoming more fervent with every second.

  He paused for a second, pressing his forehead against hers. “This is making my life better.”

  She smiled and pressed her lips to his again.

  Chapter 4

  Their kissing became deeper, more passionate. At this rate, she thought, they’d never be able to stop kissing. The way he moved his mouth against hers, tugging on her lip and teasing her. He was driving her mad.

  He wrapped her legs around his waist and stood, her weight nothing for him and his thick muscles. He was like a bear in a lot of ways. Huge arms and legs, wide chest. He was like a rock of hard muscle. She wondered if everything about him was so big.

  He threw her onto the bed and jumped onto of her, making a sound like a growl. It rumbled through her, setting all the little hairs across her body standing on end. She was hot and she wanted him. She reached to his waist and pulled his shirt over his head.

  His chest had a lot of hair. She twisted some of it around her fingers and pulled. He moaned in her ear and reached up under her shirt. He pinched her nipples and rang his fingers along her breasts.

  She wiggled out of her shirt, then her pants. She was just in her panties, but he still had his pants on. That wouldn’t do. She tugged at his belt until she got it loose and pushed down his pants.

  She reached under his boxers, but he wasn’t hard like she expected. He looked down and sighed.

  “I’m sorry. I drank too much.”

  “It’s okay,” she said, getting to her knees. “I can fix it.”

  She pushed him down on the bed and took off his boxers. She kneeled in front of him and took his cock into her mouth. For several minutes, she worked on him, sucking and pulling, squeezing his base and balls as he moaned in pleasure.

  Eventually he got hard. Though he reached down to touch her, to press his finger between her lips, she didn’t want to take the chance of waiting and have him lose it. She climbed on top of him and held him in position.

  She slid down slowly, feeling every inch of him as he entered her. Tingles ran through her and she shuddered in delight. She sat there for a second, feeling his fullness inside her.

  He couldn’t take the waiting. He grabbed her hips and moved under her, pressing into her and pulling out in a steady, slow rhythm.

  “You feel so good inside me,” she said.

  He answered with a moan and thrust deep into her. He growled and pushed up from the bed suddenly, sending her onto her back. He was on top of her now, and used his position and all his weight to pound into her faster and harder.

  She cried out with the pleasure of it. “Yes, faster.”

  She didn’t know if there was a faster, but he found it somehow. He was slamming into her so hard that their bodies made loud slapping sounds. Her clit rubbed against him, forcing the pressure in her to build.

  She felt it grow and said, “I’m coming,” just as the pressure exploded and she broke into orgasm.

  He slowed a bit, but didn’t stop. “I want to see you do that again.”

  She smiled up at him, panting. “That was so intense, I don’t know if I can.”

  “Let’s find out.”

  He kept his pace slow and steady, moving his hips in circles so that it rubbed against her clit and the head of his dick hit every part of her insides. After she recovered, she was still so wet and he still felt so good, that the feeling started to return almost as soon as he picked up the pace.

  She sat up, forcing him to sit up, too. She wrapped her legs around him, so that she could rock back and forth, keeping him deep inside her the whole time. From this position, he could easily reach her ass. He wet his pinky and slipped it inside her.

  She’d never had anyone do that before and the sudden sensation, mixed with the intense joy of it, sent prickles across her spine. She moaned loudly and as she was about to come, he said, “I’m coming.”

  She pressed herself hard against him so that she finished a second time just as he did. He wrapped this thick arms around her and squeezed her tight.

  She climbed off him after a few minutes and started looking for her clothes.

  “What are you doing?” he asked, lying back on the bed, panting and glistening.

  “I have to go.”

  “No, really? Please stay.” He lifted up on one elbow to watch her. “I don’t want to be alone tonight. Not after everything that happened earlier.”

  She dropped her jeans, but put her panties on. “Okay.”

  She curled up beside him in bed and fell asleep with his hot body wrapped hers like a protective cocoon.

  In the morning, Carolyn woke first. She managed to slip out from under his arm without waking him and got dressed. She had to get back to her dorm. She had class. And besides that, as great as Gabe seemed to be, she had to focus on school. And she had enough going on with Sam and his crap, too. She didn’t want to bring someone else into the mess of her life. Especially not when he was in such a horrible place himself. She was happy to talk with him, to help him out, even sleep with him now and then, but there could be no relationship. And he needed to focus on football anyway.

  Before she left the room, she dug around and found a scrap of paper in his trashcan. On it, she wrote, “Stay strong. Call if you need me. Remember, if you don’t start living, you’re just as dead as your brother. Don’t miss out on your life. Go play.”