Homerun Proposal (Orleans University, #1)

by Maren Moore

I want him to need me just as badly as I need him.

My eyes flick to the door and back to Lane. He smirks, his eyebrow arching as he seemingly reads my thoughts. “Worried someone will see me eating your pretty pussy, Hal?” Oh god. Oh GOD. JESUS CHRIST. Swallowing, I nod, my nose crinkling. “A little?” “Don’t worry. I would never let anyone see what’s mine.” Mine? The way he says it and the way that he stares up at me with hunger, with two deep emerald pits of lust, I almost believe that I could be his.

You’ve never been to heaven until you’ve heard Lane Collins praising you as a good girl, and I will take no opinions on this.

Lane: Sleep in my bed until I get back. Hallie. What? No, I can’t do that. Lane: Hallie Girl, sleep in my bed. I wanna think about you in my bed while I’m gone. I want my sheets to smell

God, this man is turning me into a sexual fiend. A sexually driven creature that I hardly even recognize but am very much into. All I do is think about sex lately. Well, sex and the unexplained mysteries of the world, but still. Sex with Lane.

It’s absolutely what I want. There’s nothing I want more than to see Lane Collins’s face the moment he comes.

Who knew that could be so hot? Who knew that Lane Collins could be even more attractive with a look of euphoria on his face?

Thank you. For giving me that first, Hallie.” “Mhmm,” I hum sleepily. “You can have all of my firsts.” I’m half-asleep as I whisper the words, and the last thing I remember before my eyes shut is the look in Lane’s eyes. It feels like… adoration.

The last thing I remember before drifting off is how easily it feels to be with Hallie. How quickly I’m becoming addicted to her scent, her touch. To the feel of her in my arms. And how even though I know it’ll end badly, I can’t seem to stop myself.

for the first time in my life, I want to take her hand. I want to take her hand and hold it and tell the entire world she’s mine.

He’s looking at me as if I’m precious to him, and his hands sliding along my jaw to cradle it makes my knees feel weak, no longer able to hold my weight up. He leans forward and kisses the corner of my lip, then my cheeks where a raindrop is slowly falling, then the other corner, the tip of my nose, along my jaw. There’s something so… sweet and intimate about it that it makes my chest ache. It makes me feel things that I shouldn’t.

“You are perfect, Hallie Jo Edwards. Don’t ever let anyone tell you anything different.”

I am, without a doubt, sure that I want Lane. Not just because I’m tired of being the awkward, inexperienced girl I’ve been all of my life but because I want him.

“You’re perfect, Hallie.” The way he says it, I feel perfect. At least for him.

He lifts his finger and drags it over the edge of the lace. “As much as I do, I want to get this off of you so bad I can’t fucking breathe.” “You make me feel like I can’t breathe too. I feel like the only thing I want to do is inhale every part of you.”

“Maybe I don’t want to be good anymore. Maybe what I want is to not be held like porcelain. Maybe I want to be dirtied up. Maybe I want you to give it all to me.”

“You’re so fucking pretty.” He stands in front of me, bending down to cup my face, bringing his lips to mine. I expected this kiss to be as frantic as he makes me feel, but it’s soft, gentle, and I sigh against his lips. “So pretty that it makes it hard to think straight, Hallie Girl. Everything about you makes it hard to think of anything other than you.”

I had no idea that being intimate with another person could feel this way. Who knew that this could feel so good? I’m like an addict, desperate for the next shot of Lane Collins directly into my veins.

She’s wearing a similar costume, but it’s iridescent purple, and when I glance over at Reese, his jaw is actually on the floor. I worry he might not actually recover. These two are going to be the death of both of us, it looks like. “Viv, my god, woman. If you didn’t already own my heart and soul, I’d rip it out and hand it to you. I come in peace.” He lifts his hand in the Star Trek sign, and Vivienne rolls her eyes, turning away with a hair flip.

“All of you. You’re sad as fuck. You’re so threatened by her that you have to be a bitch to make yourself feel secure. She doesn’t even know you, and you don’t know a fucking thing about her, yet you speak about her like you do. You’re pathetic, Lauren. She’s beautiful, kind, and intelligent. More than you’ll ever be in your sad existence.”

We’re in a room full of strangers, all who think they know me, all who have an opinion on my life, but the truth is they don’t know me. They have no fucking clue who I am, and the only person I’m worried about is standing right here in front of me.

then I lean in and seal my mouth over hers. Now, the secret’s out. The entire university will know by morning that I just claimed Hallie Jo Edwards. And I don’t have a single ounce of regret because the truth is? She’s mine. Even if neither of us is ready to admit that yet.

“I love that.” “What?” I ask, my brow furrowing in confusion. “Your laugh. I don’t think there’s anything I wouldn’t do to hear that laugh.”

I’ve never taken a bath with anyone before, but if there’s anyone I want it to be, it’s him. I can’t believe he did all of this. He googled periods, for god’s sake, and thoughtfully picked out each and everything to bring to me. That’s… romantic.

there are so many things I want with Hallie. Things that I know she’s not ready for yet, but when she is, I’m taking it. All of her firsts. Because they’re mine. She’s mine, and the thought of anyone else having any of them drives me fucking insane with jealousy.

Kissing Hallie is like coming home. It’s like finding the sign that points to your destination after being lost for so long. Kissing Hallie is fucking everything. She is everything.

Time is the last thing we have an unlimited amount of. We have an expiration date. Even if neither of us wants it that way.

There’s space between us, and as much as I hate it, it’s necessary. For a lot of reasons, but mostly because I’m only so strong, and I’ve never wanted anything in my life the way that I want her.

She’s perfect, in every sense of the word. Hallie Edwards is a dream.

“I’ve never known perfection until you,” I whisper, dropping my forehead to hers. “I thought it didn’t exist, but you’re living proof that it does, Hallie Girl.”

For a second, we just… exist. Holding on to each other in a moment that feels like… something I’ve never experienced with another person. There are a lot of firsts that Hallie has given me, but little does she know there are a few she’s given me too.

Everything with Lane feels this way, each moment meaningful. When he’s sweet and affectionate this way, it makes me feel like we’re more than just the proposal, more than just learning. He treats me as if I’m the most important person in the room, like we exist only together.

“I want to make this perfect for you,” he says, leveling his gaze on me. His face is so sincere and serious that my heart swells with the need to reassure him. “It’s already perfect, Lane.”

Sometimes it feels like he knows me better than anyone. Even myself sometimes. This was worth waiting for, for holding on to, so that it was him.

This was supposed to be an arrangement, temporary, something that wasn’t meant to be real. Something that was supposed to lead up to this very moment and be done. Yet it feels like the opposite. With every passing moment I spend with him, I feel like we’re not checking things off a list anymore. That this is only the beginning… of something more.

“Thank you for giving me that, Hallie. It… It’s special to me, and I’ll never forget it.” Cue the waterworks. With his front flush to my back and his strong arm slung over my stomach, anchoring me to him, I feel safe. I feel… cherished. I feel… protected. “I’m glad that it was you, Lane,” I respond. “It’s always been you.”

I’m almost asleep when I think I hear, “And it’ll always be you, Hallie Girl.”

The lines feel so blurry I don’t even know what they are anymore, but I’m too afraid to break the spell between us. I’m enchanted by Lane Collins.

“I’ll never get enough of this, Hallie. I only feel alive when I’m with you. Only you,” he pants against my skin.

The words I truly want to say are on the tip of my tongue, that until him, I never knew what this could feel like. That being with him makes me feel like I’m standing at the top of the world. But I don’t because that’s not what we are. I have to remind myself that this is an arrangement that involves our bodies and not our hearts because it doesn’t feel like it’s just about the proposal any longer.

“You make everything so easy. Breathing, being the man I want to be. You make me want to be better, Hallie.” “You’re already more than you even realize.”

I’m a fucking goner for Hallie Jo Edwards. All I’ve done for the last three days is think about her lips, about sliding my hands down her sides, tasting her, feeling her pressed against me. Kissing her like a man possessed. Because that’s exactly what I am. I’m obsessed with her, and it’s terrifying.

He makes me feel this way. Hungry. Frantic. Feral. Like I would do anything to please him. To see him come undone.

this might be the most romantic shit I’ve ever done, and it’s not even for me. You had all of us on our knees for your girl, Collins. This is like a Taylor Swift song…” “You listen to Taylor Swift?” “Bro.” He blanches. “Do not disrespect me that way. I am a Swiftie for life.”

I want to tell her how I feel when the moment is perfect because she deserves nothing less. I am in love with Hallie Edwards, and I may not have meant to fall in love with her, but I did, and I’m not walking away and giving her up. Proposal terms or not.

Like she hasn’t taken up a home in my heart and become a part of me. Since we started this… Hallie’s become my best friend. The one I go to about everything. The first person I want to tell when I have a good day or something exciting happens.

Hearing everything that his teammates said has my insecurities bubbling under the surface. The same ones that have always been here, lurking beneath the new version of me, ready to resurface at any moment. Reminding me that Lane Collins and I are temporary, and we always have been. There’s always been an end date on our arrangement—I was just foolish enough to think that we could be more. That we were more.

Hearing those guys tonight? It’s simply reinforced to me just how out of Lane’s league I am. I always have been, and the fact that we were sleeping together didn’t change that. I just… fell in love with the boy and put on blinders because I didn’t want to see things for what they really are.

But tonight was simply a reminder, however heartbreaking it may be, that Lane and I would never be anything more than an agreement with an end date. Even if it was too late for my heart because it’s already his.

“I will never be the girl that you need, Lane. I’ll always be the weird girl. The quirky girl because people seem to think that it’s nicer to say than weird. And you know what? I love myself. More than I love anything else. I love who I am. I am proud of who I am. I fought for the girl I am today. And that means that right now, I am going to choose me because you and I? We don’t fit together.”