A/N: Mature content (a little).

"Just thought you could use a shower," I attempted with the most innocent voice I had.

"And I fully intend to take one. Alone," was Harper's curt reply, even with her stomach caged by my arm. "After I leave."

"You can stay." I glanced down at the full, angry, red erection that had sprung back to life while she came undone from just my fingers and mouth. "We both know you have at least one more in you."

"Maybe another time." She scoffed and forcefully pushed both of her hands against my arm.

"Wasn't a request." With nearly all my arm muscle's strength, I snaked it around her slender waist and, with one flex of my bicep, lifted her over my right shoulder.

Even while flung ass forwards over my shoulder, typical Harper responded with a loud crack and sting as one of her palms sharply smacked my right asscheek. A wide grin pressed tension up into my cheeks as I ignored her, grabbed two towels, and made sure the hallway was empty. With quick steps, I hauled her, both of us fully naked, into the bathroom one door down from mine.

"Jake, really." She squirmed in my grasp as I shut and locked the door, swiped a condom from the bathroom vanity shelf - yes, we kept extras there - and turned on the shower. The glass walls closed in a small shower space but once I blocked the door, then she was trapped inside.

Her legs kicked and spine thrashed like I'd caught a rabid animal, so I returned her favor and smacked my left palmon her ass. Her movements froze but she growled in my right ear, "I'm fine."

"You don't let anyone take care of you, do you," I grumbled into the side of her hip that my hand squeezed into the side of my jaw.

"Not like this." A rare hint of uncertainty slipped into Harper's voice as she writhed again. "Please."

Another smack resonated on her ass as I reminded her, "It's good to sometimes push you out of your comfort zone, firecracker."

I gently set her down on her feet inside the shower stall and walked her back into the warm water. Her hair flooded a darker color and her eyes glared angrily up at me as I dropped the towels, ripped open the condom, and palmed it in my hand.

Harper greeted me with the same angry look as I stepped over the threshold and blocked her inside. Despite the extremely pissed off look on her face, the ribbons of water that trailed down the sides of her shoulders, over her chest and breasts, then down her stomach, and trailed between her legs sent a demanding pulse straight south.

"Jake," she warned me as I caged my arms around her and pressed my forearms into the cool, hard shower tiles on either side of her shoulders. She stepped once backwards and her back touched the wall in the small space, but didn't push me away. Her eyes stared intensely at mine as if she dared me to make the first move.

And move I did.

I leaned forwards and pressed my lips gently against hers.

"Do you taste yourself on me?" I pulled back slightly and felt an upwards tug on the corners of my mouth as her pupils dilated slightly, probably because the tip of my cock pressed right up between her outer folds and nudged her entrance. With slight flexes of my hips, I goaded her, challenged her for that spark of a reaction I knew she had in her. "You taste fucking amazing. You're amazing."

"Don't flatter me... or yourself." She turned her lips away from mine as I leaned down to kiss her again, so I pressed them into the side of her neck. She couldn't have hidden how her pulse raced in her veins like a tiny electric current on my mouth no matter how hard she tried. As I slid my tongue over and nipped at her warm, wet skin, she groaned quietly in the only invitation I needed and rolled on the condom.

"Well, we both know you won't," I reminded her.

Repositioned in front of her, with one thrust of my hips, my dick pushed easily into her entrance. I took full advantage of her lips parted and claimed her mouth with mine. Even with my cock enclosed in a latex, her hot, warm insides sent waves of pleasure down my shaft as I pushed into her. The hot pressure from her insides wrapped around me as I easily slipped in until my pelvis brushed into hers and a tiny quiver vibrated her lower lip.

My hips shifted and rolled into hers while I stroked her tongue with mine in a mix of warm, wet contact. As a constant reminder of who was really in control, her fingers circled around my sides, cupped my ass, and tugged me deeper.

When the next thrust pushed my balls up against her outer folds, I broke my mouth off hers and groaned, "You're going to completely destroy me, Harper."

As her beautiful, low-toned moans mixed with mine in the steam that swirled arounds us, my ears caught her faintly whispered response.

"That's the plan."

Despite Harper's rare moment of shared intimacy - if the way I railed into her against the shower wall, panted and grunted into the side of her neck until my forehead broke out in perspiration, and cursed loudly as I shot my load in the condom counted as intimacy - afterwards, she earned a world record for the shortest shower.

I handed her a towel and had barely dried my hair when she cursed at me about her makeup and stepped out of the bathroom. Once I dried the excess water from my hair, I wrapped my towel around my waist, but she was half-dressed by the time I stepped back in my bedroom.

"You can stay," I offered in a low voice that didn't sound like mine as I watched while she speed dressed like she was late for an appointment. Her eyes avoided my gaze, which squeezed an unfamiliar tension in my chest. I crossed my arms, as if doing so pushed back the invisible feeling of rejection... it didn't.

"I've already overstayed my welcome," was her grumbled response. As soon as her feet slid into her boots, she rushed towards the door.

I took two quick steps and was thankful for my long arm reach as one hand gently grabbed her upper arm and stopped her hasty escape. My eyes searched hers, bright blue as always, for any signs of regret. Before I realized my arm had moved, the back of my other hand's knuckles outlined the soft skin on her cheek.

"Are you okay?" I whispered as the tightness in my chest intensified. "You have to at least be hungry, let me make you lunch."

"You've done enough." A playful palm patted my chest, right over the knot of rejection, and we both knew her movement was so she shoved me away.

I took the step back that she wanted and watched as she opened my bedroom door. In a rare pause, she looked back and her eyes met mine. As if in confession, she whispered, "Whatever you're looking for with those sad puppy eyes, it's not me."

Based on the strain I felt in the corners of my eyes, they begged as much as my voice did, "At least tell me what you wanted to say earlier."

"Oh." Her shoulders dipped slightly and she sighed. Her eyes filled with the same guilt as earlier as she cleared her throat. "I... umm, am on my period."

"What?" I wasn't at all bothered by the fact I'd gone down on her because I hadn't tasted a drop of blood or seen any on the condom afterwards, more at the possibility that she hadn't felt well.

Since I grew up and shared a bathroom with my younger sister Ellie, who had debilitating periods that left her in bed with painkillers and diaper-sized pads, I knew how bad those got.

Fuck, in the shower, that probably didn't feel good.

"You heard me. But it's fine, I... don't get an actual period." Her hand tightly grasped the door handle. "And I hadn't expected that so... thank you."

Tension ran from my wrists to shoulders as my hands clenched tightly into my biceps. "Harper -"

"'Bye Jake."

My eyes slid closed right when the door slammed behind her. While I wasn't at all surprised she'd chosen another rushed out exit, it bothered me more than the previous ones had.

After Harper left quickly Friday morning, I wasn't sure I saw her on Saturday for the early afternoon game. Mom had called, and texted, me that she definitely planned to attend the game, which I relayed to Harper but only got a silent read notification.

Harper had sat through many games of mine, probably most of them not her first choice of entertainment, but she'd endured many more conversations with my parents. Despite an obvious comfort and familiarity factor, I wasn't entirely sure how Harper sat next to just Mom for roughly three hours before Mom stuck her foot in her mouth and brought us up as a 'couple.'

Thankfully she's around enough of my cousin's kids that grandkids aren't on her radar.

I wasn't blind to the preferential treatment I'd gotten growing up and honestly still got going off the fact Mom still attended every home game she could. After Dad died, she'd mentioned selling our childhood house but I'd basically thrown a temper tantrum over the fact I wasn't ready to part with it. She still lived in Santa Cruz and worked in her insurance office, but dropped down to four days a week when she'd started helping her sister, my Aunt Maria, with weekend catering jobs.

Still pissed I haven't finished that junker build car in the garage yet.

While I'd felt bad for Ellie at how our parents treated her harder than me, I'd also never expressed my feelings. While not fair at all, I think they'd done it because she was so smart. Football made college possible for me but they still didn't have the money for Ellie.

"You're doing it again." Griff's elbow nudged into the side of my arm as we started our Trojan Walk before the Notre Dame game.

Even though the Fighting Irish's school was two time zones and halfway across the country in Indiana and their school wasn't in our division, the two played each other once a year in a historic rivalry that both sides took very seriously.

Normally we played Notre Dame the Saturday after Thanksgiving but the Fighting Irish visited here for this year's schedule for week three. I hadn't questioned the change since it was out of my control, but the Irish had already suffered a few injuries. On my radar was their right tackle nursed a strained ankle, the starting senior middle linebacker had gotten suspended, and both their safeties were sophomores. At least on paper and during film study, their safeties had lightning speed but their rookie-level decision making meant in our game of chess, they were the pawns.

All week the hype had led up, which thankfully I'd ignored in silence on Thursday and Friday, and the sea of tailgaters and well-wishes that greeted us as we walked into the Coliseum were even more pumped up than at last week's game. Chants of "Three-and-oh!" with the usual "Fight on!" filtered through my ears as I slapped high-fives and bumped fists during our marched Trojan Walk procession.

"What?" I glanced sideways at Griff, who'd stopped for a fan selfie and laughed when two girls sandwiched him and each kissed one of his cheeks. He cupped their shoulders, grinned like a fool, then took another picture with his phone.

"He is." Evan shoved me roughly in the shoulder as he walked a step behind me.

My eyes glazed over the clusters of girls that stood on either side of us that Evan happily devoted his attention towards while I headed straight for a young kid, maybe eight or nine. His brown eyes stretched so wide they almost looked round when I offered my fist out to him, then bumped it with a crooked grin.

"Must be her," Jackson chimed in his unwanted two cents. "Harrison's ghost."

"Hilarious." I glared my hardest stare at him but he just ignored me and threw out a few high fives.

Despite how Harper was 3-0 on her rushed out exits, she hadn't so much glanced at another person on her way out, which earned her the nickname 'my ghost.' The fact I hadn't shared any information other than her first name when I'd given every guy in the house explicit instructions that she was at our party for me and no one else hadn't helped either.

For Harper's sake though, they didn't hit on her after I called dibs.

But fuck, I'm glad we came to our arrangement.

While I'd expected the first time I saw Harper was tonight after the game, I couldn't have been more satisfied with our two earlier rounds of fucking. Both mentally and physically refreshed and focused were the best descriptions of how I felt, both in my classes, homework cramming, practices, workouts, and film study sessions.

"Hey, if you're happy bro then we're happy," Griff tossed over his shoulder with a slight uplift in the corner of his mouth. "Or... at least clear-headed. Happy cock, happy jock."

I tucked my chin downward and tracked my feet's movement as we headed under the white arch entrance, then made our way down the field towards the locker room.

"Focus and get to work," I muttered at the cluster of nosey idiots around me.

"Never gets old." Zach's white teeth flashed at me, bright against his bronzed skin, as he grinned widely and focused his eyes on the field.

Before the start of every fourth quarter at USC home games, the Trojan rider and mascot Traveler - the white horse, not the rider - rode onto the field while the band played the William Tell Overture. Once the rider pointed his sword at the Olympic torch on the white columned end, the torch was lit, the crowd roared their respect to the Colosseum's history when it hosted the Olympics, and we took the field against the Fighting Irish with the hopes we put this game under our win column.

Offensively, our night couldn't have gone better. My linemen dominated the guards at line of scrimmage and both my backs Jackson and Pierce ran up field with ease. I'd picked off those rookie safeties like they played peewee-level, tucked the ball in a few long passes and watched as Evan, Griff, and Zac did what they did best.

The stadium's atmosphere was energetic but full of satisfaction, probably at the 37-14 lead we held with fifteen minutes of game time left. Our points had been fairly spread out across the team, which included three field goals for London.

While we knew Notre Dame arrived with injuries to their seasoned defensive starters, their backups still had talent that deserved respect and were still a challenge. So, play after play, I put my strict workman-type approach into gear until we slowed down to a run-first offensive. I still pitched a few short-yardard shuttle and screen passes to Jackson or Pierce, who dominated against the weaker defensive line to the delight of the roaring home team fans.

Griff and Evan put on a receiver clinic and my arm stayed continuously warm from the deep passes we started the game with. Each receiver had enough yards and a touchdown each so their normal yapping on the sidelines was minimized.

Unfortunately, our team took a hit, literally, late in the fourth quarter. Up 42-14, three minutes left in the game, and stacked on Notre Dame's twenty-eight yard line, I set up Zach on a short inside drive route against number thirty-two, Trayvon Diggs, a redshirt sophomore who played in his third game for the Irish.

Like we'd planned, Zach pushed off the line of scrimmage with a burst of speed and jumped ahead of his cornerback. After a quick six-yard sprint, he pivoted right and curled inward to the middle of the field, one step ahead of the middle linebacker Diggs and two paces behind where I'd thrown the ball.

As soon as the ball left my right hand, I caught sight of the right outside linebacker number twenty-four, Jack Kilsen, a junior who'd shouldered most of the defensive coverage tonight. Just when Zach's hands gripped around the ball, Diggs wrapped up Zach's shoulder's as expected but Kilsen charged forwards like a freight train and tackled Zach so hard that both he and Diggs fell backwards.

A loud crack sounded as Kilsen's helmet hit Zach's, whose head snapped backwards. All three landed in a pile at mid-field, with Zach sandwiched between Diggs and Kilsen. Zach's elbow hooked around the ball uncurled away from his ribs, which drew the attention of every player within a ten-foot radius and a collective sharp gasp from the stadium spectators.

In a blink, a giant pile of both Trojans and Irish converged on Zach, which I watched as I stood back with Jackson from the backfield like witnesses. Shrill referee whistles bit through the early evening air, over the grunts, growls, swear words, and insults from the pile.

One heavy, hulking lineman's body was lifted up off the pile at a time, until only Zach and Diggs remained flatlined on the turf. In slow motion movements, the head ref motioned for both team's trainers, who rain in from the sidelines.

I rushed forwards, pressed through the standing spectators, and squinted down at Zach's crumpled form. At the grimace he wore, I distracted him with, "Thought you fumbled."

"Fuck no," he grunted out, which erupted a loud laugh from deep within my belly. Even my pads shook as I laughed and palmed one hand into the center of my chest at how the two clawed at each other for the ball like children who fought over a toy both wanted.

The separate training staff parted their way through, ours in white shirts and Notre Dame's in gold, and cleared a space around Zach. A quiet hush fell over the crowd as all eyes were glued to Diggs, who groaned, clutched his left ankle as he sat up, then rolled back with tightly gritted teeth.

Zach sat up gingerly, but palmed his hands into the turf behind his shoulders and made no further attempted movements. Tim knelt down, snapped off Zach's helmet, and asked him a few questions. With the help of another trainer, they lifted him up to standing and escorted him, thankfully under the weight of his own steps, to the sidelines under a stadium's worth of polite claps.

"Take it easy, bro." I clapped one hand on Zach's back as he gingerly stepped past me. He nodded stiffly but the glazed over look in his eyes, plus how Tim directed him straight past the bench and into the locker room concerned me.

My jaw clenched and I gnashed my teeth into my mouth guard, then regrouped my offensive unit in a tightly huddled circle.

"Oh-sixty-four," I gritted out the bold play call choice, reflected by the wide eyes I got in response at Zach's personal favorite play. Before the protests started because we rarely ran a Statue of Liberty, I emphasized, "Show 'em we don't roll over and no one pushes around USC."

"Fight on," was mumbled in tense voices as we broke the huddle and lined up

Many variations of the Statue of Liberty play existed. In ours, I received the snap from my center Grant, dropped back, and gripped the ball in my right hand like I passed it. With a pump fake, I tucked the ball into my left hand, then behind my back. While the defense reacted to the faked pass, I handed the ball off to a wide receiver or tight end in motion on a shallow crossing route they ran in the opposite side of the field from my faked pass.

We usually reserved that play for whenever we were down a score late in a game but with such a big lead, the risk of an interception wouldn't have changed the score enough even if the Irish defense ran it all the way back for a score

Instead of Zach, I set up Evan on the inside right, then called out, "Hut hut hike!"

I inhaled deep into my lungs when Grant snapped the ball into my outstretched hands, I flung the faked pass forwards, and tucked the ball behind me. Evan hit a roadblock at the offensive line but Jackson surged around behind me, so I pitched the ball backwards for an unobstructed backward pass. For extra help, I rushed forwards and shouldered my best block into - of all defensemen - Kilsen again.

Four sprinted steps gave me enough forward momentum that I stonewalled Kilsen's advancement at Jackson, who trailed behind me. A loud grunt rushed out of me with all my breath when I slammed into Kilsen but had a front-row view when Jackson's smaller frame surged past both of us, stutter-stepped around a cornerback, and rushed right into the endzone.

Right when my fist raised, the stadium broke into loud celebrations. Among the roars from the crowd, the cheer squad pumped out forty-eight pushups and the band played "Fight on" to raised V-signs on USC's players and fans throughout the stadium. In a subdued, bittersweet celebration, I trotted over to the sidelines, where Zach was still noticeably absent.

Once I sat on my bench seat, I looked over my shoulder and lifted my eyes up towards my seats. Mom jumped up and down in her normal celebration reaction. Her dark eyes beamed brightly like she'd hung tiny stars in them and, embarrassingly, tears trailed down her cheeks.

I shifted my helmet off, wiped off my sweaty forehead, and chugged some water as I kept my eyes focused on my seats. With their height difference, Harper stood a head and a half taller than Mom. Her tight, black leather coat and gray leggings highlighted both Mom's white jersey and Harper's blonde hair. She'd pinned back the top and the rest hung straight down over her shoulders.

Unlike the fiery red lips she'd wrapped around my cock, from what I saw down on the field, her face looked completely neutral, a lot more natural.

Not in my jersey though.

Still hot as fuck. And later -

"Doing it again," Griff chirped out before a cold, wet blast hit me right where Harper's mace had shot last weekend. And I'd heard shit about that from the guys every day until the redness faded between my eyes.

Three days, for the record.

I dragged one of my hands down my face, wiped away the water remnants from Griff's face wash, and tossed the rest of my bottle back in his laughing face. While he sputtered and coughed, my eyes drifted up again.

Like she'd done all night, Harper's right hand subtly lifted and she hooked her fingers like she tucked her hair behind her ear. Instead, she slowly raised her middle finger and rubbed it against the side of her temple like she scratched.

My grin spread across my face before her eyes met mine and she smirked.

Later, firecracker...

Before I showed Harper how she really affected me, my eyes drifted back to Mom. The heat that burned inside me from Harper subsided when Mom wrapped her arm around Harper and hugged her close. Harper's sky-blue eyes stretched wider and she briefly flashed me a surprised look, but recovered with a tight-lipped smile.

Like after every home game Mom attended solo, we had dinner plans tonight. And, for once, I was glad we had an extra seat at our post-game dinner table.