Bases Loaded (Mustangs Baseball) (9 page)

That seemed to
shut her up. At last.

“Have you ever
been with more than one man at a time?” he said.

“Are you crazy?
No!”

“Then you have no
idea what you’re asking for.” If only he didn’t. He might be able to live with
himself.

She folded her
arms across her midsection again. Maybe, just maybe, he was getting through to
her. Since God didn’t seem to be listening to him today, he sent a new-age plea
out into the universe.
Please. Let her understand and forget about this.

She pulled her desk
chair back where it belonged and sank into it. Her expression told him he had
won, but it gave him no pleasure because if he won on this issue, he’d lost on
the other.

“If that’s the way
you want it. You better go now. I’ve got tests to grade.” She leaned to the
side, and when she straightened, she dumped a stack of papers on top of her
desk. “Shut the door behind you, please.”

He crossed to the
door, unlocked it, turned the knob, and paused. “Clare.” Her name came out as a
plea. He didn’t want their relationship to end this way. He didn’t want it to
end at all.

She didn’t look
up. “Thanks for coming by, Antonio. It was fun while it lasted.”

While it lasted
.
As in, it was over.

He opened the
door. “I’ll be back.” He closed the door behind him, took a step, and leaned
one shoulder and his head against the wall.
Shit.
He sounded like
fucking Swarzenegger. “I’ll be baaack!” He’d come here simply wanting to take
her to dinner then maybe make out a little somewhere before he took her back to
his hotel room and got down to business. But one look at her sitting behind her
desk, all prim and proper, and he’d gone stone hard and lost his mind.

He knew he should
have taken it slow with her. Maybe if he had, she would have forgotten all
about that damned charm. No way was she running the bases. No way in hell.

Chapter
Ten

Clare folded her
arms on her desk and dropped her forehead on top of them. The skin on the back
of her neck tingled. The sensation morphed into a shiver and ran down her spine
all the way to her toes, leaving her cold inside. Lord, what had she been
thinking? She had never exposed herself, body and soul to another human being,
much less a man like Antonio. He probably thought she was insane.

Her stomach
cramped. What had possessed her to ask him to invite her to participate in his
secret club’s activities? That alone proved her insanity. At least he confirmed
the existence of Bases Loaded. Jessica hadn’t lied.

She was proud of
herself for coming up with the story about overhearing the anonymous woman in
the restroom. The last thing she needed was Antonio feeling sorry for her for
allowing a vicious bitch to bully her at every opportunity. She’d seen
Jessica’s pierced clit and endured the torture of hearing how only the most
beautiful women were invited to earn a charm. The incident had happened over a
year ago, and Clare still made sure she knew where Jessica was before she
entered a restroom. Being locked inside once and forced to listen to the witch
and her coven spew venom at her was enough.

Now that she knew
what Jessica had done to earn the charm…. The knowledge went a long way to
dispelling the chill creeping over her body. Holy smoley! And here she’d
thought Jessica had been unnecessarily graphic, when in fact she hadn’t given
many details at all.

Antonio had told
her all those things to scare her off, and Clare had to admit she’d been
shocked at first. But since she’d had a chance to think about it, she was more
determined than ever to gain an invitation.

She’d never done
anything close to daring. Hell, until today, her only other sexual experiences
had been in a bed, and one time on the sofa in her boyfriend’s apartment. She
hadn’t enjoyed it much for worrying his roommate might walk in at any moment.
And now she was considering doing it with three men, three times in one night?

She sat up and
rubbed her eyes. When her vision cleared, she opened the center drawer and took
out the charm. It was beautiful—a work of art that had once belonged to a
beautiful, desirable woman. First and third bases were green and yellow,
respectively. The Hornets?

No one had to tell
her the only women who had these were beautiful. Men might indulge in a pity
fuck every now and then, but to do something like what went on in one of those
sessions, the woman would have to be a beauty. Something she was not.

She dropped the
charm back into the drawer and slammed it shut. She could fantasize all she
wanted, but the fantasy wasn’t going to become reality. Antonio had said no,
and he meant what he said. She would probably never see him again except from
high above the field in her little booth. Today had been an aberration. He had
probably arrived at her office horny and short on available women—thus the
office sex. It wouldn’t happen again.

Tears streamed
down her cheeks, splashing on the test she’d been staring at instead of
grading.

* * *

Goddamn.

Antonio sat behind
the wheel of his car parked outside Clare’s office and scrubbed his hands over
his face. She couldn’t be serious. He remembered the look on her face when
she’d kicked him out of her office.

Yeah. She meant
it
.

There was no way
he would invite Clare Kincaid to run the bases. An image formed unbidden in his
mind—Clare naked, that look of ecstasy he’d just recently seen on her face put
there by the three men surrounding her. Touching her. Fucking her.

Shit.

“Not going to
happen,” he mumbled to himself. No matter how hot the image in his brain he
wasn’t going to share her with anyone.

He put the key
ignition and sat back, glaring out the window at the early Fall landscape.
Brown leaves clung to lifeless limbs, jostled occasionally by a warm breeze.
The grass was still green but, in a few weeks, would probably turn brittle and
brown. Time was on his side, he figured. He had the entire off-season to make
her forget about the club, and all the auction items he’d won—
if
could
convince her to see him again.

He already missed her, and he’d only left her a few
minutes ago. He should give her time to miss him before he tried to reason with
her.

The hell with
that.

Locking his car
once again, he headed back into the building. He wouldn’t be pushed around on
the subject of Bases Loaded. His answer was no. It was always going to be no,
and her stubborn, irrational attitude wouldn’t stop him from having her again.
Somehow, he would convince her to let the subject drop. And one of these days,
he’d stop dreaming night and day of her sweet body stretched and filled.

Taking the stairs
instead of the elevator gave him a few extra minutes to wipe his brain clean of
inappropriate images. She was his future, his forever. Thinking about her in
the middle of a cluster-fuck wasn’t appropriate.

It’s all her
fault for bringing up the damn club in the first place.

Pausing on a
landing to catch his breath, he leaned against the cool cinderblock wall and
squeezed his eyes shut. No matter how much he wanted to place the blame
somewhere else, he couldn’t. That image, and a few other equally inappropriate
ones, had been with him almost from the moment he’d met her. But he wasn’t
going to make them a reality. A guy didn’t do that kind of thing with the woman
he wanted to be the mother of his children.

She isn’t going
to goad me into letting her run the bases.

Resolve firmly in
place, he pushed away from the wall and continued down the hall.

He stopped outside
her closed office door and took a deep breath. Letting it out, he ran through
the same mental exercise he used when he stepped up to the plate.
Breathe.
In. Out. Focus. Stay calm
. This wasn’t the first time he’d faced an angry
opponent, but the outcome had never mattered as much either. He didn’t know
what he would do if she threw him out again. Something deep inside told him she
was The One, and he wasn’t inclined to disagree.

When he had been
deep inside her, she
felt
like The One. No one had ever felt that good,
that right before. He’d never given much thought to finding The One, but he
never imagined she would need convincing. How was it he could feel the
connection and she didn’t?
Christ!
He’d made love to her, twice, and all
she wanted from him was an invitation to a cluster-fuck.

Tony leaned his
shoulders against the opposite wall and stared at her door. He wasn’t an idiot,
but he knew love wasn’t supposed to be this way. Maybe he was kidding himself.
Maybe he should just get back in his car and drive the fuck away. Leave her be.
Forget about Clare Kincaid. Forget about the way his heart felt like it poured
out through his dick when he was inside her.

Fuck that.

She was his.

Not bothering to
knock, he opened her door. His heart sank to his toes.

“Ah, hell, babe.”
He closed the door behind him. “Don’t cry.”

“I…I can’t help
it.” She swiped her damp cheek with trembling fingers.

He crossed the
room and gathered her in his arms before he took his next breath. Lifting her
out of her chair, he sat in her place. She cuddled into his lap like a broken
doll. He ignored his hardening cock and swept her hair back from her face. “I’m
sorry, sweetheart. I didn’t mean to make you cry.”

“I know,” she said
with a sniff.

“Is this because I
was an ass and we fucked in your office?”

“No.” A fresh tear
leaked from one eye.

“Is it because I
won’t invite you to run the bases?”

She hiccupped.
“Yes.”

He closed his
eyes, fighting for control. Shouting at her again wasn’t going to cut it. He
held her until the red behind his eyelids faded to a dull gray. “Make me
understand why you want to do it. I’ve never understood why a woman would want
to.”

She sucked in a
shaky breath. “You wouldn’t understand.”

“I know I don’t,
babe. Please. Just tell me why it means so much to you. Make me understand.”

She shook her head
and squirmed in his lap. His cock swelled. God, he really was an ass to want a
crying woman.

“I can’t.”

“Yes, you can.” He
gave her a little squeeze. “I’m not letting you go until you do.”

He heard her
goddamned metronome in his head, tick-tocking away the minutes of his life. He
glanced at the corner of his desk. It silently mocked him.
Shit.
Would
he always have the thing in his head now when he made love to her, directing
the tempo of his thrusts, counting off the short painting breaths she took when
she came?

“All the women who
do it are beautiful, aren’t they?”

He thought of the
women he personally knew had run the bases. “Yes, I guess you could say that.”

“I want to feel
beautiful. If I had three men desiring me, doing those things to me, I think I
would feel beautiful then.”

“You are
beautiful, Clare.”

“I hear you say
it, Antonio, and I think you must believe it—at least a little bit, or you
wouldn’t have done what you did today with me.”

He stroked her arm
with one hand while the other itched to squeeze the delicious bit of hip it
caressed. “I do believe it. What I don’t understand is why you don’t believe
it.”

“I know it doesn’t
make any sense, but you know the woman I told you about? The one who had the
charm?”

“Do I know her? As
in, know who she is?”

“No. But I guess
it’s possible you do know her that way. I meant, do you remember me telling you
about her?”

Not likely he’d
ever forget. “I remember.” Damned idiot woman showing off her cunt in a public
bathroom. Who would do something like that?

“I made that story
up, about overhearing the conversation. The truth is, she cornered me in the
restroom. Had one of her friends lock the door and stand guard so I couldn’t
get out.”

Bitch
. Tony
had a sudden urge to kill someone. “Why would she do something like that?”

“Because she’s a
mean person, I guess.”

“What really
happened in the restroom?”

“She showed me the
charm, like I said. She wanted me to get a good look, because no one would ever
want to fuck a woman like me. She said baseball players only wanted beautiful
women.”

There were so many
things wrong with that statement he didn’t know where to begin. If he ever
found the woman who’d said those things to Clare, he would tell her just how
ugly she really was. Beauty might be skin deep, but ugly went all the way down
to the bone.

“I’m so sorry.
Don’t you see? She might be beautiful on the outside, but she’s rotten to the
core on the inside.”

“A part of me
understands that, but another part of me recognizes what she said as truth. I
know I’m not model material, but I think if I could earn one of those charms,
it would prove she was wrong.”

“You aren’t giving
me much credit. I told you how beautiful you are. I even showed you at the spa.
I thought you understood then.” He tried to keep the frustration out of his
voice but failed miserably.

“I did. I mean, I
believed you at the time, but then I got home and reality sank in.”

“The things I said
at the spa were real. The things I said today were real.”

“I know you meant
them at the time.”

“I meant them
then, and I mean them now.” He nuzzled the top of her head with his chin. “Tell
me…why would it be any different if three men told you the same things at the
same time. It would only be one time. I don’t understand. Why would that be any
more believable than hearing it from me?”

“I don’t know. It
just would.”

There wasn’t a
shred of logic in her thinking. Therefore, any further argument on the subject
wasn’t going to do any good. Her mind was made up—had been even before she met
him. He continued to hold her, enjoying the feel of her in his arms while he
contemplated his next move.

Bases Loaded was
not an option. Somehow, he would have to think of another way to convince her
she was beautiful, so she would drop her insane idea on her own.

He leaned down and
placed a gentle kiss on her forehead. “Give me a chance to change your mind. I
have all those auction items, and I’ve got a little over three months before
Spring Training starts. Do them with me, Clare.”

“Okay. I’ll help
you use all the items you won at the auction under one condition.”

“What’s that?” he
asked.

“That you at least
consider inviting me to Bases Loaded.”

He stared at the
ceiling for a moment then looked at her. “Okay. I’ll consider inviting you to
Bases Loaded if you do all the bid items with me.” He pointed his index finger
at her and narrowed his eyes. “I mean all of them. And, we’re going to do them
as a couple. That means you’ll sleep in my bed, with me, on the trips.”

He’d given in to
her demands too quickly, which sent more red flags waving in her mind than the
Mustangs had pennants. He held her gaze, unwavering. Baseball players. The good
ones had the best poker faces, and he was one of the best.

He has no
intention of offering me an invitation to run the bases
.
Well, we’ll see
about that
. The only trick would be guarding her heart while she changed
his mind. It was already going to be difficult to walk away from him when he
grew tired of her. If she fell any harder for him, the damage would be
irreparable.

Despite the risk,
it was a challenge she couldn’t resist.

“I can do that,”
she said.