Bring The Heat: A Bad Boy Sports Romance (Bad Boys of Summer Book 1) (11 page)

“Your turf?” She snorted. “You’ve been on the team less than a week, Cody. This is hardly
your
turf. So get over yourself.”

I shook my head, still in disbelief that she was there, standing in front of me. My college girlfriend. My first and last real relationship. And it didn’t end well.

Not at all.

“I’m here. You’re here. So the way I see it, we have two choices. We can play nice. Very nice, if you’re up for it,” she purred, a knowing twinkle in her eyes. She traced a hand up the front of my shirt.

I grasped her wrist. “What’s the second option?”

“You stay out of my way and I’ll stay out of yours. But, Cody, you should know you’d be breaking my heart all over again if you pretend I don’t exist. That what we had wasn’t real. Wouldn’t it be more fun to
play
together? We used to be so great.”

She closed the gap between us, stepping in close to me. The heat from her body and her perfume flooded my mind with memories. Her naked, riding me with her beautiful tits bouncing. Her lips parted, eyes closed, crying out my name while I fucked her from behind. The way her thighs grabbed mine when she ground that sweet pussy on my cock.

I shook my head violently, desperate to clear the memories.

“No, Summer. Those days are gone and you know it just as well as I do.”

She frowned. “So be it.”

She gave her wrist a tug and I released her. She started to step around me but stopped and leaned back to meet my eyes. “I should mention one more thing…I happen to have a very
close
relationship with Willis, you know, the owner of the Warriors. He listens to anything I say, and I’d hate for word to reach him of any…
impropriety
on the part of one of his players.”

“What the hell is that supposed to mean?”

Summer smiled—a wicked evil smile. “Oh, that’s right. I forgot you’re a little slow. It means I’m fucking the owner of your team. If I say the word, your ass will be sent back to Holdenville so fast your head will spin. So watch yourself, Cody. You do not want to piss me off.”

My jaw flexed but I kept it clamped shut.

She smiled sweetly. “We straight?”

Before I could answer, she swept past me, and I turned to watch her just as she sashayed her perfect hips through the glass double doors.

Chelsea

“Can you believe he said that? He doesn’t
care
when we get married? I mean am I just being delusional about this whole thing, Chels? Am I wasting the best years of my life on some flaky, commitment-phobe?”

I sighed and glanced down at the plate of veggies and artichoke dip between us. As soon as Robby had left the house to leave for his trip to Dallas, she’d called an emergency meeting at one of our favorite cafes,
Ruby’s
, and while I couldn’t really afford to take the time away from the computer, I pried myself away because of how upset she sounded.

Although now that she’d given me the play-by-play of the argument with Robby, I found myself on his side instead of hers. Not that I was going to tell her that…

“No, Paris. It was one argument. You can’t throw away the entire relationship. Most guys don’t care about the wedding planning. I hardly think Robby is the minority here.”

Paris whined. “I just want him to care. Is that so much to ask?”

I didn’t have the heart to break it to her that
I
barely cared. At least not about the different paper materials for the invitations, the best place to register for gifts, or whether a dove release was inhumane or not. And I certainly wasn’t holding my breath to see who would win the war between oval vs square tables at the reception hall.

“It’s not. Paris, listen, I know this is a crisis for you, but I promise it’s not that bad. Cody will be back in two days and you can figure it all out.”

“Cody?”

I straightened, realizing my slipup a moment too late. “Damn it.”

Paris laughed, her eyes sparkling with mischief. “Well, well, well. Look who’s got it bad!”

“I meant Robby,” I said, my tone low and grouchy. I dunked a piece of bell pepper into the dip, using it like a chip to scoop out a glob of the artichoke dip. I popped the whole thing in my mouth, sulking while Paris continued to giggle.

“You miss him, huh?”

“No.”

“Liar.”

“Am not!”

The truth was, I hadn’t been able to get Cody out of my head since the moment we met. I originally thought that if I went to bed with him, it would somehow satisfy my curiosity and allow me to move on—but no—just the opposite occurred. After leaving his hotel, I’d gone straight home and tried to sleep it off but my mind and body kept replaying the carnal delight of being with him. Of feeling like we belonged together instead of just using each other for a night.

And by the afternoon, things hadn’t improved. I was just as hot and bothered as I was the first time we met. The only problem was that this time I couldn’t tell myself that I was simply suffering from an overactive imagination. I knew the truth—the reality of being in Cody’s bed—was even hotter than the way I’d imagined it in my head.

“Then why won’t you tell me what happened after you two scampered off into the night together. After the dinner?” Paris leveled her stare at me.

I cleared my throat, forcing down the bite in my mouth. As much as I didn’t want to listen to Paris continue to rattle on about the wedding plans—or lack thereof—I was even more anxious to avoid talking about Cody and what happened behind closed doors at his hotel suite. “Did you tell Robby about the gardens you were talking about?”

Paris eyed me. “Not so fast, doll. You’re not off the hook yet.”

I blew out a puff of air. “Fine. We hung out…at his hotel…in his room…”

Paris’ grin went from amused to mischievous. “You banged Cody Wright?”

I glanced over my shoulder at the busy, lunchtime crowd inside the small cafe. “Damn, Paris. Why don’t you just hop on the table and use a megaphone!”

She laughed. “How was he?”

I hesitated and worked my bottom lip between my teeth. Paris chuckled. “That good, huh?”

“It was really, really hot and I can’t stop thinking about him.” The confession blasted out of me like a busted fire hydrant. “Paris, I cannot feel this way, and I definitely can’t let it happen again!”

“Why?”

I buried my face in my hands. “Because he’s an asshat.”

“Was he an asshat to you?”

I hesitated for a moment, rewinding the night. After the quick double check, I shook my head. “No. Not at all.”

“Then what’s the problem?” She shrugged, her fork waving in the air.

“It wasn’t supposed to go like this. I didn’t want some pro athlete. That was never who I thought would fit in the picture beside me.”

Paris sighed. “Again, doll, you’re thinking way too fast forward. Cody is a single guy, you’re a single girl. You’re both allowed to have some fun. I’m proud of you for getting outside your teeny tiny box for once!”

“If what you’re saying is true, then why don’t I feel better?”

“Because you do miss him!”

The way I imagined it, I would have stalked out of his hotel room, swinging my hips, and left
him
as the one wanting more. My curiosity and raging hormones were supposed to be satisfied. At least for a while. Instead, it was like starving all day and only allowing yourself to eat one tiny little wafer cracker. It was more irritating than it would have been to go on hungry.

“I know what we’ll do!” Paris announced. “When the boys are back, Robby and I will host a little dinner party. You and Cody and some other couples from the team. That’ll give you a chance to hang out with him and see what he’s thinking.”

“That sounds terrible,” I replied, my tone flat. I shook my head at her. “No, that’s not how this is going to work. Paris, I have to stay away from him. It’s like a Band-Aid. I just gotta rip it off. Cold turkey.”

“Why?”

“For one, I have too much on my plate right now with this game. I shouldn’t even be here right now, but I can’t resist their grilled chicken Caesar salad, and you were in a crisis. I definitely don’t have time for Cody. Casual or not.”

Paris pursed her lips at me but didn’t try to argue. I could feel her disappointment bubbling up inside of her but she kept it to herself for once. “All right. No dinner party. But you’re still going to go with me to the games sometimes, right?”

I gulped. “Sure, but let’s wait a little while. Give us both some space.”

Paris nodded. “A cooling off period.”

“Exactly!”

“All right. You got a deal, but I gotta say, I do not understand you sometimes, Chels.”

“Well, that makes two of us…”

* * * *

Space. A cooling off period. Time to get my shit together. To let myself settle and recover from the explosive fuck fest with Cody.

Right
.

That plan worked right up until about seven o’clock when I planted my ass on the couch, TV dinner in one hand, the remote control in the other, and flipped through the channels until I landed on the sports channel.

“You’re weak, Chels,” I scolded myself, tossing the remote down and popping a bite of mac and cheese in my mouth.

Cody Wright’s face filled the screen and my heart went into triple time, bam, bam, bam. He could get under my skin even in pixel form. Great. The sportscasters were going on about him, giving a breakdown of his career and accomplishments, including a handful of replays from some of his best games.

“You know, Don, it might be too early to say, but I think Wright could be the ticket to turning this team around before it’s too late,” the grey haired man on the right said earnestly to his co-host.

His co-host bristled. “Nah. Mark, this is a Hail Mary on the part of the Warriors’ front office. The ship is on fire and they are trying to put it out when they should be building a new one!”

“How can you say that? Are we looking at two different screens here?” Mark, the older of the two interjected, pointing behind them at the green screen flashing stats alongside Cody’s picture. “He put up three fastballs in the Pioneers game, broke two over a hundred—”

“But what happened in his debut?” Don fired back, a smug look crossing his arrogant face.

I glared at him. A hot rush of anger washed over me.

“You wanna talk Hail Mary’s?” Mark said. “Putting Wright in, for his majors debut, when they were down seven, one, bases loaded. That was a Hail Mary!”

I nodded, throwing my two cents in with Mark. “Oh my gosh…what in the hell!”

I scrambled for the remote and turned off the TV.

“No, no. This is so not happening. I am not going to sit here and argue with sportscasters.” I pushed up from the couch and abandoned the TV, running my finger over my fish tank on the way into the kitchen to do the dishes. “I am also not going to watch the game,” I told them. “I’d rather watch you guys play baseball. That would be—”

I froze in place. “Fish…baseball…”

I raced back to the couch, set my dish on the coffee table, and flicked the TV back on. The warm ups started and I ran off to my office to gather up a sketch pad, notepad, and an assortment of pens and colored pencils. I hauled everything downstairs and spread everything across the walnut coffee table and sat down on my knees behind it. The ideas spilled forth like rushing water and by the middle of the game, everything lying before me was like a puzzle finally snapped together.

“Fishball!” I said, laughing manically at how perfect it was. It was the idea I’d been waiting on for weeks, months, really. Lucky’s Big Adventure was going to head to the baseball diamond.

Chelsea

“And that’s the game, folks!”

I glanced up from my furious scribbling at the announcement. The game was over and the broadcasting duo of Mark and Don took over again. I spent most of it completely lost in my own world. Pages and pages of notes were spread out before me. Things were underlined, marked up in different colors, and half a dozen sketches lay on the floor beside my legs. With the sound of the game playing in the background it had all come together and I channeled it into my work. At the end, when I pulled back and took a breath, I felt like the guy from
A Beautiful Mind
. It all made complete sense to me, but if someone were to walk in and glance over my shoulder they’d probably think I finally lost my grip on the last of my marbles.

I laughed to myself, relieved at the light and airy feeling once the weight of finding a viable idea for the next Mr. Fish game was lifted from my shoulders. I could breathe again. When I walked into the conference room a week and a half from now, I’d have something solid and concrete to pitch.

Something pretty damn good if I said so myself.

After all, baseball is the American past time, right?

Granted, up until a few days ago, I knew nothing about it, but I planned on making up for lost time.

Purely for the sake of the Mr. Fish game of course. It had nothing to do with Cody. At least, that was my story.

I pushed back from the coffee table and leaned back against the couch. I worked and stretched my wrist and flexed my fingers. They were stiff from gripping the pencils and pens like a madwoman for the last three hours.

But it was done. I wouldn’t change a thing. Sure, there would be little tweaks and changes when I actually started feeding the code to the computer, but the details and rules were established and that was always the hardest part. The part that felt like giving birth. Or, at least what I imagined labor to feel like, accomplishment-wise.

A buzz startled me and I realized it was my phone. The only problem was it had become buried in the papers on the coffee table. I dug through the stacks and retrieved the phone. I didn’t recognize the number on the screen but it was a local number so I answered. “Hello?”

“Hey, pretty girl.”

My heart leaped from my chest up into my throat, the pulse banging frantically at the deep, sweet, slow drawl on the other end of the line. “Cody?”

“Yes, ma’am. You catch the game?”

I looked up at the TV and turned it to mute. The sportscasters were still there, obscuring the field. “Um…no. I didn’t. How’d you do?”