Stopping Short: A Hot Baseball Romance (9 page)

Heart pounding so hard he couldn’t draw a full breath, he dragged Robert Trueblood’s bank record into the tiny electronic trashcan on the computer screen. He heard the corny sound, the crumple of paper, the destruction of the evidence. Adrenaline ripped through his muscles; he wanted to slam the computer screen down. He wanted to rip something apart. He wanted to do anything he could to tear out his past. His present. All the mistakes he’d ever made about Bobby.

The bathroom door opened and Jessica took three steps into the room, stopping dead when she saw him. She was wrapped in a skimpy white towel, the terry just long enough to skim the top of her thighs. Her skin was flushed pink from the shower, and even from across the room he could smell her soap.

Her gaze darted from the papers on the desk to him, over to the computer, and back again to his eyes. Her right hand curled around the uncertain knot of her towel, but her voice was steady when she said, “You’re supposed to be at the ballpark.”

“The game got rained out.” Of course, any person who believed in running the base path backward wouldn’t have a clue about baseball games being canceled for rain. But he wasn’t feeling very generous with explanations right now, not with the jangling energy still pumping from seeing Bobby’s name, from seeing the bank document that could have destroyed him. “What the hell is all this stuff?” His voice was rougher than he’d thought it would be. His palms were sweating.

“I told you. I’m putting together a response to Parker’s article.”

“You’re dragging my name through shit!”

That
flash of color on her cheeks wasn’t from the shower. She was embarrassed. Or maybe she was angry at his crude language. She stood up straighter. “I’m trying to spin this, Drew. Your Sympathy Index will go to hell once Parker’s story is out there. We have to do everything we can to boost your other assets. We have to be the one telling this story.”

“You want a story?” He picked up the nearest piece of paper—his senior year report card. “Here’s a story. I’m a fuck-up.” He crumpled the page and threw it past her, aiming for the blue-green painting of seashells that hung beside the bed. He nailed the starfish dead on. “Here’s another story,” he said, and this time he snatched up his first arrest record, the one for joyriding. “Everything I touch turns to shit.” He pegged the pink painting of a dolphin. “And here’s one more newsflash: There isn’t anything you, or Williamson, or anyone else can do to make this go away.” He swiped his arm across the desk, sending the papers into the air like a flock of lunatic gulls.

“Stop it!” Jessica shouted, and she lunged across the room as his eyes settled on her computer.

He could imagine the smooth metal in his hands. He could feel its weight, the way it would balance against his palms just before he crashed it into the wall. He could hear the crunch of the drywall, the
plink
of letters breaking off the keyboard. He could see it in a million pieces, ruined like everything else he touched.

~~~

“Stop it,” she said again, but this time her words were almost a whisper. She’d seen the rigid anger in his face, the hard lines that had turned him into someone she’d never met before. She’d flinched when he threw the first balled-up paper, but he’d never tried to hit close to her.

She watched him pull back from whatever cliff he’d been skirting.

“Forget it,” he said, his voice as bleached and stiff as her hotel towel. “Just cancel the whole thing. Call your boss and tell him you’re done.”

She wanted to. She was in way over her head—she knew that now. It was like her shower had washed away all the lies she’d told herself, all the grime she’d piled on to read his files, to reach out to Susan.

She didn’t want to run Drew’s case. But she didn’t have that luxury. If she called off the deal, Chip would fire her. She’d be damaged goods, crushed by Kevin’s death, then scattered by whatever this was she had with Drew.

And she didn’t know what that was, not really. She couldn’t tell if she was only responding to the first sexual tug she’d felt since Kevin’s death. This thing
felt
real; it
felt
like she was where she was supposed to be, doing what she was supposed to do. But that might be a lie. It might be a story her body was weaving for her, her hormones tricking her brain for a little momentary satisfaction.

But what was wrong with
that
, really? She deserved to be happy.

And she
would
be happy—but not if she gave up her job. She couldn’t give up everything she’d worked for since college. She was good at what she did, good at finding the patterns, good at laying them out for other people to see.

She reached out a hand and settled her fingers against Drew’s jaw. He hadn’t shaved again that morning, and the bristles of his beard were rough against her palm. “I can’t do that. I can’t walk away from this. From you.”

He started to protest, but she shifted her hand and rested a finger against his lips. “You’re in the middle of this,” she said. “You think there isn’t any hope, there isn’t any possible way to win. But you have to trust me. You have to believe that I know what I’m doing. I’m good at my job. I’ve helped people like you before, lots of times. We can get through this.”

He twisted his head to speak. “You don’t understand. You don’t know—”

She used her manicured fingernail to silence him. “Trust me.”

Trust didn’t come easy to him. She could see that—in the hard set of his jaw, in the tight lines beside his eyes. It was no wonder—she still had a quarter of the documents to get through, but the story was already crystal clear. His parents had dragged him from town to town, uprooting him every time he started to make friends. It was no wonder he’d acted out. No wonder that even now, as a grown man, he fell in with the baseball camp followers, with women who were easy to pick up and easier to leave behind.

He swallowed, and she knew he still wanted to argue. She pressed her finger against his lips and repeated, “
Trust me
.”

His tongue was soft against her skin. Before she could react his lips took her deep into his mouth. The sensation startled her; no one had ever sucked on her finger before. She gasped and he pulled harder, sending a red-hot line through her breasts, past her belly, hard and fast to her clit.

He raised both hands to her face, his palms joining at her chin, his fingers fanning to the sensitive spots below each ear. She leaned into the soft feathering of his touch, gasping as he found the pulse points that supercharged her blood. She turned her head to the side, letting him slip one hand into the damp tangle of her hair, letting him cradle her head as she kissed his wrist. She darted out her own tongue, tasting salt, smelling sea.

She needed more of him. She reclaimed her finger and joined her arms around his neck. She stroked the shaved velvet at his nape, leaning forward, trusting him to shift his balance, knowing he would find a stable base.

He steadied her as she found his lips with hers. His broad hands skimmed down her towel, slipping underneath to close around the curves of her hips. His touch on her bare flesh was electric; ten live wires jolted straight to her core. She moaned and let him drink in her hunger, her need.

Of course, he understood. His hands slipped higher beneath her towel. His palms cupped the sides of her breasts. She arched her back, needing to feel more of him, needing to be closer still. He tugged her towel free and dropped it to the floor, kicking it away, as if she might have considered picking it up.

But that was ridiculous. She didn’t want more cloth between them. She wanted less.

She pulled at his tight black T-shirt, skimming the jersey over his abs. When she revealed the broad plane of his chest, she left him to finish the job, to clutch at the hem, to tug the shirt off. She needed to lower her head. She needed to feel his hair against her cheeks, against her lips. She caught him by surprise when she found one of his nipples, when she squeezed it gently between her teeth. His shirt landed halfway to the window.

She glanced outside, to the storm that continued in unabated fury. The sky was so dark that the room was reflected in the glass. The wind-whipped palm trees had faded away, replaced by the scene inside the room. The hotel was tall enough that there was nothing to interrupt the view, nothing to break into the reflection.

She watched Drew’s muscled chest as he moved behind her. She watched his arms fold around her. She watched his hands splay across her belly as he pulled her close so her entire spine felt the thrumming of his heart.

His belt buckle was ice against the base of her spine, and she arched away from the cold. The motion drove her bottom against the rough fabric of his jeans. She felt the bulge there; hard and hot.

She expected him to groan. But she didn’t expect to feel an answering jolt to her clit, a sharp shudder as she watched herself grind against him. Nice girls didn’t move like that. Nice girls didn’t watch themselves naked in a storm-dark window. Nice girls didn’t turn to the side, guide their partners to stand beside them, turn their heads to see their watery reflection.

Jangling with excitement, she watched herself kneel. She took her time with his belt, sliding her palm against his belly to cushion the moment when she pulled the leather tight, when she slipped the metal tongue free from its clasp. She wanted to tease him, to watch herself slip the leather free loop by loop, but he must have run out of patience because he shoved her hands aside. He stripped the belt in one quick jerk, throwing it to the floor like it was a poisonous snake.

But he let her move slowly with his jeans. He threw back his head as she tongued his navel, as she trailed wet kisses through the golden line that led to the single metal button. She posed like a porn star, watching through her eyelashes as she grazed that button with her teeth. He groaned as she freed him, turning the button, stripping the zipper, and she almost lost her balance from the answering pulse deep inside her as she watched it all in the window.

Panting, rocking back on her heels, she let him kick away his shoes, tear off his jeans, rip away his boxer briefs. Once he was naked, she came back to attention, kneeling in front of him and turning her head to feel his hard thigh against her cheek. In the window, she looked wild, scheming; the reflection of her laughing eyes gave her a power she’d never had before.

The image wasn’t perfect. It wasn’t as clear as a real mirror. She could see the long line of her throat, but she couldn’t see the pink bruise she knew was there, the love bite he’d given her at the beach house. She could make out the dark circles at the tips of her breasts, but she couldn’t see the taut buds of her nipples even though she knew they were harder, tighter than they’d ever been before. She could see every inch of Drew’s penis, but the mirrored window didn’t show her the perfect drop of liquid that waited for her on the tip.

He groaned as her lips closed over him. His head rolled back, and his Adam’s apple bobbed. She watched herself take him deep, saw herself as she never had before. From the glass she knew that she had power over him; she had control. Her lips tightened around him, and she stroked the entire length of his shaft, feeling the throbbing rocket between her own thighs. One more time, from base to tip, one more time taking him deeper than she’d ever had a man before.

She could do it, because she was in control. She could do it, because she was beautiful.
They
were beautiful together, moving in the liquid mirror of the storm-washed glass.

His hands tangled in her hair, and she crafted a new rhythm, slower now, drawing out his pleasure. She slipped him from her mouth, replaced her lips with her fingers, and she was fascinated all over again by the image before her. She watched herself stroke him, watched herself cup his balls, watched herself run a bright red fingernail down one throbbing vein, each new image ratcheting up the energy that surged inside her.

He slipped his hands to her shoulders and pulled her to her feet. Both of them swayed for balance, seeking stability, giving it. He folded one arm over her belly and eased her back against his chest. He bent them forward, just enough to slip his other hand between her thighs. She watched him—felt him—curve his wrist. She watched him—felt him—slip a finger deep inside her. She was wetter than she’d ever been in her life.

He added another finger. She saw how she tightened her thighs, how she pushed back against him. She was yielding to him, trusting him to hold her. But because of the glass, because of the mirror, she saw it all, controlled it all. She took the risk, and she gained the pleasure.

His wrist flexed. His fingers curved. He wrote a question mark against her most sensitive flesh, drew the symbol again and again. She pushed back against him, straining for pressure, all the while watching how he played her. His fingers curled and questioned until she broke against him, pulsing, pounding, melting in the mirror.

She’d never seen herself come before. She’d never known that look of desperation, the pure need that suffused her face, thawing and breaking and pooling together again. The image of herself in the mirror, the vision of Drew guiding her, the primal power as his teeth scraped against her shoulder in a bite she couldn’t feel because of the all-consuming rolling in her clit—all of it made her tighten and rise and crest all over again.

She saw her lips moving and only then did she realize she was chanting his name, driving him, calling him, crying out for him over and over and over again.

~~~

He held her as she spiraled down. Her body burned against his, her thighs trembling in the aftermath. He slipped his fingers free, and she shuddered all over again, groaning his name in a tone raw enough to turn his cock to stone.

She felt it. There was no way she couldn’t. He shifted his arms and turned her around, breaking the magic of the mirror. He had to kiss her, had to plunge his tongue deep into her mouth, had to stroke her like that, because he knew she’d let him.

But because she was still shaking, because she was still unsteady on her feet, he brought her to the bed. He pulled away from her mouth so she could climb onto the mattress, and when she turned to face him she stretched out like a centerfold. She crooked her finger and smiled an invitation, and he almost gave in to her seduction.