Stopping Short: A Hot Baseball Romance Read online

  “So you thought, ‘why not?’”

  He shrugged. “We moved a lot when I was growing up. I liked the idea of having one address that wouldn’t change, even if the Rockets cut me, even if I end up out of the game.”

  “How often do you get here?”

  “A few times during the year. But during spring training, I come up when we have a day off. Or when I need a break. Like Tuesday night, a couple of weeks ago.”

  She remembered how she’d felt that Tuesday, the fear and desperation that had clouded her thoughts as the night dragged on. That seemed like ancient history, though, like they’d lived a lifetime in the intervening fourteen days.

  Because since then, they’d settled into their lives together. They’d relaxed around each other, teased each other, gotten used to a million little habits. She knew he took one sugar in his coffee. He squeezed his toothpaste from the middle of the tube. More often than not, he battled nightmares when he slept, tossing and turning and tangling his sheet around his feet.

  So now that he admitted where he’d been that Tuesday night, it seemed like another puzzle piece was slipping into place. He’d told her something important, admitted a real truth. But she wasn’t going to make too big a deal out of it. She wasn’t going to jump up and put him through the third degree.

  Instead, she leaned back in the swing, consciously telling her body to relax. She wasn’t surprised to find his arm behind her head. She didn’t sit up, didn’t pull away. Instead, she concentrated on easing the iron bands that stretched from her jaw to her shoulders, the muscles in her neck that ached with tension.

  His fingers brushed idly against her arm. She didn’t want to think about Image Masters, about the afternoon game, about Drew’s Competence Index or regression analyses or standard deviations or any other statistical tool, so she asked, “Do you rent this place out when you’re not here?”

  He barely shook his head. “I have to know it’s free when I need it. It’s mine, and I like it that way.”

  The calm possessiveness in his voice tugged at something deep inside her. She understood that desire for a foundation. She’d always needed an anchor like that, a place where no one interfered.

  Kevin had been the one who wanted to travel. He always wanted to explore, one new place after another. Kevin would have rented a different beach house every trip to the shore, always searching for the best, the one perfect place that was better than any other. He’d never understood that sometimes you had to take a place that already existed and fix it up. Make it yours.

  Thinking about vacationing with Kevin made her uncomfortable, like so many thoughts she’d had about her marriage in the past month. She felt disloyal to Kevin, like she was criticizing him to a stranger.

  But she wasn’t criticizing; she was merely stating the truth.

  And Drew wasn’t a stranger.

  She smiled wryly. Forget about living with the guy for four weeks. She’d had the Image Masters library staff work their usual magic. She’d read more articles about Drew Marshall in the past month than she’d read books in the past five years. From celebrity profiles to newspaper dissections of his games, she’d read every word.

  And because she’d read every word, because she knew why she’d been hired, why she’d come to Florida in the first place, she had to ask, “Why didn’t you bring Kaley Armistead out here, instead of that crappy hotel in Coral Crest?”

  There. She’d known he would stiffen by her side. She’d known he would suck in a breath between his teeth. She’d known he would twist his neck first to the left then to the right before he answered. “I don’t bring people here.”

  Except you.

  He didn’t say it. He didn’t have to.

  Those two unspoken words melted something inside her. She felt the grip of ancient anticipation, the delicious swooping far below her belly that she hadn’t felt in over a year. Her lips tingled when she licked them. A shiver tightened the skin at the nape of her neck and rolled down her spine in slow motion, making the tiny hairs on her arms stand at full attention.

  She turned to face him, and his arm slipped around her shoulder, drawing her closer. It was safer to lean into him, to steady the swing.

  But it was dangerous to turn her gaze to his. It was deadly to watch the starlight gleaming in his golden eyes, the open invitation—an invitation she decided to accept.

  His mouth was warm beneath hers, warm and incredibly familiar, after their twice-daily show of kisses. She knew the exact feel of his lips against hers. She knew his momentary hesitation as she darted out her tongue, as he let her take that lead. She knew the feel of his smile as she leaned in to make the most of the short contact, to sell their story to anyone who was watching.

  But there was no one watching, here at the beach. There was no one counting out the time. There was no one to tell her that she had to follow Rule Two, that she had to pull back.

  And so she let her fingers do what they’d wanted to do for at least the past few days. She pulled at his shirt, slipping the soft cotton free from the waist of his jeans. She slipped her palms beneath the jersey knit, flattening her hands against his abs, absorbing his heat. And all the while, she deepened their kiss, counting past five, not counting at all.

  She moaned deep in her throat as his hands began their own exploration. She leaned back just enough to let him twitch at the top buttons on her blouse, to work them far too efficiently. She rubbed against him, leaning into his ready hands until he got the message and slipped his finger and thumb past the satin of her bra.

  He teased at her right nipple, rolling it to a peak, and his laugh stole her soft gasp. She squirmed away from the pressure, and he let her go, but then she brought his hands to her back, to her spine. He melted her, molded her against him, ending with his palms cupping her bottom. She straddled him and pulled away from his mouth just enough to purr, “Mmm.”

  “What happened to Rule One?” he teased. “I think this counts as more than holding hands.”

  “We’re not in the Vista Linda lobby either,” she said. “And I think Rule Two flew out the window too.”

  Following the rules, they’d only kissed on the lips before. Suddenly she wanted to taste the line of his jaw, to feel the bristle of his beard against her cheek, sweet and rough at the same time. He growled as her tongue found the hollow beneath his ear, the sensitive place where she felt his pulse beat hard against her lips. He writhed at the pressure and caught the back of her head with one hand.

  Then his lips were tracing their own wild path, along the arched line of her throat, down to the soft V at the top of her bra. She gasped at the jagged current that wet kiss sent straight to her clit, and he laughed as he nuzzled back to her throat. His teeth grazed her flesh there, nipping just enough to make her shiver, and then he suckled the tingling skin, drawing hard until she squirmed across his lap.

  “Sorry, sweetheart,” he whispered when he came up for air.

  She knew she’d have a bruise, and she couldn’t begin to care. “So much for Rule Three,” she said. Nicknames and endearments, right out the window. That had been a stupid rule anyway. Right now, straddling his lap, feeling his erection strain against his jeans, she wasn’t afraid of any words in the universe.

  But Rule Four?

  Rule Four was trading off who slept in the bed. Rule Four kept their entire charade safe, their entire game calm and cool and professional. Not that there was anything calm about the wild pulse inside her. Not that there was anything cool about the fire that licked between her thighs. Not that there was anything professional about what she wanted to do, right now, right here, her job with Image Masters be damned.

  She leaned back enough to unfasten the last three buttons on her blouse, basking in the greedy flare of his gaze. Urgent now, needing to feel his flesh against hers, she yanked his shirt over his head. He froze as the ocean air hit his flesh, and she reached out to slip her arms around his neck, to pull him close, to run her hands down his back the way she’d l
onged to do forever.

  He tossed his head like a lion, though, and caught her arms against her sides. She pouted in mock frustration, but he distracted her too easily. His fingers made short work with the clasp at the center of her own back, and bra and blouse soon tangled with his T-shirt on the porch.

  She cried out as he pulled her close, as the sensitive tips of her breasts scraped against the curls on his chest. A distant corner of her mind registered how different he was from Kevin, the hair he had where her husband had waxed his away in the service of wetsuits and biking gear.

  It wasn’t just the hair on Drew’s chest that was different, though. It was the scent of him—salt and spice instead of an expensive cologne. It was the laughter in his caramel eyes, the way he was playing at this, having fun, instead of competing for some special prize.

  Drew was different and that was good, because if he’d felt the same, if he’d smelled the same, if he’d had the same tricks of stroking her and teasing her and making her heart beat in triple time, she never could have moved ahead. She never could have worked the buckle of his belt, never could have slipped free the button at the top of his jeans. She never could have lowered his zipper, tooth by metal tooth.

  And she never could have squeezed her thighs tight around his legs and leaned back to look at his face as she slipped her hand inside the soft cotton of his knit boxer briefs. Not woven boxers. Not Kevin. Not at all, in any way.

  ~~~

  As Jessica closed her fingers around his cock, Drew planted his feet on the porch, his thighs shaking like he’d just beaten out a throw to the plate. He wasn’t certain what else to do; he had no idea what to say.

  He’d understood from the moment Sartain put him on this screwed-up road that Jessica was the one who called the shots. She was the one whose reputation could be ruined by spending time with him. She was the one whose job was on the line.

  She was the grieving widow.

  Those words didn’t make any sense. Widows were old. They were pale and wrinkled. They were shadows of women who lit candles and clutched crosses and mourned the life they’d lost.

  A widow wouldn’t curl her fingers around his dick. She wouldn’t trace her thumb around the hard ridge of flesh that throbbed like it was about to explode. She wouldn’t shift her weight, slowly, on purpose, rocking against him with a promise, with a prayer.

  Jesus, she was killing him. He wanted to rip off the rest of her clothes and throw her over his shoulder. He wanted to carry her to the bedroom and bury his face between her legs and eat her out until she screamed his name. He wanted to pump inside her, hard and fast, make her come a second time, a third.

  But he couldn’t do any of that. He had to let her take the lead. He had to hold himself back as she took every step first, as she broke each and every one of her goddamn rules, as she decided what was right, what she wanted to do, because she was a widow, and he’d be damned if he’d let her hate him tomorrow for what they were doing tonight.

  Her fingers cupped his balls and he hissed a breath between his teeth. She smiled slowly, sweet somehow, despite the wicked, wicked things she was doing with those red-painted fingernails he’d paid for at the spa.

  And then her cell phone rang.

  The sound of a jackhammer matched a sharp buzz against his thigh, and she froze like a thief. The noise repeated itself, and the vibration shot between them again. A third time, and she finally moved, raising herself up enough on her knees that she could reach into her back pocket.

  She cleared her throat just a little before she pressed a button and said, “Chip.”

  Her goddamn boss. Her goddamn boss from her goddamn job, calling on her goddamn phone in the middle of the night.

  She slipped her knee across his lap, sitting down hard as she shifted her phone to her other ear. Drew swore softly and picked up his feet from the floorboards, letting the swing rock back and forth again.

  “Why did he send it to you?” Jessica asked. Even as she listened to the answer—something that left her completely dissatisfied, if the expression on her face was any clue—she turned toward the sea. She was holding one arm in front of herself, like the awkward angle of her wrist was enough to keep him from staring at her chest.

  He swore again and pulled himself out of the swing. He tossed her shirt to her, dropping her bra onto the seat cushion. He tucked himself back into his shorts—easy enough now that her cock-block boss had done his job—and zipped up. Before she could turn back to face him, he tugged on his T-shirt and moved to stand on the edge of the porch. The tide was the highest he’d ever seen it.

  “I’m not at my computer now,” Jessica was saying. “Go ahead and read it to me.” And he must have—something long by the sound of things. Jessica made interested noises at the back of her throat, acknowledging that she was listening.

  “It’s not as bad as it could be,” she finally said, and he heard doubt in her voice. Then she rallied. “Come on, Chip. It’s his juvenile record. All that stuff should have been sealed.”

  His juvenile record. Who the hell had his juvenile record?

  He wasn’t proud of getting caught. But the vandalism charge was just a senior prank that went wrong. They probably would have let him off with nothing but a talking to if he hadn’t already had a record for joyriding. And public intoxication on the beach. And public indecency, from when that cop caught him and Mary Alice Tonneker making out beneath the bleachers.

  Shit, he’d been a bored kid, bouncing from hick town to hick town. Who gave a fuck about his juvenile record?

  “Well,” Jessica said. “We can’t do anything until tomorrow.” She winced as soon as the words were out of her mouth, and she had to listen to an earful before she could correct her mistake. “That’s not what I meant, Chip, and you know it. “We can’t do anything public. I’ll start drafting a reply right now. As soon as I’m back to the hotel, I’ll hit the Internet, plant a few sympathetic stories where they can be picked up by the usual sites. I’ll reach out to our reporters to line up a staged response.”

  Drew watched her stiffen as her boss said something more. “We’re just up the coast a bit,” she finally said. “We wanted the press to see us heading out for a romantic dinner. You know, like any happy, engaged couple.”

  She was lying. And she was good at it. But that didn’t keep her boss from chewing her a new one.

  Her voice tightened, and for the first time in the conversation, she really seemed pissed off. “No, Chip. I understand. I’m just an associate. I always need a partner to review my work. Of course. No, I understand.”

  She repeated herself a few more times before she finally ended the call. She tossed her phone onto the seat beside her and half turned away to button up her shirt. Like that made any difference after what they’d just been doing. She crumpled her bra into a ball and stuffed it into her front pocket.

  “Bad news?” he finally asked, because it seemed like she wasn’t ever going to tell him.

  “Ross Parker sent Chip a story that’ll run in Sunday’s News & Observer.”

  “Sunday? Why the lead time?”

  “Front page exposés take a lot of planning.”

  Front page. Drew could live down anything in the sports section. He already had, a thousand times, the articles about his women and his drinking and his general badass self. But the front page would put his name in front of readers who never bothered to follow the game. The front page would tip the balance, make Skip and the rest of Rockets management certain he wasn’t worth the bother. He’d be lucky if they sent him down to the minors. They might just cut him altogether.

  “How’d that asshole get my juvie record?”

  “Who knows? That’s his job. It doesn’t matter how he got it, if what he says is true.”

  “If he broke the law, I’ll sue his ass.”

  “No you won’t. Look. If you sue Ross Parker, you’ll keep the story on the front page for months.” She rubbed her hand down her face. “I know what he’s got in his ar
ticle already. But I need you to tell me all the things he doesn’t have.”

  “How the hell do I know?”

  “Come on, Drew! This isn’t a game! Whatever you haven’t told me, whatever secrets you keep, Parker’s going to find them. It can be a document filed under seal, a blood oath you took with your best friend in second grade—he’ll get it. And I can’t protect you if I don’t know what it is.”

  He fought the urge to slam his fist into the side of the house. The juvie stuff, fine, that was out there now. He wasn’t proud of it, but he could live with those stories getting out.

  There weren’t any records of the really bad shit. No police reports. No hospital files. Because Susan never let anyone know.

  She was the only loose end left. If Parker offered her enough money, enough alcohol, enough coke or meth or whatever she was doing these days…

  But whatever else she was, Susan wasn’t stupid. She wouldn’t take Parker’s one-time pay-out, knowing it would cost her Drew’s cash for the rest of her life.

  He sent her money because, at the end of the day, she was his mother. He sent her money because he’d walked away when he was eighteen, left her alone for four years, left her to fend for herself. He sent her money because he felt a hell of a lot worse when he didn’t, and this way he could be certain she’d keep her goddamn mouth shut forever, just the way she’d kept it shut when she could have made a difference.

  She knew she’d never see another dime if she betrayed him one last time. He wouldn’t toss a penny on her grave if she talked to Parker or anyone else. He was safe.

  But he had to say something. He’d been standing here for too long, keeping his mouth shut, letting Jessica stare at him, frustration clear on her face.

  “Susan,” he finally said.

  “Your mother?” Of course she remembered his background. She’d researched it before they’d ever met.

  “She’s alive,” he said.

  He watched her in the moonlight. He watched her process the fact that he’d lied to her. She wanted to ask him questions; she wanted to know why—it was all there on her face, as plain as the waves on the beach. She finally settled on: “What will Susan say when Parker finds her?”