Center Stage: A Hot Baseball Romance (Diamond Brides Book 8) (13 page)

~~~

Another fucking error.

Last night, he’d played like shit. He’d thought he could leave Ormond’s office, head down to the locker room, suit up for BP, and everything would be fine. But he couldn’t get his head in the game. His practice hits popped up, scorched foul, went anywhere and everywhere he didn’t want them to go.

The actual game was worse. At the plate, he went oh for four. He couldn’t catch up to Hernandez’s fast ball, and he was left looking like a goddamn cartoon rabbit, wrapping himself into a spiral and screwing himself into the ground.

Maybe it was the muscle he tweaked in the small of his back that made him commit the sixth-inning error. He took a crappy path to the two-out ball, turned around and lost it in the lights. Just like a fucking rookie. The inning went on even as he cursed himself. Paton ended up throwing another eleven pitches before he got the last out, and the Rockets’ pitcher was out of the game, no decision.

And tonight wasn’t any better.

Yeah, he got two hits, but he was left on base both times. And right there, in the bottom of the eighth, he committed another error—he got to the ball, no problem, got it in his glove. But his throw to Marshall was three feet over the guy’s head, and another run scored.

All because he couldn’t focus on the goddamn game. All because he kept fighting the urge to look up at the owner’s box, to find Ormond, arms crossed, eyes narrowed. All because he was thinking about the phone in his locker, wondering if Lindsey had called, worried about what she’d heard regarding the audition and the fucked-up waitress job.

He hit the showers after the game, ignoring the reporters who hounded him for a quote. He let the water beat down on him, scalding hot, telling himself he was treating his tight hamstring, not trying to punish himself for tanking both games.

Back at his locker, he took his time checking his phone. A couple of emails. A dozen texts. Voicemail from Dad, following up on his warning from the night before. Dad said the Sats had played a great game; he was settling in, hitting his stride.

Nothing from Lindsey.

She was a grown woman, he’d told Ormond. She could make up her own mind. But it looked like he was well and truly fucked, because he’d really thought she would choose him.

It didn’t matter. It couldn’t. The Rockets were in contention this year. He didn’t have time for a woman, couldn’t take the distraction. Hell, his piss-poor showing the last two days proved he couldn’t follow his dick and play professional ball too.

His foot was heavy on the gas pedal all the way home. And that made him think of Lindsey, opening the throttle on the drive to the beach. Shit. He was a basket case, as sad as any pimple-faced high-school kid pining after a girl who didn’t know he was alive.

But Lindsey knew he was alive. She’d just chosen not to deal with him. She’d decided to listen to her brother, to do what Zach said was right. And as much as Ryan wanted to argue that her decision was wrong, that Zach was wrong, he wasn’t going to get the chance. He had to respect Lindsey’s decision. He had to let her protect herself, had to let her heal after what that Will Templeton asshole had done at her wedding.

He’d gotten it down to a chant by the time he turned onto his street. Lindsey was right. She could decide. He had to accept, because Lindsey was right.

He pulled into his driveway, automatically swerving wide of the car parked on the street by his mailbox. He wound down the path, under the pine trees, through the overgrown brambles that gave him the privacy any professional ballplayer craved. He thumbed the garage door opener, automatically coasting over the smooth red brick that curved in front of his house.

And he stopped dead when he saw the naked woman standing on his front porch.

~~~

Lindsey’s heart ricocheted against her ribs as the Ferrari’s headlights swung into view. With an actor’s instincts, she knew she was standing center stage, pinned in the double spotlights. Part of her mind screamed at her, begging her to duck behind one of the white columns. She should kneel down and scoop up the dress she’d carefully folded, the shoes she’d lined up, as neat and orderly as if she’d been in a doctor’s office. She could throw herself off the far end of the porch, hide in the bushes, wait until the car lights shut off and she could escape into the darkness forever.

But that’s what a good girl would do—if a good girl had ever been crazy enough to stand on a man’s front porch, stark naked in the summer night, waiting for him to come home and find her. Forget about good. Forget about bad. Lindsey was a strong and independent woman, and she was doing exactly what she wanted to do.

The car sighed to a stop. The driver’s door opened. For one terrifying second, Lindsey realized Ryan could have brought someone home from the game—another one of the players, some woman he’d picked up outside the stadium, anyone.

But that was only adrenaline talking. It was after midnight, and the Rockets had lost. They had a morning flight scheduled; they were heading up to New York. Ryan wouldn’t be bringing anyone home.

Telling herself the tsunami in her belly was just a form of stage fright, Lindsey put one hand on her hip. She used the other to toss her hair over her shoulder, running her fingers through the loose dark waves. She pasted on her good smile, the one she knew carried to the back row of a theater, and she watched Ryan walk to the bottom of the porch steps.

“Welcome home, Hotshot,” she said, using all her skill to keep her voice easy and light, to squash the nerves that tried to vibrate her voice to tatters.

Ryan planted his feet and crossed his arms over his chest, staring up at her with frank approval. “Let me guess. You just stopped by to sell me some Girl Scout cookies.”

She leaned forward, purposely sticking out her chest, and she curled her index finger, urging him forward once, twice, three times. She pursed her lips and tilted her head so she was looking up at him through her eyelashes. She knew him, and she liked him, and she wanted to seduce him. But when he grinned up at her, she realized she was seducing herself.

She wasn’t a child any more. Not after Will. Not after losing the role of the Itsy Bitsy Mouse. Not after Darryl had told her—just that afternoon—that he wanted her in a grey wig, wearing a fat suit and puffing on fake cigarettes as she waited tables for his pre-show cabaret.

She could have gone home and comforted herself with a pint of Ben & Jerry’s. But she’d realized instead that she wanted something a hell of a lot hotter than ice cream.

She still hadn’t answered Ryan. She walked down the three steps, conscious of his gaze on her as she took each step. She stopped six inches in front of him, and she said, “I’m not selling anything. But you’re the one I want to give something to.”

She wasn’t expecting his arms to be so tight around her. She hadn’t planned on the force of his body, wrapping around hers. She didn’t count on his hands being so hot, so needy as his fingers clutched her hair, pulling her close as he crushed his lips against hers.

The shock of that kiss echoed through her body. It chased down her arms and tightened her fingers, making her pull him even closer. It tightened the long muscles in her thighs, forcing her up on the tips of her toes, driving her toward his broad chest.

As his tongue teased hers, his hand swept down the ladder of her spine. Executing his silent command, she arched against him, moaning at the back of her throat as the cotton of his shirt scraped across her nipples.

She almost backed away then. The sound of her need embarrassed her—more than standing naked, more than drinking in his kiss. That moan was base. It was raw. It was something she hadn’t planned, hadn’t counted on, and it terrified her in a way the rest of this role did not.

But she felt the way he responded to her. His arms tightened around her, and one palm flattened against her bottom, fingers curling in to bring her even closer.

No. Not her
bottom
. If she was standing here, naked and commanding, she could use another word. Ryan was gripping her
ass
, shifting his hips to frame hers. She felt the heat of his erection, hard and ready, pressing his jeans against her belly.

He shifted his mouth from hers, painting a line of kisses along her jaw. She shuddered as the tip of his tongue found the hollow beneath her ear. He set her on fire as he nipped at the sensitive skin, as he sucked away the quick sparkle of pain. His teeth closed over the lobe of her ear, tight enough that she gasped, and his hands settled on her hips as he whispered, “What’s the plan here, Killer? Are you coming inside?”

Part of her wanted to rip his clothes off, right then and there. She wanted to force him down to the ground with her, to feel the flagstone path, hard and rough and punishing against her back. She wanted to roll over him, to take him with her, to end up crushed beneath him on the grass that spread beside the walkway, cool and dark in the starlight.

But another part of her knew she wanted things to last longer than that. She wanted lush carpet and a soft bed—no bruises, no pain to pull her away from this night she’d given herself.

“I thought you’d never ask,” she said, and she was rewarded by Ryan’s soft laugh. He pulled her up the steps then, folded one hand across her belly and crushed her to his chest as he worked his key in the lock. Then he was pushing the door open, covering her mouth with another breathless kiss, somehow guiding them both inside in a more graceful choreography than she could ever have mapped on her own.

He turned to close the door, and she acted before she could think. She pushed him back against the gleaming oak panels, pressed his shoulders against the door and kissed him with an urgency that pulsed through her entire body.

She needed to feel more of him, more than his mouth, more than his hands. She tugged at his shirt, ripping it free from his jeans, and he laughed as she fought to tear it over his head. Her hands spread flat across his pecs, measuring his ragged breath. Her palms tingled with the energy of him, as if he were some electric wire she couldn’t control, couldn’t maintain.

She needed to do something with that energy, had to release some of that force, so she skimmed her fingers down his sides and felt the muscles that covered his ribs. He sucked in his breath when she flattened her hands over his abs. The sound sparked a laugh deep in her throat.

He was breathing hard, like he’d just raced to the warning track and caught a game-ending fly ball. She slipped her fingers inside the waistband of his jeans and settled her knuckles against the dark line of hair that led the way to his belt buckle. “Oh God, Lindsey,” he moaned, and she realized why her own involuntary sound had been such a turn-on for him.

He wanted her. Here. Now. Not in some sort of abstract way, not like playwrights, crafting the perfect language of seduction, not like a groom promising to forsake all others till death they did part. She’d set this chaotic train in motion. She’d told him she wanted his body, and he was answering her with every shuddering breath in his body.

She undid his belt, pulling the leather fast and tight before she released the metal prong, before she tugged down his jeans. She slipped her hand inside his shorts and closed her palm over the hard, hot length of him.

No. Not
length
. She held his
cock
.

She almost faltered at the hard word, at the naughty word, at the word she never said. But he bucked against her fingers, eager, ready, and his own hands scrabbled at the elastic waistband of his shorts, pushing them down. He kicked away his jeans and boxers, short, sharp gestures, like an animal fighting to be free. When his cock pulsed hard against her palm, she tightened her fingers in reflex.

He groaned and lowered his forehead to her shoulder. His teeth closed on the hard bone of her clavicle, and he nibbled his way to her neck. He sucked there, hard, and she knew she’d have a bruise in the morning.

She knew, and the idea excited her more than she’d ever been turned on in her life. She wanted him to mark her. She wanted to know—in the morning, when she was dressed again, when she was sane—that she had chosen to be here, that she had chosen to do this.

She threw back her head, giving him better access to the pulse point in her throat. The scrape of his teeth made her thighs tremble, and she might have collapsed if he hadn’t clutched both hands tight against her hips.

That grip, the tightening of his fingertips, ignited other fires. It wasn’t enough to feel his lips against her throat, drinking like a man dying of thirst. She had to feel his chest against hers, crushing her throbbing nipples against the tight muscles of his pecs. She leaned back into his supporting hands, letting him clutch her, hold her, draw her close to the throbbing cock she still held.

She shifted her weight, opening her legs. She leaned in toward him so that her right flank matched his left. She pointed her left foot, stretching her leg into a dancer’s plié, and she guided his hand from her hip to the sweet pearl she exposed.

No. Not
pearl
. She brought his fingers around to touch her
clit
. She settled her hand on top of his. She felt his wrist curl. She measured out the perfect rhythm as he stroked her, echoing the fire he built in her clit with the one he kindled against her tingling, desperate lips.

~~~

Jesus!
This wasn’t happening to him. He hadn’t driven home from one of the worst games of his professional career to find a sex goddess waiting for him on his front porch. He wasn’t harder than he’d ever been in his life with her hand wrapped around his dick, with her pumping him like every schoolboy’s dream. He couldn’t be slipping three fingers inside her, feeling her heat close around his hand, watching the rhythm of his motion drive her closer, closer, closer.

But it was real, all of it, and it was hotter than any fantasy he’d ever dreamed for himself.

She caught her breath, holding it as her thighs began to tremble. She let go of his dick; she clutched his shoulders with both her hands. She drove down, pushing hard, and he dipped his hand back into her slick heat, pressed his thumb hard against her throbbing clit. One more time. Again.