Playing Hard (23 page)

“Like I said, my turn now.” He kissed her then, doing nothing more with the water than letting it play over both of them while he took her mouth. Fierce kisses. Nothing gentle or cautious about them. Kisses designed for one thing. To make her hotter and wetter and needier than she already was.

He didn’t touch her with his injured hand, which meant, with his good hand holding the shower, that he didn’t touch her at all. And oh, she wanted to be touched. She arched herself against him, wanting friction. Wanting skin on skin. The hair on his chest scraped against her nipples. Good. Very good but not yet enough.

“Please,” she said, writhing harder. “I want—”

He stepped back and she felt the spray change to a heavier stream of water. It moved across her body, making her flesh pulse and tingle everywhere it hit, as though it was his hand sliding across her. She closed her eyes, rested her head against the tile, sure the heat was going to consume her.

The water moved lower. “Open,” he said.

She didn’t think he meant her eyes. She wasn’t sure she could have opened her eyes if she’d tried. But her body knew what it wanted and she moved her thighs farther apart.

“If only you could see how good you look right now,” he said. “God, Amelia—”

“Please,” she interrupted. “I need to come. Please.”

He groaned and kissed her again. And then the water hit her between her legs. The hot rush of pressure against her clit made light pinwheels across her closed eyelids and she heard herself gasping. The pressure didn’t move, didn’t relent, didn’t let her get away from the pleasure that rushed to answer it. Not even when she started to arch and tremble as the orgasm exploded through her. Oliver swallowed her cry of pleasure with his mouth. Moved the water away, let her tangle her arms around his neck to hold herself upright as the aftershocks moved through her, made her boneless.

When she finally lifted her head and blinked up at him, smiling like she was drunk, he grinned. “Very good, Amelia,” he said. “Now, how do you feel about an encore?”

*   *   *

When they made it back to the bed, Oliver pulled her close to his chest and she snuggled up gratefully, the combination of a very long day and several mind-blowing orgasms making her very, very sleepy. The shower had chased away the tired ache of a long day but replaced it with a desire to melt into a happy puddle of oblivion for a while. She didn’t want to think about the way-too-few hours between now and when her alarm was set to shriek.

There wasn’t going to be enough coffee in the world to make tomorrow pleasant. She might as well enjoy this moment of pleasure while she could.

“Finn didn’t look happy to see you talking to me,” Oliver said, out of the blue.

She craned her neck back. “You know he’s not a fan of yours.”

“That feeling is mutual. Particularly after the way he talked to you tonight.”

“He was pissed off about losing.”

“I’m pissed off about losing,” Oliver said. “I’m not taking it out on you.”

Well, not in the same way as Finn had. If bathroom sex was Oliver’s way of distracting himself, then she was on board.

“It’s not quite the same, though, is it?” she asked. “I mean, tell me if I’m being dumb, but you didn’t play tonight.”

He stiffened underneath her. “Don’t take this the wrong way, but that is dumb. I’ve played for the Saints for fifteen years. It doesn’t matter if I’m on the field or not. They’re like my—”

“Family?” she said softly.

“I guess,” he said. “I mean, I have a great family of my own. I love them all to death but I never quite fit in with them.”

What? She’d seen the pictures. He hadn’t looked like the outsider kid in any of them. Her confusion must have shown on her face because Oliver shook his head.

“I don’t mean they don’t love me,” he said. “Or that they were anything less than supportive. But people in my family are lawyers and doctors and engineers and business barons. Everyone is big on brains and using your mind to make a success of life. Whereas me, well, I fell in love with baseball the first time I picked up a ball and threw it. I need to move. Need to play. Need to use my body. I’m not stupid, I had early acceptance to colleges when Tom Jameson recruited me. But the thought of being cooped up at a desk all day … well, that’s not me.”

“You’re an athlete,” she said. She ran a hand down his chest, feeling the ridges of muscle that proved her words true. His body was finely tuned. Hard-earned. “I can understand that.”

“Yeah, well, I’m not sure my family ever has. They love me and they’re proud of me but I’m pretty sure there’s a part of my mom and dad just counting down the days until I retire and get a real job.”

“Even after all this time?”

He shrugged, which felt distinctly weird from her current position. “Families are strange. But it’s okay. Because the Saints are my family, too. They understand the part of me that my own family doesn’t. Understand what it means to love baseball. They get me.” He hesitated. “Is that how it is with the Castros for you?”

She turned in his arms, propping herself up. “What do you mean?”

“You’re obviously close. You told me what they did for you and your mom. And your mom isn’t here tonight.”

“My mom hates to fly,” Amelia said. “I offered her a train ticket but I think she thought the series was going to be over quickly and it wasn’t worth the time. She’s not really into sports. She’s never had much spare time, so she always made sure she did stuff she enjoyed when she wasn’t doing stuff with me.”

“She worked a lot?”

Amelia nodded. “It was just her. It probably would have made more sense for her to leave Chicago, move back to her hometown—she’s from a little place down in southern Illinois. It would have been cheaper, for one thing.”

“So why didn’t she?”

“I never asked. If I had to guess, I’d say it was part stubbornness, part embarrassment that her marriage had failed. She always said the schools were better in Chicago. I’m not sure she fit in herself back home. She married my dad while she was still in college. Dropped out.”
Because she was knocked up with me.
She didn’t say that part.

“Tough woman to bring you up on her own,” he said. “I’m glad you had the Castros.”

“Me too.”

His arm tightened around her. “We’re going to have to tell Finn sooner or later, you know. Unless you’re planning on just using me for sex for a few weeks and then breaking my heart.”

She sucked in a breath. Breaking his heart? His tone was light, but something about his face made her think he’d just admitted something. Something maybe he didn’t quite realize himself yet. “Not planning to, no,” she said. “So yes, we can tell Finn. But maybe let’s give him a few more days.”

“You know, you don’t have to tiptoe around his feelings. He’s a big boy. I’m sure he can handle it. Eventually. And if he doesn’t, screw it. You don’t owe him your happiness.”

She hesitated. “Maybe not. But his sister is my best friend. If there’s a way to do this with minimal fallout, then I’d like to try that way first.”

He tilted his head. “Why do I get the feeling you’re not telling me everything? Finn was a flat-out dick to you tonight and yet you’re cutting him slack. I have to confess, I really don’t get it. You seem to spend a lot of time worrying about his feelings but does he worry about yours? What’s Finn ever done for you?”

“He saved my mom’s life,” she said, the words tumbling out before she could stop them.

Oliver’s eyes widened. “What?”

“He saved her life. My mom’s cancer, well, it was bad. She had a lumpectomy at first. Chemo. They thought it was all fine. But then it came back. This time she had a double mastectomy. More chemo. It knocked her around. She seemed to be getting better. But about a year later, she was tired all the time, not feeling well. They thought the cancer was back but it was aplastic anemia—that’s a blood thing where your body stops making enough new blood cells. In her case because of all the chemo. It did a number on her immune system. Lots of people recover from it but she wasn’t getting any better, no matter what they tried. So they decided she needed a bone marrow transplant. We all got tested—Finn was too young so he couldn’t, but no one was a match. She was on the registry for a donor but no match. The day Finn turned eighteen, he went to her doctor and got tested. And he was a match. So he donated. Missed a couple of his high school championship games to do it and everyone tried to talk him out of it because of that. But he insisted. And it worked. Finn saved her, Ollie. I can’t ever repay that.”

Oliver didn’t say anything. He just watched her, an expression that wasn’t quite a frown drawing his brows together. The silence started to make her nervous. “Say something.”

His frown deepened. “I’m not sure what to say.”

“Why? Because you can’t imagine Finn being a good guy?”

“Maybe. He doesn’t exactly play the white knight around me. But no, that’s not it.”

“Then what?”

“Not sure I know how to say it … I understand you must feel grateful to him—that’s a hell of a thing Finn did—and I know the Castros have done a lot for you. But have you ever thought that maybe you don’t have to repay it? That they don’t expect it. Or at the very least, you don’t have to let gratitude outweigh the fact that you deserve to be happy. And treated well.”

“The Castros treat me well.”

“We’re talking about Finn.”

“Finn does, too,” she said stubbornly. “Tonight wasn’t a normal situation.”

“If he keeps playing ball, at least in the majors, then being under this much stress will be normal. Are you going to let him get away with it if he keeps behaving this way?”

She bit her lip. “No.” She sounded certain. But she couldn’t help thinking that Ollie was right. That maybe she and the Castros had been cutting Finn too much slack for years. “No, I’m not going to let him get away with it. But right now, I don’t see that adding fuel to the fire—right when he’s dealing with losing a big game—is going to do any good. So can’t we keep this between us just for a little while longer?” She put a hand on his cheek. “Please?”

He didn’t look completely happy about the idea, but he nodded. “Okay. You have more to lose out of this than I do right now. So I’m willing to let you try things your way. But have you thought about what happens when we tell him. What if he really throws a fit? Whose side will the Castros take? Or Em?”

“They’ll be okay,” she said stubbornly. “We’re family.”

“I know,” he said. “But sometimes, that kind of family, the found kind, sometimes you have to outgrow them.”

“Are you going to outgrow the Saints?” she shot back.

He tensed. “I guess I might have to. When I retire. Depends what I decide I want to do.”

“What do you want to do?” Maybe it was chicken to change the subject back to him, but she didn’t want to think about Finn and the Castros. About what life might be like without her second family. About maybe losing Em. Because she wasn’t going to let that happen.

Another shrug. “Still working on figuring that out.”

Her eyes narrowed. “That’s different from what you said last time I asked,” she said. “Are you thinking about it? Retiring? Did the doctor say something about your hand?”

“Semantics, Amelia. No, the doctor hasn’t said anything about my hand. In either direction. Which means I have thought about the subject occasionally this last week.” His mouth went flat. “Not that I have any answers.”

“You’ll figure something out. You could always start by going back to school if you wanted. Try out some classes. See what catches your interest.”

“Sweetheart, I think when I retire the first thing I will want to do is enjoy the novelty of doing nothing for a while. And staying in one place all year instead of less than half of it.”

She couldn’t really picture him doing nothing for very long. It was obvious that being out of action was already driving him a little bit crazy. “I’d travel,” she said. “If I could do anything I wanted.”

He nodded. Then yawned. “I think we had this discussion already, didn’t we?” He peered over her shoulder. “Christ, it’s after three. You should sleep.”

“At this point I’m not sure that three hours of sleep is going to be any better than none.”

His expression turned speculative. “Oh? Really? In that case, what exactly did you plan for the next three hours, Ms. Graham?”

“I was just going to count sheep,” she said, batting her eyelashes at him, fatigue vanishing as she watched the heat filling his eyes. “Unless you have a better idea.”

He dragged her hand down from his chest. Placed it over his rapidly hardening cock. “You know what, I suddenly have several.”

Chapter Thirteen

All things considered, she should be feeling much worse than she was. Sure, she was on her third cup of coffee for the morning, and she knew that she’d pay for the lack of sleep eventually. Still, she wasn’t dragging her ass through the day like she usually would if she’d scored less than three hours of sleep.

No, instead she couldn’t stop herself from grinning stupidly every five seconds. Apparently starting the day with shower sex with Oliver Shields did wonders for a girl’s powers of recuperation. In which case, she was just going to have to keep having it. Think of all the things she could get done if she could get by on just a few hours of sleep a night, buoyed up by the powers of orgasms and completely satisfied hormones. She could damned well conquer the world.

The thought, crazy as it was, made her smile again. She finished her coffee and pitched the empty take-out cup toward the trash can in the corner of the room. It arced perfectly through the air, landing neatly with a gentle thud.

“And the crowd goes wild,” she said loudly and then forced herself to turn her attention back to the stack of work waiting for her.

Every so often as she worked, her attention strayed to her phone. She moved it out of reach on the farthest corner of her desk where she wouldn’t be tempted to pick it up every five seconds to see if Oliver had texted her.

But it wasn’t only Oliver she was thinking of. She’d had a very quick call from Mari just after she’d gotten to work. She’d wanted to ask about Finn but Mari hadn’t let her get a word in edgewise as she launched a rapid-stream
Thank you and we’re at the airport already and about to board and do you want me to take a message to your mother?