Playing the Field: A Diamonds and Dugouts Novel (6 page)

Bracing for impact, Sonny was surprised when a pair of hard, large hands grabbed her by the waist and righted her. Holding still, she tried to regain her bearings. Her whole body became acutely aware of the man holding her in his strong arms. They cradled her gently.

The warmth of his breath fanned across her neck, giving her goosebumps. “Are you all right?”

Her vision was still compromised by the ball cap. Forced to look down, Sonny’s eyes went wide when she realized she was staring directly at his package. The bulge was anything but humble. Dear God. Try as she might, she couldn’t take her eyes off it. It was like standing in front of Michelangelo’s David and trying not to take a peek at his goods. It just wasn’t happening. Problem was, once you got started, it was nearly impossible to stop.

It was hypnotic.

JP shifted and the brim of her hat bumped his chest. Her eyes still glued to the fly of his jeans, Sonny swallowed hard as she felt him begin to move, walking her backward until she came up against a wall. Her heart slammed to life and thoughts scattered like ashes when she felt a hard hand slide slowly up her side. When it reached her face, long fingers briefly caressed her chin before tenderly putting pressure on it, forcing her to look up. His other hand gently removed her ball cap and her hair spilled free from its confines, tumbling over her shoulders.

Sonny braced and reluctantly made eye contact. Heat flooded her cheeks at what she saw and self-preservation kicked in. She pushed back and broke contact, pure female awareness making her scared.

She knew that look and rejected it. “I’m not interested, Trudeau.”

JP
REACHED OUT
an arm to snag her, but she slipped just out of reach—for the moment. Did she really think she could get away from him?

There was a reason he played shortstop in the Major Leagues. He was damn fast. And now that he’d decided to make Sonny his woman she was about to find out just how quick he could be. All night he’d tossed and turned for her, his curiosity rampant. When he’d finally rolled out of bed, he’d had one clear goal: to see Sonny. Nothing else had existed outside that.

Her leaving her cell phone at the restaurant last night had been the perfect excuse. All he’d had to do was an Internet search for her business to get her address. And now here he was, unexpectedly very up close and personal with her. So close he could smell the scent of her shampoo, and it was doing funny things to him. Things like making him want to bury his nose in her hair and inhale.

No way was he going to miss this golden opportunity.

With a devil’s grin, he moved and had her back against the aging barn wall before she’d finished gasping. “Look me in the eyes right now and tell me I don’t affect you, that you’re not interested.” He traced a lazy path down the side of her neck with his fingertips and felt her shiver. “Because I don’t believe that line for an instant, sunshine.”

Close enough to feel the heat she was throwing from her deliciously curved body, JP laughed softly when she tried to sidestep and squeeze free. Her shyness was so damn cute. He raised an arm and blocked her in, his palm flush against the rough, splintering wood. Leaning in close, he grinned when she blushed and her gaze flickered to his lips. Her mouth opened on a soft rush of breath and for a suspended moment something sparked and held between them.

But then Sonny shook back her rose-gold curls and tipped her chin with defiance. “Believe what you want, JP. I don’t have to prove anything to you.” Her denim-blue eyes flashed with emotion. “This might come as a surprise, but I’m not interested in playing with a celebrity like you. I have a business to run and a son to raise. I don’t need the headache.”

There was an underlying nervousness to her tone that didn’t quite jive with the tough-as-nails attitude she was trying to project. Either she was scared or he affected her more than she wanted to admit. She didn’t look scared.

JP dropped his gaze to her mouth, wanting to kiss those juicy lips bad, and felt her body brush against his. He could feel her pulse, fast and frantic, under his fingertips.

It made his pulse kick up a notch in anticipation. “There’s a surefire way to end this little disagreement right now, because I say you’re lying. I say you
are
interested in a celebrity like me.” He cupped her chin with his hand and watched her thick lashes flutter as she broke eye contact. But she didn’t pull away. “In fact, I say you’re interested in
me
.”

JP knew he had her.

Her voice came soft and a little shaky. “How do I prove I’m not?” The way she was staring at his mouth contradicted her words. So did the way her body was leaning into him.

Lowering his head until he was a whisper away, he issued the challenge. “Kiss me.”

Her gaze flew to his, her eyes wide with shock. “You want me to do
what
?”

What he knew they both wanted.

“Kiss me. Prove to me you’re not interested and I’ll leave here. You can go back to your business and your son and never see my celebrity ass again.”

Contemplating for a minute, she bit her plump bottom lip and stared at him. It was too much temptation for him to ignore. He’d wanted to do this ever since he’d laid eyes on her.

But before he could flatten her against the wall and take her mouth in a searing kiss like he wanted to, she rose on tiptoes and placed a perfunctory one on his lips. “There.”

“That’s not a kiss, Sonny. Not a real one anyway.” Her lips had barely brushed his.

Her gaze was on his mouth again and she whispered, shifting a little closer. “Oh, well. I suppose I should try another one?”

JP murmured as her lips touched his, “Yes, you should.” She whimpered against him and he felt her hands flutter before they smoothed over his shoulders. Her body went soft and pliant as a marshmallow.

He let her keep up the seductive assault on his mouth until she sagged against him and her hands fisted in the back of his shirt. When she moaned and slid her tongue over his bottom lip he knew he had her right where he wanted her.

Pulling back, he took in her glazed, passion-drunk expression and tasted the victory. Damn straight she was interested.

“See you next week, sunshine.”

He’d actually only stopped by to bring back the cell phone she’d dropped while climbing into her minivan last night and he reached into his pocket for it. She’d peeled out of the parking lot in such a hurry he’d been left waving it in the air and hollering like a dumbass. He figured seeing her in her current state was payback enough. Satisfaction radiated through him at her thoroughly bemused expression.

Sonny obviously hadn’t been properly kissed in far too long.

Feeling smug, JP tossed her cell phone on a nearby hay bale and turned to leave. He was stopped by Sonny’s words.

“So that’s what you came for? To give me back my phone?” She seemed to be building up bluster and it made her voice sharp. “Then why did you want me to kiss you?”

JP took a good look at Sonny. He had four sisters and recognized a woman working herself into a lather when he saw it. And because he had four sisters, he also knew that there was something more going on than what appeared on the surface.

It took some of the smugness out of his step. Her eyes had gone round as saucers and dark as a summer thunderstorm. A frown pulled at his brows. “The two of us kissing isn’t the worst thing in the world, Sonny.”

“I didn’t ask for it.” She pushed at her hair and stared him down.

Her attitude got his back up. But he wanted her to let her guard down. And that meant that he needed her to trust him.

So even though he wanted nothing more than to push her down into the hay and kiss her everywhere, he reached out and tapped her cell phone instead. “Yeah, you dropped this in the parking lot last night.” Pushing it in her direction, he added, “Also, I forgot to mention at the restaurant that one of our batboys is out for the next few weeks. His family is heading to Taos last minute and I thought Charlie might be interested in filling in this week during the games against Milwaukee. He’s technically too young, but I already got the go-ahead on it since it’s only temporary.”

Some air seemed to go out of her and Sonny deflated. Her shoulders relaxed and she gave him a look full of chagrin. “Oh.” She wiped her palms against her thighs and smiled tentatively. “Charlie would love that, thanks.”

“Anytime.” Because he couldn’t resist, JP put his sunglasses on and grinned, quick and hot as lightning. “Thanks for the kiss, sweetness. It was damn sexy.”

Chapter Five

C
HARLIE HAD BEEN
beyond thrilled when she’d told him about playing batboy for the week. On the morning of the first game, he’d popped out of bed at sunrise and had his chores done in record time, a big silly grin on his face the whole time.

Sonny had been watching him for the past hour from her seat along the first base line and it hadn’t waned. In fact, as fans trickled into Coors Field and the teams warmed up, Charlie’s tireless smile seemed as fully charged as ever. JP had taken him under his wing when they’d first arrived and when Charlie had emerged from the locker room he was sporting an authentic Denver Rush jersey. Honestly, she wasn’t sure she’d ever seen him so happy and it made her heart do little flops of joy.

And it gave her warm fuzzies for the guy who’d made it possible.

JP had an angle, no doubt about it. Even though Sonny hadn’t been on the market for ages, she could still recognize the signs. Especially when they weren’t subtle. And he was anything but. In fact, JP seemed to be a straight shooter. Most of the time she’d appreciate that kind of quality in a person, but not today.

Not after he’d kissed her senseless and left her feeling things she was better off not feeling.

Charlie caught her eye and waved, bobbling a few baseball bats. The Rush’s ace pitcher strode by and gave him a quick hand reorganizing and a reassuring pat on the back. Pride swelled inside Sonny for her boy. Just look at him out there, she thought. He was growing up so fast.

For now he was still her boy and she was so excited for him to have this experience with the pro team. It really was great of JP to facilitate this opportunity for Charlie. Whether or not he’d done it to soften her up didn’t matter. The result was that her son was having the time of his life and she had him to thank.

She would too. In a public place. Where he couldn’t kiss her again.

Sonny propped her feet on the seat in front of her and sighed. She was such a liar. JP kissing her was exactly what she wanted to happen again. In those moments he’d made her feel things she hadn’t experienced in years—maybe ever. Charlie’s dad sure had never kissed her like that. He’d never left her light-headed and floaty and intensely aroused.

With JP she’d felt all those things. And all her instincts told her to shut it down now. Kissing JP was like standing on a precipice. One wrong move and she could tumble a long, long way down. The last thing she needed was to fall for a sports star who lived a life in the public eye. Even if she could somehow get around that—which she couldn’t—dating a celebrity would only put her and Charlie in the spotlight too. God, what if they went after her son and decided to make him a poster child for something? He already dealt with enough scrutiny just from being the kid of a single parent. And yes, it did happen, even in this modern age of same sex marriage and legalized pot. School functions were the worst—all the parents and staff gave him vaguely pitying looks.
Poor Charlie Miller. He doesn’t have a daddy.

They never said anything, but she felt it just the same. She knew he did too. And she hated it. Hated that he had to grow up with that kind of cloud over his head.

She knew all too well what it felt like.

Becoming involved with JP would only escalate that judgment to a national scale and have strangers prying into their personal business. And she couldn’t deal with that. She’d already spent most of her life feeling like the world was watching, waiting for her to fail. She didn’t want Charlie to feel that way too. That was Grace’s delightful legacy—giving Sonny a deep-rooted paranoia that what she was doing wasn’t good enough. Dating JP and opening herself to public scrutiny would only provide a platform for complete strangers to say as much.

No frigging way. She and JP just couldn’t be.

Ever.

She knew that. Sonny’s rational brain preached caution. Told her to turn around now because it was nothing but a dead end packed full of trouble. And she heard it, really she did.

But then the memory of his hard-muscled body pressed up against her would flash in her mind and she forgot all about caution. All she could think of was how good it felt to be held by a man.

Even now, just the sight of JP in his baseball uniform warming up on the grass had her blood pressure up. Now that she knew what his body felt like under the clothes, she couldn’t help the butterflies that leapt in her belly when he began stretching, his highly toned body flexing deliciously with the movement.

What was she supposed to make of him? Reluctantly she admitted that it was flattering to have a man like JP interested in her. Beyond that, it was disconcerting and frightening. For starters, Sonny was thirty-one-year-old single mother. JP was a twenty-six-year-old hotshot baseball star. She knitted scarves and he dated supermodels.

Sonny blew out a frustrated breath and waved back at Charlie. Really she was just making a big deal out of nothing. All she was doing was wasting energy speculating and driving herself nuts in the process. It was one stupid kiss. There was no way that JP Trudeau could possibly be serious about her anyway. Real life didn’t work that way.

Sonny had learned at an early age that fairy-tale endings were only things a person read about in books.

As it always did when she thought such things, her optimism dropped and she frowned. Today was too good a day to let anything get her down. And it never did her any good to wallow.

With effort, Sonny shook off the vaguely sad feeling and forced a smile for the young couple who needed to get by. Muttering an apology, she lowered her feet to the floor. They scooted through and sat half a dozen seats down.