Strike Out: Mustangs Baseball #6 (12 page)

Tony backed to the other side of the small room. “Deny it all you want, man, but I call ’em like I see ’em. Besides, I’m totally monogamous now. Clare is more than enough for one man.”

“Fuck, man. I
do not
want to hear about your kinky love life. Keep that shit to yourself, okay?”

Ramirez laughed. “I didn’t say…. Hell, forget I said anything at all. We need to figure out what we’re going to do about this. If Dr. Reed’s program can do what she thinks it can, then we can’t let management get their hands on it. Talk about bad—all the way around.”

Doyle hadn’t specifically told him not to discuss his dual role as both guinea pig and spy, but since the program wasn’t common knowledge among the players, he could only assume he needed to keep the manager’s confidence. That meant playing dumb for Tony. “Can’t you go to Doyle? Isn’t he a relative or something now?”

“He’s Clare’s uncle.” Tony scraped a hand over his face. “Shit. I can’t believe he’d be involved in something like this. He’s always struck me as one of the good guys, you know? On the player’s side.

Royce nodded. “I agree. Maybe you should talk to him, see what he has to say.” With a little luck, his uncle would fill him in. He didn’t feel right about keeping things from Tony, especially when he could see how upset the guy was over the situation.

“Shit. He loves the game as much as anybody I’ve ever known.” He shook his head. “I just can’t see him agreeing to something like this.”

Again, Royce nodded. Unable to agree or disagree, Royce stared at the floor. “You have any ideas?”

“Not a one. You?”

Tricia had poured everything into her work, the idea of doing anything to stop her made him sick to his stomach, but Tony was right, if there was a chance her program could negatively impact the players in baseball or any sport, then he’d have no choice but to turn the information over to Doyle and let him go up against the League to squash her project. “Let me think about it. We’re the only two players involved right now, and hell, we don’t have a clue if her program will even work. If it doesn’t, then there’s no problem, right?”

“Right.”

“Then why don’t we go on about our business, let Tricia do her research. I don’t even want to think about sabotaging her work, or whatever the hell else we could do to stop her, until she actually has something the League could want.”

“I agree. In the meantime, let’s try to figure a way out of this that doesn’t ruin baseball and, hell, every other professional sport out there, just in case.” Ramirez grabbed the doorknob, but before he opened the door, he turned back to Royce. “Stay close to her, Strike. If she comes up with anything, you’ll be the first person she tells.”

He felt as if he had a candy fireball lodged in his throat. “Sure. I’ll stay close to her. Not a problem.” Never mind he’d just told her he wouldn’t touch her until their month was up. That had to be the stupidest thing he’d ever done in his life. Tony was wrong about one thing—he wasn’t in love with Tricia. He knew what love was. The thing between him and Tricia was physical, nothing more.

Royce grabbed the edge of a shoulder-high shelf. His head was a dead weight hanging between his shoulders, dragging him down into a cesspool of lies that could only lead to disaster.

“Fuck! Fuck! Fuck!” He took his frustration out on the rack, causing the bottles of cleaning supplies to totter. A broom handle dislodged from its resting place and clattered to the floor. His relationship with her was built on lies and deceit. It didn’t take a genius to figure out how Tricia would react if she found out what he was up to, and the only way she wouldn’t find out was if her research flopped.

Best case scenario—her project fails. Then she’ll never know you weren’t going to let it succeed anyway.

That’s fucked up, even for you.

Royce peeled his fingers off the shelf, rolled his shoulders to release the tension holding him in like a vise. He inhaled, counting to ten before letting the stale air whoosh from his lungs. Spending time with Dr. Reed wouldn’t be a problem. She seemed as eager as he to see where their physical attraction would take them. He admired her intellect, finding her brain as sexy as her body. The way she trusted him made him feel like a god—a lying, no-good bastard of a god, but a god nonetheless.

After repeating the shoulder roll and deep breathing exercises a few more times, he regained enough control to go out in public again. There was the usual pre-game chaos in the dugout. Players going through rituals that could be signs of OCD but were definitely superstition. Royce skirted past Tony, who stood in front of the cubbyholes containing their batting helmets, cursing a blue streak because someone had turned his helmet to face the wrong way. Baseball players were a strange lot, believing things as inconsequential as the way their equipment was stowed to where they sat on the bench could make a difference in their performance on the field.

Royce took a seat at the far end of the bench where he could watch the introductions and such at home plate as well as observe his teammates’ game preparations. They were a quirky bunch, no doubt about it, but each one of them brought something unique to the team. It wasn’t just their strong points on the field, but their weaknesses, too, that made them assets to the team. Take Jeff Holder, for example. No one gave a shit if he couldn’t throw a curve ball to save his hide. His hundred-mile-per-hour fastball had made him the best closer in the league. In a perfect-player world, there wasn’t room for a one-pitch pitcher. But take Holder out of the last inning, and you’d take away the excitement of the game—those nail-biting three outs, where the opposing team knew they were facing their greatest competition yet, and thus, played their hardest. It’s what fans and players alike lived for, the rush of anticipation, the feeling that anything could happen.

Anything can happen.

Images of Tricia on her knees, her rose-colored lips wrapped around his cock, came to mind.
Anything can happen.
Like a pixy, all brains and innocence could show up and take him for the ride of his life. Now, he just had to figure out how to keep his pixy from finding out she’d placed her trust in the wrong man.

CHAPTER TWELVE

The data stream from the sensors attached to Tony Ramirez was better than Tricia had hoped for. It would take days, if not weeks, to compare the game readings to the ones she’d taken under controlled conditions. With two subjects to work at her disposal, she couldn’t wait to get into the analysis part of the research. She’d done some preliminary work on the data collected from Royce. There was something there, but what that something was she hadn’t a clue.

Royce’s problems were obvious. His pitches weren’t going where they were supposed to. The question was, why? What was he doing different than when his pitches were perfectly under his control? Without a data set from before he lost the strike zone, she’d have to compare the pitches still going where they were supposed to against the rogue ones.

With Tony, she had a different set of problems. His game seemed to be perfect now, so what, if anything, could he do to improve on his already flawless performance?

Tricia tapped her stylus against the iPad she’d been using to make notes to herself while she watched the game and the incoming data stream simultaneously. Both situations were exactly the kind she’d hoped her program would address, but first, she had to find something in the massive amounts of data she was collecting that would make a difference in the players’ performances. She’d had a few successes with the college players she’d worked with early on, but they’d been so young and just about any constructive criticism regarding their playing could make a difference. These were professionals she was working with now. Men who had reached the pinnacle of their careers, whose bodies were well-maintained machines, finely tuned to run at optimum performance levels. Finding a flaw of any kind would be damn near impossible. Getting them to concentrate on a specific muscle or group of muscles in order to change something might be the hardest task of all. These men didn’t
think
they just
moved
.

Talk about moves. She smiled to herself, remembering the way Royce had moved when his cock had been in her mouth. There was absolutely nothing wrong with the man’s hips. He could rock them with controlled precision without giving it a thought.

Tricia closed her eyes, imagining the way he would make love—all that contained power gliding gracefully over and inside her body. He’d know what he was doing, unlike the fumbling guys she’d been with in the past. Boys pretending to be men. Boys who didn’t know any more about their own bodies than they did about hers.

She’d give Royce an A+ in female anatomy. He knew where all her buttons were, and how to push them. All the more reason to keep her distance from him. She had no choice but to take full responsibility for initiating the intimacies between them. She wasn’t proud of what she’d done, but she would live with it. She’d put both their careers in jeopardy because of one stupid, hormone-driven, impulsive action.

Going home instead of meeting him after yesterday’s game had been the right thing to do. Thank God, Royce had come around to her way of thinking, too. If he launched even a half-hearted attempt to persuade her into his bed, her resolve would crumble. Give her another one of those orgasms he did so well and he’d be dusting what was left of her off his sheets like so many cracker crumbs.

“Pathetic,” she mumbled. The game had been over for more than an hour. The stadium would be emptying out, the staff and players heading home for a good night’s sleep before embarking on a ten-day road trip in the morning.

Closing her laptop, she stood and began stuffing reports into her briefcase. She’d have plenty to do on the plane, but first she needed to get home and pack.

“Going somewhere?”

The deep, masculine voice startled her. Hand over her pounding heart, she looked at the man standing in the doorway. Why did he have to look so damn good? One glimpse of his long legs and wide shoulders lounging in her doorway and she could feel her determination flaking away. “Royce! You scared me.”

“Didn’t mean to.”

“Well, you did.” As she continued to pack up her materials, he remained where he was, stalking her with his eyes. The heat level in the room had gone up so much a bead of sweat trickled down her spine. “Do you need something?”

A harsh bark of laughter made her jerk her head up. “What?”

“Funny you should put it that way. Do I need something?” His eyes narrowed. With laser precision, he zeroed in on her crotch. “I need you.”

Need, hot, heavy, suffocating in its intensity, seized her body. She couldn’t breathe for the weight pressing down on her chest. Her knees gave out, and she sank into her desk chair. Every reason she shouldn’t give in to her overpowering attraction to this man flashed through her brain, each one incinerated by a blast of lust before she could grasp onto the lifeline it represented. Before she crumbled completely, she managed one scrap of sane thought. “What happened to waiting until the end of the month?”

“I changed my mind.” He approached the desk like a wolf circling wounded prey. “Neither one of us was going to make it three more weeks. I won’t make it three more hours.” He finished stuffing her laptop into her bag, hefted the strap to his shoulder, and reached his hand out to her. “Let’s go.”

Tricia stared at his palm. If she put her hand in his, there would be no turning back. No pretending they could maintain a strictly professional relationship. Her research where he was concerned would be compromised beyond inclusion in the study.

“No more thinking. Only feeling, Patricia.” He wiggled his fingers. “Come.”

Come.
The single syllable reverberated through her charged system like an atom in an atomic accelerator. Her core went into nuclear meltdown. She squeezed her thighs together in an effort to keep her body from following his order as given.

She lifted her hand, touched her fingers to his. The strength of his hand encompassing hers was both comfort and torture. He tugged her to her feet. The smile curving his lips and twinkle in his eyes suggested he knew the battle she was fighting. “Not here, babe. Not like this.”

The drive to his house was accomplished in silence. He continued to hold her hand, pressing her palm against his wool-clad thigh. She wasn’t sure if he meant to keep her from touching herself or if his intent was to remind her of her decision. Like she could forget.

Her body hummed right along with the powerful car propelling them through the night. The only difference was, the car observed the speed limit while her system ran full throttle, seemingly without brakes.

They turned onto his driveway. “Open the gate.”

She followed his gaze to the remote opener clipped to the sun visor on her side. Using her free hand, she pushed the button. The ornate iron gates swung slowly open. Once through, she glanced over her shoulder. The massive gates sealed them inside Royce Stryker’s private world.

No turning back
. He squeezed her fingers, commanding her attention away from the past. She’d chosen this path, however ill-advised it might be. With a clarity she hadn’t possessed since the day she met Royce, she realized it wasn’t the iron barrier behind her blocking her escape—it was her need to be with this man, to give herself to him completely. It might have been his voice, his will, compelling her to go with him this evening, but it was
her
will and
her
inner voice keeping her from demanding he take her home.

She sat, her hands loose in her lap until he came around the front of the car to open her door. When he reached for her, she let him help her from the car. They entered his house via the same door they’d used the one other time she’d been there, but instead of stopping in the rooms she was familiar with, he ushered her up a wide, curved staircase at the front of the house.

The master suite was enormous, taking up close to half of the second floor. Her sense of direction told her the tall casement windows looked out on the backyard and the far end of the house she had yet to see. In the few seconds before he pushed her up against the back of the bedroom door, blocking her view of anything but him, she’d noted the large four-poster bed, off center in the room. The color scheme, mostly dark reds with black and some gold splashes was masculine but tasteful.

“I’ve wanted you in this room since the day we met.” Still holding her hand in his, he lifted it above her head while his other hand went to her waist. She closed her eyes, melting into him when his lips found the sensitive spot behind her ear and began to devour her.

He took his time, licking, nibbling, kissing her neck, her jaw, and finally, her mouth. His tongue demanded entrance, and with a sigh, she allowed it. But instead of letting him take while she gave, she dueled back, insisting on learning the taste of him as well. They were both breathless by the time they finally broke apart. When she dared to open her eyes, she found him studying her face, his eyebrows knitted in concentration as if he didn’t know what to make of her.

“Did I do something wrong?” Because of the way she’d sucked his cock the other day, he probably assumed she had more experience than she did. But how could she have kissed wrong?

“No.” His voice had a hard edge to it, sending shivers of anticipation down her spine. “I’m just trying to figure out what I’m going to do to you first.”

“What do you mean?” She licked her lips. “W-what are your choices?”

He traced her lips with his thumb, pausing to tug her lower lip down then pinch it lightly. It was a silly gesture, but it made other parts of her beg for the same treatment.

“There are so many choices, sweetheart, and my brain is working on some I’m sure haven’t even been invented yet.” His fingers skimmed her jaw then down her neck to the ribbed neck of her shirt. “First things first, though.” Grabbing her shoulders, he spun her around. “Drop your shorts and brace yourself on the bed. I owe you a spanking for not showing up the other night.”

“You deserved that.” She glanced over her shoulder at him, but he wouldn’t be swayed by logic.

“Yes, and you deserve this, too.” He didn’t know where he’d found the edgy voice he was using, but from the way her eyes dilated, it was having the desired effect. She was as turned on as he was. “Drop them. This won’t take long then we’ll explore all my other choices for the night.”

His dick was going to poke a hole through his trousers if he wasn’t careful. Even worse, he was close to coming in his pants just from watching her obediently wiggle out of her shorts and bend over the bed. She had the cutest ass he’d ever seen. Those soft, round globes were made to be spanked.

He put one hand in the center of her back and raised the other over his head.

“I expected you to meet me after the game.”
Whack!
She cried out and dug her fingers into his bedspread.

“I looked for you.”
Whack!
“You weren’t in your office.”
Whack!
Her head thrashed from side to side.

“I stood outside your apartment.”
Whack!
She jerked her head up. Clearly, this was news to her. “Debating whether I should spank you right then.”
Whack!
She buried her face in the comforter.

“I fuckin’ had to jerk off in the shower.”
Whack!
“Alone.”
Whack!
A strangled sob broke from her lips.

“The next day, I found out you were playing games with me.”
Whack!
“Fair is fair.”
Whack!

“Your ass is mine.”
Whack!

His mental tally reached ten, and he stopped to admire his handiwork. Beneath the hand pressing her into the mattress, he could feel her breath coming in shallow pants of arousal. Her skin glowed red, and the scent wafting from between her legs was heavy with desire. He could take her fast and hard, right where she was, but he had better plans for the evening. Now that they’d gotten the discipline out of the way, they had nothing but time.

He stepped closer, pressing his erection into her hip and cupping her butt with his hand. Good God, the heat coming off her skin roused the caveman inside him. He called on the same control he used during a game to keep himself in check. “You won’t leave me aching again, will you, sweetheart?”

“No, sir.”

“I’ll always be fair, Tricia. I’ll always give you what you need.” He stroked her reddened flesh in an effort to take the sting out of her punishment, giving himself time to step back from the edge. He had every intention of ravishing her, but he was going to take his time doing it so she’d understand what she’d denied them both the other night.

He couldn’t help himself. He moved behind her, gripped her hips, and ground the thick ridge of his erection into her cleft. Her fingers clutched at the bedclothes each time he moved against her. At last, he stepped back. “Pull your pants up and turn around.”

When she turned around, her face was almost as red as her ass. She’d shed a few tears, but mostly, she looked more aroused than anything.

“Did I hurt you?” He reached up to feel the heat on her cheek. It reminded him so much of the blush he’d put on her butt.

“Yes.” For an instant, he hated his need to spank her, but then her lips curved up on the corners, and he knew she was toying with him. “But I liked it.”