Strike Out: Mustangs Baseball #6 (15 page)

“Do you remember the first day you wore the wireless electrodes?”

Hell, yes. Of all the special days seared into his memory, that one was at the top of his remember-forever list. He was afraid he’d associate the smell of liquid hand soap with blow jobs for the rest of his days. “I remember. What about it?”

“I didn’t shut down the program when….”

His blood turned to ice. His skin felt like ants were crawling all over him. Trying to process the implications of her words, he straightened. Her fingers slipped from his hands. She gathered them to her in a tight ball at her chest. The protective gesture nearly broke his heart. Withdrawing what little support his touch provided had hurt her.

“Tricia.” He reached for her, but it was too late. She’d retreated into a shell he couldn’t breach. “I’m sorry. Please. Tell me the rest.”

In an attempt to convey his remorse, he laid his hands on her knees, and very slowly, stroked up and down her thighs. She remained silent, her chin tucked just above her hands, ignoring him.

A knock on the door startled them both.

“Room service.”

Royce stood. “I’ll get it.”

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

After tipping the waiter, Royce lifted the cover from the plated food. “Looks good.” Getting no response, he took the dish and returned to his place on the foot stool. He carefully spread a napkin in Tricia’s lap then lifted a French fry to her lips. “Eat.”

She swiveled her head, refusing to take the offered food.

Royce continued to wave the morsel under her nose. “Don’t be stubborn. I said I was sorry. You have to eat.” He decided to try another tack. “If you don’t eat, I’m going to spank you.”

She gave him a go-to-hell look then turned away. He thought for sure his suggestive comment would get her to take a bite.

He wasn’t hungry, but he took a fry for himself, smacking his lips and moaning as if the fried potato strip was the best thing he’d ever eaten. “You don’t know what you’re missing. These are good.”

Ah, at last.
Acting like an idiot had done the trick. She faced him. He offered the snack again, and she opened her mouth to take it in. As she chewed, he brushed his thumb over her lower lip. “So beautiful.” She was as wary as a lost kitten, but she allowed him to feed her. When most of the sandwich and fries were gone, she once again refused the bite he offered.

Royce returned the plate to the room service tray then resumed his place at her knees. “I’m listening. Tell me everything.”

Tricia hugged her knees to her chest. She’d told Royce everything and he hadn’t said a word. He’d just stood and started to pace, his bottom lip caught between his thumb and forefinger while he considered everything she’d said. At least he hadn’t laughed. She wouldn’t have blamed him if he had. She had a fit of hysterical laughter earlier—before she broke down and just plain bawled.

The whole situation was ludicrous. She had valid data that could possibly help Royce recover his pitching game, but there was no way in the world she could share the information with anyone—except him.

Chin resting on her knees, she tracked his methodical progress from one side of her small hotel room to the other. She loved to watch him walk. His long legs ate up the space with an innate grace that stirred her libido. He was like a caged animal—beautiful, sleek, and powerful. Too bad he wouldn’t ever be hers. Her heart ached at the thought, but she wasn’t stupid. They’d had fun together. Sex with him was the best she’d ever had, better than anything she’d ever imagined, but he’d never indicated he wanted anything more than a few hours of pleasure with her. Why would he? Women practically tripped over their tongues when they saw him. All he had to do was crook his finger and they’d follow him anywhere. He could have any woman he wanted, so why would he settle for a research scientist who couldn’t remember her own name when he took his clothes off?

She didn’t have a clue what he might be contemplating. Whatever it was, he’d be shocked to find out where her mind had gone since she’d shared her burden with him. While her brain came to terms with the fucked-up mess she called research, her body had moved on to more basic pursuits. Watching Royce pinch his lip made her nipples pucker and ache for the same attention. She could still feel his roughened fingertips on her breasts, teasing and tugging on the sensitive tips until she cried out. Then his soft lips and tongue soothed the pain away, creating a new, more urgent ache lower in her body.

It was all she could do to let him work through the impossible situation she’d thrown them both into when what she really wanted to do was jump his bones, drag him into bed, and let him do in-depth research on her body. In the name of science, she’d catalog every inch of his body as well. Something so exquisite deserved to be documented. Not a single thing she’d learned in her human anatomy classes had prepared her for a man like Royce. His muscles were individual works of art. Together, they were like a symphony orchestra, each instrument working in harmony with the others to create a unified composition that was more than the separate parts.

She was deep in her thoughts when he abruptly stopped and turned to her. The hairs on the back of her neck stood up. He’d tossed his suit jacket off when he began pacing. Standing there in his expensive dress shirt and slacks, his tie askew, shoulders back, hands loose on his hips, he looked like an advertisement for men’s cologne. She could see the tag line—“Sexy. Successful. Sinfully Seductive. Real men wear
Testosterone
.” If she could bottle Royce Stryker, she’d be the wealthiest woman on the planet. She had about as much chance of bottling his essence as she did succeeding with her current project. Nil.

His gaze was unwavering, making her feel like a bug under a microscope. She tried, but couldn’t read anything in his expression. Her unease grew. Had he decided to tell team management she was a quack? A fraud? She wouldn’t be the least surprised if he had. She’d called herself worse names in the last twenty-four hours.

“I get why you wouldn’t want anyone to know how you obtained the data. It wouldn’t look good, for you or for me.”

“My reputation as a researcher would be gone. Everything I’ve done up until now would be called into question, and no one in the scientific or academic world would ever want to hear from me again.”

He nodded. “So, we won’t tell. But if you have something to help me get back in the game, then I want to see it.”

“Huh?”

Royce gestured toward her computer sitting on the small desk littered with papers. “Come on. It’s getting late, and we have an afternoon game tomorrow. Show me what you’ve got.”

After the game, the team would be on a plane to Seattle where they would play three games against the Anglers before heading back to Dallas, ending the longest road trip of the season.

Tricia unfolded from the chair. Unclear why he wanted to see the data, she felt she owed it to him to present her findings. It would be up to him what he did with them, if anything. She sat at the desk. Royce dragged the footstool over and sat beside her. He was so close, she could feel his hot breath on her arm. She clicked a few keys, bringing the isolated data sets up on screen.

He listened intently as she enumerated the main points. Occasionally, he’d nod in understanding. A few times he asked her to pause while he studied the charts and graphs. If he planned to rat her out to management, he was at least going to do it from a base of knowledge. She gave him credit for using his head.

“How am I supposed to translate all this stuff into actions?” He straightened, the movement putting distance between them that she needed in order to think straight. “I mean, I see what you’re saying. There are definite similarities, but I don’t see how I can pinpoint the exact moment in my pitch routine when I should do whatever it was I did.”

He stood and paced away. Turning, he wiped a palm over his face. “This is hopeless. I’m never going to get my rhythm back.”

Tricia froze. He wasn’t interested in her findings in order to be well informed when he blew the whistle on her. He was interested because he wanted to get his game back! She’d already come to terms with the fact her research probably wasn’t going to lead to any great discoveries, but if she could help Royce fix his pitching, then all the years she’d devoted to this project wouldn’t have been for nothing.

“But you can!” She spun back around to the computer. He stood behind her, watching over her shoulder. “Look. I got the game tapes.” A few key clicks and she had video of Royce pitching side-by-side on the screen with the isolated charts from the pitch and the corresponding blow job. She pointed to the exact moment she wanted him to see then set all three screen shots in motion. “There. Did you see it?”

“Run the sequence again.” Damn. She might be right. Interested again, he sat on the footstool. He watched the simultaneous screens run through several times. “Can you advance it frame by frame? Slow it down?”

“Sure.” The video ran again, slower, one frame at a time, the dual data streams keeping pace. It didn’t make a lick of sense, but she was right. He did the same thing with his thighs when he threw a good pitch that he did when she blew him.

“Look at this.” She clicked the keyboard. The good pitch video disappeared, replaced by one of him throwing the same pitch, but the results weren’t anywhere near as good. “See the data stream?” She pointed to the one from the blow job, pointing out where it differed from the information gathered during the
bad
pitch.

“Which muscle group is that from?”

“Primarily the abductors and the femoral triangle.” She rattled on in her uber-sexy brainiac way. He caught a few words like Fast-Twitch, Type II, femoral artery, and some others he’d at least heard before, but what they had to do with his pitching, he didn’t have a fuckin’ clue.

“Whoa.” He caught her gesticulating hands in his. “Speak English, please.” He tugged, pulling her to her feet. “I’ve got a better idea. Why don’t you show me?”

“Show you?” He saw the instant her brain switched from academic researcher to woman. Her pupils dilated and her cheeks flushed with color. Oh yeah. She knew exactly what he was asking her to do. God, he loved an intelligent woman!

He pulled his tie loose and began unbuttoning his shirt. “You don’t mind, do you? I’m just a simple sort of guy. The best way to get this through to me is with a hands-on demonstration.” He removed his shirt and went to work on removing his slacks. “When you’re done, I’ll demonstrate my knowledge of the subject.”

“How do you plan to do that?”

“You’ll see.” He toed his shoes off then let his pants drop to the floor. Before he tossed them on the heap of his other clothes, he took out his wallet. His emergency condom landed on the nightstand. “It will require you being naked.”

Her lips quirked up on the corners. “I see.” She reached for the hem of her T-shirt.

“Let me.” It took all of two seconds to strip her bare. He wondered what her electrode sensors would make of his muscles now. He was hard as a rock in every place that counted—had been since she’d started spouting scientific jargon a few minutes ago.

He stretched out on the bed then reached for her. “I’m ready for my anatomy lesson, professor.”

Lord, he turned her brain to mush! How was she supposed to remember one muscle from another when there were so many fabulous ones on display? Hers for the touching. She joined him on the bed.

“What do you want me to do?”

“Touch me, babe. Educate me.” His words should have sounded corny, but he sounded dead serious instead.

“You really want to know?”

“I really do. All those names don’t mean a thing to me. I’m more of a visual, or in this case, tactile learner. Go over all the technical stuff again, but touch each muscle as you do. That way, I can associate your touch with the area I need to concentrate on.”

She remembered a girl she knew in grade school who had trouble remembering the alphabet. One day, her teacher had brought in a box full of plastic letters for them all to play with. Something about feeling the shape of the letters helped the girl recall them better. From then on, they always had tactile learning tools in their classroom to go along with their standard learning materials. Perhaps Royce
would
understand better if she touched him while she explained the role of each muscle group.

“I’ll need you to take off your underwear.”

He moved fast, removing the garment in the blink of an eye. “I’m all yours. Teach me a lesson.”

His eyes twinkled, leaving no doubt as to his meaning. He was going to enjoy his anatomy lesson, but if she had her way, he would learn something, too. Whether he could use the information to improve his pitching, she had no idea. It was worth a try though.

“I need to be between your legs.” She crawled over him, trying her best to avoid looking at his genitals. There was no doubt in her mind where this lesson would end up, but before it did, she had every intention of giving Royce a crash course in anatomy.

She laid her hands on his thighs, just above his knees. “All the muscles in your legs work together to move your body in the direction your brain tells it to go. After prolonged repetition, the conversation between your brain and your body becomes abbreviated. In other words, you don’t consciously think about each tiny movement, you think in general, and your body responds. Sort of like the shortcut keys on a computer. One tap and a whole series of pre-programmed things take place.”

“Muscle memory.” He propped up on some pillows and crossed his arms behind his head, angling so he could see as well as feel.

“Exactly. Tense your legs.”

The hills and valleys revealed when he contracted the muscles were enough to make her mouth water. He’d kept up with the shaving, making it easy to draw her index fingers along his smooth skin. This is the longest muscle in your body—the Sartorius. It attaches to the inside of your knee on this end. Her finger glided north, along the bulge of his rectus femoris. As she skimmed near his groin, he sucked in a ragged breath between his clenched teeth. “It connects up here.”

She touched a place on his hip just above his tight butt. Dragging her finger back down to the top of his thigh, she drew an imaginary line. “It forms the lateral border for the femoral triangle right here.”

He sat up straighter. “Femoral triangle. I’ve never heard of it.”