Sweet Talk Boxed Set (Ten NEW Contemporary Romances by Bestselling Authors to Benefit Diabetes Research plus BONUS Novel) (49 page)

“How can I believe you’ll want to talk to me tomorrow when you can’t even
look
at me today?”

Tony ground his back molars together making his jaw muscles tic in irritation. Slowly, he turned only his head and peered down at her standing next to him. How was it possible she was even more beautiful than he remembered her?
Because life’s a cruel bitch with a sick sense of humor.

He arched an eyebrow. “Satisfied?”

She shook her head, but he didn’t think it was in answer to his question. It seemed like a frustrated shake, like she couldn’t figure out what to do next. “Just promise me that we’ll talk after the game and I’ll go wait on the bleachers.”

Pools of moisture appeared to be collecting in her dark chocolate eyes, but it didn’t make sense. She was the one who turned him down, who broke things off between them. There’d be no reason for her to be upset, much less cry.

Unless she misses the sex and wants things to go back to the way they were in the beginning.
Hell, he’d been the one to give her a sexual awakening. Maybe she’s afraid she’ll go back to being “broken” if she’s with anyone else. Then a dark thought seeped in, tainting his perfect memories of her and made him murderous.
Maybe she’d already tried being with someone else and he hadn’t been able to make her come like he did. Christ.

“Can’t make that promise, Trish,” he gritted out. “I think it’s best you go home.”

“Okay, but remember, you’re not leaving me a choice.”

Whatever. The last time he’d given her a choice, she given the wrong—

“Trish, what the hell are you doing?” He watched in shock as she stalked into the middle of the field where the kids amassed around the ball. “Get off the field, T, I’m serious!”

Trish Howell continued her journey, head held high, shoulders thrown back, and hands fisted at her sides. He heard everything go to hell around him as his eyes stayed glued to her retreating back. Parents started talking and speculating amongst themselves in the bleachers. The kids from his team caught on to what was happening and ran to her like she was handing out giant pixie sticks. A ref’s whistle blew to stop the game—not that he had any players left actively participating—and raised his hands in question to Tony.

Yeah, like Tony had any clue as to how to deal with the current clusterfuck his championship game had turned into. Erin, who’d been watching her niece play, appeared at his side.

“What’s Trish doing on the field?”

He shook his head. “No fucking idea.”

“She’s supposed to be at Paddy’s. Jason called me and told me he’s covering for her, but he didn’t say why.”

He’d noticed she wore her dark green uniform t-shirt with skinny jeans and a pair of worn cowboy boots that had probably never stepped foot in a pasture, but he’d assumed she was ready to work later in the day. It never occurred to him that she’d leave in the middle of her shift. What the hell was going on?

“Stay here, will you?” he asked Erin. “I’m going to send the kids back to the sidelines while I deal with her.”

“Yeah, no problem.” He stepped over the line of white-painted grass, but Erin stopped him from going any farther with a gentle hand on his arm. “Go easy on her. I know you’re hurting, Tony, but so is she. Remember that.”

A thin layer of his anger slipped away at her reminder. Tony hadn’t seen Trish since she turned him down, but Erin had. This was her way of letting him know that Trish hadn’t walked away from them completely unscathed. He gave his friend a sharp nod and then followed the same path Trish had blazed a minute before.

After sending both teams back to the sidelines, Tony looked over at the other coach and the referee who were both looking to him for some sort of idea as to what the plan was. Trish stood center field, her solemn gaze on him. He almost rolled his eyes, but instead made his hands into a “T” to signal for a break. The ref blew the whistle again and yelled, “Time out,” though Tony didn’t know whose benefit it was for. Everyone in a three block radius already seemed to have taken a time out so they could watch the drama unfold. Perfect.

He turned his attention to the woman causing the unholy uproar. A light breeze picked up strands of her long hair and carried them to the side. His fingers itched to reach up and tuck them back where they belonged for the sole excuse to feel the silkiness on his skin.

“What’s all this about, Trish? What’s so important it can’t wait?”

“You,” she said softly. “You’re what’s so important, Tony. And I’ve wasted two whole weeks letting you think otherwise. Letting
myself
think otherwise. But the truth is that of all the people in my life, it’s you who means the most to me.”

“That’s great, Trish,” he said, tinged in sarcasm. “Knowing I’m the most important person in your life is going to help me sleep a lot better at night. Now let’s go.” He reached for her arm, but she took a step back.

“No, that’s not what I’m trying to say.” Her brows drew together and she used both hands to push her hair back and pull it over one shoulder. “I’m trying to tell you that I love you, Tony. As in, I am
in love with you
. Body, heart, and soul.”

Tony froze. Not that he’d been moving. He wasn’t going to force his presence on Trish a moment more, even to throw her over his shoulder and remove her from the field. But it still felt like whatever else he didn’t have control over—the hairs on his arms, the blood in his veins, the air in his lungs, the beat of his heart—froze in time.

Then her words from the other week came back to him, and the burning embers of the fire that razed his heart to the ground caught fire again and took him from freezing to boiling in seconds.

“You’ll have to forgive me, but I’m finding this declaration a little hard to believe. Not two weeks ago you told me that falling in love and knowing you’re meant to spend a lifetime with someone is impossible in only a few short months.”

“I was wrong,” she said simply, her voice cracking with emotion. “Time and experience has nothing to do with it. I realize that now. It’s how the person makes you feel. About yourself, about life, all of it. You make me feel like the most beautiful and precious woman in the world, like I can do anything I set my mind on. All without even trying because it’s simply who you are.”

Tears spilled over her cheeks, but she dashed them away with her fingers, clearly not wanting to appear weak in such a vulnerable state. Forever his strong girl, his Trish.

“Sometimes,” she whispered, “all it takes is a glance from you, and my heart swells with so much love that I can hardly draw my next breath. But I kept telling myself that it had to be lust or infatuation, because I couldn’t handle knowing that what we have was more real, more genuine, than anything before. ”

He dug his fingers into his palms to keep himself from reaching out to her. His body and heart and mind were in a goddamn Mexican standoff, all pointing weapons at the other two while shouting their demands on how to handle the situation.

Body: take her, mark her, and fuck her until she knows who she belongs to, now and forever. Heart: forgive her, hold her, and make love to her until she feels secure in their love. Mind: start over, go slow, and see how things progress from there.

No doubt about it, Tony wanted to listen to his body and heart a hell of a lot more than his mind. But following each of them, first his body and then his heart, is what got him into the mess in the first place. The logical solution was to try the third option and hope like hell it had better results than the other two.

“Trish,” he began, swallowing hard, “you already know how much I love you. For you to finally tell me you feel the same makes me happier than I have words to explain. And part of me wants to pull you into my arms and forget the last two weeks ever happened. But I don’t think it’s a good idea.”

More tears overflowed from her eyes, but she didn’t bother to wipe away their evidence this time. Her teeth captured her trembling lower lip and bore down until pink flesh blanched to white, though. The next stage of her attempts to not break down, and another stake driven through his chest.

He cleared his voice when it didn’t immediately work. “I’m not saying that we’re over, either. We can start over and take things slow. Let them progress naturally instead of starting in the middle only to find ourselves at the end without any of the beginning stuff. I don’t want to take the chance of picking up where we left off because you’re afraid of losing me now, and then realizing weeks or months later that you’re not sure about us. Do you understand?”

Trish gave him a sad smile. “Yes, I understand.”

“You sure?”

She nodded. “Absolutely. I get it.”

“Good. We can talk more about everything later, including how to make things work around you living two hours away in Chicago. But for now, let’s give the gossip mill a rest and see who wins the game, okay?”

The knots in Troy’s stomach loosened somewhat when she offered him a real smile. It was a start, but he didn’t trust himself to touch her yet, so he turned and started making his way off the field. He kept his sights on the kids and their puzzled expressions, too much of a pussy to make eye contact with the adults looking on in eerie silence.

“Ask me again,” her strong voice called to him from behind, stopping him in his tracks.

He closed his eyes and took a deep breath, wishing he remembered how that Serenity Prayer went. Maybe it only mattered that he knew he needed to ask for strength and patience, who the hell knew. Tony didn’t know how long he stood there, but he heard her come up on his left, and from the sound of her voice, she faced him.

“Please,” she said. “Ask me again.”

Sighing, he opened his eyes and turned toward her. “Trish, I don’t know what you’re—” She tucked her fingers into one of her front pockets and pulled out his grandmother’s ring. “How did you get that?”

“I stopped at your place on the way here to get it, because while I understand your point about us skipping over all the beginning stuff and it being a good idea to start fresh and try again, I don’t agree with it.”

“You don’t—” Tony let out a frustrated chuckle as he rubbed his hands vigorously over his face a few times and then placed them on his hips to study her. In his peripheral vision, he saw hundreds of eyes on them, and now that they were a mere dozen feet from the edge of the field, everything they said could also be heard. Fuck it. If she didn’t care about the spectacle they were making, then neither did he. “You don’t agree with it? Mind telling me why?”

Trish took a single step forward. “We may not have started our relationship in the most traditional way, but that doesn’t mean we skipped anything. The beginning is when you learn things about each other, what they like and dislike. Whether you’re companionable and can survive the times when they’re at their worst and still care for them.

“Tony, we’ve been doing that since the third grade. The first thing you learned about me was to never steal my softball glove. And I learned that if I don’t want you to do something again, all I have to do is kick you in the shin.”

She bit the inside of her cheek to hide her smirk, but it didn’t much good. Their audience snickered with a few of the younger members laughing at their coach for trying such a thing. But Tony couldn’t keep a partial grin from creeping onto his face, either, so he supposed he’d forgive the little rascals.

“For the record, I wouldn’t recommend that method of persuasion at this age,” he said with a single brow cocked in challenge.

“Duly noted,” she quipped. Then after a beat, she sobered and so did the conversation. “I was wrong two weeks ago, Tony, and I’ll regret the things I said to you that day for the rest of my life. Your proposal was perfect,
everything
had been perfect, and I ruined all of it.” She swallowed thickly and her brown eyes watered again. “But the worst part of it all...is thinking that I may have ruined any chance of there being an ‘us’ in the process.”

Before he could answer or sweep her up into his arms to reassure her that he could never give up hope for them, she rocked down to her knees in front of him. The murmurs from the peanut gallery swelled to above a whisper, but he didn’t pay any attention. He was too stunned that the woman he loved and would do anything for was on her knees holding up his grandmother’s wedding ring in both hands.

“Anthony Joseph DiAngelo, I love you with everything that I am and everything I ever hope to be. I swear to you that I’ve never been more sure of anything in my life and there won’t be a day that goes by that you’ll regret this moment...” She took a deep breath, exhaled, and then said, “...if only you’ll find it in your heart to ask me again.”

Her words couldn’t have been more perfect. They could have been her wedding vows instead of merely a request that he propose to her again. This woman was all he’d ever want in this world, and nothing could keep him from granting her this wish and every wish she’d ever have in the future.

Tony felt his hand shake as he reached for the ring, so he curled it into a fist, inhaled deeply and got control over his body before trying again. When he held the ring, he lowered himself to his knees, then lower to sit on his heels so she at least had about an inch in height on him to make it somewhat proper. However, he didn’t want to draw anything out. He’d already told her everything during the last proposal. Now it was time for simple and quick, so he could let his body and heart make good on their plans as soon as humanly possible.

Gazing into her warm brown eyes, Tony held her left hand in his and did as he’d been ordered. “Will you marry me, baby?”

She beamed at him a moment before throwing her arms around his neck and capturing his mouth for a kiss he happily returned, trying to remember to keep it PG for the spectators he could hear squealing in girlish delight and alternately pretending to puke and gag and warn their coach of cooties.

Tony forced himself to pull away from his new fiancée so he could place the ring on her finger and help her to stand. In seconds, they were surrounded by the horde as hugs and well wishes were offered for at least another half hour before things settled enough for the game to resume. Their coach’s engagement must have wound up the Shark Bytes, because they ended up winning 5-1 in the highest scoring youth soccer game to date.