Pitch Please (There's No Crying in Baseball 1)

“Yeah,” he agreed.

“And what are those?” I licked my suddenly dry lips.

How that was even possible while I was in the freakin’ shower, I didn’t know, but they were.

“One, we could dry off, go lay on the bed and watch TV,” he started.

My belly twisted.

That wasn’t what I wanted.

Not at all.

Not even a little bit.

“What’s the second option?” I asked breathlessly.

“Option two is I fuck you until the wee hours of the morning, and we only stop when the sun starts to kiss the sky,” he growled low and deep.

I groaned when his hand started to tangle in the curls between my legs. His forefinger and thumb came together to pinch my clit, and my entire lower half shrank back in reaction, causing pain mixed with a little bit of pleasure to burst through me.

“You have a baseball game tomorrow night,” I pointed out. “And I have to be at the field about an hour before that. Staying up all night to do what you just…suggested…isn’t such a good idea.”

It killed me to say it, but someone had to be logical here.

“So, you don’t want to do this?” he asked carefully.

I turned in his arms, and he let me. His eyes trained straight on mine as I situated myself in his arms.

“I’ve never wanted anyone or anything so badly in my life…” I informed him. “But I don’t want to be responsible for screwing up your rest schedule before tomorrow’s game.”

His lips quirked, and my hands lifted involuntarily to run over his beard.

He turned his face into my hand, and I started to scratch his beard with my nails as he watched me.

“You want me?”

In answer, I swallowed my fear and leaned forward.

My breasts pressed into his overheated skin, pushing against the rock-hard ridges of muscle also known as his abs.

My hands went to his shoulders, and I leaned up onto my tippy toes, pressing my lips against his.

His beard tickled my lips and cheeks, but that didn’t take away from the excitement that coursed through me when our lips connected.

It was the first time I’d been the one to initiate anything between us, and I found that I quite liked how powerful it made me feel.

I felt on top of the freakin world when he groaned in defeat, his mouth coming down onto mine, his head slanting as his tongue plunged between my lips, urgently taking over the kiss.

When my back hit the cool tile wall, I tightened my hands, which inevitably caused my nails to dig in to the sensitive skin of his back.

“We’re about to take this relationship to the next level, darlin’, from something innocent to something that’s anything but innocent,” he murmured, pulling back slightly so his lips were only inches from my own.

I studied his eyes in the harsh light hanging over the top of the shower, knowing that whatever we did tonight meant more to me than just a casual fuck.

And I wasn’t the type of person who entered into relationships lightly.

I’d learned the hard way that having different expectations about things lead to problems, and if I was being honest, I really liked Hancock. I didn’t want anything bad to happen between us. I was beginning to really like him, and if this didn’t work out between us, then not only would our work life be complicated, but I’d lose a man who I was quickly counting as one of my closest friends.

And I didn’t have many of those.

It would hurt me deeply not to have him there any longer.

It’d only been two weeks.

Fourteen days.

Three hundred and thirty-six hours.

In the grand scheme of things, that didn’t seem all that long.

Not to most people, anyway.

To me, though…well, that was a long time.

I may not have had many people that I counted as close friends, but the ones whom I did have were because we’d formed those relationships and bonds quickly. Something that my mom has said was one of my greatest flaws.

Which was probably why I dated the men I’d dated in the past.

Hancock was different, though. I knew, instinctively, that he was going to change my life. The moment I walked into the dugout and sat in his spot—on purpose—I knew my life was about to become very different.

And I’d been right.

“You have to promise me something,” I loosened my hold on him. “If this goes bad…we have to promise to work things out. To make it so that we can co-exist and still do our jobs without anything coming between us.”

His mouth kicked up in the grin.

“You’re saying that after I fuck you—if we decide to call it quits—that I’ll have to act like I haven’t been inside of you?” he teased.

I slapped his arm, the wet sound of our skin connecting echoing off the tile, sounding like I’d hit him a lot harder than I actually had.