The Pitcher's Assistant

The tall, broad shouldered, midnight-haired god is looking right at me, blue eyes frosted over. And Lord, based on his thunderous expression, he overheard the conversation between me and Randy. He’s probably wondering what the hell I’m doing in here, expecting these athletes to put on clothes just because I’m a girl. He’s probably—

“Get dressed,” Cort growls through his teeth, flashing those glacial eyes at the locker room as a whole, making sure to include each member of his team in that stare. “Now.”

All activity ceases momentarily.

Jokes cut off midway through. Hands pause on locker doors.

Looks are split between me and Cort, who is back to watching me closely.

Very, very closely, almost as if he can’t quite comprehend my appearance.

And then the team members start pulling on clothes, faster than a whip crack. Shirts are yanked over heads, legs are shoved into track pants.

I’m frozen like a deer in headlights with this giant man looking at me. His attention sweeps down my baby-blue, first-day-as-a-reporter suit and automatically my knees cinch together, the toes of my high heels turning inward. It’s the strangest thing, but my panties seem tighter on my sex, almost as if my flesh has grown swollen in his presence. And wet. What is that about? Is something wrong with me? My skin is so hot. What is going on?

Randy was startled when Cort growled his order at the locker room, but my boss recovers fast. “Ah now, don’t worry about her, Mulloy. She’s just an intern. She has to get used to the atmosphere sooner or later.”

“He’s right,” I murmur, craning my head back to look up into Cort’s face. “If I’m going to report on baseball, I’ll need to grow accustomed to a little m-male nudity.”

Cort steps closer and his scent reaches me. Minty soap and fresh-cut grass. “You won’t be growing accustomed to it,” he rasps.

“Oh.” He’s so close now, his warmth is seeping beneath my clothes. “Why?”

“Because this is your last time in here. You work for me now.”

“Wait. What?”

Cort

I don’t know who she is yet, but she’s mine.

As soon as she cleared the locker room entrance, I knew it. Those big, innocent, doe eyes swept the room and she let out this little squeak, whirling around to face the wall. My dick has been hard and ready ever since. What the hell is it about her? I’m not big on women. Not in any permanent way. They come and go once in a while and I barely remember their names.

The minute this girl walked in, everything inside me screeched to a halt. All the frustration over being in the middle of a slump, all of the pressure to win—all of the grief I’ve been feeling lately—it just stopped. There was only her. There was only the purity and sweetness radiating around her. I want to take her somewhere, alone, and drown myself in it.

“I’m sorry…” A line forms between her brows. “Did you say I work for you now?”

“That’s right.”

“But…doing what?” She shakes herself, laughs lightly. “I’m a reporter.”

“You’re an intern,” her boss corrects her harshly.

Her face turns pink.

My fingers flex and ball into a fist, shaking with the need to break something. Who the hell does this guy think he is, talking to an angel as if she’s meaningless? Starting now, it’s never, ever happening again. “I don’t like the way you talk to her. Get out.”

The man sputters, grasping at the press credentials around his neck. “I’m…I’m Randy Carville—”

“And I’m Cort fucking Mulloy.” I take a single step closer and watch his face turn the color of glue. “Get the hell out.”

When Randy storms out of the locker room, the girl turns on a toe and follows him, but I catch her around the middle with a forearm and sweep her up off the ground, carrying her to the back of the locker room, my private area, her back to my chest. “You stay.”

She wiggles around a little and I groan, inhaling deeply of her sunflower scent. “B-but…but you said this is my last time in here.”

“It is,” I rasp.

“Then shouldn’t I be leaving?”

“Not yet.”

“My mother would say this is plum wild, what’s happening.”

“I’m inclined to agree.” I settle her on her feet in front of my locker, turn her around and tip up her chin, marveling over how goddamn beautiful her eyes are. Chocolate-brown with green flecks. “I didn’t expect a little ray of sunshine to walk in here and make me crazy, but here we are. Now it’s going to be dealt with.”

“Dealt with?” She blinks. “What does that mean?”

I take the purse, jacket and notebook she’s holding to her chest, setting them on a nearby bench. It gives me time to gather my thoughts, but I don’t quite succeed. There is something about this girl that is shooting my usual concentration to hell. All I can think about is sucking on her wide upper lip, peeling her out of that baby-blue suit, making her mine.