Long Relief (Hardball 1)

The first ball whizzed at her with an audible slice through the air. For a moment, it seemed to hang suspended, then it was hurtling toward her. Every muscle in her body urged her to swing, but it wasn’t time. She didn’t know exactly how to tell when it was time, but she knew. Years of Little League came back like riding a bicycle. She swung the bat and it connected, the impact vibrating all the way down her arms, but it didn’t matter. They followed through of their own accord. Not the hit she’d hoped for, but the next one came off smoother, rolling down the bat like it had been shot from a gun and Maggie was an expert marksman.

“Holy…” Chris self-censored the epithet that was poised to leave his mouth.

Shrugging one shoulder, she replied, “Baseball in the blood,” before hitting the next pitch.

“Okay, wait, wait.” Chris stopped the machine and grabbed a clipboard off the wall. He crossed the batting cage and, muttering to himself, adjusted the settings. “Now give it a try.”

The next pitches came faster and higher. She missed the first and second, then sent the last three into definite foul ball territory. “Damn. Who is this?”

Chris flipped a page on the clipboard. “Ito, from Las Vegas.”

“Ito from Las Vegas. I might try to lure him away.” She wiped a bit of perspiration from her collar bones and handed him the bat. “You’re up, Mr. Big Swinger.”

“Let’s leave our earlier encounter out of this.” He squared up and gave her a nod. “Fire away.”

She hit the remote. The pitch zoomed directly into the zone, Chris swung early, and it smacked into the net behind him. He was nearly hit by the next pitch the machine threw, and he ducked out of the line of fire before the third could come.

Maggie doubled over laughing, stopping the machine. “Oh my god, why did you do all that trash talking if you knew you sucked so much?”

“Hey, there’s a reason I play for this league.” He dropped the bat, laughing with her. “And I thought if I were going to humiliate myself in front of you, it should be total humiliation.”

The thing Maggie hated about moments like this was, they ended. And usually, when they ended, the awkward silence was crushing, like it suddenly became.

Chris broke first. “You’ve been flirting with me all night. I can’t help but wonder if this is leftover from the crush you used to have on me.”

“So what if it is?” She took a step toward him, planning ahead. If there was the slightest chance they weren’t on the same page, she could just reach toward the door and act like that had been her intention all along.

“You might be disappointed.” He hooked his thumbs in his pockets and took a step to eliminate the space between them. “I might not live up to your expectations.”

This close to him, his cologne was like a hypnotic mind-control drug that turned her back into the shy, stammering teenaged girl she once was. Get it together. You’re thirty-seven years old. You own your own company. Hell, you own a baseball team. Forbes once named you the most successful woman under thirty. He’s not out of your league, you’re out of his. Taking a breath, she put one hand on his chest, her fingers closing over his tie. “Well… maybe you’ll just have to work that much harder to impress me.”

Considering how many hormonal teenaged years she’d spent fantasizing about kissing Chris Thompson, he really did have a lot to live up to. The second his lips met hers, all soft and warm, he instantly exceeded those expectations. Wasting no time, he tilted her chin up and shifted his mouth over hers, tongue opening her lips. She moaned, fingers tightening on the silk in her hand, and she let go abruptly. It would suck to have gotten this far, only to strangle him to death by accident.

His hands slid down her back, over bare skin and the fabric that hugged her every curve. She’d worried that maybe she’d dressed a little too sexy for a business reception. Now, she thought it might have been the best wardrobe choice of her entire life.

Gliding his palms from her ass to her hips, he pulled her lower body tight to his. She swayed on her heels, holding his broad shoulders for stability. He pulled back, laughing, to right her. Then his expression went serious. “Hey, you haven’t… you’re not drunk, right?”

“No. Not as much as I would have liked to have been up there.” She laughed and leaned in for another kiss that curled her toes in her pumps.

A door clattered open somewhere in the hall, and Maggie froze. Before she could formulate an alibi—“I was just showing him how to actually hit the ball!”—he reached out and slapped the light switch, casting them into near-total darkness. Near, because a square window of wire-reinforced glass admitted the yellow fluorescents from the hallway. Chris pulled her through the shaft of light that cut into the darkness, to stand with him against the wall, out of sight.