And there, there it was, a blinding flash of pleasure.
At first the orgasm was so intense, it left her speechless. Then, a low animal moan unfurled from her mouth. It went on and on as she shook against the hard wall of his chest. He didn’t budge or move his hand from where she needed it, not when a late spasm rocked her like an earthquake, not when she went limp as the orgasm finally faded.
He was still there, rock solid, surrounding her with heat and heart, whispering how beautiful she was, how much he wanted her, how hard she made him.
When all the pleasure had been wrung out of her, she slumped against him, still shuddering. He lowered her onto the bed. He covered her with a blanket—it was so soft it felt like cashmere—and curled up next to her.
“Sorry it’s cold in here, I like to blast the AC,” he told her, stroking her cheek.
“Mmmm. I’m not cold.” His body heat radiated through her, making her eyes droop. “What about—”
“You sleep, baby girl. I’ll be here where you wake up. We got plenty of time.”
She didn’t want to sleep. She wanted more of this incredible event. But her eyes kept wanting to close and her body had never been so relaxed. The feeling of Dwight’s strong body curved around her was almost as good as what she’d just experienced. So she did as he said and drifted into a blissful slumber.
So many things involving Maggie were new and different. This tenderness, this protectiveness, this urge to shield her and hold her close—all new. Normally after sex, hunger drove him out of bed in search of a snack. Then again, normally he got to come along with the woman in question. Before or after, didn’t matter. Of course, he made sure she got her satisfaction. He wasn’t some kind of callous beast. But mostly he’d looked out for himself. He could see that very clearly now that he’d been with Maggie.
Because with her, he’d given almost no thought to the throbbing organ between his legs. He’d shoved his own lust to the back of his mind so he could focus entirely on her.
Of course, now he wanted to jump out of his skin at the feel of her smooth, trusting body nestled against him. God, he might come just from the scent of her, rose petals mixed with hot woman. His arousal hadn’t gone down one bit. In fact, his cock pounded even harder, so much that he eased his hips back from her, afraid to wake her up with his awkward unintentional prodding.
He didn’t want anything messing things up with Maggie. Even though he loved to joke and laugh with people, loved to wring a smile from a stranger, he had a serious side too. And that side had glommed onto Maggie like a barnacle to a rock. She was his future. He felt it deep inside. With her, he could reach for the stars, he could burst through barriers, defy every expectation. With brilliant, kind, real Maggie Blythe, the sky was the limit. No—there were no limits.
But he had to be worthy of her. So he gritted his teeth and cuddled with her while his dick threatened to stage a walkout.
“Don’t be such a big baby,” he muttered under his breath, directing the comment to his penis. “You’ll survive. Stop complaining and grow a pair.”
“Hmmm? Are you talking to me?” Maggie murmured and unfurled her body into a stretch. She turned her head to gaze at him over her shoulder with sleepy eyes. “You want me to grow a pair?”
“No, I wasn’t talking to you. Sorry.”
“Who, then?”
“Him.” He pushed his hips forward so she could feel his erection.
“You’re telling your penis to grow a pair? Doesn’t it already have a pair?” She blinked at him, looking adorably confused. As well she should be.
“It’s a figure of speech. Basically telling him to chill the fuck out.”
She rolled over entirely, bringing them face to face. He’d shucked his pants when he lay down beside her and wore only his briefs. “That’s not a nice way to talk to your penis.”
“No?” He gritted his teeth. As if it knew it was the topic of discussion, his cock swelled even fuller. Fuck, at this rate it would blow into a balloon and carry him right out the window. “How should I talk?”
She cupped her hand around the enormous bulge in his briefs. “You should say that there’s a very nice woman named Maggie who would like to invite him over. Inside, actually.”
He groaned at her touch and her words. “He’s a yes. A definite yes.” Rising up, he flipped her onto her back and braced himself over her. Flushed and pink, she smiled up at him. The after-haze of orgasm gave her face a luminous sheen. “God, you’re so beautiful.”
“So are you,” she whispered. She parted her legs for him, urging her hips up to brush against his member. “Can you take that off? Do you have something? Condom-wise?”
“Hang on.” He lifted off her and crawled to the nightstand, where he kept a stash of condoms. He stripped off his underwear and rolled the latex over his shaft. It felt roughly as hard as the ash baseball bat he used for practice. When he was done, he swung back toward her and found her watching with wide eyes.
“Whoa.”
“You better tell me if something hurts.”
“It looks like it would.” Her gaze was glued to his cock—which didn’t help its state of arousal. If he didn’t get inside her soon, something might blow.
“Well, if it does, I’ll stop. Or we can stop right now.” It took a lot to say that. Now that his dick was all sheathed and ready to go, no part of him wanted to slow this thing down.
“No!” she said quickly. “I don’t want to stop. Come over here.”
He walked on his knees back to her, filling his vision with her naked body, her dark nipples, the gleam of moisture between her thighs. When he was over her again, stretching out to cover her body, he touched her sex, skimming his thumb across her still swollen clit, testing for juiciness.
Oh yeah. It didn’t take much, within a few strokes she was twitching those hips again, wanting more. When she was slick and wet, he eased his thick tip inside her. Even though her mouth opened on a gasp, her expression read ecstasy, not hesitation. So he went farther, inch by inch, until he was buried balls-deep inside her heat.
The rest was a blur. He lost himself in her cues, her responses, tuning everything he did to her reaction. He thrust harder when she began moving her hips to a fast drumbeat. He sucked at her nipples until her back arched. He listened to her pleas, her signals, her whispers, her moans. Drove deep when it made her scream his name, pulled back when she needed to catch her breath.
Until finally the relentless urge of orgasm thundered down his spine. He plunged deep, feeling her body clench around him. She cried out and arched back. Tight little tremors fluttered around him. He came hard, so hard everything went white for a moment. So hard he lost track of time. He could have been buried inside her for a minute or a week, and it wouldn’t matter.
Because afterwards, all he wanted to do was get back inside. Back to where all differences and boundaries were erased and two souls became one.
13
After that night, Dwight and Maggie got together every chance they could. After every game, she’d skip down from her second-floor office and meet him for dinner. Sometimes they didn’t make it out of the stadium, and would end up in some forgotten corner of the building, naked. Usually they went to Dwight’s barebones condo, because there they could be private and make all the noise they wanted. But occasionally Maggie insisted they go to her place. She didn’t like abandoning Nina, who was losing heart about her relationship with Jim Lieberman.
“He never Skypes me anymore,” she wailed over takeout barbecue they’d picked up at the Smoke Pit. “I told him it doesn’t matter how late, but he keeps falling asleep and forgetting.”
Dwight tried to calm her down. “He’s in the Bigs now, he has a lot of demands on him. Media, fans, the pressure, it’s about a thousand times more than here. Every time you step on that field, it’s like Thunderdome. You just gotta have a little patience.”
Nina waved a chicken wing at him. “Patience? Patience? All I’ve been is patient!”
Instead of laughing, Nina glared. “Don’t call him that. Now all the fangirl skanks in San Diego are using that name. I hate it. I heard he started signing Bieberman on their chests. Did I show you the alert I got?”
She pushed her phone across the table to them. Dwight leaned over Maggie’s shoulder to look. A headline on a sports blog read, “A Short Stop to a Kiss.” It showed a photo of Jim, in his Friars uniform, kissing a female fan on the cheek.
“He kissed someone!”
“On the cheek,” Maggie said. “That doesn’t mean anything.”
Dwight shook his head and returned to his plate of food.
“Trevor warned me about this sort of thing. He said all the girls who hang around the ballplayers are really persistent and it’s so easy to think no one’s ever going to know. A lot of ballplayers cheat, don’t they, Dwight?”
Dwight choked on a forkful of potato salad. “There’s always going to be guys who cheat. That doesn’t mean we all do. You know your brother. He’s so crazy about Paige, another woman could walk naked across his face and he wouldn’t notice.”
“Yeah, but what about Jim? We aren’t even an official couple. We had one date. One really great date. Two kisses. One amazing make-out—”
“Okay, we get it.” Dwight stopped her with a pained look as he wiped barbecue sauce off his mouth. “Don’t need the blow-by-blow.”
Nina rolled her eyes. “Someone else who ought to read a romance novel now and then.”
He shrugged. “Guess what, baby girl. I have.”
“No. Way.” Nina scrambled onto her knees on the couch, bouncing up and down with excitement. “Which ones? Why? When?”
“I don’t remember titles, but it was in college and I was looking for some pro tips for winning over the ladies.” He grinned at their shocked faces. “Worked, too.”
“You are bad.” Nina whacked him on the arm. “But in a good way,” she added thoughtfully. “Can you have a talk with Jim, do you think? I know what’s happening. He’s nice guy and if a girl bats her eyelashes at him, he won’t be able to say no. Just like he can’t stand up to my brother. Trevor’s probably giving him the death glare so he’s afraid to call me. You know what Jim needs? He needs some romance-hero lessons.”
Maggie washed down her chicken with a swallow of Coke. “Nina, I hate to say this, but maybe you’re asking him to be someone he’s not.”
“No. No.” She shook her head vehemently. “I like him how he is. I just want him to…to…claim me. To want me so bad, he’s willing to piss off my annoying brother to get me. Instead, he’s there in San Diego forgetting I even exist. I don’t want to get in his way while he’s working so hard, but it’s like he barely remembers who I am.”
Maggie exchanged a look with Dwight. Neither believed for a second that Lieberman had forgotten about Nina. But as for Trevor intimidating Jim—that was very likely. In fact, Dwight had talked to Trevor about that very thing, after Maggie caught Nina crying one day.
Trevor’s response: “If a few glares can scare him off, he’s not the right man for my sister.”
He had a point, but Maggie’s heart went out to Nina. You couldn’t really help who you fell in love with.
Did it make sense for Maggie herself to fall for a charismatic, popular baseball player? They were classic opposites. He was an extrovert, she an introvert. He was utterly confident in his physicality, while she still held herself gingerly, always on alert for warning signs from her body. The only time she lost that caution was in bed with Dwight, as a matter of fact. The delirious pleasure chased away all fear.
Dwight came from a large, loud family. When they called him, he spent a lot of time bursting into that generous, infectious laugh of his. His family treated him like an adult, not a child, the way her parents did. When her parents called, the conversation often felt like a class report, during which she presented a carefully edited version of her life.
For instance, she didn’t mention Dwight. In her eyes, her relationship with Dwight was kind of a private miracle.
If Dwight got called up again, would the girls be chasing him the way they chased Lieberman?
Dwight had unstoppable charisma and a smile like sunshine. Women would be melting at his feet.
And he could get called up. No one knew it better than she did. She’d finally run the data on him again, and found something fascinating. Based on his previous history going from one level to the next, if he got called up a second time, he would do much better than the first time. Her system didn’t predict exact batting averages and so forth. It just assigned a number, a quantification of performance. The first time, he’d scored a two. If he got called up again, she predicted that he’d manage a seven.
Since her arrival in Kilby, her computer model kept getting more accurate. Now it produced accurate predictions ninety-five percent of the time. With that kind of success rate, she fully expected the Friars to be calling on her services soon. If they asked about Dwight, she’d present her results. That meant Dwight could be back in San Diego any day now.
Maggie didn’t usually have time to watch the games from the stands, preferring to watch the closed-circuit feed while she worked. But Dwight kept bugging her to watch in person at least once in a while. So one day she took Crush up on his offer of a front row seat on the third base line.
“You can join Wendy and me in the owner’s box, but it’s further from the action. You probably want to be right in the mix. Maybe catch a fly ball or flirt with one of the players…not naming any names.” He winked one bright hazel eye at her. Crush could get away with that kind of comment because of his general irreverence about everything—including her work.
But he was finally losing his skepticism, she believed. So far, three players she’d recommended were playing for the Catfish and doing great. Her success rate spoke for itself.
“Thanks, Crush. But don’t you really mean to say that you’ll have more opportunity to play footsie with the mayor?”
“Oh, burn.” He swept her a bow. “The girl’s got some spunk.”
So as she took her seat in the front row, she waved at Crush and Wendy Trent in the owner’s box. His arm was slung around the blond beauty’s shoulders as she chatted with a constituent. Crush smiled at Maggie from behind his sunglasses.
Squinting in the bright sun, she adjusted the visor of the Catfish baseball cap she’d snagged from the promotions office. The heat beat down on the stadium, players and fans alike. How did the ballplayers stand it out there? Leaning forward, she saw a fan blowing air through the Catfish dugout. She couldn’t see Dwight, but knowing he was somewhere in there, really just a few yards away, made her smile.
She stuck a straw into her jumbo Sprite and settled back to enjoy her first baseball game in which she knew one of the players personally. Very personally.
Why couldn’t he have played this well in San Diego? After six innings, Dwight had three hits and two RBIs. In the third inning, he got the supreme joy of racing around third base toward home while Maggie screamed along with the rest of the crowd. Nothing like scoring a run in front of the woman you wanted to impress. It was the best feeling in the world.
Now he was out in center field, waiting while the middle relief pitcher took his warmup pitches. Man, it was hot today. He checked the temperature on the Jumbotron over his shoulder. A hundred and two degrees. About right, judging by the sweat slicking his face. The promotions camera was doing its “Kiss the Catfish” segment. A graphic of the Catfish logo filled half the screen. It had puffy, kissable lips. Audience members were supposed to pretend to kiss the cartoon fish.
Silly fun—but he was here to play, not “play.” He was about to look away when he saw the camera stop on Maggie. Her face filled the screen. And she didn’t look right.
Too red. He’d never seen her that flushed. Was it a camera thing? She was swe
ating, too, and wore a confused expression. Maybe that was because she’d never done the Kiss the Catfish segment before.
Or maybe it was because…
Before he even realized it, he’d launched across the field toward the third base line. He passed the new shortstop, T.J., at third, heard Duke yelling his name. He ignored them all, staying completely focused on Maggie’s face. Her head swayed back and forth.
“Maggie!” he yelled. She didn’t respond. She was starting to slump in her seat. “Call nine-one-one!” he yelled to the dugout, then again to the people in the stands. “Nine-one-one, now!” Oblivious to the clamor around him, he swung on to the top of the dugout and climbed over the railing. Just in time to catch her in his arms before she fainted.
God, her face was so red, and she was soaking with sweat. He lifted her in his arms. “Clear the way,” he yelled at the rest of the row. Everyone made room for him as he edged his way toward the exit. He had to get her out of the sun. When he reached the shaded walkway that led into the vending areas, he stopped. He squatted down and settled her into his lap. He checked her pulse, which was beating fast and crazy. He fanned his hand across her face to cool her down.
“Maggie, you’re gonna be all right, baby girl. Paramedics are on their way. Stay with me, sweetheart.” His heart clenched so hard he wondered if he was the one having heart trouble.
Footsteps pounded up the walkway. Finally—the paramedics.
“She has a heart condition,” he told them frantically. “High risk of syncope.” God, he’d remembered that word—fricking miracle. “Her meds are on that bracelet.”
“We got it from here.” Two burly EMTs took her from his lap and lifted her onto a gurney. One of them put an oxygen mask on her. “What’s her name?”
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