She did think about it then, calculating the best way to get revenge on him for the night before. Becka laughed low in her throat. “Sounds more like you’re the one who’d like to leave a deposit.”
He pulled her up close to him. “Your mama ever wash your mouth out with soap?” He kissed her experimentally. “Mmm, nope, no soap there.”
“Maybe you’d better check again,” Becka whispered, wriggling closer to him. Her hand slipped down to slide over his hip and butt, and curve around in front to his crotch. It was only to teach him a lesson. Not because she wanted to touch him or kiss him or anything. At least not much, she thought feverishly.
Becka’s hands tugged at his belt, fumbling with the buckle, and Mace reached down to help her, wanting to free himself of the ache that ran through him. He kissed her open mouth, his tongue darting in to duel with hers. Nope, no sharp tang of soap, just sweet, a mind-melting smoky sweetness that took over his thoughts. So that he almost didn’t feel the delicious curves of her breasts nestled against his chest. So that he almost didn’t feel the heat of her hand through his jeans until she… He stifled a groan.
“You seem to have a bit of a swelling there,” Becka breathed against his neck as her hands deftly unzipped his jeans. “Maybe I should give it a massage to get some of the stiffness out.”
This time he did groan, as she pulled him out and held him, pulsing in her hand. Her smooth fingertips danced along the length of him from root to tip, leaving a trail of sensitized nerve endings in their wake.
“Of course, I seem to remember you telling me earlier to get a firm grip on the wood and stroke.” She tightened her fingers around him and began to slide up and down on him. The rush of sensation sent need surging through him and he cradled her neck in his hand and kissed her hard, trying not to concentrate on the touch that threatened to send him over the edge.
Becka fought to keep her head clear, even as those mind-bending kisses threatened to take control. The feel of him hard and leaping in her hand made her dizzy with desire. His fingers edging under her shorts tantalized her beyond all reason. It would be so easy to just wrap her legs around him then and there and go where she knew he could take her.
But she needed to prove something to herself. And to him. She needed to prove that she could walk away, too. His breathing sounded harsher and harsher in her ear. She broke the kiss, leaning her forehead against his chest, then she stilled her hand.
“Well,” she gave him a light kiss, “thanks for the batting tips. I should probably get going now, though, I’ve got some unpacking to do.” She released him and stepped back. “Don’t hurt yourself putting that thing away.” She turned to the door.
She missed the gathering determination in his eyes.
He caught her and whirled her around, pressing her up against the chain link fence. His hands pinned her wrists to the wire, and he pressed his body lightly against hers. A thrill shot through her, and arrowed down into the pit of her stomach.
And lower.
“No games,” he said softly. “No more one-upsmanship. We’re even, okay? Let’s make it official, here and now. Drop the control stuff for a minute and just go with how you feel.” His lips were at her ear, the words like a spell.
“Stop trying to seduce me,” she managed.
“I’m not. This isn’t about you or me, Becka, it’s about us, being lovers.” He nipped at her lower lip, the brief smart of sensation quickly blanketed by the outrageous softness and warmth of his mouth on hers. “You remember how good it was. You can’t tell me you don’t want it, because I know better.” His fingers stole under the edge of her shorts and panties, finding her slick and hot. “I can feel it.”
The brush of his fingers tore a moan out of her. The surge of her hips against him took both of them by surprise. The liquid pleasure seeped into her bones, throughout her flesh, and slowly, slowly her temperature began to rise.
“Don’t think you’re seducing me,” she whispered against his neck as she kissed him passionately.
“No, ma’am.” The steady slide of his fingers was driving her mad, little licks and curls of pleasure flickering through her body like flames as the heat and tension built.
“Because you’re not,” she managed. “I’m doing this because I want to.”
“Hallelujah,” he murmured.
“If anything, I’d say I’m seducing you,” she said breathlessly, reaching down for him.
“I’d say you worry too much about the wrong stuff.” His words cut off in a groan as he felt her fingers rub against his cock. Need flooded through him, overriding any other concern. He had to have her, hot, tight and wrapped around him, now.
Mace’s hands slid round her hips to the tops of her thighs. When Becka raised one leg to wrap it around his hip, he slid a hand underneath her. She curled her fingers into the wire mesh of the fence and raised the other leg to wrap it around his waist.
“If you stop this now to prove a point, I’m going to be the one thinking about murder and mayhem,” he said raggedly.
She felt the silky tip of his cock brush against her leg. A breath of cool air hit her as he hooked her shorts and lace out of the way.
Then he drove up into her and Becka cried out. The sensation burst through her in a rush, sweeping her up and over the edge of sanity as her body convulsed until she could only cling to him, shaking with the force of her contractions.
The blind pleasure in her eyes as she tightened him pulled him closer to the edge, but he fought to continue. In and out, he surged against her body, the friction rocketing through both of them. Though he wanted to spill himself, he held on, trying to prolong the feeling.
Becka tightened her arms and legs around him. “I’m going to come again,” she whispered in amazement just as her body tighened around him. Mace managed only a stroke or two before the clutching spasms of her muscles drove him beyond control and he burst out in a jolt of pleasure.
14
THE SECONDS TICKED BY while they caught their breath. Finally, the sharp stab of chain links digging into her back drove Becka to move. Her pulse still hammered, but the temporary insanity was over. And as she drifted back to reality, alarm came creeping in. “Tell me we didn’t just do that,” she groaned, dropping her feet back to the ground.
“Oh, we definitely did.” Mace stepped away from her and slipped himself back into his jeans.
“I am such an idiot,” she raged. “I must be out of my mind.”
“No one’s around, if that’s what you’re worried about.”
“That’s not what I’m worried about,” she snapped.
“Okay, what is?” he asked, tucking in his T-shirt.
She opened her mouth and stopped. Welcome to life in the brave new world, she thought. “Did it occur to you that we didn’t use any protection during that little go ’round?”
He gave her a level look. “Did it occur to you?”
“Obviously not soon enough.”
“It wasn’t your fault. You were being seduced.” He caught her gaze before she could reply. “It’s a joke, sugar,” he emphasized. “We both got carried away and you know it.”
“Well, I hope it won’t bruise your feelings too much if I say that with your history, the idea of unprotected sex makes me really uncomfortable,” she said tartly.
She heard his quick intake of breath, and shame swamped her. “Look, I shouldn’t have said it like that. What I mean is—”
“I know what you mean. I should have seen that one coming,” Mace said aridly. He looked at the ground as though searching for the answers there. “I was hospitalized for most of last fall, remember?” He raised his head and gave her a level stare. “They gave me transfusions, cut me open, sewed me up, took samples…they tested me for every damned thing, including HIV. I’m clean.”
She swallowed. “Well, that’s good news,” she said brightly. “But what about the people you’ve been with since then?”
He spun and kicked the chain link in a sudden surg
e of violence. “Listen, will you?” There was an edge to his voice she hadn’t heard before. “I haven’t been with anybody since I got out of the hospital except you, okay? I’m clean.”
Relief washed through her, contrition on its heels. “I’m sorry to have asked you about it like that. It’s just with your reputation…”
“Jesus, let go of it, will you?” His voice rose as he stalked away in frustration. “All that newspaper stuff was pure fantasy. I never even met half of those women. If I shook hands with them they had me dating, if I dated them, they had me engaged.” He rounded on her. “I hosted a charity auction with Megan Barnes one year and when I ran into her in a parking lot a few months later, US Magazine ran a two-page story on it, complete with photos. It was a five-minute conversation in a parking lot, for Christ’s sake.” He raked a hand through his hair and dropped his hands to his sides. Abruptly, the fury seemed to abate, leaving him simply shaking his head. “You know, if you’re not worrying about who’s in the driver’s seat, you’re worrying about my reputation. Maybe if you’d start worrying about what we’re doing we’d have a chance.”
The silence stretched out for a beat, then two.
“A chance of what?”
“Of—” He stopped. “I don’t know. And we never will know because you’re too busy worrying about all the stuff that doesn’t matter. And while we’re on the topic, we’ve established that I’m clean, but what about you? Didn’t I hear something about an ex-boyfriend?”
“You’re asking me if—”
“I’m asking you if I should be concerned.” He watched her reaction sardonically. “Not a very pleasant feeling, is it?”
Becka recovered quickly. “I’m a health professional. I get tested on a monthly basis. As of my most recent results, I’m clean.”
“And birth control?”
She stared at him. “I’m on the pill.”
Mace gave her a long look, and nodded. “Well I guess we know something, then. We could say it’s over, walk away right now, and it’s no harm, no foul.”
We could walk away right now, his words echoed through her head. She stared into his golden eyes, eyes that were suddenly unfathomable.
Mace hooked a thumb in his front pocket and leaned against the chain link. “Calling it over is one option. Is that what you want to do?”
What did she want to do, Becka wondered. He was offering to let it go, just forget about everything that had happened between them. Except that she didn’t want to forget about everything that had happened, she discovered with sudden certainty. She didn’t want to call it over.
She wanted more.
Becka walked up to Mace and pressed a kiss on his mouth, lingering until his lips softened and he began to kiss her back. Then she took his hand and pulled on it, heading toward the batting cage door. “Give me a ride back to my apartment, Duvall, and I’ll show you what I want.”
His mouth quirked. “Does it involve your Chinese sex book?”
“Guess you’ll have to come along and find out.”
THE REST OF THE WEEK settled into a pattern: working out in the morning with Mace, followed by an hour in the batting cages, practice, the game, and back to her apartment with him at night. The workouts were a revelation to her. More than a year might have passed since his accident, but he still fought grimly every day for a fraction of the endurance and strength that he’d once taken for granted.
“What actually happened to you?” she asked one day toward the end of their run, when the pain had obviously set in.
“The truck crushed part of my hip when it hit me. They needed to do surgery, but I was in a coma and they couldn’t risk anesthesia. By the time I woke up, it was too late.” He kept running alongside her, his face set in the look of stoic endurance that she’d come to know. “They had to put in an artificial hip. No chance of playing. None.”
Shock robbed her of the ability to speak. He wouldn’t want sympathy, she thought, not for this.
“No chance of playing, maybe, but you’re still able to teach. Coaching, managing. You’re good at it.”
He mustered up a smile. “So you say. I don’t know, sounds to me like you just want help in the batting cages so you can win your bet with Morelli.”
“Oh, that’s not for my bet. I’m just doing it to help you practice your teaching skills.”
“Is that what that is?”
She slowed to a walk, grinning at him.
“COME ON, FLORENCE, knock ’em silly.”
It was the moment of truth, Mace thought. Becka stood at the plate, swinging the bat to warm up. The players crowded around the batting cage, shouting encouragement to her. Earlier, they’d heckled Morelli unmercifully, cat-calling when he only managed to hit .240. Now, every time Becka made a hit, a cheer ran around the group.
“Nobody bothered to cheer me.” Morelli stood a little away from the cage, next to Mace.
He sounded a little wounded and Mace gave him a sideways glance. “You make it pretty clear that the team is less important than partying, Morelli. Why should the team give a damn about you?”
“Hey, I care about this team,” he said petulantly.
Time for some hard facts, Mace thought. “Listen, every one of these guys here is busting his behind to make himself better. Then there’s you, who seems to think that just showing up and using the stuff you were born with is enough. Is it really a surprise that they don’t like your attitude?”
Morelli gave a laugh. “That’s pretty rich coming from the original party animal.”
Mace stared at him until his laugh faltered into a throat clearing. “Are you finished? Every guy on my team knew that I was there in the weight room, there for extra batting practice, there for extra fielding drills. They saw it. Just like your teammates see that you’re never around any more than you have to be.”
“I do my job,” he muttered sullenly.
“Morelli, really doing your job means doing more than just your job. You want to know why Becka is kicking your ass out there?”
“She’s not kicking my ass. I’m not going to get beat by a girl.”
“Yeah, well, that girl—and I sure wouldn’t let her hear you call her that—has been in this batting cage every day this week for a couple of hours of practice. She refused to consider the idea of losing.” He watched Becka tense herself, eye on the pitching machine as she’d practiced so many times. The ball shot out at her and she swung, launching it to the back of the cage. Hours of practice, she’d put in. And every time he thought she’d be done, she’d ask to do one more bucket of balls. Not that watching her move was any hardship. Having an excuse to watch her body for hours a day was only slightly less entertaining than having an excuse to touch it.
The last ball in the bucket cracked off her bat for a final hit, triggering wild applause from her audience.
Becka turned around to bow modestly, then gave Stats an inquiring look. “So what does the official scorekeeper say?”
Stats furiously scratched numbers on his pad, then looked up. “Congratulations, Florence, you hit .275. You’re our winner.”
The players cheered her.
Mace gave Morelli a fraternal pat on the shoulder. “Congratulations, buddy, looks like you just got beat by a girl.”
He headed toward the door to the batting cages where Becka was coming out and swept her up in a hug. “You were great.” Then the rest of the players crowded around and he backed off and watched her enjoy her moment.
The group morphed into a riot of celebration, the high fives, head rubs and hugs circulating around. Then Mace saw one of the players give Becka the ritual butt pat and he tensed for an instant. Hands off my woman, the thought leaped into his head before he could suppress it.
One of the players made a joke and Becka laughed in delight, the high flush on her cheeks making her look fresh and alive. Suddenly, with a singular fierceness, Mace wanted all the other players gone. The need to be alone with her suffused him. He was to leave the following day f
or another assignment, and already he could hear the clock ticking in his head. The preceding days had only sharpened his craving for her. He needed her, now.
The group started to move off toward the dorms to kick back for an hour or two before practice started. Mace tapped Becka’s shoulder.
“I won!” she said, her eyes bright with excitement.
“You didn’t just win, you hammered him.”
“I guess it pays to have a former major league batting champion as your private tutor.”
Mace stopped, letting the other players go on ahead. “You were the one who did all the work. Two hours a day practicing in a cage. It’s a wonder it didn’t make you crazy.”
“It did make me crazy, but mostly because I was thinking of what we did Monday. For the rest of my life, chain link fence is going to turn me on,” she laughed.
“IT’S A GOOD THING you don’t live around here all the time,” Becka said lazily as she lay in bed with her head on his stomach. “We’d never get anything done. I haven’t gotten one thing unpacked since you came back.”
“Orgasms are so time-consuming.”
“Aren’t they, though?” She eeled around so she lay next to him. “My parents gave me their Polaroid to take pictures of the place and I haven’t even managed to do that.”
“I was wondering why you had that on the bedside table,” he said, giving her a bawdy look.
“Down, boy,” she scolded smilingly and leaned in for a kiss. “Mmm. So you leave tomorrow?”
“Yeah, unfortunately. Only for a five-day assignment, though. Sammy requested me again, so I’ll be back here in less than a week.”
“Where are you going?”
“Georgia.”
“That’s a lot of driving in only a few days.”
He skimmed a hand over her belly. “God, I love your body,” he murmured, leaning down to kiss her flat stomach. “I won’t be driving. I figured I’d just fly down and leave my truck here. It’s faster that way.”
Scoring Page 15