He shook his head. “Such a dick.”
I laughed.
Matt dug his cleats into the dirt and the pitcher came set. He kicked his leg and fired a fastball in Matt’s direction.
Crack!
The roar of the crowd was deafening. Camera flashes sparked everywhere all at once from the sold-out crowd. The ball nearly disappeared into the night until we watched the crowd fight for it in the upper deck in right field.
Kelsey and I jumped up and down clapping and hollering. I jumped on Ethan and squeezed him as hard as I could. I looked up and caught him beaming with pride as Matt rounded second.
I turned my head toward the field and Matt pointed at Ethan as he trotted toward third base, his giant smile glowing from his boyish face.
Ethan pointed back with the same look directed at Matt, and then turned his stare back to me. “He fucking crushed that thing.”
“Yeah, he did.”
Matt leaped onto home plate and his teammates dog-piled on top of him. It was perfect.
—
The crowd hadn’t gone anywhere. Players were spraying champagne around and wearing matching hats and shirts that read division champions on them. Matt had made his way down near us and was giving an interview with an ESPN reporter a few feet away. The mic was live so that the whole stadium could hear what he was saying.
“I need to get my agent out here. He’s been my best friend for ten years.”
The cheers were insane. Matt could’ve said anything into the microphone and the fans would’ve gone crazy.
Ethan turned to me.
“Go,” I said, shoving him toward the reporter.
“If you insist.”
Ethan walked over and stood next to Matt. I looked up at the giant screen in center field and they were both front and center in the frame. Matt turned to Ethan. “Well, don’t you have something to do?”
“Yep,” Ethan said and looked over at me.
What was happening? I caught Kelsey smiling to my right. Everyone seemed in on it, and I was clueless.
Ethan took a few steps toward me as the cameraman shifted to let him by. I looked up and now both of us were on the screen and Matt had disappeared.
Ethan took both of my hands in his and the reporter held the mic up near his face. “Jenny Jackson, I love you more than anything. And I don’t want to ever love anything else the way I love you.”
I started to get light-headed and rubbed my hands down my shorts to wipe the sweat away. Butterflies exploded in my stomach and my face numbed.
“I couldn’t think of a better place to ask you a certain question.”
He dropped to a knee and I covered my face with both hands, and then opened my fingers slightly outward so I could see him. I giggled. Again. Ethan and his ability to make me giggle. My palms quivered against my cheeks.
He pulled a small box from his pocket and opened it up. The lights of the stadium reflected off the large diamond solitaire that now sat right in front of my face.
“Will you marry me?”
My legs turned to Jell-O and tremors rolled through my body. I nodded my head, and somehow managed to speak a single word while shaking uncontrollably. “Y-yes.”
The stadium went wild—clapping and shouting—and it all slowly morphed into a steady roar as he slid the ring onto my finger. It was gorgeous and perfect, and he’d have to pry it off my finger if he ever wanted it back.
I looked down at the ring for a second and then he kissed me in his signature style, both hands on my face and then running back through my hair. It was a brief kiss. I wanted it to be a little longer, but didn’t want to offend any parents of children watching. He was going to be rewarded later though. Oh, would he ever be rewarded. His touch had a way of ruining my panties, to the point I considered just getting rid of all of them and going commando 24/7.
He leaned into my ear. “I love you, J.J.”
My heart turned to a puddle of mush. He’d never called me by my initials before. Only Dad had ever called me that. “I love you too.”
“I have to take care of a couple things, and then I’m taking you home.”
“Deal.”
He walked back over to Matt, who hugged and congratulated him. I held my hand out to Kelsey to show off my new bling, and we both squealed like schoolgirls, jumping up and down, not giving a fuck who was watching us. After a few brief seconds, I pulled out my phone and clicked on my fantasy baseball app to check the final standings.
Even with Matt’s home run, Dad had beaten me by one point. The moment I saw that it was like I felt his presence—like he was hugging me. I basked in that brief moment and my eyes closed, imagining his arms wrapped tight around me in the kind of hug he’d always given me until he’d been too weak to do so. The kind of hug he’d still done his best to give me up until the day he finally left.
I knew he was there, watching every second of it, happy that I was happy. And I imagined him saying, Finally, I kicked her ass for once.
I stared up at the bright stars and I smiled a content smile before whispering, “Goodbye, Dad.”
Acknowledgments
Writing a novel is never a singular endeavor. It takes a team. So I have many people I need to thank.
First of all I’d like to thank my family, Mrs. H and the Boy, for putting up with the long hours it took to write this story. I love you both very much!
I’d like to thank my editor, Sue Grimshaw, and all the people at Penguin Random House/Loveswept for their help and encouragement and taking a chance on my idea for this story. It’s so much better because of all of you and I couldn’t have done it without you. Thank you for putting up with extended deadlines and working with me on this so that I could shape it into the best novel possible. I’ve learned so much from all of you and you are just the best!
Thank you to my agent, Emily Sylvan Kim, and everyone else at Prospect Agency for believing in this story and helping get it published. You are all amazing!
Thank you to my indie publicist, Neda Amini, for your tireless work in helping promote this book and get it in front of more people. You are the best!
Thank you to my indie copy editors, Stacey and Trina at Spellbound, for checking over the synopsis before submission and for making it as clean as possible. And thank you for beta reading the story and for all of your helpful notes. They were truly invaluable.
Thank you to all of my beta readers: Marlena Salinas, Vivian Freeman, Rachel Saucy Owl, Lauren Lascola-Lesczynski, Cecily Bonney, Katie Ekvall, and Sissy Vela. You guys made this story better and I can’t thank you enough for your input.
Thank you to my Facebook group for all of your help in promoting the story and for all of your valuable feedback. I love all of you!
Lastly, thank you to all of my fans. You’re the reason I get to do what I do every single day. You are the best friends/fans an author could hope for. I truly hope you enjoy all the words contained in this book!
BY SLOANE HOWELL
Bossed
Scored (coming soon)
The Panty Whisperer Series
The Matriarch Trilogy
The Matriarch: An Erotic Superhero Romance
Alpha Bad Boys Series
Bad Boy Revelation
Bad Boy Prospect
Bad Boy Brawler
Bad Boy Con Man
The Cleat Chaser Duet (with Celia Aaron)
Cleat Chaser
Cleat Catcher
The Payne Capital Series
Payne Capital
PHOTOGRAPH COURTESY OF AUTHOR
SLOANE HOWELL lives in the Midwest and writes hot romance stories. A former college baseball player turned author, he enjoys hanging out with his family, watching sports, traveling, and engaging his readers on social media. You can almost always catch him goofing off on Facebook or Twitter and trying to convince Mrs. Howell that it’s “work.”
You can contact Sloane Howell at:
sloanehowell.com
Facebook.com/AuthorSloa
neHowell
@sloanehowell on Twitter and Instagram
eepurl.com/bRAXjb
Read on for an excerpt from
Scored
by Sloane Howell
Available from Loveswept
Chapter 1
Kelsey Martin
Holy fucking hotness!
I peeked over a shelf of vinyl records at Matt Stallworth’s hulking body. It filled the entire doorframe, leaving little room for light from outside to pass through. He took a step inside and my thighs squeezed tightly together.
Someone betrayed me. Was it Jenny or Ethan?
I stumbled backward and caught myself before I tripped over my own feet and fell to the hard tile floor. My mind raced and I retreated to the stockroom, where I paced back and forth with my hands on my hips. Matt Stallworth played professional baseball and was best friends with Jenny’s fiancé, Ethan.
He’s gorgeous but so not your type, Kelsey.
I’d only dated guys who played guitar. They were the type who screamed into microphones and then leaped off the stage into a crowd of drunks bobbing their heads to music pounding through speakers. They were average guys with little money and only a dream of signing a big record contract. Basically, I dated guys who loved music more than they loved me.
What in God’s name is he doing here?
Guys like Matt went out with cheerleaders and prom queens, not chicks who wore tattered Levi’s and Led Zeppelin T-shirts.
“Damn, K, you gotta lay off the tweaker shit. Keep it mellow, mannn.”
I whipped around to face my boss, Twilight Mickelson. I had no idea if Twilight was his real name, but it definitely suited him. His giant beard hung down in front of a tie-dyed Grateful Dead shirt and his eyes were glossy and red, per the usual.
I froze in my tracks. “It’s nothing. Don’t worry about it.”
He giggled, hard. I couldn’t tell if it was because of my current predicament or his medicinal-induced state of euphoria. It was probably a little of both.
“Naw, mannn. I’ve seen this look before.” He held up a wrinkled finger that trembled in the air. “This is about a boy, ain’t it?”
“No!” I shot back, but my face heated and had to be bright pink.
Asshole.
Twilight had to be in his sixties, though we’d never discussed his age. He often told stories of his hippie days that never seemed to have ended. I’d been able to figure out his age range from his tales of promiscuous sex and drug use.
He held out both palms and twirled his body in a circle, his silvery beard and long hair flowing through the air.
What in the world is he doing now?
“Free love is all around us, K. It’s like a force field. You gotta embrace the aura.”
“Oh for the love of…I’m going back out there. Pull yourself together, old man.”
I couldn’t help but laugh, and I appreciated that a little bit. It took my mind off the gorgeous athlete standing out in the middle of the store.
“Hello?” Matt’s voice called out.
I pushed through the back door and strode out between two record displays.
Play it cool, Kelsey.
“Yes, I’m here. How can I—”
Our eyes locked.
Tingles.
So many tingles.
Going off between my legs like fireworks. Ugh!
“Oh, hi. It’s Matt, right?”
He smirked like he knew the exact game I was playing. He and Ethan and their constant smirking. I told myself it was their cocky, assholish nature, but I knew better. They were both really sweet guys, but there was something about athletes that just rubbed me wrong and I found it hard to get over that, mainly because most of the time they were cocky assholes.
“Yes, that is my name, Matt.” He stared at me like he knew that I knew his name.
I stared back like I knew that I knew his name but that he shouldn’t just think that everyone should automatically know his name because he could hit one of those baseballs really far.
His eyes worked down my body and I could practically feel the heat from his gorgeous blues searing me like a blowtorch. They finally worked back to mine, and I put a hand on my hip and cocked it to the side. Jenny always said it was my tell when a hot guy was in front of me, but I always maintained it was my “I’m not taking any bullshit” stance.
“Sorry, I’m horrible with names sometimes.”
A lie.
And I certainly wasn’t horrible at remembering a beautiful face like his.
“Can I help you find something?”
He licked his lips slightly and his stare heated me up even more. “I think I found what I was looking for.”
Gah—help me! This man and his mouth. I wonder if he uses it that well in other ways?
“Is that so?”
He started toward me and my heart rate kicked up to a punishing pace. If he didn’t stop walking my words were going to morph into utter gibberish.
“Yeah. Found it.” His eyes locked on to mine.
I turned to move out of his way and my back hit the record display that was behind me. I jolted forward into him and he reached down and grabbed me by the shoulders with a grip stronger than any I’d ever felt before. Nerves skittered through my body when my breasts pressed against his rock-hard stomach. He had on one of those tight elastic shirts athletes always wore and my tight nipples grazed along the ridges of his abs.
I was done for.
“You okay?” He looked down and smiled.
Matt towered over me and I looked up at the slight hint of concern in his bright blue eyes.
I couldn’t do anything but nod—well, that and worry if he could feel how hard my nips were with my tits pressed up against the thin fabric of his shirt. He leaned down like he was going in for a kiss already.
Oh my God! Is this actually happening?
At first excitement rushed through my veins and my palms started to sweat. Then I began to think how presumptuous this guy must’ve been if he thought he could just walk into my place of business and kiss me whenever he damn well felt like it.
Inches.
He was inches from my lips. I stared at his beautiful mouth and didn’t think I could stop him if I tried. At the last second his eyes darted to the display I’d just run into like a bumbling idiot, and one of his strong, calloused hands reached out and snagged a record from behind me.
He leaned back and released me, then held the record up to his face.
“New Spinderellas album. I’ve been looking all over for one.”
What the what? How did he even know who the Spinderellas were? What was going on here?
I glanced back by the door and Twilight was doing a half-spin like he’d done in the breakroom and smiling his face off. I shot him the bird where Matt couldn’t see and then waved him away.
He grinned and pushed back through the door to the back of the shop.
My gaze moved back to Matt, who stared at the record the same way he’d stared at me before, like he wanted to make out with it. I clutched my palms into fists, suddenly a bit jealous that I wasn’t the center of his attention any longer.
Pull yourself together, Kelsey!
I let out an obvious fake cough.
Matt stiffened to attention and his stare moved back to me.
That’s better, Matt. Eyes on me.
I wanted to slap myself for behaving like a teenage girl.
“Sorry. These guys rock,” said Matt.
“Yeah, I know. They’re playing at the Rooster tomorrow.”
“I know.”
I caught myself fawning over Matt once more. I shook myself from some fairytale celebrity daydream I was currently stuck inside.
“Probably because I just told you.”
Matt chuckled and shook his head.
I faked a glare. “So what are you doing here? You can get that record anywhere. And don’t you guys have someone who does all of your shopping for you anyway?”
“Ma
ybe I like shopping.”
“Do you?”
I cocked my hip out again and tried not to bite my lip or twirl my hair or enact any of my other girly ploys that I currently wanted to do in front of him.
“No.”
“Then why are you here?”
“I heard the customer service was good in this place.”
From Ethan, I’m sure.
“And who’d you hear that from?”
“Anonymous sources.”
“Oh really?” I shook my head at him, trying to hide a smile.
He nodded back.
“Do you even have something to play that record on? It doesn’t spin on a phone.”
He took notice of my obvious sarcasm but it didn’t faze him one bit. “Yeah, I do actually.”
“You’ve never even heard of them, have you?” I nodded to the record.
“I thought the customer service in this place was supposed to be good?”
He showed me that sexy smirk again.
“If you’re not happy maybe you should take your business to an establishment that’s a better fit.” I folded my arms across my chest and pushed the ladies up to give him a better view of what he was going to be missing out on.
He leaned down like he had before and my heart tried to pound its way out of my rib cage.
Oh my God, what’s he doing?
As he leaned in I couldn’t stop myself from wanting to move in for a kiss.
Don’t do it, Kelsey. Stop yourself!
Just as I was about to involuntarily toss every inhibition out the window his head veered to the side so that his mouth was next to my ear.
“I happen to think I found a perfect fit. I love this band and I have two tickets to the show. I’ll pick you up at seven tomorrow.”
He stood back again and put the record on the shelf then turned and walked toward the door.
I stood there with my arms still squeezed tightly around my body.
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