“No, this is definitely not okay,” he muttered, adjusting his pants and belt. “And I’m going to let Freeman know exactly how much it’s not okay as soon as I get my hands on him.”
She followed him as he left the kitchen and headed to the front door. Resting his hand on the knob, he turned to her. “Is it okay if I call you tomorrow? I’ll fill you in on everything then.”
Harper nodded. Ty leaned down, cupped her cheek with his hand, and kissed her gently. Pressing his forehead to hers, he said, “I’ll make this up to you. Promise.”
Harper watched as he backed out of the drive, pausing to wave at her before he left. As she watched the taillights disappear as he turned the corner, all she really wanted was to be back in that kitchen, with Ty between her legs, his mouth on her breasts, his cock in her hand. No, scratch that. His cock inside her.
You are certifiable, Harper Manning. Completely insane.
Because she knew she was willing to do anything to see Tyler Johansen in her bed, in her life. Even risk her career. And her heart.
8
Ty slammed the third cup of coffee on J.J.’s kitchen table and tried not to reach over and wring the kid’s neck.
“I saved your ass tonight, so this is what you’re going to do in return.” He pulled out a chair, flipped it backward, and sat, propping his arms on the back. “Rehab. You nearly got your ass kicked tonight, and it would have been all over Twitter and on ESPN tomorrow morning if you had. It’s a miracle the place was nearly empty and Eddie broke it up before someone got a picture. You’re not playing sandlot ball, here, J.J. This is the big time, and you need to figure out they’re watching you and just waiting for you to fuck up so they can tell the world.”
“Can’t we just forget about it? I’m sorry. All right?” The shortstop squinted as he tried to focus on Ty, a deep blush spreading on his light brown skin, a dark ring forming around his left eye, and a knot still swelling on his cheek. “I won’t do it again.”
“Damn right you won’t do it again.” Ty stood and flipped the chair back under the table. “Three times, I’ve dug you out of this crap. Next time, I’m just going to leave you there. Let Coach deal with your little problem. Let your agent do the damage control. It’s not my job. You’ll be back in one of the farm clubs, and in a couple years, nobody will remember your name.”
J.J. looked close to tears, wiping at his eyes with a paper towel. “C’mon, Ty. I’m sorry. I had a few too many and—”
Ty put a hand on the kid’s shoulder and squeezed, hoping to offer some reassurance in this reality check. J.J. had debuted in the major leagues at a very young and immature nineteen and had picked up as many bad habits in his first two years as he had K’s on the scoreboard. Drinking and fighting being the top two. “J.J., you have a problem, and you need to get some help. You need to talk to Coach and go to rehab—”
“No! I’m not doing that. I’m not a drunk,” he shouted. Then he looked around and lowered his voice, seeming to realize it was nearly 1:00 a.m. “I can’t do that.”
“Hate to break it to you, kid, but you are a drunk.” Ty squatted down so he was eye to eye with the young player. “You’re going to sink your career if you don’t stop. And I won’t let you disrupt this team. I’ll go to Coach myself, but I’m offering you the chance to do it before I do. Admit you have a problem, deal with it, and move on. This season is nearly over anyway, there’s no way we’re making the playoffs that I can see… Take the time off and straighten yourself out.”
“I can’t, Ty. My mom depends on me.” Tears slipped out of J.J.’s eyes; snot formed at the bottom of his nose. “I don’t want to disappoint her and make her think I’m just like my dad. A no-good piece of shit who let her down.”
His heart ached for the kid. He’d grown up with a large stable family in a small town where everybody knew each other and helped one another in hard times. Like that “it takes a village” saying his mom was fond of. He couldn’t imagine his dad not being around when he grew up, kicking his butt when he got out of line. So he tried to fill that gap with a little bit of fatherly advice with the younger guys who maybe hadn’t had that male role model at home. J.J. wasn’t the first, and Ty was certain he wouldn’t be the last. Even after he retired, he still planned to help the younger guys out where he could.
“Get help now, J.J., before things get worse.” He handed the kid a paper towel from a roll on the counter. “Your choice. You or me, makes me no difference.”
J.J. nodded and blew his nose. “Okay.”
“Now, you’re going to bed so you can be at practice bright and early in the morning, and if you need me to, I’ll go talk to Coach with you. You going to be all right if I leave?”
“Yeah.” J.J. stood from the table and wiped his face with his hand. “I’m fine. See you tomorrow.”
Ty grabbed his jacket from the sofa and headed out. Opening the door, he turned back toward the kid. “I mean it, J.J. You or me, but it’s going to happen.”
J.J. nodded. “I know. And Ty? Thanks, man.”
Ty shut the door quietly behind him and headed for his car. They could pick up J.J.’s F-TYPE tomorrow. Troy, their first baseman and another one of the veterans he’d called on his way back to the bar, had promised to drive it home and park it at his place for safekeeping.
Damn, he wanted to call Harper and apologize again for having to leave, explain things to her, but it was way too late. He’d figure out how to make it up to her tomorrow. Somehow. Maybe a really nice dinner? Something better than pizza. No, dinner wasn’t enough to make up for this fiasco. He wanted to take her somewhere nobody would see them together so she didn’t have to worry about her job. It had to be something low-key, private, but special and give them a way they could learn about each other. Things were moving so damned fast, and he wanted to know everything about her.
He laughed and shook his head. “Yeah, Johansen. You’re such and expert at planning the perfect date.”
Once home, Ty showered and lay in bed, SportsCenter playing on the sixty-inch screen hanging on his bedroom wall. Lying back against a stack of pillows, he pictured Harper in her kitchen, how responsive she’d been to his kisses. How perfectly her breasts fit into his hands, just the right size to fill each one. How she’d eagerly spread her legs for him, and the heat of her pussy against his hard cock. He could feel how wet she was even through the thick fabric of his expensive chinos. She’d been ready for him. And when he’d taken her breast into his mouth, sucked and tongued her nipple…
He slipped his underwear off and wrapped his fingers around his already thick, hard cock. Just thinking about Harper’s sweet pussy had him close to coming, without even a single pump of his fist. He squeezed as he imagined her slipping her panties off. Stroked as, in his fantasy, he knelt between her legs and licked her there, sucked on her clit, devoured her sweetness with his mouth, teeth, tongue. Plunged his tongue inside her and listened to her cries of pleasure.
Sparks started zinging along his spine and into his balls as he imagined lapping at her, standing, spreading her wide and plunging his dick into her warm, wet channel. That was all it took, and Ty shot his load up his chest, pumping his fist faster until the last hot gush was released. Shit. He’d never come that quickly just from his imagination. Not since he was a twelve-year-old staring at a Playboy he’d snuck from his dad’s underwear drawer.
He grabbed a box of tissue from his nightstand and cleaned himself up. Headed to the shower. Again. He had a feeling tomorrow—rather, today—was going to be a rough one on the field, but jacking off to thoughts of making love to Harper was totally worth the sacrifice of sleep. Now he knew exactly what he wanted to do to get to know Harper more, he just hoped she would be okay with his idea.
Plan firmly in place, and with a mental list for tomorrow, he drifted off to a restless sleep, dreams of Harper in his arms, anticipation making his brain race with possibilities.
The next practice, Ty noticed J.J.’s absence. One of the guys from their
Triple-A team, Doug Mitchell, was taking his place at short stop and doing pretty well. Not as good as J.J., but then again, there was a reason the kid had started playing MLB almost before he’d graduated high school.
Afterward, Coach Landon called Ty into his office. Ty slouched in the pleather armchair across from his mentor, and waited while the older man shuffled some paperwork, cleared his throat, took a slug of what was most likely cold coffee from that morning, since he didn’t smell any fresh brewed. Finally, the man looked up and focused his clear blue gaze on Ty, a trick that never ceased to make Ty squirm in his chair.
“So, J.J. checked into rehab this morning. At your urging, I understand.”
“Yeah, about that—”
“I know what goes on. You guys try to keep each other out of trouble, but I hear things.” A lopsided frown-grin formed beneath his heavy beard. “Glad you could help him out before word gets around he’s got a problem. That was good of you, Ty.”
Ty shook his head, unwilling to take any credit since J.J. had taken it upon himself to get the help he needed. “Just being a good teammate.”
“No, it’s not just that. You look out for all these guys.” Coach sat up in his chair and clasped his hands together. “You did even when you were nearly as young as J.J. That’s the kind of player I need. Committed. Willing to go the extra bases to keep the team functioning. That’s the kind of coach I need when your time playing comes to an end.”
Ty sat up in his chair. Not more talk of his career ending. He knew the time was coming sooner rather than later, but the decision on what to do after was not something he was ready to make. Not yet, anyway.
“Coach, I appreciate your confidence in me.” He ran fingers through his damp hair. “I want to finish my degree, then I’ll figure out what’s next.”
“Fair enough. I just wanted you to know I think you have the talent, and the offer is standing whenever you decide.”
“Thanks. I’ll keep that in mind.”
As he left the clubhouse and headed home, Ty wondered why everyone suddenly had an interest in what he wanted to do in the future. Did they see something in him that he wasn’t seeing in himself?
His knee, yeah. He was sure Landon had seen that. Everyone on the team knew. His brother had mentioned it too, and J.T. knew when it was time to retire, since he’d done so himself. But Ty wasn’t that bad off. Yeah, he had trouble getting up and down on bad days, but for the most part, he was still getting the job done, still earning his paycheck. He was batting .240, for crying out loud. A decent average for a veteran catcher. Had eight home runs and fifty-six RBIs on the season. He was damn proud of his twelfth season in baseball.
Yet… Some days were better than others, if he were being honest with himself. Even though he was having a pretty decent season, it wasn’t anywhere near his career high. Nothing like he’d been capable of even a couple of years ago. Maybe the people who cared about him felt he should go out on a high note. Maybe they were right.
As he pulled into his driveway, Ty tried to put those thoughts from his mind. He had arrangements to make if he was going surprise Harper. In a week and a half, nearing the end of the regular season, they had a Saturday free. Unusual, and he was going to take advantage of every hour of it. He’d gotten the idea from a photo on her mantel, and he hoped she still liked the great outdoors.
9
“Honest to God, girl. I don’t get you.”
Harper’s best friend, LaTanya Jackson, sat across from her at Panera Bread, digging into her green goddess cobb salad. Harper stirred her lentil quinoa bowl, wishing she’d ordered the bacon mac and cheese or the tortellini alfredo. But she was trying to be healthy. She didn’t want Ty to come home from his road trip and find out she’d been binge eating her way through all the varieties of Little Debbies because she’d missed him.
“What don’t you get?” she asked. “That I could get fired for dating him? It’s in the rule book we both signed when we accepted our positions at SU. You’re supposed to be helping me decide what I want, LT, not encouraging me to do the wrong thing.”
“That you have this really hot, rich guy drooling all over you, he makes your panties zing, and you’re sitting here asking me if you should go for it? I say hell yes. I don’t know why you haven’t being doing it like monkeys on a hot rock.” LaTanya munched on another bite of salad, tossed her dark braids back over her shoulder, and pursed her lips. “Now, if you’re asking me if it’s the smart choice, well, that’s different.”
“What if someone sees us out together?”
“That’s the million dollar question, isn’t it?” LaTanya was a professor in the biology department at the university. She’d dated her fiancé, a doctoral candidate at the time, secretly until he left the university for a job at a pharmaceutical company.
“Does he understand this?” she asked, quirking a brow. “That you could get fired?”
Harper nodded. “I explained it to him. He even offered to take comp next semester and delay his graduation, but I told him that was crazy talk because he wants to finish his degree.”
“So he brought you pizza, and you got it on.” LaTanya set her fork beside her plate and took a sip of her iced tea before crossing her arms over her chest. She quirked her lips. “And from that look on your face, I can tell it was good. If you hadn’t gotten interrupted, where would it have ended up?”
“LaTanya!” Harper felt her face burning hot, but she laughed because, yeah, LT was right. They would have had sex if Ty hadn’t gotten that damned call, and she knew it would have been great sex.
“Well, if it was really good. I mean, tossing-your-drawers-on-the-ceiling fan, kickin’-up-your-heels-and-screamin’-at-the-top-of-your-lungs hot, then…” She seesawed her hand back and forth. “I’d say that might be worth the risk. I know Lawrence was. Just be careful, and don’t let anyone see you out anywhere, don’t tell anybody but me what’s going on with you two. I want details too.”
LaTanya placed her hand over Harper’s. “Look, there’re only a dozen weeks or so left in the semester. It’ll pass before you know it, and then you can be out in the open with it all.”
The wait would be torture. “It’s ten weeks, if you subtract holidays, and that’s a long time to hide beneath the radar at that school. You know how gossip goes around there.”
“Maybe I’m not the best person for you to consult on this.” LaTanya held her hands up in front of her. “I did it and got away with it, and I watched that last dickhead screw you over and nearly ruin you for all other men. Then there’s that daddy complex.”
“The dickhead’s name was Kyle.” Harper balled up her napkin and tossed it the bowl of quinoa she’d never eat. “And please don’t bring up my dad.”
“Okay, okay. I’m sorry.” LaTanya gave her a sympathetic half smile. “But tell me Kyle was at least good in bed, that you got a few O’s out of the whole circus.”
Harper laughed. “Not in the slightest.”
“Figures.” LT smirked and shook her head. “So now you have a chance to get some good lovin’ from a millionaire, and you’re considering not going for it. Hmmm. Can I have his phone number?”
She knew her friend was kidding. LaTanya was madly in love with Lawrence and would never cheat. But she did have a point. Harper should just stop worrying, let things go, and see what happened. Otherwise, she’d have to wait another three months to see what Ty’s body looked like when he hovered over her, what it felt like when he was inside her, and she didn’t think she could wait three long months for that. They could be discreet. They could keep their secret.
“And I can see you’re imagining him right now,” LaTanya drawled. “That look. I never saw that look when you were with Pile.”
“Kyle.”
“Whatever.”
Harper unwrapped the brownie she’d bought and pulled it apart with her fingers. Popped a bite in her mouth before saying around it, “Well, he’s on the road right now anyway, so nothing I can do about it at the m
oment even if I wanted to.”
LaTanya raised a brow. “I seem to recall a little purple friend I gave you for your birthday a couple of years ago.”
“LT! Stop.”
Her friend laughed so loud, the tables around them turned to look. Harper scooted down a little in her seat. “Pretty sure dildos aren’t proper lunch conversation.”
“Well? That’s what it’s for, isn’t it? When the cat’s away, you can still play. Just use your imagination. Or if that’s too hard, pardon the pun, you can use our subscription to All-Xass.”
“Oh my God, too much information.” She covered her ears and shook her head. “I do not want to know about your sex life with Lawrence.”
“Well, you’d be jealous if you did, all I got to say.” LaTanya wiped her mouth and grinned, revealing her wide, bright smile. “Wouldn’t hurt you any to get you some on the regular.”
Harper wadded up the empty brownie wrapper and tossed it on the tray. “Okay, that’s enough. Let’s get back to work.”
LaTanya was still laughing as they stood and bussed their tables. “You’re so cute when you’re embarrassed.”
Harper gave her friend a half-hearted glare before they stepped out into the early afternoon sunlight.
Later that night, Ty called her, as he had every night since he’d been on the road. They talked about their days, about the things they wanted to do when he returned home, and he always dangled this carrot of a special outing he had planned for them.
They hadn’t been able to see each other in the week since that intense make-out session as he was on a road trip, but what time they hadn’t been able to spend together, they’d spent talking on the phone, texting, FaceTiming, whatever way they could manage. And the phone sex… That was something she’d never done before, and if he was anything as good as he was at giving phone, she was in.
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