Perfect Pitch

by Mindy Klasky

  And when they were through, when they both lay exhausted on their pillows, thousands of miles apart, they went back to talking about the rest of their lives. She told him about the Summer Fair, about the first rehearsal for the pageant where she would hand off her crown. He told her about the game, crowing over two more great starts—one where he went seven innings and a third, another complete game. The team was playing better than it had in years. DJ was interviewed in all three cities on the road trip, singled out for stories about being the son of the great Dan Thomas. He gloried in being an overnight success, after struggling every day for seven solid years.

  They laughed together. They told each other secrets. And they counted the days until DJ would return home, when they could deliver their sweet seductions in person.

  So, no. Sam had not spent her time on the phone with DJ talking about his ten-year-old son.

  The school bell rang, and Sam was gratified by the groans of her charges. “That’s all right,” she called out. “We’ll finish the projects on Monday. You can think about them over the weekend, figure out what you can add to make them perfect in every way.”

  The kids chattered as they returned their art supplies to the appropriate crates. Each unfinished masterpiece was carefully stored away on the shelves that ran along one wall. The kids left the room in pairs and triplets, chattering about music.

  Sam looked up as Daniel brought her a pair of scissors. She said, “You were having fun! It’s too bad you can’t take your project home tonight; your father would love it.”

  Daniel glanced toward the shelves. “I’m not going home,” he said. “I’m going to Jason’s house. Isabel spends Easter weekend with her family every year and Dad has one of those weird afternoon games. He won’t be home till way after bedtime.” Samantha felt sorry for Daniel, shuttled from one house to another to meet the convenience of his father’s schedule. Her pity was shredded, though, when Daniel said excitedly, “Jason and I are going to have homemade pizza for dinner, and then we’re going to play games on his computer, and we get to sleep in a tent in his backyard!”

  “Well,” Sam said, trying not to laugh at the boy’s breathless enthusiasm. “That sounds like a perfect way to spend a Friday night. Do you need a ride over to Jason’s?”

  “No. His mother is picking us up. Jason stayed late for band practice.”

  “Don’t keep her waiting, then.” She watched as Daniel threaded his arms through both straps of his backpack. “I’ll see you on Monday.”

  The boy flashed her a grin as he flew out the door.

  As Sam finished stowing her supplies in the closet, she thought about Daniel’s excited recitation of his itinerary. Isabel was gone for the weekend. DJ had a “weird afternoon game.” That must be a four o’clock start. Three hours to play the game. A couple of hours to get from the locker room to the airport. A few hours more to fly home, to get to the house.

  Midnight.

  DJ would return to his house near midnight. And, courtesy of Daniel, Sam knew exactly how to get inside that house. She closed her eyes, imagined pressing the buttons that would open the garage door. And the best part was, no reporters would be lying in wait for her. Even the most enterprising gossip-mongers would be camped out on her doorstep, waiting for DJ to come to her after his long road trip.

  No. The lack of reporters wasn’t the best part. The best part was going to be the expression on DJ’s face when he found her waiting for him. Waiting to make their whispered phone conversations come true.

  * * *

  DJ dropped his bag in the laundry room, refusing to think about the hulking washing machine and dryer. He cupped the back of his neck with his right hand, rolling his head to drive away the worst of his stiffness. He’d never tell Coach, but his left arm was tired, heavy after throwing another eight innings. The flight from Detroit hadn’t helped any—confined in a leather seat, blocked from getting any real exercise.

  He shook his hand, trying to drive strength back into the muscles. Damn. He’d have Ernie take a look tomorrow, work his usual magic on the massage table.

  Glancing around the kitchen, DJ considered getting something to eat. Those afternoon games before getting out of town were hell—it was too early to eat in the clubhouse, and there was only crap at the airport. He was tired, though. Too tired to fry up a couple of eggs, to shove bread into the toaster. He’d get a real breakfast in the morning.

  He’d just turn off the lights in the living room—

  There shouldn’t be any lights on in the living room.

  “Isabel?” he called. What the hell? She was supposed to be with her family for a four-day weekend. Nothing would keep her from celebrating Easter with her own grown kids. Nothing, except for Trey, if he were hurt or—“Isabel!” he called again, crossing the kitchen in record time.

  “Not exactly.”

  No. That voice definitely did not belong to Isabel. Samantha Winger’s throaty chuckle made him go hard before he even turned the corner to the living room.

  She was lying on the leather sofa, like an illustration from every dirty dream he’d had over the past two weeks. Her back was propped against the charcoal leather arm of the couch. One leg was stretched straight, her toes pointing directly toward his crotch. Her other leg was bent at the knee, as casual as if he’d caught her in the privacy of her own home.

  It took him about a heartbeat to register the muscles in those legs—the tightness of her calves, the tension in her quads. He got distracted by the flash of crimson silk at the top of her thighs—crimson to echo the gleam of her hair. Crimson, cut high on her hips. Crimson, barely hiding the shadowed promise he’d been dreaming about for the entire road trip.

  “Jesus, Samantha,” he breathed. She laughed, throwing back her head to display the long line of her throat. She had to know she was stretching that—what the hell was it? A slip? A bra? Something made of scarlet and sin that showed a hell of a lot more than it hid.

  “I thought you were calling me Sam, now.”

  Every one of their phone calls was in her voice—laughing, teasing, making him ache without a hint of effort. He couldn’t take his eyes off her, couldn’t look away from the movie that matched the soundtrack he’d been playing in his mind for days. “How did you get in here?”

  “Daniel showed me the combination when I brought him home a couple of weeks ago.”

  “That boy and I are going to have to talk.” He tried to sound angry, but he didn’t come close to pulling it off.

  “Drink?” She completed distracting him by shifting on the couch, turning those long legs, and leaning forward a lot more than was necessary. A bottle and ice bucket sat on the coffee table, along with an empty glass. She didn’t bother with tongs, just dipped her fingers in among the cubes. His cock wanted to know what her hands would feel like—those long painted nails underscoring the contrast of hot flesh and cold ice, dripping wet.

  She was generous with his Maker’s Mark, curling her own drink to her chest as she lured him closer to her side. As if he needed any luring… He was ready to jump her then and there, tear off those increasingly distracting scraps of silk.

  He forced himself to stay where he was. “I didn’t think bartending was part of the Summer Queen’s job description.”

  The look she gave him as she sipped her drink made him wonder how the bourbon didn’t boil dry. “I won’t tell, if you don’t.” She cocked her wrist again, another silent invitation.

  This time, he didn’t stop himself.

  He took the glass and tossed back a healthy swallow, felt the liquor burn all the way down. She laughed as she raised her own drink to her lips, but he growled and closed his hand over hers.

  “Hey!” she exclaimed as he took the glass from her yielding hand and set it carefully on the table.

  That was the last careful thing he managed.

  He crashed onto the sofa beside her, ignoring her startled laugh. His hands closed around the nearest part of her, her ankle, and he measured her fin
e bones with the strength of his grip. His thumb stroked the sole of her foot, tracing the arch, steadying her against her own reflex. The motion pulled her leg up, and he nearly let himself be distracted by the sweetness revealed behind her scrap of crimson lace.

  Nearly. But not quite.

  First, there were those calves to pay attention to, the muscles tightening as her toes curled. He brushed his cheek against the tender skin at the back of her knee, breathing in the honey and cinnamon scent of her. Her skin flushed and he could make out the faintest marks, raised by the bristles of his day-old beard. He flicked his tongue over the abrasions, sucking, soothing.

  “DJ,” she breathed, and he knew that sound. He’d heard her sigh his name, over the phone and a thousand miles away. He’d imagined how she would look when he was touching her, when he was doing all the things he had whispered into his phone.

  His hands traveled the taut line up from her knee. His palms drank in the heat of her; she burned hotter than any slug of whiskey ever could. She shifted beneath him, softening, melting.

  He brushed the back of his hand against her panties. The wet silk launched a bolt of pride straight to his cock. He longed to work the button on his jeans, to ease the zipper and release the throbbing pressure. But not now. Not yet.

  He traced the lace with his fingertips, teasing at the tender flesh beneath. Every day of his professional life he read messages in the flash of fingers, in the brush of hands. Now he wove his own language, just for her. His rhythm was steady, driving, speaking through the silk.

  She writhed beneath him, lifting her hips. Her fingers slipped beneath the band at her waist; she fought to strip away the panties. They were burgundy now, dark as wine with her passion, but he caught her wrists in one of his hands, pinned them above her head. She moaned in frustration, and he laughed, using the distraction to slip his free fingers beneath the cloth.

  She was hotter than he’d imagined she could be, even when he’d heard her gasp over the phone. He traced the path between her folds, found her pulsing clit. One touch, and she caught her breath. A second, and her thighs tightened around his hand. He hovered over her, fingers ready.

  “Please,” she whispered. “Now. DJ.”

  He pulled his hand free, ripping off the tangle of silk and lace, taking the very action he had denied her minutes before. Even as she gasped, he thrust his fingers into the highball glass on the table. He grabbed a single cube of ice and thrust it against her clit. Before she could react, before she could pull away or cry out or push harder into his palm, he took the ice into his mouth. With lips and tongue and rapidly melting ice, he teased her until she came.

  * * *

  Sam lay on the couch, trying to remember how to breathe. Her throat was raw, as if she’d sung for hours, and she realized she’d been screaming DJ’s name.

  Hardly an appropriate action for the Summer Queen.

  Hell. Pretty much nothing since she’d left Polk Elementary had been appropriate action for the Summer Queen. She’d bought sexy lingerie for the first time in her life, paying for it in cash, wearing sunglasses so no one would recognize North Carolina’s beauty queen. She’d broken into a man’s house. She’d fortified herself with a glass of bourbon long before he’d ever come home, and she’d seduced him with the liquor when he finally made it back to his house.

  And she’d loved every single minute of it.

  Except for the fact that he was lying beside her on the edge of his own couch, still fully clothed in jeans and a long-sleeve T-shirt. It was definitely time to do something about that.

  As she pushed herself into a sitting position, DJ tried to settle his arm around her waist, pinning her back to his side. “Rest,” he said. “It’s late. You must be exhausted.”

  She grinned. “More tired than a guy who worked a full day before flying half-way across the country?” She reached down to trace the seams of his jeans, to measure his obvious arousal. “Look at that! Your body is still on Central Time.”

  His shirt was already half untucked from his trousers. She wasted no time finishing the job, quickly stripping the garment over his shoulders.

  She’d been thinking about his chest since she’d seen him in his kitchen, since she’d held herself back from ripping off the flimsy towel he’d worn that day. Now she laughed when she saw the sprinkle of golden hair across his pecs, when she matched reality to the memories that had teased her for two long weeks. Tracing the outlines of his muscles with her palms, she paused as the nipples tightened.

  “Jesus, woman,” he said when she couldn’t resist the urge to catch one of those pearls in her teeth. He caught his breath, and the flexing of his abs distracted her. She knelt on the floor beside the couch, leaning into the soft leather.

  She needed to feel the planes of his belly, to trace the cords of the sharp angled muscles at his hips. Her fingernails stood out against his tawny flesh. She saw that he was watching her and the fire in his gaze excited her, almost as much s his touch had against her over-heated skin. She flexed her fingers carefully, tapping each nail against his belly, tracing the golden line that thickened from his belly to the waistband of his jeans.

  She worked the button slowly, grinning as he twitched beneath her. She took care with the zipper, slipping her hand inside his jeans to protect him from the metal teeth. His cock leaped against her palm as she eased him free of his boxers, and she closed her fingers tight around him.

  He was longer than she’d imagined, and thicker around. His erection curved up toward his belly, and he groaned when she traced a vein down his length, pressing hard with the edge of her fingernail. “First,” she whispered, “I’ll hold you, stroking from the base of your cock to the tip.”

  He shuddered as she matched action to words, and she knew he was remembering the phone call she’d just quoted. Five nights ago. He’d been in Detroit. He’d pitched seven and a third, giving up a single run. She’d told him she was impressed, that she wanted to reward him. She’d promised to bring him to the edge once for every inning he’d completed, before she gave him full release.

  Now, she delivered on her promise, tightening her fingers around his cock, sliding up the entire velvet length of him then, even tighter, down. Her breath matched his, quickening, growing harsh. She pulled her hand away just as his entire body tensed. He collapsed back on the couch and gasped, “Just finish.”

  “That was one,” she said, reaching across the table and salvaging one of the glasses. The ice had melted completely, but she took a sip of the bourbon-tinged water. When she held the glass to his lips, he gulped it down greedily.

  “Second,” she said, quoting her earlier words. “I’ll try a taste.” She wrapped her hand around his shaft, holding him steady. Even as he moaned her name, she touched her tongue to the tip of his cock, licking up a single pearly drop. She traced around the entire head, teasing the firm rim of flesh that rested just above her fist. From the corner of her eye, she could see his fingers clench, the cords of his wrist popping like iron wires. She teased him one more time, tasting another drop of salt, and then she pulled away with a toss of her hair.

  He was breathing through his teeth, panting as if he’d just completed an inside-the-park home run. “Sam,” he said. “Enough.”

  “Third,” she said.

  “No third,” he gasped.

  “But I promised,” she said.

  His laugh sounded strained. “And you never break your promises, Summer Queen.”

  He had a point there. She had promised the Summer Fair that she would remain the perfect ambassador. She’d be quiet and chaste, a suitable role model for little girls and their ancient grandmothers, alike.

  But the Summer Fair couldn’t object to behavior it didn’t know about. Sam had no intention of telling anyone connected to the Summer Fair about this night. And she was pretty sure DJ wasn’t going to be trumpeting the news to every newspaper in the state of North Carolina.

  “I suppose,” she said, drawing out the second word, as if
she were just forming an idea, “we could skip right to seven.”

  “Skip,” he begged. “Now.”

  She laughed and slipped her hand under the front edge of the couch, retrieving the last purchase she’d made that afternoon. She’d driven over an hour to find a drugstore that was far from Wake County, even though she’d worn sunglasses, even though she’d stuffed her hair under a baseball cap and slouched in a heavy jacket that bulked up her figure. She’d paid for the shiny black box with cash, and she’d tossed away the receipt before she slipped back into her car.

  She drew out a string of foil-wrapped condoms. “Seventh,” she said, back to rewarding him for the innings he’d completed.

  He reached for one, but she slapped his hand away. “No you don’t,” she said. “I told you how this would go.”

  And she had—over the phone, blushing at words she’d never dared to say out loud to any man before. She’d heard his breathing grow heavy. She’d reached down and fingered herself, felt how slick she was, how ready for a man who was hundreds of miles away.

  That night, words had made her ache with need. Now, she could act on that sensation.

  She took her time rolling the condom over his cock. She’d never done that before, never dared to take the lead in any sexual relationship. He sucked in his breath as her fingers led the way, gliding over his heated flesh as she smoothed out the protection.

  She was astonished by the power she had over him. One touch of her fingernail, there, at the base of his shaft, and his body arched toward her. A quick brush of her palm against the muscle of his thigh, and he was clutching at the edge of the couch.

  And through it all, he stared at her. He drank in her every movement, studying her as if she were a painting in a museum. She licked her lips, and his gaze intensified, scorching her without his ever moving a muscle.

  That power, that force gave her the courage to follow through on everything she’d once brazenly described. She straddled him, gasping as the coarse hair on his thighs brushed against her bare skin. She settled her hands on his shoulders, steadying herself even as she held him still.