by Sara Ney
“Was killing you?”
I still, narrowing my eyes at her. “You didn’t look like such a smartass the day we first met.”
James cocks an eyebrow. “Oh yeah? What did I look like?”
“Smart and sexy.” Confident and complicated.
Jameson snickers. “You did not think I looked sexy. You thought I was a dork, don’t lie.”
I respond by raising my eyebrows and lowering my voice. “I’m going to date you, and one of these days, Jameson, I’m going to pluck all the buttons off your cardigan, one at a time, and screw you senseless while you wear nothing but your pearl necklace.”
“There are no buttons on this cardigan,” she whispers.
I lean in closer, lips resting above her ear. “I know.”
“That’s not fair,” she complains, shifting restlessly beneath me.
“What’s not fair?” The tips of our noses brush while I finger the neckline of her soft, pink sweater. It’s delicate and pretty and so very Jameson.
“The way you make me feel.”
“How do I make you feel? Tell me,” I plead.
I’m okay with begging.
I have to know what she’s thinking, hoping it might help make sense of the tangled shit I’ve got going on in my own damn head.
“You make me think about not studying,” she whispers, arching into me, nose nuzzling a trail up my neck to the valley below my ear.
Whoa!
I move my hands, bracing them on either side of her thighs, and tilt my head to give her better access to my neck. “Is that good or bad?”
“Both.” She sniffs it. “Mmmm. You smell good, though half the time I want to strangle you with my bare hands.”
“What about the other half?”
Jameson feigns a sigh in my ear so blissful and sweet it sends a shock straight down to my cock. I resist the impulse to climb all the way on top and pin her down.
“The other half, I want you to do all those dirty things you’re always threatening to do to me. Like right now, I want you out of that shirt. I want to touch you, feel your bare flesh against the tips of my fingers.”
“Oh yeah?” I croak.
“Yeah.” She’s still running the tip of her nose up the side of my neck, up and down, up and down, breathing me in. “Allison says I should let you screw me into a coma.” Her tongue flicks my earlobe and she blows lightly. “What do you think about that?”
“Holy shit, yes.” I breathe, dick officially hard inside my mesh athletic pants—painfully so. The thin fabric strains and pulls against my erection. “I knew I liked Allison.”
“But what I think I should do now is…”
“Yes?”
“Leave.”
“Leave? Why? We’re just getting started.”
Jameson pulls back, cupping my face gently in the palm of her hand. “If we don’t stop, we won’t stop, and I don’t want whatever this relationship is to be based on sex. That makes sense right? Oz, tell me it makes sense.”
“It makes sense,” I echo unhappily, crossing my arms to pout.
She’s right, of course; this relationship shouldn’t be based on sex. Or orgasms. Or blowjobs. Or round, perky tits. It should be based on getting to know her personality and her likes and dislikes. Her hopes and dreams and—
Holy shit, what the hell am I even saying?
Her lips are moving and she’s speaking, but the stiff dick in my pants is straining angrily against my boxers, cutting off the blood to my brain and making it impossible to concentrate.
“So you agree?” Jameson says, licking her lips. Her glossy, juicy, pouty lips…
I jerk out a nod. “Whatever you just said, I agree. Okay. I’ll do it.” I expel a shaky puff of air and gulp back my raging disappointment. “Wait. What did I just agree to?”
“If you’re going to date me, I insist on rule number ten: No sex until the fifth date.” She bites down on her lower lip, carefully extracting herself from under me and scooting toward the headboard, where she props herself up and begins the process of buckling her heels. “Or maybe the third or fourth, depending on how it goes.”
No sex until date number five! Is she fucking insane?
“Oz? Do we have a deal?”
My eyes catalog every single one of the delectable curves I won’t see naked for at least five dates. Three if it goes well. Three, three, focus on three. Focus on her crotch, her flat stomach, her boobs, her chagrined mouth—
“Oz?”
I like her. I can do this. We’ll just crank out the dates, one after the other, rapid fire.
I nod again, lips arching into a wicked grin. “Yes, yes. Excellent.”
She beams at me and I feel a million feet tall walking her to her car. I plant a chaste kiss on the top of her head to leave her wanting more.
I stand, watching her glowing taillights travel down the empty street, stop at the light, and disappear from sight once she turns left.
“Brace yourself Jim; I’m going to date the shit out of you.”
Jameson
“God. This ugly-ass thing is actually really cute on you,” Oz says, reaching to adjust the blue batting helmet resting on my head. Giving it a little tap, he leans in and—
“You did not just kiss the tip of my nose.”
“It’s an adorably perky little nose.” He steps back, letting his eyes scan the rest of my body. “Almost as perky as your boobs.”
I whack him in the gut harder than I intend to. My hand stings like a mothertrucker when I pull back, prickly like needles are stabbing from within, and I slap it over my mouth to quiet my dismay. “Oh my god, I’m so sorry! I didn’t mean to hit you that hard. I mean—I meant to tap you, not smack you.”
“If that was your apology, it sucked.”
“My hand hurts,” I whimper, cradling it like a baby.
“Want me to kiss it and make it better?”
I do. I do want him to kiss it and make it better, so I step toward him, palm extended. “Be gentle.”
“Here, let me see it.” He drops his helmet to the pavement, moving toward me with a purposeful stride, taking my hand in his. “Poor baby.”
Oz makes a grand show of examining my hand, my fingers, then soothes his palm up my goose bump-covered arm, back down again. When he lowers his head and drags his nose along the delicate skin of my inner wrist, my eyelids flutter closed.
When his lips find my pulse, I moan.
“Poor.” Kiss. “Poor.” Kiss. “Baby.” One more kiss and he lifts his head. Winks. “Be more careful next time. When I have you, I want you in one piece.”
“It was my special brand of flirting.” No doubt my expression is wobbly. “I hope I didn’t hurt you.”
A slow smile creeps across his face and he dips, reaching for my arm. Drags me closer by the wrist he’s just branded with his lips. Drags my flattened palm over his stomach and over his hard abdomen.
“Feel these abs?”
“Yes.”
“Rock. Solid.” He moves that palm over the flat plane of his six-pack, the muscles constricting under my feather-light touch. His arm slides around my waist as he moves my hand up over his firm pecs. Up over his right shoulder. Forces me to step even closer. “You can’t hurt me, James.”
You can’t hurt me.
Flirtatious words with a bewildering wallop of fiction.
Those four words cause me to look up into his dark, expressive eyes. His mouth has a smile tugging on it but…those sullen eyes? Those eyes are saying something else completely: you can hurt me.
All this time I was worried about myself and my own heart, never once stopping to consider that I could hurt him. How selfish.
Shamefaced, my head drops for a split second, considering his bald-faced lie. He’s lying. This behemoth, mountain of a guy, gazing down at me with jokes and smiles and laughter, is lying.
“You really do like me,” I say breathily, the words full of wonder.
“You like me,” he breathes back.
/> “But you like me, like me,” I challenge like a ten-year-old on the playground. “Do you have a crush on…my cardigans, Sebastian?”
I get an eye roll for that one. “Get over yourself, Clark.”
Oz tilts his head to study me, one hand rising between our two bodies to cup my chin. Leans in. Lands his mouth squarely on mine and presses gently as his other large palm squeezes my butt cheek. “Pick up the bat, slacker.”
“But it’s heavy,” I complain when he hands me the wooden Louisville Slugger. “My arms are like noodles.”
“Stop stalling, Clark. Get to it.” He gives my ass another squeeze then a light tap before nudging me toward a yellow line drawn on the pavement where I should take my mark.
I giggle like a schoolgirl and take the wooden baseball bat from his outstretched hand.
“Check your helmet,” he pesters. “Make sure it’s on straight. I don’t need you getting a concussion.”
I straighten the helmet, my long hair swept to one side. “Better. Okay, I’m ready, Coach.”
Oz nods and crosses his arms, satisfied I’ve properly cross-checked my equipment, then begins rapidly doling out instructions.
Spread your legs. Bend at the knee. Elbows out. Eyes on the ball.
Swing at everything.
“Got it?”
“Got it.”
The white ball flies out of the machine, whizzing past me at warp-like speed. It hits the canvas backdrop with a hollow thump, drops to the ground, and rolls a few feet before stopping at the chain-link fence.
Too late, I swing.
“Damn. Don’t got it,” I joke.
Oz laughs, walking a few feet to the green mechanical box hanging on the fence, and opens the lid. Turns a few dials, snaps the lid closed. “That might have been a little too fast for a beginner. I adjusted the speed.”
“I hope it’s slower than the rate at which girls fall into bed with Zeke Daniels,” I drawl, taking the proper stance while anticipating the next pitch. “Because if that’s the case, I’m screwed.”
“You’re funny.”
“Why thank you.” I lift the bat, bend my elbows, and stick my butt out, glancing at the nude wedges strapped to my feet. At the hot pink toenails playing peekaboo. At my fitted jeans and aqua blue silk top.
The delicate turquoise necklace sways between my breasts when I glance over at Oz. “You could have warned me you were bringing me here so I wouldn’t wear heels; it would’ve been the polite thing for a gentleman to do.”
He leans against the chain-link fence. “I’ve always preferred the element of surprise.”
“But I wouldn’t have worn this.”
One thick eyebrow crooks over eyes fastened on my denim-clad rump. “Exactly.”
The gorgeous ass grins at me and I roll my eyes. “Let’s get this show on the road and put an end to my misery.”
Ball after ball shoots out of the machine; I swing and swing and swing and miss every ball flying past me with a whoosh at alarmingly rapid speeds.
Frustrated by my incredible suckage, I stomp a foot. “Dammit, Sebastian! Are you going to help me or not?”
The bastard grins. “Only if you insist.”
Eye roll. “I insist.”
Pushing himself away from the fence, he saunters over, slower than molasses, approaching from behind. Rests both hands on my hips. Slides them slowly up my ribcage, down my arms, and grips the base of the bat over my hands.
His hard muscular body imprints on my backside; I bite down on my bottom lip when that splendid chest encounters my shoulder blades, his pelvis creating an erotic friction against my derriere. I loll my head slowly to the side as his nose brushes the hair alongside my neck, nudging it aside.
Those lips speak, inadvertently igniting infinite sparks inside my body, his suggestive words a sexy, sensory caress.
“Grip it like this, not too firm, not to soft.” He repositions my hands. “Open those beautiful legs for me a little wider, James. Yeah, that’s it.” His knee taps the inside of my leg, spreading them wider on the asphalt. “Straddle the plate.” Those fingertips momentarily leave the bat to dig into my hips and cradle me in closer.
I can feel his cock straining against my ass crack and fight back a moan. “There is no plate.” It’s a batting cage, not a ballpark.
“Close your eyes and visualize it then. Imagine yourself straddling it.”
My eyes flutter closed, a ballpark the furthest thing from filthy mind. Graphic images fuel my imagination, my dirty, dirty imagination: Sebastian on his back, covered in sex sweat. His bare chest, lean hips, and a light dusting of hair trailing from his belly button straight down to the delicious V…dipping, dipping down and disappearing into a tangle of white sheets. Rising above him on a big bed, my hair spills in a cascade over my naked—
“Are you seeing it?” His voice cuts into my fantasy.
“Yes. I’m seeing it…” The throbbing between my legs is no figment of my imagination. The wet underwear. The want. The, “Mmm.”
Oz releases his grip on the bat so he can drag those massive paws along the front of my denim jeans. I almost can’t stand the tension of his middle and forefinger dragging up and down that sensitive vale of my bikini line, rubbing. Coaxing. So close to my crotch the telltale sign of an orgasm threatens to have me moaning out embarrassingly loudly.
The resistance from his fingers on the denim is like flint and fire.
Intoxicating.
He strokes my lower abdomen.
Groans into my shoulder.
Drags that rock-hard dick across my ass.
We both groan when his fingers drag themselves up my ribcage and reposition themselves around the barrel of the bat.
“Coming here was such a fucking terrible idea,” he growls.
“No crap.” Don’t drop the bat James, don’t drop the bat. “This is the worst place ever.”
I clutch it tight.
“Rule number eleven: any and all future dates will now have a no-contact clause implemented.”
“That sounds like a rule within a rule.” I pant, mentally attempting to steady my palpitating heart. “Maybe we should head back. Clearly you can’t be trusted to behave.”
“Me? You’re the one gyrating your tight little ass into my—”
“Am I?” I’m trying to focus on his words, I really, really am…and I really am gyrating my ass into his junk…but I swear, I can’t help myself. My body suddenly has a mind of its own.
“You are,” he maintains. “You’re gyrating like a stripper.”
He says it like it’s a bad thing. “Sorry?”
“Say sorry without moaning.” Oz chortles in my ear with a sigh. “We should probably leave before I come in my pants like a thirteen-year-old and we embarrass ourselves.”
A family of seven is picking out helmets and bats in the gated batting cage to our immediate left.
“Good idea.”
Neither of us make a move.
“Jim, let go of the bat.”
“You let go of the bat.”
His hips swivel, giving my rear a little bump, a little grind. “One of us should let go of the bat.”
“All right.” Biting down on my lower lip, I nod. Oz’s warm body heat is making my knees weak, turning my otherwise levelheaded brain to mush. “Okay. We should definitely go.”
So we do.
We return the bats and helmets then climb back into his black pickup truck. Drive the few short miles back to my house. Sit in his vehicle in the street, under the bright overhead security lamp.
It’s gotten dark outside and the streetlights flicker on one by one along the empty avenue, casting shadows and slashes of light inside the cab of Oz’s truck. Across his dark eyes, lips, and chest.
He looks foreboding. Mysterious.
Sexy.
I swallow, glancing out the window before unbuckling the seatbelt that’s been holding me secure.
“Wait there,” Oz instructs, swiftly undoing his own seatbelt an
d hastening to open the door. He jumps out, jogs to my side, and wrenches open the passenger side door.
I bite back a grin at his good manners; he’s a lot rusty, but the potential is there.
“Thank you.”
Nonchalantly, his hand slides into mine as we stroll, unhurried, up the sidewalk to the door.
I turn to face him, hand still in his, leaning casually against the front porch. I suck in one unsteady breath after the other in an attempt to stabilize my rapidly beating heart.
“Is this weird?” I whisper under the dim light.
“Is what weird?” Oz whispers back. “Why are we whispering?”
“This. Us. I feel like we should be doing something else. Studying or something.” I try to laugh, but the laugh gets caught in my throat. “Get back into our element.”
“You want to go to the library, we’ll go to the library,” Oz says pragmatically, the need to please me evident in his harried persistence. “I can wait here while you grab your backpack, then we’ll swing by my place and I’ll get—”
“That’s not what I meant.” I chuckle. “This dating thing—does it feel weird to you?” Oh god, what am I saying? Stop talking Jameson, you’re going to sabotage everything! “I’m sorry, don’t listen to my babble. I’m just super nervous.”
Oz pauses a few seconds, watching me under the hazy porch light with one burnt-out bulb. Steps closer then reaches between us to grasp my other hand. Drags it to his powerful chest. Flattens my palm and places it over his heart.
His wildly racing heart.
So wild I can feel it beneath my fingers, its rhythm like a thin string drawing me toward him with every beat. Connecting us, heart to heart.
“Do you feel that, Jameson?” he implores breathlessly. “Can you feel it beating?”
I can.
“That’s for you. No one else makes me feel this way; no one has ever made me feel this way. No woman. No coach. No opponent makes my heart race the way—”
“Stop talking.”
Suddenly I’m up on my tiptoes, silencing him with the crush of my mouth. Crush—what a cliché, and yet I’m shoving him against the house, kissing the dickens out of him with my hand twisted unexpectedly in the collar of his shirt, pulling him closer, kissing the words off his lips, downing them like a thirst-quenching drink to my soul. Kissing him like he’s a deployed soldier I won’t see for months. Years.