Back in the Game

by Lori Wilde

  Yeah, but how?

  He bewitched her with a smile as smooth and creamy as Lindt’s milk chocolate truffles. His thick brown hair gleamed with virility. Dark eyebrows framed those stunning blue eyes fringed with long, midnight black lashes. She’d been close to him before, but it had been in the softer light of dawn. In the glass gym, sunlight glinting off his body, she could make out every pore, every whisker, line, and angle.

  And nothing, absolutely nothing about him was soft.

  Involuntarily, she licked her lips.

  Closer and closer he strolled, as leisurely as walking a dog, but with more purpose. His stare was so sexual, so primal, that it crashed into her womb as intrusively as a battering ram.

  With each step she took, her body grew tighter, and the room grew warmer, and her head grew lighter.

  His gaze never relinquished hers.

  She clung to it. Cherishing this moment so she could pull out the memory again and again, finger the specialness of it late at night when she was alone in her bed. Nothing existed but him. This moment. Exhilarating. Thrilling . . .

  . . . and downright terrifying.

  He was close enough to sniff so she did, inhaling and holding a long, deep breath.

  He smelled like a predator. She smelled like prey.

  “Hi, honey buns,” he said in an overly loud voice. “Did you enjoy your outing?”

  Huh? She would have glanced over her shoulder again, on the lookout for Gisele, but his eyes wouldn’t let her go.

  He was speaking to her.

  But what did he mean?

  “I missed you.” His tone was a caress and she was a sucker for it. “I hate it when we’re apart.”

  Everything clicked. Now she got it. This had to be a dream. One of her crazy sexual fantasies run amok. Or maybe it was a being-naked-in-public anxiety dream. Or it could be a worse-case-scenario preparatory dream, as her subconscious dialed up a how-bad-could-it-get-begging-for-a-job-you-aren’t-qualified-for bit of role playing for her to work through.

  That had to be it.

  A dream.

  She was sound asleep in her bed. No dipped cone chocolate on her blouse. No devastatingly handsome, bare-chested baseball star striding straight for her. This moment existed only in her imagination.

  Relax.

  Since this was a dream, she might as well be ballsy and play along. If he needed a fake girlfriend she was game. She would certainly not have the guts to do it in real life, but in a dream? Hell to the yeah.

  “Hey there, slugger.” She cooed and fluttered her eyelashes.

  One side of his mouth crooked higher, dissolving for the first time into an authentic grin. He was within touching distance, and boy howdy did her fingers itch to do just that.

  Go ahead. Why not?

  Breeanne gulped, spread her fingers, reached out, and ironed her hand against the sleek ridges of his chest. A complex web of nerve receptors in her palm caught fire, sending tactile messages blazing up to her brain in a crazed Braille of details. Smooth. Warm. Hard. Solid. Flawless perfection.

  Holy mother of all nut bunnies!

  She dropped her burning hand, unable to bear another exquisite moment. This was the most realistic dream she’d ever had.

  A mischievous light flamed in his blue eyes. He dipped his head and pursed his lips and . . .

  Stole her personal space. His animal magnetism crowding in on her. She couldn’t understand how he could leave her both shivering and sweaty as if she had a hundred-and-ten-degree fever in an ice storm.

  His mouth hovered, tempting and maddeningly just out of reach.

  Where was that defibrillator? Slap the paddles on her chest. Charge to three hundred joules. Yell, Clear! And zap away.

  He was not going to kiss her. Of course he wasn’t. He wouldn’t do that. Gorgeous, successful men who could have any woman they wished did not kiss plain girls like her. Facts of Life 101.

  But this was her dream, right? Her fantasy. Why couldn’t he kiss her?

  His head inched lower, and he murmured, “I am going to kiss you now. Don’t ask questions. Just go with it.”

  What the frig? She blinked in confusion, staring at the sweaty male chest in front of her, and then peeping into those smoldering blue eyes. His intense scent tore through her like a freshly fired bullet. Her senses stumbled, reeled.

  This absolutely had to be a dream. Soon enough Callie would jump on the covers, wake her up, and she’d be back in her bed like Dorothy home from Oz.

  Gently, he lifted her glasses off her face, his fingers brushing against her temples. The world blurred, went fuzzy.

  Helplessly overtaken, she parted her lips, let down her drawbridge, ceding to the marauding intruder. Come on in, handsome. Make yourself comfy. Pillage away. Take whatever you want. It’s all yours.

  His arm went around her waist, and he drew her closer to him, right up against his hard-muscled sweaty body, and engulfing her mouth with his.

  She cupped his cheek in her palm, felt the scrape of beard stubble. Her heart oozed wet and slippery. Lord have mercy, the man could kiss, just the right amount of pressure, and moisture.

  And the taste of him? Heavenly.

  Not that she had tons of practice on that score. She had been kissed no more than a handful of times, but he was so skillful, so accomplished. No experience required on her part.

  But this man . . . ah, this man . . . he knew exactly what he was doing. She was the baseball, and he was the bat, his lips rocking her so hard she shot clean out of the stadium.

  Yearning burned inside her. More than anything in the entire world she ached to blend blood and bone with him, to tangle her body, her brain, and her fate with his forever.

  It felt as if he were marking her. Stamping her with intention that could both irrevocably change and wreck her life.

  The desperate need to merge was eerie, inescapable, and ultimately terrifying because it felt so limitless.

  This single, earth-stopping, soulful, falling-off-the-edge-of-the-world kiss, absolute in its purity, kidnapped her equilibrium. If he hadn’t tightened his grip on her, she would have tumbled right over.

  He held her steady, his tongue skimming over hers, kissing her as if they’d been made for each other, as if he would never let her go.

  And that was scariest of all.

  This was not a dream.

  This was real. And for some unfathomable reason Rowdy Blanton had kissed her, Breeanne Bliss Carlyle, the mousiest wallflower in all of Stardust.

  Oh dear God.

  No matter how scintillating, how compelling, his kiss was unreliable. He was a well-known playboy who’d elevated womanizing to an art form. He probably kissed strangers on a daily basis.

  The kiss meant nothing to him, but it meant the world to her.

  Her heart was a wild jackrabbit, running fast and frantic. No more. She couldn’t take any more. Breeanne broke away, staggered back, hand to her mouth, shock rippling through her body.

  She peered into his face, dug her fingernails into her palm to hide the trembling. His eyes clouded, but he gave nothing away. No hint of emotion or reaction to what had passed between them. Whatever prompted the kiss, it had nothing to do with her.

  As the sweet dream morphed into a humiliating, cheek-scalding nightmare, the emotional ground beneath her shifted, and she felt as if she were plunging headlong off a cliff onto jagged rocks below.

  CHAPTER 6

  I have no trouble with the twelve inches

  between my elbow and my palm.

  It’s the seven inches between my ears that’s bent.

  —TUG MCGRAW

  Hell’s bells. What was this?

  Rowdy’s pulse raced harder and faster than Giancarlo Stanton’s famous line drive scorcher, the impact of their kiss nearly knocking him to his knees. Sweat bathed his brow. It had nothing to do with the workout he just completed, and everything to do with the soft, pliant mouth that had parted so easily, so innocently for him.

  A fre
sh, sweet mouth filled with wonder and excitement.

  He shoved a shaky hand through his hair, his temperature steaming like an overheated engine.

  Christ.

  She reached up, snatched her glasses from his hand, stuck them on her face, sank delicate hands on her hips, and glared at him.

  The look landed in his belly, unspooled, spread fresh heat, switching his body into a five a.m. bakery, all ovens turned on high. The weirdest thoughts poured into his head.

  Eureka! I’ve struck gold.

  Mr. Watson, come here, I want to see you.

  One small step for man, one giant leap for mankind.

  Nothing like this had ever happened to him. Instant chemistry? Yeah sure, plenty of times, but this was something else, something indefinable, and mysterious. Something freakin’ primal.

  He wanted her.

  A lot.

  In his bed. On the floor. On the weight bench. In the shower. You name it, and he wanted to have sex with her there. His brain had been hijacked, and he was operating on nothing but physical instinct.

  But why? That was the mystery of it. Why her of all women? Why now?

  Ever since his attack, Rowdy had been unable to work up the slightest interest in the multitudinous beauties determined to occupy his bed. It was a fact he’d started worrying about, fearing that his libido had permanently flown the coop. But now here he was getting hard as diamonds over a scrawny, wide-eyed wallflower.

  And not for the first time.

  It had to be the scarf. She’d come wearing cheetah, after he’d confessed it was his favorite print, a clear signal that she was ready, willing, and able for a hookup. That had to be why she was here. To explore the mutual attraction that had struck them both on Irene Henderson’s lawn.

  He certainly wasn’t opposed to the idea.

  Strategically, he tucked a corner of his gym towel into the waistband of his shorts to camouflage his swiftly growing arousal. He gulped and slapped on his best pitcher’s mound blank stare.

  Fully committed to his mission of blowing the whistle on Potts, he’d spent the morning interviewing the three male ghostwriters that Jackdaw had sent over. At noon, he had taken a workout break.

  When the four gorgeous women had descended on his home gym, all recent grads from a master’s degree in journalism program, saying they’d heard he was looking for a ghostwriter, Rowdy had initially been happy for the eye-candy distraction. But in a matter of minutes, they had him feeling like the only pork chop at a feral pit bull convention.

  After a group interview, he’d tried giving the women the old don’t-call-me-I’ll-call-you routine, but they hadn’t taken the hint. They’d stayed, talking, staring, flirting. All four of them had that I-wanna-be-Mrs.-Rowdy-Blanton look in their eyes. He’d seen that look, sidestepped it hundreds of times. He willed Warwick to show up to escort them out, but his buddy hadn’t picked up on the mental telepathy.

  To keep the beauties at bay, he’d jokingly told them that Nolan Ryan had the last word on whatever ghostwriter he selected. When they asked how he would know if his bloodhound gave his stamp of approval, he’d told them, quite honestly, that if Nolan Ryan liked you, he sat on your feet.

  That provided him with a few moments of entertainment as the women tried to coax the bloodhound to sit on their posh shoes. Good old Nolan hadn’t been persuaded.

  And then she had walked into the room. Appearing like magic in the doorway just when he needed rescuing, and wearing that come-get-this-big-boy cheetah scarf.

  He had not intended on kissing her. It had been the furthest thing from his mind, but with the beauties converging, he got claustrophobic, panicked, and grasped for a way out. He’d kissed her to prove to the beauties that she was his girlfriend so they would buzz off.

  Liar.

  All right, cards on the table. The girlfriend thing was an excuse. Truthfully, he’d wanted to kiss her at the estate sale, curious to discover why she hadn’t glanced back at him. She’d been wearing his number, after all. If you wore a guy’s number on your baseball jersey, you had to be interested in him on some level, right? The opportunity to kiss her had presented itself, so he’d taken advantage of it.

  C’mon, that was only a half-truth.

  Bone honesty here. The real reason he kissed her? Something inexplicable had come over him. Call it instinct. Call it urge. Call it horniness. Whatever. He’d been compelled to go for it.

  He wanted to kiss her. He had kissed her. It was as basic as that.

  Big mistake.

  Because now he felt strange things, things he’d not felt before. And when it came to women, Rowdy thought that he had felt everything there was to feel.

  God, he wished like hell he hadn’t kissed her, and stirred this . . . this . . . well, he had no idea what the name of it was, but it was as jolting as falling against a fence he didn’t know was electrified.

  She glowered at him like she was a sleepy bear he’d poked awake in the middle of winter hibernation. Unable to hold up to her sharp-eyed scrutiny, he swung his gaze back to the other women who’d lined up in a row behind him.

  “That’s your girlfriend?” asked the brunette in a tone that managed to sound both snotty and incredulous.

  Miss Cheetah Panties’ face reddened, her shoulders slumped, head ducked.

  A fierce protectiveness swept through him and he moved to drape an arm around her thin shoulders, and his next move was pure impulse. “She is.”

  Her muscles went stony beneath his touch, but she didn’t contradict him.

  The beauties, who, except for their hair color, had the uniform sameness of fashionable cookie-cutter neighborhoods, exchanged surprised glances. The redhead muttered to the brunette, “She must be really good at blow jobs.”

  “Why yes,” Rowdy said. “Yes she is, and we haven’t seen each other in a while, so if you ladies will excuse us . . .”

  He dropped his arm from Miss Cheetah Panties’ shoulders to her waist, and snugged her closer. The smell of her hair, all lemon drops and sweet flowers, boggled him.

  Miss Cheetah Panties’ shoulders were so stiff she could have passed for a baseball bat. But he could feel her warm breath on his neck, and it felt good. Wholesome. Inhaling her, he thought of homemade bread, cream of wheat, peanut butter, mashed potatoes, and macaroni and cheese.

  She inhaled, the air expanding her lungs and causing his hand to rise with her indrawn breath, her solid life force moving beneath his touch. His own lungs picked up her quick tempo, then took over, and led the way to a more leisurely rhythm. She followed willingly, slowing, calming, relaxing into him.

  Pretty damn proud of himself, he smiled. Gotcha, babe.

  “When will you let us know what you decide about the job?” the redhead asked.

  “My agent will call you.” He kept the smile welded to his face, and his arm clamped around the woman beside him.

  “None of us got the job, did we?” the blue-haired woman asked.

  “Sorry,” he said, not the least bit contrite. “You should have minded your manners, and not insulted my girlfriend.”

  The beauties, who in retrospect weren’t so beautiful after all, collected their things and scurried off. The instant the door clicked closed behind the women, Miss Cheetah Panties jabbed her elbow into his breadbasket.

  Hard.

  Air shot from his diaphragm in an explosive ooph, emptying his lungs and doubling him over.

  “What . . .” He gasped, peering up at her. “. . . was that for?”

  “Kissing me, you . . . you . . . bounder.”

  Hand pressed to his belly, he halfway straightened and eyed her warily. “Bounder? Who are you? Jane Austen?”

  Her hands landed on her hips, and she scowled at him over the top of her glasses the way his first grade teacher had done just before she hauled him off to the principal’s office for putting a frog down the back of some little girl’s dress. “Do you even have any idea who Jane Austen is?”

  “Sure. I’ve read Pride a
nd Prejudice and Zombies.”

  “Of course you have.” She scowled, squared earnest shoulders, and tossed her head as if she was indeed a prissy lass from a Regency-era drawing room. “My name is Breeanne Carlyle.”

  Breeanne. Nice name. It made him think of spring training when the season was fresh, and exciting.

  “And for your information, there is nothing wrong with being well-read, and with having a wide vocabulary. I opted for the word that fit the situation.”

  “And bounder won out?”

  “Indeed.”

  “What exactly is a bounder?”

  “A cad, a blackguard, a parvenu, a heel—”

  “Modern-day English, please.”

  “A jerk, a creep, a louse, or if you prefer cruder vernacular, which I presume you do, a wanker, a douche, an asshat, a butthead, a—”

  “Point taken. I apologize for kissing you.”

  “I suppose I shouldn’t criticize,” she said. “It’s not your fault.”

  “What isn’t my fault?”

  “You can’t help yourself.” If sarcasm were a deep line drive, her tone would have just loaded the bases. “I’m sure you’re used to getting everything you want.”

  She was right. He was accustomed to getting whatever he wanted. And right now he wanted her, even if he had no idea why.

  He raised an index finger like an objection. “In my defense, I did ask you to go with it before I kissed you. You had time to say no. You could have said no. Why didn’t you say no?”

  Her hands flew up to a face that was both alarmed and fascinated. “I was overwhelmed. You overwhelmed me. You’re an overwhelming person.”

  “And you pack a mean elbow.” He rubbed his stinging solar plexus. “But you’re also a good sport. You did wait until the others left before you punched me. I appreciate that.”

  “I didn’t punch you, I jabbed you. Be precise.”

  “Okay. You jabbed me.”

  “Why did you pretend I was your girlfriend?”

  “You saw them. They were hovering like vultures.”