by Selena Kitt
Really, the only scenery he wanted to admire was Edy, and he would have driven all night to see her if he had to, even if he had to be back at work the very next morning.
Cameron slid his window open and leaned onto the sill, smirking.
“Got something to say?” Al asked him.
“You know, all of us would like it if we were cozying up to a warm body tonight. I guess that’s where you’re going.”
Wallace furrowed his brow. “Whose warm body are you warming up to? I haven’t heard anything. I usually hear stuff.”
Al shot daggers at Cameron with his eyes.
Cameron grinned, sat, and then closed his window. If the asshole thought he was going to light a fire under Al and make him confess his sins to Wallace, he had another think coming.
Al cleared his throat and returned his gaze to Wallace. “You probably don’t hear about half of the stuff going on, or else you would have known that more often than not, those assholes are having slumber parties with lusty locals. You should probably step up the chaperoning, if you insist on having it at all.”
Wallace’s ears went red and cheeks purple.
Al knew he shouldn’t goad the guy—after all, he wanted to marry his daughter someday—but Wallace really needed to be put into his place.
“The curfews and lockdowns are in place for a reason,” Wallace said.
Al put up his hands. “Hey. I get it. Guys don’t show up for games on time or to publicity events, and you gotta stand there with egg on your face when the sponsors call you out for their behavior. But here’s the thing.” Al shifted the strap of his bag to his other shoulder. “The culture is pretty heavily ingrained. It’s up to you to be a good mentor to the team and set good examples for them. I know that’s tough for you.”
“Now hold up a damn—”
“Hey.” Al shrugged. “I don’t want to be a part of that shit. At heart, I’m a family guy, and I’m gonna go seed that part of my life, and not relationships with a bunch of hairy dickheads who couldn’t give a shit about team-building or much of anything else. So—” He gave Wallace’s arm one more nudge. “I’m gonna go home to my girl, and I’ll see ya in a couple of days. You know I’m always on time, so come up with another excuse.”
Obviously, Wallace didn’t have one. His jaw flapped wordlessly for a few moments, and Al backed away, waving.
As he turned and walked toward the rental car, he heard Wallace shouting into the bus, “As of right now, every single one of you is on notice. If I catch any unauthorized parties entering or exiting your rooms, you’re benched, you hear me? We’re stepping up supervision until I’m sure y’all are…”
Al shut the car and shook his head. “Good luck, man.”
Wallace had a tough row to hoe, and probably couldn’t see the forest for the trees. He didn’t know the problems in the team—beyond the technical baseball ones—because he was a part of them. He was just like most of those guys. So of course, Al was going to have a hard time convincing Edy that he was different because she knew her father all too well.
Any guy could say he wasn’t like all the rest, but Al was actually willing to stick it out and prove he’d do right by her. Edy was worth it. Too bad her father hadn’t done that when it’d mattered.
Chapter 13
Edy was on her hands and knees in her front yard digging some invasive ivy out of her flower beds when the cool prickle of awareness down her spine made the hairs on her neck stand on end. She wasn’t alone and, seeing as how it was nearly dusk, didn’t think her visitor was the mailman.
Too late in the year for Girl Scout cookies, so what’s this bozo selling me?
She sat back onto her feet and slowly turned her head.
“Easier if you destroy the root system first,” came Al’s voice. “That shit’s aggressive. If you pull it and leave just a little bit behind, it’ll come back. Ivy is kind of like dandelions, but more bourgeois.”
Swallowing, she pinched her gloves off by the fingers and set them on the ground. “What are you doing here? Shouldn’t you be on the road?”
“That depends on what you mean by should.”
At that curious statement, she turned all the way around and met his gaze straight on.
He looked tired, but thinking back, she couldn’t remember a single time in all the years she’d known Al that he didn’t look tired. The guy needed minding. Still.
“Did you get fired?” she asked. Hope sprung eternal, and she didn’t care if that made her an awful person. She’d made her opinion clear, and she wasn’t going to back off of it because it hadn’t changed in two months. If anything, she stood more firmly in her convictions.
“No, Edy, I didn’t get fired. I’m just flexing the boundaries of my contract. I mean, what’s the worst that could happen? The team’ll decide to cancel it because they can’t renege on it without me suing them? Hell, getting fired would be ideal because I’d get to keep the money.” He shifted his weight and his soft grin fell away as he flexed the ankle of his weak leg a couple of times.
Probably needs to sit.
In the time it took her to blink, he put his smile back on.
“You still didn’t tell me what you were doing here,” she said.
“I hoped you’d let me spend the night. I don’t have a solid roof over my bedroom right now.”
“There are hotels for exactly that reason and other reasons, too.” She grabbed her gloves, rocked onto all fours, and then stood.
Al was right about the ivy. Weeding was good exercise, and she sure as shit needed to get some aggression out, but there was no way she could pull all those vines. She’d have to invest in a special herbicide for it.
Yet another trip to the hardware store.
He followed her to the shed and waited outside as she stowed her tools and gloves.
“I didn’t want to stay at a hotel,” he said as she fastened the shed’s padlock. “I wanted to see you.”
“Why?”
“Because I missed you.”
“Sure.” She stomped the dirt off her clogs at the sliding door at the back of her house, and then stepped into the cool, sweet-smelling kitchen.
When she was upset, sometimes she baked, sometimes she stayed at work longer just to distract herself from what would happen when she went home, and sometimes she did home improvement. On that particular day, she’d gone with options one and three. She’d made brownies.
She didn’t even like brownies.
Al closed the door behind him and locked it. “Edy, why are you so incredulous about the fact I’d want to see you?”
“Anyone can tolerate someone else in small doses. That’s not the issue here.”
“I want a lot more than small doses from you. I’m trying to give you all of me that I can, and I know you don’t think it’s enough. Hell, I don’t think it’s enough myself, but I don’t know what else to do. I had to come, though. I didn’t want you to think I wasn’t thinking about you. You won’t take my calls. Have you been listening to my voicemails?”
She shrugged and pulled open the refrigerator door. “Wasn’t very much substance to them.”
Just “Hi, Edy. Call me, please.” Or “We’re in Sarasota for a tournament today. Call me when you have a minute.”
He leaned his elbows onto the counter and sighed. “Okay, I’m not good at it. I felt stupid talking to a computer. Makes me tangle up my words, so I’m sorry if they’re not as romantic as you would have liked.”
She grabbed a bottle of beer from the fridge door and slid it across the counter to him. She didn’t like that brand, either. She’d bought it for him after she dumped him without realizing what she’d done.
He grabbed it and popped the top off with ease.
“Well, they were terse,” she said, “but on the plus side, you can’t tell very many lies in that few words.”
“I wouldn’t lie to you, Edy. The truth is almost always easier in the long run, even when it hurts.”
“I want to bel
ieve that.”
“You should.”
She shrugged again. “I can’t. I’m too used to being lied to and being made to feel unimportant. I’m confident enough in myself at this point in my life that I need to be someone’s priority.”
“I get that.” He took a long draw of the beer and then set the bottle on the counter. Dragging his sleeve across his wet lips, he pinned his sultry green stare on her.
It was almost like a dare. A dare to look away or to call him a liar.
She wouldn’t do either. He’d been brave enough to step into her front yard, so she was going to try to be courageous enough to hear what he had to say.
“Did you miss me at all?” he asked.
“You don’t get to ask that.”
“I think it’s fair. I’m like you. I want to be someone’s priority. I’m not the kind of guy who wants to be a woman’s steppingstone between one man and the next. Permanence is a lot more attractive to me than the quantity of women I could have in my bed.”
“Oh?”
“Come on, Edy. You know that. You know who my folks are and how I was raised. I’ve had plenty of chances to sow my wild oats, and I ain’t gonna lie. When I had a chance, I did. Is that attractive to me now?” He grunted and picked up the beer bottle. “Nah. It’s a game I’m not really interested in playing.”
“Like baseball. You’re not really interested in that, but you’re still caught up in it.”
“Touché.” He let out a long, ragged breath, and then took a swallow of beer. “I know it seems hypocritical of me, but I really did do it for the money, because I want this mess in my life over and done with. Two years from now, I want to be able to sit back during the summers and do what I want when I want to do it.”
“Like what?”
“I dunno. Spend some time at the beach. Get some guidebooks and get to know my own city. Or hell, Edy, maybe hit the road and visit all those sites everyone is supposed to see at least once like Mount Rushmore and the Grand Canyon.”
“I want to see those,” she said softly.
His grin was wan. “Good. Saves us an argument about it, then. End of next season, we’ll just go. Me and you together.”
“Go where?”
“Anywhere you want. You plan the trip, and I’ll put new tires on your car and trailer for you or something.”
She chewed on the inside of her cheek and fiddled with the pile of mail on the island. She wanted what he was offering, and she believed he wanted it, too. But, the problem with men with his job was that his priorities could shift at any minute. Maybe she was important to him at that moment, but she was too used to the promises people made her falling through the cracks.
She was used to disappointment and didn’t want to go courting it.
He eased around the counter and raised a hand slowly, letting his fingertips glide along her jaw, her chin. “Missed you. Hard to think about anything else.”
“You’re full of it, Al.”
“I’m not. I don’t like feeling like things are up in the air, especially not things I want so bad.”
“Are you talking about me?”
His low chuckle sent sensual vibrations down her core as he pulled her against him, and tried as she might have to be strong and resist him, her body melted against his. Her lungs deflated. Her eyes closed.
She let herself be held, and was relieved, because she’d wanted and needed it so badly.
“I’m trying to make this work, Edy.”
“Make what work?”
He let out another long breath, still stroking her chin and staring down at her.
“I don’t want to talk right now,” he said. “I want to touch you. Can I touch you?”
“You’re already touching me.”
“Don’t act like you don’t know what I mean. You want me to spit it out? Say the words and talk dirty to you?”
“Y-no.” She closed her eyes and shook her head. “No, I don’t need that.”
“Then let’s go. Take me upstairs.”
“I’ve been playing in the dirt. I need to take a shower.”
“So take the shower.” His fingertips scorched a path down her neck and idled over her heart where the V of her T-shirt collar dipped. “I’ll get my bag out of the car and lock up down here, and then I’ll be waiting.”
She forced a swallow down her tight throat, and turned on her heel. She didn’t look back as she headed toward the stairs. If anything, she put some extra spring in her step considering what they were about to do—what he was about to do to her.
So she scrubbed, and washed. Stared at herself in the circle she’d cleared off the fogged mirror and pondered putting on a little mascara. Considered drying her hair and twisting it into a cute bun or knot.
“Edy,” Al called impatiently from the bedroom.
She tightened her towel around her body, took a deep breath, and then stepped out of the steamy warmth and into the master bedroom.
Al lay nude on the bed, his back against her pile of pillows, his hand around his cock.
He lazily stroked base to head, again and again, and fixed his gaze on her face. “If you wanna touch, you gotta get close.”
She got closer, lingering at the side of the bed. Stalling, really. She wanted to see if he was going to make himself come—wanted to see his pleasure painted all over his chest.
“Why are you hidin' from me? You don’t need the towel for what we’re going to do.”
“I’m not hiding.”
“Prove it.”
She ground her teeth reflexively. She didn’t generally like being challenged, but she at least knew what Al was trying to get her to do. It was something she wanted to do, and soon, if the wetness of her upper thighs was any clue.
Tossing the towel toward the hamper, she took a bolstering breath.
“When my leg was in that cast, you promised me something,” he said.
She turned slowly and padded to the bed.
His gaze flitted wildly from her face to her knees as if he was trying to take in everything at once but she was moving too much to let him see.
He can see later.
“What did I promise you, Al?”
“I believe you said you were going to ride me. I never forget an offer like that.” He dragged the pad of his thumb across his cock head and forced a hiss through clenched teeth.
“Wouldn’t you rather—”
“Nah. Climb on and ride. Kiss me at the same time if you can manage it.”
She pushed up an eyebrow and shifted her weight. Stalling.
“Come on. If we’re gonna go again, you’ve gotta to give me some recovery time, and who knows how long that might take? Could be three AM. Maybe four. I’m fully expecting you to put me to sleep, and I’ll be happy if you do.”
Swallowing hard, she pulled open the nightstand drawer and tore a condom off the strip she kept in there just in case. She crawled onto the bed and between his open legs, and he kept stroking as if he were trying to get a head start on the activity.
Or maybe he’s just teasing.
She could tease, too.
She bent and pulled his tip into her mouth, lashing her tongue against the slit and then around the smooth corona.
He drew his hand back and laced his fingers behind his head. “Mmm, that’s nice.”
“Want me to take the edge off?” She took him farther into her mouth and hollowed her cheeks, increasing the suction around him.
“Nuh-uh. Feels good, but I don’t want to come in your mouth. Put the condom on me, and do what you promised.”
She let him fall from her lips and sat back on her heels. Tearing the package open, she said, “Remind me to never promise you anything again.”
“Not gonna do that.”
“No? Why not?” She unrolled the condom down his shaft and tossed the package toward the nightstand.
He brought his legs closer together, and she straddled him—knee-walking closer to his core.
To his cock, so e
rect and waiting for her.
“We’re both gonna have to make and keep some promises. That’s how these things work, right?”
She must have been moving too slowly for his liking, because he put his hands to her hips and nudged her downward as if she couldn’t find the way on her own.
“What kind of promises?” She moaned wantonly as his head breached her entrance and was very still as he thrust up into her.