The Player (The Player Duet Book 1)

by K. Bromberg

  “The kitchen counter?”

  “I figured that was as far as I’d get you in the door before I had to have you, and the kitchen counter is the closest horizontal surface so . . .”

  “Do you always want to sleep with someone when they make you that angry?”

  “Only you, Kitty. Only you.” Silence descends again. He plays with a strand of my hair while my fingertips draw aimless circles on his chest.

  I feel at peace. It’s such an odd feeling for me. New. Foreign. And yet the panic I’ve lived with for so very long is nonexistent. It’s unsettling but also so very welcome.

  “My mom is an alcoholic.”

  His confession into the peaceful silence has me shifting so that I can see his face, but his eyes are staring at the ceiling above us.

  “Easton, you don’t have to do this.”

  “Yes, I do. You shared your secrets with me, and so you deserve mine,” he says with a nod. I watch his Adam’s apple bob. I hear his unsteady exhale. And he continues, “She’s not a mean drunk, but she’s a drunk nonetheless. There’s no gentle way to pretend she isn’t. She’s stuck back in time, not wanting to let go of the past, so much so that most days she doesn’t know what day it is.”

  “Does she live close?”

  “Mm-hmm.” He falls silent, but I know there is more, so I give him time. “She lives about an hour outside of town. Seventy-eight minutes to be exact. I know because I often get late night calls when she won’t leave the bar in the trailer park that she lives in and refuses to let me move her out of.”

  “That has to be frustrating for you.”

  “So many things about it are,” he sighs. “It would be different if she were a mean drunk. It would be easier to hate her for it then. But she’s not. She’s sweet and lonely and just wants me around more. And I feel guilty that I don’t spend more time with her . . . but at least sleeping on her couch a night or two during the week is enough for her. She deserves the world, but her world is her double-wide trailer, cluttered with her things and my games on replay on the TV, and so that’s what I give her.”

  My heart swells at the audible love transparent in his voice. The measure of a man is often unquantifiable, and yet, with Easton, it’s everywhere. In his love for his mother. In unpublicized visits to Children’s Hospital. In his charitable organization for literacy. In his patience with a spooked woman.

  “You love her.” It’s a stupid statement but so very true.

  “Yeah.” I can hear the smile in his tone. “You know, my dad wasn’t around much when I was a kid. Sure, he was here in the offseason, or I got to spend time in the clubhouse with him, but she was the day-in, day-out parent. It would be easy for me to be mad at her for her drinking. It would be easy when the bar calls to let them get her home . . . but that’s my job as her son. She took care of me, now it’s my turn to take care of her.”

  Emotion clogs his voice, and all I can think to do is to press a kiss to his chest to let him know what I think of him.

  “Was that the reason she and your dad divorced?”

  “I don’t know. I don’t remember her drinking back then, but it’s easy for parents to hide things from their kids when they’re that young.”

  It’s easy for them to hide things from their kids when they’re old, too. Like my dad has for the past year.

  “My parents never discuss their divorce. I don’t remember them fighting. I don’t remember any ill will. I just remember coming home from practice one day and my dad sat me down and told me that things were going to be changing a little. That was it. Later, I learned from friends how weird it was that neither of my parents tried to pit me against the other . . . but they just didn’t.”

  “Lucky for you . . . I guess,” I amend, realizing how wrong that sounds.

  “No, you’re right. I understood what you meant.” His finger begins to trace over my back again.

  “You’re a good son. A good man.”

  “I’m all she has, Scout.”

  I press another kiss to his chest. “She’s lucky.”

  “My biggest fear is a trade. She’d have no one to take care of her.”

  Easton shifts some and rolls onto his side, head propped onto his elbow, and looks at me for the first time since the conversation started. “Why didn’t you tell me about your dad, Scout?” The compassion is back in his eyes, and I can’t hide from it this time.

  I sigh, shrug, and squirm under the intensity of his stare. “Because he made me promise not to tell anyone. Hell, he only told me a few months ago.” I shake my head and remember the defeat I felt when he’d told me. “His heart is failing him. Heart disease, which sounds so weird to me because he’s always been so healthy, but I guess he’s had it for a long time and never took the steps to slow it down. He’s on a donor list, but so are a million other people who have stronger bodies that can withstand a transplant, while doctors have determined that at this time his can’t. Why waste a precious heart on someone who might not make it through the surgery, when they have ten other matches who can?” The tears threaten and burn, but I keep them at bay. Hold them back like I do the acknowledgement that this is all happening and real and my dad really is sick.

  “I’m so sorry.” Easton leans forward and presses a kiss to my forehead, the gesture so natural, so sweet, that one of the threatening tears slips out and slides down my cheek.

  “When he first told me, I argued with him. Told him he was lying. And to this day, I still hope that’s true, but he’s living proof you can’t recover from a broken heart.” Easton’s eyes narrow as he links the fingers on his free hand with mine and waits for me to explain. “My mom leaving was hard on all of us, but especially him. He had to figure out how to travel for weeks at a time for his job while giving us as normal of a childhood as possible. And then when my brother Ford died, I don’t think his heart ever recovered.”

  I can see his eyes jolt as everything starts to connect for him. “Wait. Ford? As in the Ford Marsden drafted from UCLA? The wonder boy who used to play with Cameron and Penski?” he asks, sounding more shocked with each word.

  I nod, my smile bittersweet. “He didn’t want any show of favoritism because he was Doc’s son, so during college and the MLB draft, he decided to use my grandmother’s maiden name.”

  “I remember when he collapsed on the mound.” The dreamlike quality reflects how I feel about it still today. Like I wish the whole thing were a dream instead of the nightmare it is.

  “Hypertrophic cardiomyopathy.” I murmur the term I’d never heard before I received the hysterical phone call that afternoon. “A massive heart attack from a condition he never even knew he had.”

  “All of us players had always thought we were invincible. We ran every day, ate healthy, were in top physical form, and then that happened to him. It freaked a lot of us out for a while. Like, if it could happen to him, then . . .”

  “It could happen to you. Yeah, I know. I think I’ve had my heart checked every which way possible to make sure I don’t have the same condition.” I nod, the nagging worry just something I live with. “And obviously, my dad was checked too . . . but his situation is a different issue all together . . . and now it’s going to take him from me, too.”

  Easton reaches out and pulls me into him. And this time, I let him. I accept the warmth and comfort and reassurance of his arms around me. I listen to the beat of his heart and memorize the feel of his skin beneath my cheek as I nuzzle his neck.

  “When Ford died, it broke my dad. He was his pride and joy. He was the light in our house, the one we looked to for our laughter. And then, like that, he was gone. I was left to try and pick up the pieces and fill the holes that seemed to surround us constantly. So, I changed my major in school. I’d always been interested in following in my dad’s footsteps, but my dad wouldn’t let me. He told me I had to go take the world by storm and do my own thing. But when Ford died, it was like he wanted to keep me close to make sure I was okay, and so he finally agreed to let me
learn the trade. Once I was given the chance, I threw myself into everything about it to make him proud. To try and make him happy.”

  “He’s proud of you, Scout. I have no doubt about that,” he murmurs into the crown of my head, the heat of his breath hitting my hair.

  “Pride doesn’t mend a broken heart, though.” I speak my thoughts out loud and am grateful that he doesn’t refute them, doesn’t disagree with my opinion, no matter how irrational it may seem. “So that’s why I’m here in Austin. Securing the last job for him, so he can know he fulfilled the one career goal he still had remaining.”

  “That’s honorable and selfless.”

  “I’m terrified that I’m going to let him down.”

  “You won’t,” he murmurs. “Not if I have anything to do with it.”

  I snuggle further into him, appreciative of the reassurance, but more than aware that the front office has the final say. Not him.

  “Is there anything else we need to lay on the line before we get up from our naked ball-field confessional?” I tease. His chest vibrates against mine with his laughter, but when he doesn’t say anything, I’m suddenly paranoid. “What is it? What else do you need to tell me?” When I try to lean back and look into his eyes, he just holds me still.

  “For a girl who spooks easily, you sure ask a lot of questions. Didn’t anyone ever tell you to not ask questions you can’t handle the answers to?”

  “Easton.” His name is a playful warning, but my pulse quickens with his comment. “Please tell me you don’t have a wife in every city, or I’m going to be royally pissed.”

  “Hardly.”

  “Then what?” Impatience rings in my tone as my body comes to life with the feeling of his naked body and dick slowly hardening against me. I try to tickle him to get an answer. We wiggle and squirm away from each other, but he has the upper hand in the strength department.

  “Let’s just say, you’re not yet ready to hear what I have to say,” he laughs out amid my tickle torture, but the simple statement knocks all the fight out of me as my mind races with possibilities. Good possibilities, ones I never dared to think could even be possible but which flicker and fade through my mind nonetheless.

  And he uses my momentary lapse in attention to scoot away from me. I scramble on all fours to go after him.

  “I know how to make you talk, Wylder.” My voice is full of suggestion, and my body is renewed with desire as I crawl slowly toward him.

  “Naked batting practice?”

  It’s sad that there’s hope in his voice when he says it, but I burst out in laughter. And it feels good to laugh after everything tonight—my trip to visit my brother at the cemetery, the tension with Santiago, our fight, my confession, him making me feel, the last hour we spent talking—that I welcome the humor.

  “Mmmm,” I murmur with a raise of my brows. “That’s not exactly the bat and balls I was thinking about using right now.”

  “They weren’t?” He fights his grin but lets his eyes roam over my breasts as I crawl over his legs so my face is perfectly poised above his cock.

  “Nope. Besides, I’m more fixated on making you talk than proving I can swing a decent stick.”

  Easton shifts his hips beneath me. “Fixate away.”

  It’s my turn to give him a lightning quick grin as I slowly dip my head and take him into my mouth and all the way to the back of my throat.

  His groan fills the room as his taste assaults my senses in the most intoxicating of ways.

  “Good God, woman. You’re going to be the death of me.”

  She’s gorgeous.

  An absolute mess of gorgeous chaos with her hair fanned around her, pillow creases in her cheeks, a soft smile on her lips, and a well of emotion in her eyes.

  God. Damn.

  Chaos has never looked so damn inviting.

  I won the battle last night, but I know there’s a war still ahead of me. She’s been left, is going to be left again, and there’s nothing I can do to protect her from it.

  But it all makes sense now. Her not wanting me to get too close. Her closing herself off. Trust being a hard thing and fear being a reality.

  Her fears are valid. I get them but don’t understand them. And yet I need to figure out how to make her not feel them when she thinks of me.

  Last night was the first step in a long journey, but fuck if I don’t want to take it with her.

  Look at her. She’s fiery. Beautiful. Funny. Intelligent. But more than all of that, she gets me—my thoughts and my love/hate relationship with this game. She gets this career I have, which to most others is exciting but disruptive as hell to relationships.

  I reach out a hand and wipe a strand of hair from her face as those lips of hers spread into a sleepy smile and she snuggles a little deeper into the covers.

  What in the hell am I letting myself fall into?

  If she doesn’t scare the hell out of you, East, then she’s not worth the trouble.

  And last night she scared the hell out of me. When I thought she’d moved on. When I thought she’d played me. When I thought I’d lost her.

  “Morning.” Her eyes light up at the sound of my voice, and I’m a fucking goner.

  Toast.

  “Morning,” she murmurs, in a rasp of a voice that feels like fingernails scraping ever so gently over the underside of my balls. It makes me want. She makes me want, when I should be so damn exhausted after last night that even my dick should be fast asleep.

  “Just because my cleats will hit the dirt again, doesn’t mean I’ll move on from the people in my life.” The words are a truth she needs to hear the morning after confessing her secrets, her fears, to help reassure her that I heard her and I’m still not going anywhere. I run my hand down the line of her torso, rest it on her hip, and squeeze it for emphasis. “You’re not one who can easily be forgotten, Scout Dalton.”

  Her eyes cloud with emotion, but it’s her shaky inhale that catches my attention. “Uh-uh. I’m not going to let you do it, Scout. I see that look in your eye. After last night . . . you don’t get to spook anymore. I know why you’re scared. I get it. But you don’t get to shut down, you don’t get to shut me out. Talk to me. Tell me what’s going on in that beautifully, scared mind of yours.”

  “You can’t control our lives, Easton. I may not get the contract with the team. You could get traded. There are no guarantees.” Her voice is soft, the emotion I couldn’t read is obviously fear.

  “You’re right, I can’t. But it’s the possibility that should keep you going, not the guarantees. And I can tell you this—you’re going to get the contract. I’ll do whatever it takes to get back on that field so Cory sees you got your job done, and I’ll put in every single good word I have for you to get the job.” She shakes her head, starts to refute, but I just lift my finger to her lips to quiet her down. “And as for being traded, that’s always been my biggest fear because of my mom. So, I hear your spooked-ness, Scout, but I’m matching your bet, so what else are you going to throw at me that I can debunk.”

  Our eyes hold, and I’m shocked to shit when she reaches out, wraps her arms around me, and snuggles into me. The woman who keeps pushing me away has finally pulled me in. And fuck does it feel good.

  The only thing that rivals the feeling is her body snuggled up against mine.

  My dick stirs to life—how can it not—and every little move she makes, combined with the scent of her shampoo in my nose, makes me want to have her all over again.

  “I need to get to work,” I groan, hating my own lips for even speaking it.

  “I hear you have a mean, wretched trainer who likes to crack the whip.” Her lips move against my neck, their heat only making the urge to bury my dick into her tight, addictive pussy that much more enticing.

  “You have no idea,” I murmur, and press a kiss to the crown of her head as my hands slide down to the curve of her ass, pulling her thigh up and over my hip to open her up for me. “She’s demanding.”

  “
And manipulative,” she chuckles, and then sighs as my fingers touch ever so softly over that perfect, pink flesh between her thighs.

  “Mmmm.” Fuck. She’s already wet for me. I can feel it and I haven’t even slipped my fingers in yet.

  “Or we could go bat another round downstairs.” She spreads her legs farther, granting me access as my fingers slide inside.

  Her hands tense on my shoulders. Her teeth nip into my collarbone.

  I chuckle at her comment. “It’s not the same. It will never be the same again,” I murmur as her breath hitches.

  “What won’t?” I love how she’s trying to act unaffected, but when my fingertips hit that little rough patch inside of her slick, wet pussy and her nails dig in reflexively, I know I’ve got her.

  “Every time I set my helmet in that net shelf, it’ll be my face between your thighs I think about.” Rub, stroke, slide. Her moan fills my ears. The heat of it sears my skin. “Every time I stand at the plate to take a swing, it’ll be you I picture. Naked. Swinging the stick like you own it and hitting that line drive back at me.”

  “East.” A sigh of pleasure. My thumb to her clit. Her coming all over my hand.

  “And then your little happy dance as you jogged around the bases.” Tits bouncing, hair down her back, laugh filling the gray space.

  I angle my body, open her wider, and line the head of my dick up right where I want it.

  “No, it will never be the same.”

  I push into her. Become consumed by her.

  Her feel.

  Her touch.

  Her sounds.

  And I’m well aware that when I speak the last words, when her hands tense on my back and her mouth finds the curve of my neck, I’m not just speaking about my field downstairs.

  I’m talking about me.

  “Looking great, Easton. I don’t see anything in the X-ray or otherwise that would impede your recovery any further.”

  If I could kiss my doctor, right now, I would.

  “Whew.” I blow out a sigh of relief. “That’s good to hear, because it’s getting stronger every day.”