He pauses for a second, bringing his hand to my face and staring at me in awe. He shakes his head as he presses a soft kiss to my forehead before saying, “I love you, Natalie. You’re it for me, the only thing I want in life and I’m so fucking sorry I ever made you feel less than you are, because you, my sweet, beautiful girl, are the best thing that has ever happened to me. I plan on spending the rest of my life proving that to you.” He kisses up my neck and then presses his forehead against mine. I cup his cheek, still loving the scruff on his jaw. “Please tell me you forgive me, that we can move past this.”
I reach up and press a gentle kiss to his lips as I spread my legs. I reach down and place him at my entrance, encouraging him to enter me. He does, in one long, smooth stroke. I choke on my breath for a second, forgetting just how big he is, but when I relax and remember how full I feel with him inside me, I know this is all I’ll ever need in life, this beautiful man.
Kissing him along his lips and then his jaw, I say, “I love you, Cory, and from here on out, we’re starting a new chapter in our life. You and me.” I grip his face so he has to look me in the eyes. “You and me.”
He nods, another tear falling down his face before he starts to move in and out of me, connecting us in the most intimate way. There’s a smooth stroke to his motions, a longing, tempting stroke that I haven’t felt from him before, as if he’s trying to imprint himself on me, as if with every pump of his hips, he’s saying, mine.
Mine. Mine.
And with every gasp that falls past my lips, I keep thinking, I’m his.
I’m his.
Epilogue
CORY
“I can’t wait to take you back to our room,” I whisper into Natalie’s ear as I hold the open back of her dress, where my hand hasn’t left since we’ve been on the dance floor. “This dress has made me hard all fucking night.”
Chuckling against my chest—because that’s how far she reaches even with heels—she says, “You know, for such an old man, you are quite virile.”
“Old?” I pull away to look down at her. “You know I’m anything but old, especially after the way I fucked you four times last night.”
Fact.
We had sex four times last night, and I still wanted her more. I haven’t been able to get enough of this woman since we got back together. After we made up, and I cried like a goddamn baby in her arms, so grateful that she gave me another chance, we came up with an action plan to get through the rest of the season so I could make time for her. It was something I was very concerned about the next morning when I considered our division win. We still had a long way to go.
We decided that she’d stay at my apartment during home games and when I was away, we’d FaceTime every night. I was consistent with my texting, ensuring she knew she was my number one even when I was doing my job, and she was so fucking supportive during the entire playoff and World Series run, that I don’t think we would have taken the trophy home if it wasn’t for her talking to me, relaxing me, letting me just hold her when I needed a break from the adrenaline pumping through me.
Yeah . . . we fucking won.
In the fourteen years I’ve been playing professional baseball, I can finally call myself a World Series Champion and fuck, does it feel good. It feels like a reward.
Being traded midseason does a lot of damage to an elite sportsman. Yes, to our egos, because even though I never considered myself egotistical, I was proud. The years with Baltimore had encouraged that pride, that sense of being irreplaceable. But clearly, I wasn’t. I was expendable.
Expendable. It still kills me that I made Natalie feel that way. Especially because she was there. She was one of the first people I talked to about the trade. How it affected me. She had listened.
I’ll never understand why Chicago’s media can treat baseball players—people—the way they treated me. The lies. The blatant misinformation that only encouraged animosity still makes zero sense to me.
Even though the way the Rebels initially shafted me was horrible to experience, it was all worth it because in the long run, I have a few more men in my life I can truly call brothers. They’re fiercely loyal. I get that now. They really weren’t sure if I’d become a Rebel and aim to win with them or go against them.
And our fans? Yes, our fans. I’m glad to say that some of that arrogance and penchant for nastiness has left the ballpark when we play. Some. Not all. Because miracles do not occur overnight. I have an odd but loving relationship with my fans who now wear shirts that say, “Bending over for the boss.” Charming, I know.
As for my future? I have the love of my life in my arms, with my ring on her finger, and a wedding set for this time next year. “You know the more you mention the four times, the more you’re not going to get four times again.”
I laugh into her ear and lower my hand an inch, just above her ass crack. She gasps in my arms as I slide my finger across the small divot. I found out very quickly she’s not wearing any underwear or a bra under the silky blue fabric of her dress, and it’s been driving me crazy the entire wedding.
“You act as if four times was my idea. You’re the one who kept mounting me.”
She laughs and slides her hand under my jacket, playing with my flat nipple until it peaks under her fingertips, causing me to groan.
“Can’t help it, for an older man, you’re incredibly sexy.”
“Enough with that old shit.”
She chuckles and the sound pools all the blood in my body straight to my dick, making me harder than stone right here on the dance floor, surrounded by friends and family. And Natalie feels it because she groans against me.
“God, Cory, you can’t be serious.”
“Your fault,” I say, keeping her close. “All your fucking fault.”
Jason takes that moment to come up to us and grip both our shoulders. “I’m married. I’m fucking married.” He holds his ring finger up to both of us, screams, and then runs off to the next couple.
Chuckling, I say, “Your brother is so fucking weird.”
“Yeah, but he’s the reason we’re here together, your ring on my finger.”
“True.” I bring her engagement ring up to my lips and kiss the back of her hand. “Proudest moment of my life was bending down on one knee to ask you to marry me.”
She lifts her head to look at me. Almost surprised, she says, “That’s a really sweet thing to say.”
“It’s true. You are the best decision I ever made in my life, even if I stumbled along the way realizing it. I know my life wouldn’t be the same without you in it.” I reach down and press a very soft kiss across her lips. “You’re my girl, my love, my beautiful.”
Her hand runs up to my neck where her thumb plays with my freshly shaven jaw. “You are so getting fucked four times tonight.”
I throw my head back and laugh right before I wrap my arms around her and squeeze her tight, never wanting to let go.
I didn’t know I wanted her, needed her, but here I am, the girl of my dreams in my arms, a future ahead of us, surrounded by a band of brothers I never thought I’d have. I thought being traded was the worst thing that ever happened to me, but life works in mysterious ways, because sometimes, when you think you’ve hit rock bottom, perhaps you’re opening a door to an entirely new chapter in life.
And this new chapter, fuck, is it going to be beautiful.
Do you want to find out how Cory proposed? Click HERE
The End
Thank you for reading The Trade! You can read all of my books for FREE on Kindle Unlimited! Keep flipping to read an excerpt from Jason and Dottie’s story, The Lineup, and you can read more about the other characters from The Trade here:
Knox and Emory: The Locker Room
Carson and Milly: The Dugout
Jason and Dottie: The Lineup
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Excerpt - The Lineup
JASON
It isn’t in my nature to cry over burnt ham, but here I am, tearing up like a jackass, because the meal I’ve been reluctantly slaving over for the past four hours is two shades away from charred dust.
I had it all planned out. The timing was right, the recipes perfected, the table decorated with impeccably folded napkins that impersonated angelic swans, and polished silver that I scrubbed for an hour until I could see my balls in the reflection. Nothing says polished silverware like a spoon that gives you a clear upside-down view of your gonads.
But even with countless hours of preparing this feast, naked as the day I was born with only an apron to cover my man-loins, I still ended up with a scorched ham doused in fire extinguisher agent because somehow, the damn thing caught on fire.
Imagine this, a grown-ass man—no, not just a grown-ass man, but a man at the fresh age of twenty-eight, built like a linebacker with buttocks you can bounce rocks off . . . thanks to squatting for a living—dancing around the kitchen on his twinkle toes, arms flailing with pink and white potholders attached to his hands, screaming like a banshee, as flames light up the Jenn-Air double oven where the brown sugar and pineapple ham resided.
Are you seeing it?
Add the imagery of said man naked, dick and balls harmoniously bouncing in panic while the apron his “girlfriend” got him that says Eat my food, Lick my dick, unravels in the fit to unleash the fire extinguisher.
That was me . . . a minute ago.
Frantic, screaming, and all in all losing any last shred of my man card I had left.
It’s why I’m currently weeping like a nitwit into the flaps of my apron, wondering where I went wrong.
If we’re going to be honest with each other—and I would like to establish honesty with you—I’ll admit, I’ve always leaned toward the sensitive side. You know, the cuddly grizzly bear. Big and intimidating but a fucking gooey butterball heart on the inside.
Tell me a love story. I’ll listen the crap out of it.
The Bachelor? Why yes, that’s one of my favorite shows.
Do I smile when sharing a candlelit dinner with myself, followed by a nice long soak in a bubble bath while Enya—the fucking goddess of all voices—plays in the background? I sure as shit do.
But if some ignorant asswipe gets in my face on the ball field, stirring up trouble, I’m the first to lay a fist across his jaw and the first to be thrown out of a game.
And I’m not even sorry about it.
People are arriving in an hour. I’m vulnerable as fuck with my bare ass resting against the cold white-oak floor of my girl’s apartment, while a lonely tear streams down my freshly shaven cheek. I have no main dish, and the apartment smells like burnt rabbit turd.
Why am I in this hopeless predicament?
Because of one person.
One single person who flipped my life upside down.
A bombshell in a suit, a ravenous sex-fiend in the sheets, a classy and sophisticated tight-ass in the boardroom. She’s a knockout who’s always on my mind. She’s the girl you do things for, that you never thought you’d ever do . . .
Like cook a fancy-as-fuck four-course meal for her and her business associates while practicing interesting conversational starters to ensure the night flows smoothly.
Back in college, I might have been referred to as the mother hen of the boys. I might have cooked at least two meals a week for the guys in the loft, and yeah, I was the ironing wizard, the one everyone turned to, to get out the most stubborn wrinkles. The title has carried on over the years, but my creativity in the kitchen has dwindled with the lack of time, my ironing is now done by my apartment keeper once a week, and the fresh flowers scattered around my place? They’re more dead now than alive.
My point—I’m not the lady of the house I used to be. But I’ve been getting back into the swing of it.
So when my girl asked me to perform the impossible feat of an intimate dinner for four, I should have ordered in, tossed everything in serving dishes, and called it a night.
But nooooooooo, I had to attempt to be a goddamn hero and try to cook everything myself.
And all for what?
For one girl?
No. Not just one girl. The girl who owns my balls, who has a grip so tight on them that if she asked me to bellow out my ABCs in soprano while swirling my finger around my belly button . . . I would.
Who is this girl that has brought me to the brink of boo-boo smush bear insanity and caused me
to weep like a schoolgirl in the corner of the apartment?
There’s only one lady with more than enough ovaries to buckle the knees of the mighty Jason Orson.
The one and only Dorothy “Dottie” Domico.
Keep reading HERE
The Trade Page 39
