He sinks his teeth into my neck, and I bite my tongue to keep from crying out. Pleasure ripples through me, pushing me to the edge and he knows it. His lips crush mine and they vibrate together with low moans.
My body shakes, signaling a coming thunder and he kinks his brow. “Daisy… you think you’re going to come, don’t you?” he whispers with a devious smirk.
I laugh and nibble his lips. My husband and his dirty mouth. “I can’t stop…”
Hunter slows his thrust, driving me even crazier for him. I feel him sliding in and out, every inch ticking at me until I can barely hold it in.
“Let me feel it,” he says, drawing a line up my neck with his tongue. “I want to feel my wife’s hungry pussy as she comes for me.”
I clench my jaw as I come for him and he lays a hand over my mouth, blocking out the sound. He grins with victory and gives me one last hard thrust before coming himself. His cock pulsates inside of me. His hands slip down to my breasts and thighs. He never takes his hands off me and I never want him to.
“Home Run Hunter!” I tease, pretending to shout. “Home Run Hunter!”
He laughs even harder, quickly losing his breath.
“Just how do you manage to crack so many home runs every game?” I ask, throwing on a professional voice.
“Well,” he says, playing along, “it’s quite simple, actually. All you gotta do is train hard, keep your eye on the ball, and find a very naughty lady to keep you warm at night.”
“Is that all?” I chuckle.
“Pretty much.” He rolls onto his side. “The naughtier, the better.”
We lie together in each other’s arms, feeling our hearts race in our chests. After a few minutes, our pulses slow and the sweat on our brows dries up. I close my eyes as exhaustion takes over me.
Hunter lays a kiss on my nose. “So, what do you think?” he whispers. “Wanna skip to the end?”
“No,” I answer, curling into his embrace. “I think I’ll let this one play out.”
He pulls me closer to him, spooning me against his chest and I fall silent. I feel the subtle push of his breath on my back and the strength of his hand resting on my stomach. His lips purse on my shoulder, sending beads of warmth down my spine.
I smile, completely devoid of tears and sadness. I’m content, happy…
Also, it’s baseball season. My favorite season.
And no one is gonna ruin that for me.
* * *
Thank you for reading The BAD BALLER Collection! I hope these steamy romances didn’t melt your Kindle too much!
I’ve been a lot of things.
A brother. An athlete. A sex god.
A fake boyfriend? That’s a new one.
Would you like to get to know one of Hunter’s teammates? Meet Hayden Botsford (yes, of the Botsford Plaza Botsfords!) and his (fake) girlfriend Penelope in JUST A KISS! You might even catch sight of a familiar nosey Sports Illuminated reporter along the way!
Turn the page to read the first chapter!
Excerpt: Just a Kiss
Hayden
I am so bored.
When I was a kid, sick days were paradise. I got to stay home from school while Mommy and the maids doted on me like the little prince I was. It’s not nearly as fun as an adult. Now, I’m way too old for Mommy’s beck and call and the maids don’t find my constant requests for snacks nearly as cute as they used to.
So, I suffer alone. I’m stuck in a suite on the 25th floor of the Botsford Plaza in Las Vegas, waiting around until some league doctor decides I’m well enough to get back to doing what I love.
But I’m not sick. I’m just a little broken.
I’ve spent nearly a decade as a professional baseball player. I’ve never missed a game. I’ve never taken a sick day or been too injured to play. But then, one fateful day, some kid on a motorbike brought it all crashing down. Nearly tore right through my left patellar tendon a month before baseball season began. Lovely.
I will heal. I will prevail. I will be back on that diamond before the season is over. But until then...
I’m so fucking bored.
It wasn’t so bad a few weeks ago. The annual Botsford Corp. stockholders convention was here in Vegas, bringing with it a mountain of interesting people to keep me busy; my three brothers included. But they all skedaddled as soon as the meetings and presentations and nightly mixers were over and done with. My older brother, Graham, flew off to Canada with his old/new wife, Jen, to oversee the new hotel location breaking ground in Toronto. My baby brother, Jonah, is still local somewhere (I think) but far too busy playing shows with his band, Criminal Records, to keep me company.
There’s always Ira, I suppose. He lives across the hall but takes his job seriously as the head of security for the hotel. Not one to play hooky, that one, so…
It’s just me, myself, and my bum knee.
I force myself to sit up in bed. My eyes wander the sterile suite, every surface masked in shadows thanks to the very thick blackout curtains obscuring the view outside.
The clock reads 12:30. I’m almost tempted to fall right back to sleep but the call of nature beckons me the rest of the way off the bed and I hobble toward the bathroom to relieve myself.
Once my bladder is good and satisfied, I splash a bit of cold water on my face to wake myself up. I eye my razor on the counter for a second but ultimately decide to keep the shadow steadily growing along my chin. I’m still the same handsome devil with or without it.
I need a drink.
I throw on a pair of jeans, making sure not to disturb the bandage wrapped loosely around my knee as I slowly pull them up my left leg. The bandage is mostly unnecessary at this point but I keep it on as a reminder to take it easy. I want back on that field as soon as possible and I can’t risk straining it any more than I have to.
I fish through the closet in the corner to find a semi-clean black t-shirt to throw on before grabbing my wallet and room key off the writing desk and heading for the door. I take a right turn in the hallway and walk on down to the golden elevators.
“Hey, Hayden.”
I glance up as a housekeeping cart comes to a stop beside me. The busty blonde in the white apron behind it flashes a wink at me as I tap the elevator call button.
“Hey, Carly,” I greet, giving her a salute.
She reaches into a green box on her cart and withdraws a pillow chocolate. “Rough night?” she asks, softly tossing the candy at me.
I easily catch it in my palm. “Why do you say that?” I ask.
“Because you look like shit,” she quips.
The elevator doors slide open and I step on. “Carly, Carly, Carly,” I tease, quickly tearing the blue and gold wrapper off my candy. “If you want to comfort me at night so badly, all you have to do is ask.”
Her head tilts in thought. “You know, I would…” she says, smirking, “but there’s just… a little something holding me back.”
“Oh, yeah? What’s that?”
“Standards.”
“Oof!” I pop the bit of chocolate into my mouth. “Struck out again, eh? Well, there’s always tomorrow.”
She wags a manicured paw at me. “In your dreams, benchwarmer.”
“Give it time, Mrs. Doubtfire.”
She glowers as the doors close on her face.
The elevator descends toward the lobby. I lean my back to the wall, softly chewing my chocolate as I shake off the playful rejection. Carly and I have gotten so good at that, I’ve practically lost all desire I might have had to sleep with her in the first place. I don’t think it’d be nearly as fun as I imagine and I run the risk of losing my free daily piece of chocolate. A man has his priorities, after all.
The lobby is quiet. Friday afternoons usually are, from what I remember of my time spent working at this place as a teenager with my brothers. But this place will be completely ablaze until Monday afternoon as soon as night falls and the weekend tourists check-in. There should be some fun to be had then. But, for
now…
It’s day-drinking solo time for Hayden Botsford.
I reach the hotel bar across the lobby and pause, squinting hard at the navy blue velvet rope blocking my path inside. I consider turning back and doing my day-drinking at the restaurant instead but I catch sight of Doc behind the bar across the room slicing a pile of limes. He’ll know what’s going on.
I pass over the rope and walk on into the empty bar. The tables aren’t scattered around like usual; they’ve been arranged into one solid group, which usually means a private party of some sort.
And a major damper in my plans.
“Hey, Doc,” I say as I park it on the first bar stool.
Doc looks up from his cutting board. “Hayden,” he says, smiling beneath a head of rough black hair. “What’s up, man?”
I bob my head in the direction of the tables. “What’s going on over there?” I ask.
“Oh. Some family reunion or something,” he says. “They rented out the whole bar for a few hours.”
“Lovely.” I groan. “When does that start?”
“About now.” He smirks. “You may have noticed the barrier meant to keep people out.”
“Yeah, I stepped over it.” I glance over his head at the television on the wall, thankfully tuned-in to the baseball game. “Can I get a vodka tonic, please?”
He laughs. “Fine. But just one, then you gotta get out of here.”
I throw up a scout’s honor and he puts his knife down. As he makes my drink, I watch the game, cracking a smile as Home Run Hunter slams yet another homer over the center field wall. What a show-off.
“Isn’t that your team playing today?” Doc asks.
I nod. “That it is.”
“Why are you here instead?”
“Knee injury,” I answer. “They put me on leave for the next fourteen games, so I’m stuck here until then.”
He sympathy cringes as he sets my drink down in front of me. “That sucks. I’m sorry.”
“But, hey, there’s always a bright side.” I pick up the glass, raising it high to salute him. “I get to hang out with my actual doctor for a while. Cheers.”
Doc chuckles. “This one’s on me, pal. Get well soon.”
“Thanks, Doc.” I wince at the game as the next batter strikes out.
“But, seriously, get out of here before the event committee lady comes back and chews me out for serving undesirables. Her word, not mine.”
I raise a brow. “Laney?”
“Karen.”
I cringe. “Say no more. I’ll be out of your hair once I’m done.”
Doc stares at me for a few seconds, then chortles. “You slept with her and never called, didn’t you?”
I hold up two fingers. “Twice.”
“Well done.”
“Thank you.”
He picks up his knife and resumes slicing his limes. “Have you been benched since the season started?”
“Yes,” I answer.
“Heck of a knee injury then.”
“It’s not so bad. Could be worse. A lot worse. I’m just so bored. Nothing I can do except sit around and heal.”
“Why don’t you just call up housekeeping?” he jokes. “As you do.”
“Ehh...” I swirl my drink. “My regular go-to got back together with her boyfriend. I mean, I’m sure she’d still be DTF but I’m a dick, not an asshole, you know what I mean?”
He nods. “Noble.”
“I just need to find a hobby. Something to keep me occupied while I recoup...” I say, squinting at the television again. Someone on the other team slams a ball directly at our second baseman, who slips and falls right on his ass as he tries to scoop it off the dirt. “Come on, Hunter! Get it together, man...” I scoff.
“Hey, if you’re looking for something to do, you could join the poker game tonight,” Doc suggests. “We meet every Friday downstairs. Sub-level 2.”
I shake my head. Piece of shit got to third base. “More of a blackjack man, actually...”
He shrugs. “Let me know if you change your mind. Thousand-dollar buy-in.”
I bite my cheek. Tempting. “Who’s we?”
“Me. Rian.” He pauses to think. “Fred, sometimes. Carly. Faye.”
I blink. “Faye joins the poker game?”
He nods. “That she does.”
“Head of housekeeping Faye? That Faye?”
“She’s not bad, either. Cleaned me out plenty of times.”
“Damn. Let me think about it.”
Doc gives me a thumbs up.
“Hey, hot guy.”
I turn on my stool to find a young woman standing down the bar a few feet away wearing a tight, midnight blue sundress and strappy, black heels. She’s looking right at me with determined eyes and a panicked scowl beneath a halo of strawberry blonde hair.
I glance over my shoulder, feigning ignorance. “Moi?” I ask her.
“Yeah, you.” She steps closer and lays her purse down on the counter next to my drink. “You want to make twenty bucks?”
I look at Doc and he slinks to the side to pretend to slice more limes.
The woman leans closer, her impatient eyes bouncing from me to the doorway across the bar as her sizable chest heaves up and down.
I tilt my head with curiosity and nod. “Yes, I do,” I answer.
“Okay...” She exhales hard and bobs her head behind us. “You see those three people across the lobby by the entrance?”
I shift discreetly, following her eyeline toward the three people standing in the lobby. “The old couple and the young dude?” I ask, clarifying.
“Right.” She nods, talking quickly. “The old people are my parents.”
“Okay...”
“The dude is Dylan McCoy.”
“Cool...”
“We hate Dylan McCoy,” she says. “A lot.”
“Why do we hate Dylan McCoy?”
“Because my mother is best friends with his mother and they’ve all been trying to set me up with him since junior high,” she answers, her voice dragging with annoyance.
I take another look at him. Slicked back brown hair. A pressed tan suit and shiny shoes. He’s dripping with wealth, as are her parents, yet this girl feels a tad more on the free-spirited side.
“He seems the tall, dark, and handsome sort,” I say with a shrug. “What’s the problem?”
“He’s boring!” Her face screws up. “Like, really, really boring. Discusses the friggin’ DOW at dinner parties boring.”
I wince. “You’re right. That is boring.”
“Thank you.”
“So, how do I get my twenty bucks?”
“Right.” She blinks, panic rising as her parents begin walking in our direction. “Every year, my mother drags Dylan along with her to our family reunion to try and coerce me into some creepy mating ritual.”
I frown. “Oh, so it’s your fault my day-drinking is about to come to an end.”
“It is. Sorry.” She holds up a hand. “But here’s the thing: I don’t want to spend the next few days dodging Dylan McCoy’s skeevy advances and the only way to do that is to pretend I have a serious boyfriend. He’s a bro code kind of guy. Won’t go near another man’s property. Quote-unquote, of course.”
I raise my glass, connecting the dots. “I see...”
“So... when they get over here, I need you to pretend to be my boyfriend,” she says. “I’ll introduce you guys, we’ll swoon over each other for a while—”
“Do I gotta stay all day?” I ask.
“No, you can excuse yourself at any time,” she says. “Say you’re happy to finally meet them but you’ve gotta get to work or some bullshit. You plant a goodbye kiss on my cheek and walk out of here with twenty extra bucks in your pocket. That should be enough to successfully get me through the next few days of my life. Sound good?”
I ponder silently, stretching the moment as her parents and beloved betrothed head in our direction.
She bounces with impatience. “Ple
ase.”
“I’ll let you know in a minute.”
“Help me, random hot guy,” she begs. “You’re my only hope.”
I grin. “The manipulation is strong with this one.”
Her head tilts; eyes big and wide like a damned lost puppy but I made up my mind the moment I saw those curves. She could have asked me to rub her feet for all I care.
“All right.” I nod. “I’ll do it.”
“Thank you.” She flips her purse open. “Thank you, thank you—”
“Penelope!”
I throw on a smile and turn around as her parents stall behind us. Dylan McCoy hangs back, his eyes landing on me with a stiff, territorial sneer. I guess Penelope here wasn’t kidding about that mating ritual part...
“Hi, Mom! Dad!” she pauses. “Dylan.”
“Hey, Pen,” he says, still sneering.
Her mother looks her up and down as Penelope leans in for a quick hug. She lowers her voice and says into Penelope’s ear, “Penelope, honey, this is a nice hotel. Not a brothel.”
Penelope’s face falls as her mother steps back.
I laugh loudly to turn the spotlight away from her. “You know, I told her the same thing, but if my Penny wants to shine, then she’s gonna shine. Am I right?”
Their eyes land on me with confusion, somehow just now noticing I’m even here. A sharp scowl fills her mother’s face and she purses her lips, taking in my admittedly casual jeans and t-shirt.
Her father clears his throat. “And you are...?”
Penelope entwines her arm with mine and I take her hand, giving it a firm squeeze while she casually slips money into my palm like a trained magician.
“Mom, Dad...” she says, “I’d like you to meet my boyfriend...”
Her voice fades off as she realizes she has no idea what my name is.
“Hayden,” I say.
“Hayden,” she repeats. “This is my boyfriend, Hayden. Hayden, these are my parents, Trey and Mary Lou Warren.”
The Bad Baller Collection Page 56
