by Roz Lee
She wasn’t a virgin, but she wouldn’t call herself well tutored in sexual matters either. She knew just enough to understand some women liked to be spanked, that it was an aphrodisiac for them. Apparently, she was one of them.
This morning, she’d woken, aroused and wiggling her ass in the air—something she’d been doing moments before in her dream while her imaginary lover brought his hand down on her bottom, over and over again. She’d been so damn horny, she’d reached for the vibrator in her nightstand to finish what her dream lover had started.
“Give me a sec.” Thankful she’d left her bag on the floor beside the desk, Tricia bent to retrieve it, taking her time before lifting it to the desk. All she needed was a few seconds for her face to return to normal. She had no idea how to explain the color heating her cheeks to Royce. Oh? You noticed the blush? It’s nothing. I was just wishing you would spank me.
Yeah, that would be professional. He’d report her to the Mustangs’ management, and she’d be gone in a heartbeat. There wouldn’t be another professional sports team who would touch her with a ten-foot cattle prod afterward.
Imagining the career-ending scenario turned her blood to ice, effectively putting a quick end to her erotic thoughts.
She dropped the bag on the desk then stood in order to get a better look at the contents. It didn’t take long to find the small box of adhesive pads and the plastic container filled with what she would forever think of as electronic sperm.
“Take your shirt off, please.” While he undressed, she found the page in her notebook where she had assigned numbers to each electrode frequency. Earlier, she’d used a marker to label the pad with corresponding numbers, all so she could keep track of what body part the data stream was coming from and match it against the baseline data. It wouldn’t do to get her wires crossed, so to speak.
When she turned around. The sight of his bare chest stole the breath from her lungs. “Wow.” She couldn’t take her eyes off the wide expanse of light-gold skin. The absence of hair didn’t make him look any less masculine, if anything, it made his shoulders appear wider and brought the definition in his abs front and center. She licked her lips, wanting to run her tongue along the deep valleys to scoop up the deliciousness of Royce Stryker.
“Like it?” He ran his hands over his hairless torso. “I haven’t been this smooth since I hit puberty. It feels good.”
His voice jolted her back to reality, and she realized she’d been staring openmouthed at him like an awestruck teenager.
“I don’t know how much trouble it’s going to be to keep it this way, but we’ll see. If I don’t like it after a month, I’ll just let it grow back. I tell you, I have a new appreciation for what women go through. I almost killed myself in the shower trying to shave my legs.”
An image of Royce, naked with soapy water following the contours of his body, formed in her mind and wouldn’t go away. Lord, what a sight that would be. “I hope you didn’t cut yourself. What with your aversion to blood….”
A shudder racked his body. “I cut myself a couple of times.” He raised his left leg, so he could point out a thin red line below his knee. “This one’s going to leave a scar, I think.”
She laughed at his theatrics. “If every little cut left a scar, there wouldn’t be an unblemished woman on the planet.”
“I might need stitches,” he said, in all seriousness. Another shudder rippled over his magnificent pectorals.
Before he could become any more melodramatic, Tricia peeled the backing off the first pad, adhering it just above his left nipple with a smack. “I don’t have a medical degree, but I predict you’ll live. Would you like me to have the team doctor take a look, just to make sure?”
“No.” He rubbed his chest where she’d all but slapped him. “What did you do that for?”
Four distinctive red marks indicated where her fingers had touched his skin. Once again, her mind shifted to her erotic dream the previous night. The marks on his chest were fading rapidly, but she didn’t think his handprints on her ass would disappear as quickly. No, she was certain, even after they eventually did fade into oblivion, they would remain in her memory for the rest of her life.
“Let’s focus on getting you ready to play today, okay?” She slapped another pad on his right pectoral with less enthusiasm than before. Nevertheless, she didn’t let her fingertips linger. Even through brief contact, his newly-revealed skin was smooth and incredibly warm to the touch. And tempting. “I don’t want team management complaining about you being late.”
The woman had no appreciation for what he’d been through. Hell, he could have died in the shower last night. The sight of blood streaming down his leg after he’d sliced himself had almost done him in. If he hadn’t grabbed hold of the handle on the back of the glass door and used it to steady himself while he collapsed against the wall, he might have broken his neck. Or bled to death. Luckily, clamping a washcloth over the wound had stopped the bleeding, or he would have been in big trouble.
But, he’d survived, and been more careful shaving his chest and arms over the sink. He’d rather clean up a mess than die in the shower.
Dr. Reed knelt at his feet in order to adhere pads to his legs. He glanced down, intrigued by the swell of her breasts visible down the front of her V-necked Mustangs shirt. Beneath the thin cotton, she wore a plain looking bra that lifted her assets up high, giving her cleavage he didn’t remember seeing the day before. He would have remembered. A guy didn’t forget creamy swells like hers, especially when the woman wasn’t deliberately doing anything to show them off. If she’d been blatant about it, he wouldn’t have given them a second look, but because she obviously didn’t know how tantalizing they looked from his angle, he couldn’t take his eyes off them. He flexed his hands, imagining how the feminine globes would feel.
Soft fingers slid beneath the hem of his shorts, lifting the fabric to expose his thigh. Already on the flight deck, his libido shot off the end of the runway into full-flight. Luckily, the woman causing all the commotion in his shorts was busy searching one-handed through the box of adhesive pads on the floor beside her. Royce stepped back.
Toppling forward, Tricia screeched, recovering her balance a split second before she would have face-planted on the floor.
Shit. His erection withered instantly. “I’m sorry.” He crouched to her level. “Are you okay?”
She sat back on her heels and glared at him. “I’m fine.” One hand rested on her thigh while she used the other to brush a lock of hair out of her face that had escaped her low ponytail. “Why did you move?”
He didn’t dare tell her the truth, but if they were going to do this every day for a month, hiding his natural reaction to her wasn’t going to be possible. It wasn’t like he could control that part of his body, not when she touched him like the way she was. Perhaps, if she had a clue…. “You…. I mean…your hand was….” He closed his eyes, searching for a way to tell her that didn’t make him sound like a pervert. Coming up empty, he opened his eyes.
She was looking at him as if he’d lost his mind, and maybe he had. This whole thing was insane anyway, so why sugarcoat it. He took a deep breath then let the words fly. “When you touched me, I got an erection.”
The stunned look on her face would have been comical if his job hadn’t been on the line. If she reported him for sexual harassment, he wouldn’t have to worry about getting his mojo back. Mustangs’ management would kick his ass to the parking lot in a heartbeat.
“But, I touched you yesterday.”
He could practically see the cogs turning inside her analytical brain as she worked out what he was saying. “Yesterday was different. Don’t ask me how, ’cause I can’t tell you. All I know is, when you slid your hand under my shorts…. It was a natural reaction.”
“I see.” She grabbed the two boxes on the floor containing her stuff and stood. “Well. I’ve got to put the electrodes on you.”
Royce stood his ground while she stared at him wi
th narrowed eyes. He held her gaze, refusing to let her see him sweat. Did she even know she held his fate in her hands?
“Take your shorts off.”
“What?!” Of all the things he imagined her saying, take it off wasn’t even on the list.
“It’s the shorts. Putting my hand inside your clothing is too intimate, so the solution is to take them off.”
“But….”
“You didn’t have the same reaction yesterday, did you?”
“Um.” He looked down at his feet.
“You did?” Her voice had raised a couple of octaves, enough to nearly pierce his eardrums.
He returned his gaze to hers. “It didn’t last long.” He’d had too much on his mind yesterday, what with the blood test and everything else she’d sprung on him. Sexual attraction had taken a backseat.
“I don’t believe this.” She fisted her hands on the curve of her hips. She looked furious and flummoxed, all at the same time, and damn if her reaction wasn’t sexy.
His cock stirred again. This time, he refused to shield his reaction. It wasn’t like she was the kid he’d first thought she was. She was a grown woman, a scientist no less. She knew the way of the world, and she had to know how men reacted to her. “What can I say? I’m a man, and you’re an attractive female.”
He thinks I’m attractive?
The thought warmed her from the inside out. She wrapped the feeling up with a mental ribbon to be examined later. She’d promised to have Royce ready in time for batting practice, and she wasn’t going to fail on her first day. Why can’t he act like nothing was wrong? Why did he have to bring his problem out into the open? As long as they both pretended not to notice then they wouldn’t have to address the issue. But, nooooo. Mr. Too Sexy to Ignore had to go and blow the lid off the proverbial pot.
Now, his lack of control was out there, so to speak, and they’d have to deal with it before they could move on.
The college kids she’d worked with had all the decency to pretend nothing was going on when they reacted to her touch. She’d expected reactions from the younger men, had braced herself to pretend she didn’t notice, but she’d expected someone of Royce’s age and experience to have better control over his desire. That he didn’t, thrilled her. Not that she wanted him to know how he affected her. She needed his complete cooperation, and if he got a whiff of her attraction to him, she’d lose whatever respect she might have garnered thus far.
“Look. All I’m saying is, yesterday, you seemed to deal with me touching you just fine. Maybe if you weren’t wearing so many clothes….”
One eyebrow rose on his handsome face. “That’s your theory? I’m wearing shorts?”
“It’s all I’ve got.” She drummed her fingers on the desk. “If you aren’t wearing clothes, I won’t be sticking my hands inside them.”
“Makes sense to me.”
She tried not to look. She really did. But from the moment he hooked his thumbs into the elastic waistband and began to push his shorts down, she became incapable of not looking. The first inch revealed a line of demarcation clearer than the Mason-Dixon Line between the shaved and au natural portions of his body. The shortened arrow disappeared beneath the briefest pair of briefs she’d ever seen. He turned just a fraction, and her breath caught in her lungs.
Holy crap! His ass was bare! “That’s a—”
“Jock strap,” he supplied as if there wasn’t anything but some elastic straps and a scrap of fabric between her and his genitals. She watched helplessly as he cupped his package, adjusting the mass to suit him.
His erection strained at the stretchy red fabric. As painful as she imagined his predicament to be, it couldn’t compare with what was going on inside her. Her breasts were heavy with need, her nipples aching to escape the confines of her practical cotton bra. Every nerve ending between her navel and her knees felt like they’d been hooked up to an electrical current.
Intellectually, she understood her response was instinctive. Women were hardwired to respond to the virile, alpha male, and no one fit the bill better than the man standing before her. As much as mankind wanted to pretend they’d risen above their baser instincts, the two of them were proof that nothing had changed since the dawn of man.
Intellect didn’t have a chance against primal instinct. She should write a paper on the subject, but doing so would set the women’s movement back several centuries and kill her respectability in the scientific world, so she’d keep her observations to herself.
Royce straightened, wadded his shorts into a ball, and tossed them NBA-style toward his duffle bag. “Two points!”
His exclamation snapped her out of her lust-fueled haze. Damn the man for looking the way he did. How was she supposed to function with him short-circuiting her nervous system? But function, she would. She had to. There was simply too much on the line to contemplate failure.
“Bravo.” She grabbed the last pad and peeled the backing away. “Think you can hold still while I finish up?” Not waiting for an answer, she slapped the final pad onto his left thigh. She was careful this time to make sure there was no skin to skin contact.
He jerked backwards, his hands coming around in a protective gesture. “Shit. You should warn a guy before you touch him there.”
Tricia grabbed a couple of wireless electrodes. How the hell she planned to work the tiny electrodes into the slots without making physical contact was going to be another thing. Attaching the flimsy wires required a delicate touch. The prototypes were too expensive to take chances with.
“Your manhood is safe.” As the lie tripped off her tongue, she gestured for him to come closer. Every minute they spent together, the safety of his manhood became more of an issue. “Come over here.” She pointed to the floor right in front of her.
Dropping his hands to his sides, he resumed his position in front of her.
Royce held his arms out wide, his gaze sweeping their length then down his torso to his feet. “I look like a prickly pear cactus.” Little wires stuck out of the pads attached to his body like cactus needles and looked just as dangerous. “How the hell am I supposed to wear my uniform, much less play baseball with all this crap on me?”
“The wires are flexible, but if you want, I can tape them down. Just the ends need to be exposed in order to transmit signals.”
Taping them meant she’d have no choice but to touch him. As much as he liked the idea, he didn’t know if he could take much more skin-to-skin contact. She was driving him out of his mind. Slowly. One touch at a time.
He never would have agreed to participate in this experiment if he’d known the process involved getting naked and standing still while the hottest scientist in the universe put her hands all over him.
Any other time, having her touch him wouldn’t be a problem. Hell, he’d give her directions a blind person could follow. But this? This was torture. Pure and simple. Royce fisted his hands in his hair and, with teeth clenched tight, he tugged hard on his scalp. The pain didn’t solve anything, but it did help him focus on something other than his dick. The wayward appendage had found a target and wasn’t going to give up on it easily. Still, time was running out. He needed to get his uniform on and get the hell out on the field before someone came searching for him. One last look confirmed his decision. “Tape them down. I can’t go out there looking like I had a run-in with a porcupine.”
“Okay. Hold out your hands, fingers spread.” She tore off strips of athletic tape, sticking them to the ends of his fingers. One by one, she peeled off a piece and used it to secure a wire. When she’d used all ten, she repeated the process. Hair or no hair, playing with crap stuck to his body wasn’t going to be fun. And taking it off at the end of the day was going to be hell.
Five minutes later, she stood back, hands on her hips, to admire her work. “All done. You can get dressed now.”
It was easier said than done, but Royce managed to get his uniform on over the experimental equipment. He was ready to head out the door wh
en she stopped him.
“Wait. Let me see if I’m getting a signal from all the receptors.”
He glanced at the clock mounted on the wall. “No time. You’ll have to do it while I stretch and take batting practice.” He was out the door before she opened her laptop. There was only so much a man could stand, and he’d reached his limit for the day. Hell, for the century.
“And I only have to do it twenty-nine more times,” he mumbled as he pushed through the locker room door and came face-to-face with the team captain, Jason Holder.
“Hey, man. Where ya been?”
If management hadn’t told the captain what was up, Royce damn sure wasn’t going to mention it. He let the lie roll off his tongue without thinking twice. “Training room. Coach thought it might help to get in some extra stretches before the game.”
Jason clapped him on the back. “Whatever works for you. If you’ve been stretching, then you’re probably ahead of the rest of us.” He pulled the door open. “Take your time.”
Royce sat down on the chair in front of his locker. Taped skin protested every move he made, but he managed to get his cleats on and grab his glove. Maybe once he got out on the field, had something else to occupy his mind, he’d forget about how uncomfortable he was. Like having a blister on your heel. It’s annoying and painful, but you have to walk, so you learn to live with it. Pleased with his reasoning, he slipped his hat on and went out to take some warm-up throws.
CHAPTER FIVE
As soon as the door closed behind Royce’s magnificent ass, Tricia sank into the desk chair. Her elbows came down on the desktop, her palms perfect supports for her head which seemed to weigh ten tons all of a sudden.
Royce Stryker was going to be the death of her. No doubt about it.
“This is only the second day,” she muttered. “I’ll never survive a month without losing my mind.” She squeezed her eyes shut at the same time she clenched her thighs together, seeking relief from the insistent throbbing in both places. Headache brought on by sexual frustration. That was one for the record books. Had any clinical studies been done on the subject? If not, she could start one. She already had a test subject—her.
