Play Hard

by V. K. Sykes

  “I’m open to commitment. If and when it’s right,” he said. “I’ve been with my share of women. A few relationships lasted a while, most didn’t. Sometimes I was the one who ended it, sometimes she did.” He gave a little shrug. “Sometimes you’re the windshield, sometimes you’re the bug.”

  She laughed. He liked the sound of it. It was warm and genuine, and damn sexy.

  “I can’t imagine you as the bug,” she said.

  “Sure you can. It happens to all of us. But not once since my married years have I felt like I wanted to spend the rest of my life with the person in question. Because that’s what I think marriage has to be—forever. I don’t want to experiment with marriage. I tried that once, and once was more than enough.”

  She blinked, as if he’d startled her, but remained silent. He was beginning to wonder if that was her interviewing technique. It was pretty effective, at least on him. And he suspected that only complete honesty on his part would allay her doubts and convince her to trust him. Maddie obviously had a fairly powerful bullshit detector to go along with what he sensed was an ingrained tendency to protect herself.

  “It’s hard to put into words,” he continued in a quiet voice. “But I’m pretty sure that if and when I meet that person, I’ll know she’s the one. I’ll know she’s the woman I want by my side for the rest of my life.”

  Maddie’s gaze locked with his, focused and intense.

  “And I will ask that woman to marry me,” he added, tapping his finger on the table for emphasis. “But unless that feeling comes, I’m not going to pretend that any relationship is more than a passing thing.”

  * * *

  Silence dropped between them as Maddie’s dazzled brain scrambled to respond to Jake’s pronouncement. The interview was confirming everything she’d already sensed about him. Jake Miller was most definitely not your average sex-god athlete, shallow as a kiddie pool. He was a complicated man and that fact, combined with his overpowering masculinity and easy charm, made him dangerously appealing. Her emotions had been see-sawing before she’d even arrived at the restaurant, and the last few hours had tilted them like a pinball machine. Jake was shaping up to be the most interesting, attractive man she’d met in—well, forever, and she hadn’t a clue how to deal with it. She was torn between feeling completely out of her depth and being wildly excited about scooping such a fantastic interview with one of baseball’s biggest stars. Jake Miller had never given an interview like this.

  He studied her calmly as she chewed on her lower lip, trying to figure out what to ask next. Be a pro, Maddie. Go for it.

  She resisted the impulse to suck in a nervous breath. “That’s certainly forthcoming of you, Jake. Let me take this one more step. Do you believe that when it happens for you, it will be love at first sight? Or does the feeling you’re talking about take time to grow? And how exactly will you know?”

  She held herself calm and still, ignoring the trickle of perspiration snaking its way down her spine.

  His brows arched with evident amusement. “I do believe there can be some kind of love at first sight. You know how physical bodies can powerfully interact with each other? Like the earth and the moon, an attraction so strong that it pulls the oceans back and forth every day. Or like two chemicals in a container, exploding spontaneously if the conditions are right. I guess if those kinds of interactions can occur in nature, then why can’t two people have a powerful pull on each other that they can’t entirely explain?”

  Jake unleashed one of his trademark smiles, one so seductively compelling that Maddie’s brain crashed into a mini-meltdown.

  “Ah, why not indeed?” she answered lamely.

  His eyes laughed back at her. “People use the word chemistry all the time, and it does make sense to me. Chemistry is more than just a physical attraction. Chemistry can be the attraction of spirits—or souls—too.”

  He gave her a sheepish, self-conscious smile as he finished, as if this wasn’t the kind of thing a big, tough ballplayer was supposed to be saying to a woman. But that made him even more appealing, and her stupid heart started thumping erratically.

  Yep, Maddie believed in chemistry, all right. There was enough chemical reaction going on between them right now to blow up the world’s biggest science lab.

  But it was all getting too intense, too out of her control. And she hated feeling out of control, despite the mischievous little voice in her head whispering that Jake might be worth it. But she had already taken plenty of risks agreeing to the interview in the first place, and that fact in itself shot her alarm gauges into the red zone. Slowly but surely, she was inching toward a line she shouldn’t cross, no matter how tempting.

  But what a temptation it was!

  Forcing herself to imagine the consequences of discovery, she steered the conversation back to baseball. “Being a hometown boy, what kind of pressure did you feel as a twenty-one year old when the Patriots thrust you into a starting role in the middle of your rookie season?”

  * * *

  Jake had no choice but to go with the flow when Maddie abandoned her line of personal questions. He’d wanted to keep it on that track, hoping that the intimate discussion would help lead to something physical, sooner rather than later. Clearly, though, something had spooked her and she’d again retreated to a standard line of questioning. And he had to be realistic. She had a job to do, and given what a pro she was, he wouldn’t have expected anything else.

  The next half hour passed quickly, with Maddie probing more deeply into what Jake thought about his career and his injuries, and about the fact that he’d recently had to settle for a salary cut and a one-year contract extension. Didn’t it bother him that the combination of getting older and getting injured meant losing the top tier status he used to enjoy?

  He waved an impatient hand. “The truth is I’ve never cared about the star label. In fact, I’ve never really cared a whole lot about the money, either. Maybe that’s going to be hard for your readers to believe, but I grew up with small town values that weren’t about how much you made and how much stuff you could manage to own.”

  Her smile was so politely skeptical that he had to laugh. He leaned over and refilled her wine glass before continuing.

  “When I signed those two multi-million dollar contracts in my twenties, I didn’t change much about the way I lived,” he said. “I didn’t see the point, and still don’t. I like my life as it is, and I don’t envy guys with huge houses and garages full of expensive cars and stupid toys. That’s just more crap to take care of, and there are a lot better uses for that kind of money.”

  She smiled and seemed to relax a bit, her slender fingers curled loosely around her wine glass. “Okay, I know you live a lifestyle that’s modest compared to other players in your position. But can you be more specific? You told me earlier you help out your parents and put aside funds to put your nieces and nephews through college, but you’ve made a pretty big fortune over your career. What else do you do with your money, if I may ask?”

  Jake shifted in his seat. How he used his obscenely high salary—even after the cut in pay—wasn’t something he felt comfortable talking about. He viewed it as very private territory, and nobody’s business but his own. He even liked to keep most of his donations anonymous, so why should he blab anything out to her?

  But a couple of seconds later, he sighed and mentally capitulated, ruefully acknowledging how much he wanted to impress her. God, he was an idiot. “I work with a lot of different charities, Maddie, but I don’t talk about it much. I don’t want to be seen as a big hero just because I can donate chunks of money to good causes.”

  She frowned. “But why not? It sounds pretty heroic to me.”

  “Giving money is easy. I meet people all the time who don’t have a lot of money, but they give incredible amounts of their time and really put their hearts into helping people. That’s way more difficult than what I do.”

  “Give me an example of what you’re talking about,” she ge
ntly urged.

  “One really important group for me is the Alzheimer’s Society. I’ve got a friend back home whose mother suffered with it for at least ten years before she died. It was terrible for the whole family—an unbelievably sad story. But my friend refused to put his mom in a nursing home until the very end. He and his sister, and his dad, did everything they could to keep her with them in the family home. When they finally had to institutionalize her, it just about killed them, even though they found a great facility. So, a couple of years ago I was asked to sit on the board of the Minnesota Alzheimer’s Society, and I jumped at the chance. I try to work in quite a few fundraising activities for them every year.”

  He paused, startled at the change in her. Her lush mouth had thinned into a straight line, and her complexion had paled. What the hell had he said?

  “Are you okay, Maddie?”

  She gave a surprising little shiver, but then collected herself. “Just someone walking over my grave, I guess. Go on, please. Why don’t you tell me about some of the projects you get involved in? You don’t have to necessarily give me the names of the charities. Just talk about the kind of things that attract your interest.”

  He rambled on for several minutes about stuff he was currently involved with, but he could tell she wasn’t focused. And she’d started fiddling with the tape recorder buttons again. Obviously something he’d said had upset her. That look was back in her eyes—the same one that had been there earlier when she’d been talking about her dad.

  Jake found himself wishing like hell that he could make it go away.

  * * *

  Maddie suspected she was nodding like a bobble-head doll as she tried to focus on the interview. What Jake had to say about his charity work would normally interest her, but their discussion about Alzheimer’s had caught her unprepared. It cut way too close to home, and she couldn’t seem to regain full control.

  In fact, the whole damn interview had catapulted too many repressed emotions to the surface, and now she had to struggle to keep from letting them show. She hated that she might be coming off as an unprofessional, ditzy female and part of her regretted meeting Jake in the first place. Her instincts had been correct—the man posed a danger to her, and not just to her professional standing with the team.

  It took Maddie a few seconds to register that a heavy silence had fallen between them. When Jake reached over to take her hand, his big one engulfing her much smaller one, she flinched with surprise.

  Frowning, he pulled back. “I’m sorry, Maddie. I didn’t mean to upset you. Are you all right?”

  She stared at him, suddenly wishing his hand still rested on top of hers. The warmth of his fingers, the touch of his rough, calloused palm, had felt good. Shockingly good. Even worse, she wished he would scoop her up and hold her against him, offering her the sheltering strength of his body.

  Clearly, she was losing her mind.

  A wry smile shaped his lips. “Okay, not talking works, too. But why don’t we get out of here? I think we both could use some air. How about a walk down to the ocean? After that we can hail cabs or go over to that hotel down the street. They have a cab line out front.”

  She jerked into speech. “Oh, right. Good. Yes, that sounds good.”

  Lovely. Now she was babbling. The poor guy must think she was an idiot.

  Struggling to regain her composure, she returned his smile. “Getting a few minutes of fresh air would be great. I’m satisfied with what I have for the column, so, thank you for your frankness, Jake. Thanks for everything.”

  He smiled as he caught the waiter’s eye and made a “bring the check” motion with his hand.

  Maddie fussed with the recorder, stowing it away in her bag as she waited for her erratic heartbeat to settle. Jake’s simple, gentle touch had set off a buzzing sensation along her nerves and just under her skin. She needed a walk. She needed to get outside and put some distance between them before she did or said something really stupid.

  Jake was exerting a powerful, almost irresistible draw on her, and that scared her half to death. Despite the fact that he wasn’t the type of guy who played the field, she knew he had to be doing just that right now. No way in hell would Jake Miller get serious about a woman like her, and everything in Maddie revolted at the idea that she could become just another notch on his bedpost. Maybe he could handle a casual affair or a one-night stand, but she knew for a fact that she never could.

  Especially with a man she could fall for in an instant, and when such a lapse could cost her everything she’d worked so hard to achieve.

  Chapter Five

  The fresh sea air carried a chill as they strolled up Prospect and then down toward the ocean. Maddie wore a light shawl of some gauzy material around her shoulders, but Jake could tell by the way she clutched it to her body that she was getting cold. Taking off his jacket, he offered it to her with a mock-gallant gesture. She hesitated for a moment before accepting it with a nod of thanks. Once she had it on, she looked down at herself, her eyes widening. The jacket swallowed her, coming nearly down to her knees, the sleeves reaching several inches below the tips of her fingers. She started to laugh, and Jake couldn’t help joining in.

  “God, I must look like a six-year-old wearing her daddy’s jacket on Halloween,” she said. “There’s enough material in here for a whole new wardrobe.”

  She was the farthest thing from a little kid he could imagine, and her sweet laugh utterly captivated him. Maddie had the whole package. Girl-next-door wholesomeness and lots of smarts packaged in a scorching hot body sure to give any red-blooded male a permanent hard-on. The more time he spent in her company, the more Jake hungered to wrap his arms around her and not let go for a very long time.

  And the release of tension after the jittery ending to their interview eased the awkwardness between them.

  “Hey, Jake,” Maddie said with a shy smile, “Do me a favor, would you? Let’s move under that light over there. You can stand next to me and I’ll try to capture the moment, as they say, with my cell phone. I’d like to have it as a memento of a very unusual evening. And whenever I need a good laugh, I can pull it up for reminders.”

  He liked that she wanted a reminder of their evening together, one of the first of many, he was beginning to hope. “Sure thing.”

  Maddie extracted her phone from her bag as Jake moved in beside her, sliding his arm around her waist. She made no move to pull away or protest. Instead, she even inched a bit closer as she held the phone in front of her, trying to maneuver it at full arms-length to catch them both in the shot. Jake tried to be subtle, tightening his arm around her waist as she moved the phone up and down, squinting at the tiny screen. Damn, he liked the way she felt against him.

  She finally shook her head, blowing out an exasperated breath. “I can’t get enough of us in the picture. I either cut off your head or everything below my neck. Here, you try it. With those gorilla arms, you should be able to get a lot more of us in the frame.”

  “Gorilla, huh? You sure know how to make a guy feel good, Maddie.”

  She gave a delicate little snort of laughter as he took the phone and held it out in front of them. He squeezed the camera key several times, hoping that one of the shots would do the trick. When he finished, Maddie retrieved the phone and peered at the small screen, tilting it under the light of the streetlamp for a better view. Her face lit up with fiendish glee, and she broke into laugher again.

  The sexy sound of her laugh, the delight on her gorgeous face made him want to tip up her determined little chin and devour her with hot, endless kisses. Christ, she intoxicated him, and he couldn’t remember the last time a woman had done that. But was it too soon? Was she feeling anything like the hot rush of energy that coursed through his body? He didn’t know her well enough yet to read her, but every cell in his body urged him to find out the answer to that question.

  As her laughter subsided into giggles, he acted on the impulse. He gently turned her toward him, tilted her chin up
with a finger, and leaned into the kiss. Her eyes grew wide with surprise and her mouth parted in a slight gasp. A split-second before their lips touched, Maddie’s hands flew up to his shoulders, holding him off.

  “Jake, I’m sorry, but I can’t.” She backed out of his loose embrace, looking confused and flustered. “We both know we can’t let this happen. Please, let’s just walk, okay?” She ducked her head down and lifted a hand to her cheek as she turned and began walking again.

  With spiraling frustration—and an ache in his groin he’d remember for a long time—Jake nodded, and they started walking down the hill without saying another word. When they reached the pier, both remained quiet and stared, side-by-side, out toward the sea and the tiny lights of one ship, miles off in the distance. Her face remained hidden in the shadows, denying his attempts to read her expression.

  Nice going, asshole. Following his instincts had definitely not paid off in this case. He sensed that he had scared her pretty thoroughly.

  Finally Maddie turned, and the lights from a nearby apartment building illuminated her face. She shrugged her shoulders, looking awkward as hell. “I’m sorry, Jake. Please don’t be angry. And don’t get me wrong, because I’m very flattered. Actually, the truth is that I’m blown away by the fact that you seem interested in me.”

  He frowned. “I don’t know why you would be, Maddie. You’re an amazing woman.”

  She ducked her head, looking shy. “And you’re an unbelievably attractive man. And if we weren’t who we are….” Her voice trailed off and she turned back toward the sea as if to collect her thoughts. He decided to give her some space.

  “You know,” she finally said, sounding brisk, “getting involved with me wouldn’t do your career any good, but at least a brief hook-up with me wouldn’t actually hurt you.”