by K. Bromberg
“Second best to Doc Dalton isn’t a bad place to be. I learned everything I know from the man. I assure you, he’s the last person I want to let down, and therefore, you’re the beneficiary of that fear . . . so. . .” I quirk my brows. “Lucky you.”
“Lucky me,” he murmurs but still doesn’t move. “The problem is I still don’t know shit about you, and yet you’re standing there ready to work on my arm.”
“What do you want to know?” I’m getting impatient. Another day, another round of bullshit and once again, time is wasting away. But at least he listened and is asking me and not snooping around.
“What were your stats in the Major Leagues?”
“What?”
“I asked your stats. Errors. On base percentage. Batting average. Fielding percentage. You know, statistics.”
“I know what statistics are,” I respond dryly.
“But if you’ve never played in the Majors, how is it you know how my arm’s supposed to feel so that you can get it back to one hundred percent?”
He’s neglecting the fact that no other trainer has played in the Major Leauges either . . . but I have a better way to shut him up. “Have you ever been a woman?”
“What?” It’s his turn to be surprised by an unexpected question. “Of course not. I’ve got plenty of proof that I’m a man?”
I roll my eyes, half-expecting him to grab his crotch and equally relieved that he doesn’t. “Well, if you’ve never been a woman, how is it you know how to please one in bed? How do you know if you’re hitting the right spot? Getting her off?”
He fights back the bark of a laugh, but eventually lets it escape as he just shakes his head at me. “Touché,” he repeats my words back to me.
“If you’re going to bust my chops, Wylder, you should know that I can give as good as I get.”
“Point taken. But since you’re the one singlehandedly charged with busting my balls in rehab over the next three months, you’ve gotta admit, it was a valid question.”
“It was,” I concede, “but it’s your job to talk to me, tell me how it feels, where it hurts, and when it feels good, so I can make it better.” An unexpectedly shy smile slides on his lips when he gets the correlation between what I asked about how to please a woman and my answer.
“Just like sex.”
“Perhaps.” I smile; it’s all I can do as heat flushes my cheeks and the room around us becomes too small for him and this innuendo-laced conversation. “Some men have all the tools in the world, but if they don’t know how to use them, they’re useless. It’s the same with my job. You’ve gotta know how to use your skills, and I assure you, I do. So, if the I-don’t-trust-you-because-you-have-a-vagina-card has been exhausted, can we get started?” I point to the table behind him as he chuckles, and then I begin to adjust the machine.
“You drive a hard bargain, Kitty.” He sits down and pulls off his shirt, discarding it to right of him.
“You ain’t seen nothing yet.”
On behalf of 1001 Dark Nights,
Liz Berry and M.J. Rose would like to thank ~
Steve Berry
Doug Scofield
Kim Guidroz
Jillian Stein
InkSlinger PR
Dan Slater
Asha Hossain
Chris Graham
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Dylan Stockton
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and Simon Lipskar
Table of Contents
Book Description
Prologue
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
