“They’re not going to keep you in Triple A forever. You have a monster contract. What then?”
He turned away from her, rubbing the back of his neck, the flex of muscle in his forearm reminding her of the panorama on his back. “The more time that passes, the better. People die off in that world. Eventually they’ll forget about me and my family.”
God, it all made so much sense. Trevor’s past, his fear, his protectiveness, the behavior that drove Crush nuts. He wasn’t disrespecting baseball—he was trying to shield his family. “Just tell Crush, Trevor. Tell him what’s really going on.”
He was across the room before she could say another word, strong hands gripping her upper arms. “No, Paige. You have to promise. I told you all this in strict confidence. You’re the only one I’ve ever told. Literally, ever. You can’t tell. It’s not safe for Nina. You gotta promise me.”
“But Trevor, you shouldn’t have to carry this alone. It’s not fair. What about you, your baseball career, your life?”
He spoke in a low, tight growl. “Fuck all of that. This is my life. It’s the way it has to be. I’d do anything for Nina. I would have quit baseball because of the risk, but she wouldn’t let me. Would you do any different if you were in my shoes?”
She swallowed hard around the tightness in her throat. What would she do if she had to face such a terrifying situation? Again she remembered the harsh scars on his back, the way he’d made that brand into his own. The scar on his cheek. “Maybe not,” she whispered. A tear spilled from her eye; she felt its soft tickle on her cheek. Then another. She didn’t try to hide them, not that she could, the way he was holding her.
He watched her cry for him, everything about him softening with each tear. His grip loosened, his tense posture eased, the lines of his face relaxed into something like awe. After a few long moments he lifted one hand and used his thumb to wipe a tear off her cheekbone. She grabbed his wrist, keeping it right where it was, next to her face. He extended his fingers to cradle her jaw, his hold as tender as it was firm.
“You’re so beautiful,” he whispered. “I can hardly stand it.”
She smiled through the tears that kept falling. “Says Baseball’s Hottest Outfield.”
“None of that now. I’m talking about you.” His thumb brushed over the skin of her cheekbone, his gaze traveled across her features as if noting every freckle and eyelash. “The way your eyes dance when you smile. The way you catch the light, wherever it is. You’re always shining. Even now, in this crappy hotel room, tears on your face, all the light in the room is on you. Everything else might as well not be here.”
Her breath snagged in her chest. Never in her life would she have expected such poetic words from stone-faced Trevor Stark.
“Trevor,” she whispered. “I—”
“Don’t say anything. Just let me . . .” He trailed off, words disappearing into breath, breath disappearing into the press of his lips against hers. It felt like the softest kiss in the world, like an inevitability, two paths crossing right where they were supposed to. They kissed long and deep, every barrier between them evaporating like mist under the morning sun. His touch turned her body into a river of fluid sensation, everything in her wanting to soften, to welcome, to surrender.
“We shouldn’t—” He began.
“Don’t.” With a fierce kiss, she plucked the words from the air between them, swallowed them before they could shatter their fragile new connection. “You’re not alone in this, Trevor. Not anymore.”
She tilted her hips forward, seeking his erection. Under the denim of his jeans, it pressed against her thigh, hot and demanding. Sensation hot in her belly, she swayed toward him. She wanted him hard against her, surrounding her, cradling her the way he had after the carjacking. She wanted him inside her, his strength and power pouring into her. She wanted him in her mouth, in her hands, against her tongue. She wanted him now, all night, again and again.
But he was still fighting with his conscience; she felt his silent struggle for control. Hot desire battling against the urge to protect her.
“Please,” she whispered. “Stay with me, Trevor.” She closed her eyes, put his hand on her breast, over her heart, praying that her aroused nipple and catapulting heartbeat would do her talking for her.
In the darkness behind her eyelids, she saw a vision of the first time she’d laid eyes on Trevor, striding across the parking lot, powerful but so terribly alone, until that other dark figure had approached him.
You couldn’t escape fate, whether in the form of a man with a BB gun or a troubled slugger.
She felt the exact moment when he gave in, when he surrendered to the desire vibrating between them. He swept her flat against him so there was no room for breath, no room for doubt. “If we do this, you gotta know a few things,” he muttered in her ear. “I can’t make any promises. I don’t lie, and I don’t say things I can’t stand behind. I’ve never felt the way I do with you, but I don’t want to hurt you, and—”
To shut him up, she plastered her mouth against his, throwing her body against him with so much force that anyone with less sheer strength would have stumbled backward. But he received her weight as if she were a tumbleweed, cradling her against his hard chest, those powerful hands gripping the flesh of her rear.
He spun her around so the back of her legs touched the side of the bed, then she was airborne, suddenly weightless, an armful of cotton fluff secured in the muscular circle of his embrace.
Next thing she knew, she was on her back on the bed, a Trevor she’d never seen braced over her. This Trevor was wild, with fever-bright eyes that promised unimaginable things. The heat from his body seared everywhere he touched, even through her clothing. She twisted her body against him, laughing out loud because it felt so amazing, so beyond anything normal.
“Laugh it up, Paige. You’ll be screaming before you know it.” With a growl, he nuzzled his face against her neck. He nudged her legs apart with one knee, and she nearly came just from that. Her dress rode up to her thighs. He drew a possessive hand up the inside of her leg, the roughness of his palm lighting up her skin like fireworks. If he reached her mound, he’d find her already wet and open. But he didn’t get that far, only to the edge of her panties.
He looked down. She knew what he saw: red silk. Selected to state her intentions loud and clear.
“Damn,” he swore softly. With that one word, dripping with lust and awe, all the feminine pride Hudson had stolen from her came rushing back. Doubled, tripled, because this was Trevor Stark. And Trevor had a hold on her heart and imagination no one had ever had.
From the restraint that vibrated in his forearms, she knew what he intended. Some kind of slow seduction, taking his time arousing her with his mouth and touch. That’s not what she had in mind. Oh no.
She wrapped her legs around his hips and thrust her pelvis against his. His erection was hard as a club behind his jeans. Sensation beat hot and fast in the place between her legs—the current center of her world. Wildfire flooded her system, need thundering like a timpani. She rubbed against him, the throbbing in her clit now an electric feverish craving.
“What are you doing?” He groaned painfully, a man in the throes of battling temptation. “I can’t last if you do that. You’re going to make me—”
“I want you to fuck me.” Her rawness shocked her. That wasn’t how nice-girl Paige talked. She didn’t say things like that. At least not until now. “I don’t want slow. I want fast and hard. Come on, Trevor. Do it. You want it just like I do. Touch me.”
She snaked a hand between them, working her way past his pants to take hold of his hard penis. It filled her hand with its thick urgency. God, how she wanted him.
With a groan, he pulled her hand away from his cock. He joined both her hands together over her head, pinning them to the bedspread.
She peeked up at him. Had she ever thought he was icy and distant? Not this man, with his fierce electric gaze and hot mouth. Words were pouring out
of him now, just as dirty as hers had been. “I want you hot and wild for me, baby. I want your sweet little body spread out naked and begging. Keep your hands up there and open your legs for me, baby.”
She spread her legs apart, gasping at how it made her feel to do that—exposing herself, surrendering, giving in to him. He sat back on his heels and ran one big palm up one thigh, across her crotch, then down the inner thigh. The silk against her sex turned the caress into a maddening tease. She sobbed and pushed wordlessly toward his hand again. More, she wanted to say. I need more.
But he knew what she meant. Right now, in this moment, he owned her and he knew it.
Slowly, torturously, he dragged his hand back between her legs, taking his time as he reached her clit. He used one knuckle to circle that nest of nerves, to pull a deep moan from the very pit of her stomach. She panted, lungs heaving, about to burst.
He pushed her dress up as far as it would go, then dragged her panties down to her knees. The look on his face, all-consuming and feral, nearly sent her over the edge again.
“God, you’re fucking gorgeous.”
“Please, Trevor. Touch me.” She lifted her hips, need vibrating in every nerve ending.
“You’re such a hot thing,” he murmured. He ran his hands from the undersides of her breasts down her torso to her hips. She writhed under his touch. So rough and tender. So knowing.
His touch was everything.
When he reached between her legs to the wetness crying out for him, she released a whimper. “Oh please . . .”
“Don’t worry, sweetheart. I got you.” His deep, lust-roughened voice worked on her like another hand, like another set of fingers playing havoc with her nerves. He cupped her mound—oh God, she wanted to cry from the piercing pleasure. The inside of his wrist pushed against her clit, his fingers tangled in her soft curls. He tugged lightly. Lightning sizzled through her system. But the edge of everything was still out there . . . out of reach . . . taunting . . .
“Oh fuck,” she moaned, hips thrashing. “I can’t . . . I can’t . . .”
“I told you not to worry,” he reminded her, his tone drenched in stern command. A rush of pure emotion made her body relax.
“I won’t,” she whispered. “Just . . . just . . .”
“Just what? This?” He stroked a thumb across her clit. “I feel you swelling for me. Plumping up nice and full. Let it go, sweetheart . . . let it go . . .” He pressed and circled, creating delirious friction between his callused thumb and her own hot juices. “Come for me, Paige. I want to see you come. Don’t hold back. Come on.”
With his palm still hot against her clit, he inserted two big fingers inside her, the extra pressure releasing a deep flood of heat. It carried her up, up, higher and higher, a wave transporting her into a wide starry sky and hurling her to the wind. And then it broke into a cascade of shuddering release. She lost track of where she was and what she was doing, barely seeing Trevor’s head bent intently over her, his hand holding her firm, anchoring her to the bed.
When she was still pulsing from that climax, trying to catch her breath and retrieve her sanity, he snatched a condom from his bedside table and worked it over his rock-hard erection. “How can you be so fucking hot when you look so innocent?”
“I don’t know what you mean.” She heaved in a lungful of air, but there was no getting her pulse back to normal. It kept skipping and jumping all over the place. Trevor poised his body over hers. The lamplight caught the little golden hairs peppering his thighs. Fascinated, she stroked the front of his thighs, amazed at their honed, sculpted hardness. They seemed to have more muscles than other men’s thighs, even though she knew that couldn’t be anatomically true. His muscles were just more obvious, more defined. Like iron turned to warm flesh.
Between his thighs reared his penis, straight and true and wanting her. She touched it too, feeling the heat burning through the clear latex. “I got tested after I found out about Nessa,” she said. “I’m fine.”
“I always use a condom. I won’t put you at risk. I can at least promise you that.”
For a moment the magical connection she felt to him wavered. That word “always” made her think of all the other women he’d done this with. Was she just another woman to him, was this just another situation requiring a condom?
But when he pushed his erection into the soft opening between her legs, none of that mattered anymore. The only thing that mattered was the way he swelled inside her, the way he filled her, inch by glorious inch, until there was absolutely no extra room for anything resembling a doubt or a second thought or any sensation other than pleasure.
“Paige” he whispered as he moved with aching control within her. “Beautiful Paige.” He flexed his hips, going deeper inside her. Flutters danced along her inner channel, along her spine, down to her fingertips. She closed her eyes because the sight of him was just too overwhelming. She could look or she could feel, but not both. And right now she wanted feeling. She wanted him driving deep. She wanted his shudders, his restraint. His abandon. And then a wild, intoxicating explosion. This orgasm was different from the first. Deeper. It was a thorough surrender of her being to the powerful man who shook in her arms.
The man who was claiming her heart, bit by bit.
Chapter 16
WHAT HAD HE just done? He’d had sex with Paige Taylor, after vowing to stay away from her. What was wrong with him? Sex with the owner’s daughter, the girl who knew things about him no one else did. Worse, it had been even better than he’d imagined—wild and uninhibited and electrifying. Fucking terrifying.
Trevor didn’t want to face any of those facts, so he lay on his back on his impersonal bed in his rented motel room and pretended to sleep. He manufactured a slight snore, which masked the rapid beating of his heart. Did any of it fool Paige? He didn’t know, but he didn’t want her to stop twining her finger through the hair on his chest. So he didn’t move, like a coward.
Eventually Paige’s breathing evened out. Then he lay still as a statue, every muscle screaming at him to get up. To get away from the clean apple fragrance of her hair as it draped over his arm, the soft feather weight of her hand still on his chest.
He couldn’t do this. This wasn’t him. He didn’t know how to do this. Whatever it was. And now she was asleep and what the hell was he supposed to do next?
When Paige woke up, he’d tell her this had been a major mistake and the smartest thing would be to move on as if it had never happened.
He always offered women exactly the same deal. His intense sexuality in exchange for absolutely no emotion. That’s who he was. Made of ice, except when he let his sexual drive off the leash. He’d let himself detonate in the body of a consenting woman, someone who wanted it hard and furious and didn’t mind walking away when it was over. Because that’s all there was to Trevor Stark. Ice or fire. Nothing in between.
But now Paige was draped over him like a blanket of living silk, and the wires in his brain were cross-firing and sparking like crazy. What was this? Who was he? What now? How could he get the hell out without hurting the kindest, hottest, smartest, wildest girl he’d ever laid hands on?
With his thoughts still churning, he fell asleep. When he woke up, the lamp was on, his cock was in her mouth and pleasure was flooding his veins. “What are you—”
She lifted her head, all pink moist lips and sleepy sapphire eyes. “I couldn’t find any more condoms, so I had to improvise. I didn’t think you’d mind, but I can stop.”
He groaned deeply and spread his arms wide to the sides. “If you stop I might explode.”
“I like it when you explode.” She smiled wickedly and ducked her head back to his cock. Her tongue passed across the tip, slow and thorough, as if she was experiencing each pulse of pleasure right along with him. As if she could see inside him and feel exactly what he felt.
He fumbled for the train of thought he’d been following when he fell asleep. Something about this being a mistake and . . . �
�I think . . . uh . . .”
She sucked him deeper into her mouth and his words dried up to dust.
“Don’t think.” His cock had slid from her mouth as she raised her head to speak. He wanted to cry. “Isn’t that what you do at the plate? Swing the bat, don’t think?”
“I think. Up until I can’t think anymore because there’s a fastball coming at my head. Then I let it all go.” Yeah, thinking was way overrated. “Come on, baby. Put me back in your mouth.”
All his resolutions forgotten, he drew her head back to his cock. He kept his grip loose around her head, suggesting a rhythm with his hips and hands. She picked it up immediately, her thick hair tumbling over his thighs as her head bobbed up and down, her warm mouth a moving velvet sheath around his cock.
“Oh fuck, honey. That feels so goddamn mother—” More swear words clamored to get out, but he clamped his jaws shut, his body tensing like an archer’s bow.
Pressure built in the base of his spine, in his balls, release screaming toward him like a bullet train, and it was either going to happen in her mouth or in her sweet, tight channel, and he had to be back inside her . . . had to be . . .
He flipped her over in a motion so quick she squeaked. With his hard-on jutting in front of him like some sort of flagpole, he fumbled for his last condom, which, he remembered now, had fallen behind the nightstand.
“Hang tight,” he told her, scooting past her to grab it. He brushed against the wire of the lamp, which was plugged into an outlet on the back wall. The lamp teetered.
“Watch out!” Paige scrambled out from under him and reached up to stop the lamp from falling on his head. Except that in the meantime he had twisted to look at it and his chin intercepted the path of her hand. She knocked him in the jaw at the same moment that the lamp bonked him on the head.
“Ow.”
“Oops,” she said simultaneously. “Are you okay?”
He tried to wrestle the lamp off his head, but the shade had gotten lodged there, somehow, and the cord was getting in the way, and . . . he burst out laughing. It was just too ridiculous, and now Paige was laughing too, on her heels trying to juggle with the lamp. It crashed to the floor, the cord yanked from the outlet. Out went the light, and there they were, giggling like two kids in the dark.
Drive You Wild: A Love Between the Bases Novel Page 16
