Drive You Wild: A Love Between the Bases Novel

by Jennifer Bernard

  “More,” he ordered. “Harder.”

  She squeezed harder, rolling her nipples slightly. Her eyes fell halfway shut, and she tilted her chest toward him, as if chasing the sensation.

  “Is that material rough, sweetheart? Does it feel good?”

  She nodded, as if afraid to spoil the mood by speaking.

  “Show me. Lift your top. Show me your nipples.”

  Face flaming, she did as he asked, revealing nipples so aroused they’d turned a deep, brick red. They trembled slightly as her breasts moved with her rapid breaths. Her torso was slim and long, breasts proud and perfect. Arousal swelled his cock. “You’re so beautiful, Paige. Take off your shirt. The rest of your clothes too.”

  She made a show out of it, undulating her upper body and wiggling her hips until he wanted to throw her down, the tease. Not yet. First he wanted to bring her to an orgasm she’d never forget.

  When she was completely naked, he said, “Lean back against that saddle. I want to see your skin against it.”

  “Like this?” She posed provocatively against the dark leather with its whipped seams. She was a vision, her skin smooth as milk, her light sprinkling of freckles glowing like gold flakes, her erect nipples so dark they looked bronzed. She spread her legs hip width apart, just enough so he saw the pout of moisture deep in her soft brown curls.

  His mouth watered, his tongue moving in hungry anticipation. He gripped his cock again, felt it pulse against his palm. Not your turn yet. He gave it a hard pull, a promise of what was to come, then approached the naked woman posed before him.

  “Well?” She asked, a little cheeky, a little nervous. “Are you going to ride me, big boy?”

  In answer, he dragged two fingers along the seam of her sex, feeling her delicious plump clit warm under his touch. Her head fell back against the saddle. The perfect arch from chin to clavicle was exactly as he’d imagined. He traced it with his tongue while he gathered her soft nether curls in his fist, tugging, claiming. She pushed against his hand, making him aware of how outrageously wet she was.

  “You want to come?” He tugged at her mound, finding her clit with his thumb.

  “Oh my God, yes.”

  “Then stay still. Spread your legs farther apart.”

  He could barely wait to taste that liquid honey, the living essence of her arousal. He dropped to his knees, reaching up to fill his palms with her breasts. Closing his fingers, nipples pressed between them, he pulled a deep spasm from her. She arched her back, pushed her breasts into his hands. When Paige wanted something, she was fierce about it. And she wanted to come, every quiver of her body screamed it.

  Bending his head to her mound, he brushed his face against her curls, inhaling the scent of aroused woman.

  “You’re going to come in my mouth,” he told her. “I want to feel your sweet little clit swell up against my tongue.”

  “Fine. Please. Just do it.”

  “Close your eyes.” He didn’t want to shock her with what he was about to do.

  When her eyes had drifted shut, he reached for one of the riding crops hanging from pegs on the wall. A slightly curving black pole with a soft swish of suede fringe at the end. Slowly, he drew the hard tip across the seam of her sex, ending with the drag of fringe across her clit. She gasped, her inner thighs trembling. When he withdrew the crop, the end was slick with moisture.

  “What was that?” she asked, voice shaking.

  “Did it feel good?”

  “Yes. A little scary, but good.”

  “I’m not going to hurt you. I just want to make it good.” He stroked his tongue where the crop had gone, placing his own warm flesh where the hard ebony had traveled. He knew the contrast would make her crazy.

  “Again,” she gasped. “That feels amazing.”

  He did it again, alternating the hard stroke of the crop with the wet drag of tongue. This time he pushed the thumb of his other hand inside her, and explored the crevice of her ass with his fingers. He wanted her off balance, utterly focused on him and what he was doing to her. The room was completely quiet, the only sound her soft quick breaths and the swish of suede on her skin. The smell of sex hung around them, heavy and arousing.

  “Trevor, I can’t . . .” She shuddered, her body straining for release. “Please.”

  “I want you to come into my mouth. Hard. You hear?”

  “Yes. Yes, I hear. Please.” Her head turned from side to side, frantic, her hair damp with sweat. God, she was sexy.

  He stroked her with his hand now, the rough calluses adding even more stimulation. “Do you know what I’m famous for in hitting?”

  “What?” Her voice rose to that frantic, impatient level when she started ordering him around. He loved it when she got like that. “You’re talking about baseball? Now?”

  “I’m famous . . .” He touched his tongue to her clit, then withdrew. “. . . for working the count as deep as possible. Every time. Drawing it out. Making contact. Making the pitchers work for it.”

  She released a sob of frustration. “Don’t you mean toying with them like a cat with a mouse? Just . . . just . . . hit a grounder or something. I don’t care.”

  He laughed. “Why hit a grounder when you can swing for the stars?” He buried his face between her legs, lapping up the sweet juices, chasing each tremble and swell.

  “Does that analogy include a . . . an orgasm?”

  He smiled against her sex. Saucy Paige. Her legs were shaking, so he draped them over his shoulders. He settled her ass in his hands, right where he could control her movements. She wanted more friction, but he drew it out as long as he could manage, reveling in the scent and feel of her intimate self. When her gasps came closer and louder, her movements more desperate, he vibrated his tongue hard and fast against her clit, exactly how he knew she craved it. She came hard, her wails rising to the ceiling. She thrashed against the saddle, pressing her heels into his back. Her creamy juices drenched his mouth. Paige orgasming was the hottest thing he’d ever seen, and his cock rose heavy between his legs.

  While she was still shaking from that climax, he turned her around, bent her over with her hands on the saddle, and slipped on a condom with clumsy, overexcited hands. He parted her thighs and buried his aching cock into her hot flesh. Her channel was still quivering from her orgasm. Good. She was about to have another one.

  He took a moment to calm himself, shaping the globes of her ass, stroking the smooth curves. Then he gripped her harder and levered his hips against her rear while pulling her tight against him. “Come for me again, Paige. Do it.” He drove into her with steady, powerful strokes, a hammering rhythm that made her pussy clench tight like a fist. They were perfect together, hot and slippery and wild and . . .

  With a cry, she crested, her body strung taut between the saddle and his hips. He followed in a wild explosion of pleasure.

  Shaking, Paige straightened, though her legs could barely hold her up. She gripped the saddle horn for support. “Okay, now I really feel like a rag doll,” she murmured.

  “Well, you’re not. Believe me, I wouldn’t be feeling this way about a rag doll.”

  Feeling what way? She waited for him to say more, but he clammed up. An awkward silence fell between them. As if they’d gone so deep neither knew what to say about it.

  With fortunate timing, Jerome meowed loudly from the other side of the door. She turned the key and allowed him in. Tail held high, swinging his head to take in the scene with his one eye, he stalked in like some sort of hall monitor come to investigate misbehavior. “Make way for the real Ragdoll,” Paige announced, winning a smile from Trevor.

  Whew. Jerome had a way of showing up at the perfect moment.

  Trevor bent over to pull on his jeans. With sweat gleaming on his rippling stomach, arm muscles flexing as he tugged at the denim, it was almost impossible to look away from him. She reached for her clothes as well. The memory of how quickly she’d shed them made heat stain her cheeks. She stepped into her panties and
shorts.

  “Listen . . . I’m sorry about the newspaper article. I left you a few messages, then I got distracted looking for Jerome. Are you okay?”

  He fastened his jeans, his expression settling back into the usual unreadable mask. “I’m fine. Shit happens.”

  “Yeah, and unfortunately the Internet makes it spread so much faster.”

  “Internet?” He swung his head toward her with a look of shock. The hawk on his back rippled with his movements. “I thought the article was just in the local paper.”

  She bit her lip. “It got picked up by several online sports publications. I’m sorry, I assumed you knew. It wouldn’t be getting so much attention if not for the Baseball’s Hottest Outfield campaign. And then there’s the reputation of the Catfish, all the parties and brawls and pranks and so forth. Marcia’s been calling me. She’s afraid Crush is going to blame her.”

  “Crush knows where to put the blame.” A muscle ticked in his jaw.

  Her heart sank. Trevor and Crush must have already faced off over the article. She put a hand on his forearm. “Is there anything I can do?”

  He looked down at the floor, where his bare feet glowed pale against the stained floorboards. His boots lay halfway across the room, and he went to retrieve them. “Would you like to spend the night with me?” he asked her. “Takeout and some DVD’s might hit the spot. No sports shows.”

  Of all the things he could have suggested, that invitation surprised her the most. It sounded so . . . normal. “I’d like that, but I promised to help Crush tonight. He finally took my advice and asked the gorgeous mayor over for dinner. I told him I’d cook. I was in the middle of chopping vegetables when I realized Jerome was missing. Do you want to stay here and help me?”

  “Trust me, Crush doesn’t want me around right now.” He shook his head and bent down to pull on his boots. The sight of his big-knuckled hands on the leather of his Timberlands made her blood hum.

  “Where did you learn to do that? With the riding crop?” The question slipped out before she could help it, and she instantly flushed. “I’m sorry. I don’t mean . . . you’re just . . . I’ve never . . .” She trailed off, since she couldn’t think of any way to fix it.

  “It doesn’t matter.” Trevor pulled his bootlaces tight. “That’s all in the past.”

  She turned away from him. Maybe she didn’t want to know anyway. It was bad enough knowing that Hudson was now married to another woman. She didn’t need to torture herself over Trevor too. Obviously he was experienced. Expert, even. He’d pulled reactions from her body that she didn’t know were possible.

  “Hey,” Trevor said gently, stopping her hand as she reached for the doorknob. “Don’t go there.”

  “I’m just letting poor Jerome out.”

  “Not that.” The stern, perfect lines of his face had softened, his eyes a tender, warm peridot instead of their usual crystalline shade. “Don’t think about the past. As far as I’m concerned, there wasn’t anyone before you.”

  Confusion flashed through her. What was he saying? But then his phone buzzed and the moment passed, leaving her to speculate about every possible interpretation of his words.

  Chapter 19

  TREVOR TOOK OFF shortly after that phone call. He wouldn’t say anything about it, but when she asked if there’d been any repercussions from the direction of Detroit, he reassured her that nothing like that had surfaced.

  Paige went back to her dinner preps. She’d even gone to the embarrassing extent of looking up some of Nessa Brindisi’s recipes online. Say what you would about the woman, she knew how to cook.

  She’d found a good chicken pot pie recipe that looked doable, but now she didn’t have time to bake anything. Thank Trevor and his talented hands, mouth, body, etcetera, for that. Every time she thought about their session in the tack room, she went hot and liquid inside. How long had they been in there, lost in that feverish dream world together? She’d completely lost track of time and everything else.

  Luckily, she could blame the delay on Jerome’s disappearance.

  Instead of making pot pie, she fried the chicken, added the vegetables she’d already cut up, and scattered pieces of pie crust on top of the whole thing.

  “Chicken cobbler,” she told her father and Mayor Trent when she presented it to them with a flourish. “My own recipe.” Take that, Nessa Brindisi.

  “I’ve never heard of chicken cobbler.” The mayor—who insisted Paige call her Wendy—smiled with only a tiny trace of skepticism.

  Paige liked her.

  Clearly, Crush did too, since he kept reaching for his root beer as if forgetting that it wasn’t alcohol. She knew her father; she’d seen him get married twice, and date dozens and dozens of women. When he actually liked someone, he got very nervous. The lack of liquor probably made it worse.

  Before he even took a bite, he managed to knock his fork off the table. Jerome, filled with an unusual amount of energy since his disappearing act, raced after it. Wendy reached down for it and got a handful of fur instead. She shrieked, which frightened Jerome. The cat scrambled away from her and clawed his way to safety, which, in his one-eyed confusion, he thought would be Crush’s pants leg.

  Crush huffed and shoved away from the table, lifting his leg with Jerome still clinging to it.

  “I’m so sorry. I’ll take him away.” Paige rushed forward to collect her panicked cat. He didn’t even do the boneless thing, that’s how freaked out he was. “Do you need anything else, Dad?”

  “No,” he said firmly. “I think we can take it from here.”

  “Thank you very much, Paige.” Wendy smiled at her. She looked different without her usual helmet of hair. She’d left it soft and loose around her shoulders and looked about ten years younger. Her deep green tunic top and black slacks gave her a relaxed, sexy look. Crush appreciated the change, judging by the way he sent the silverware flying. “It’s really nice of you to make such a lovely meal for us. Isn’t it strange that a man can reach retirement age and not know how to cook?”

  “Now wait one chicken-frying second,” Crush said. “Just because I retired from baseball doesn’t mean I’m ‘retirement age.’ I’m still young and impressively vigorous.”

  Wendy raised an eyebrow, as if daring him to prove it.

  “Ahem.” Paige cleared her throat while backing out of the room. “I’m still here. Please don’t use words like vigorous.”

  Neither one of them looked at her. Maybe Crush had chosen his vocabulary well. Energy crackled between him and Wendy.

  “I’m leaving now. I’ll be upstairs if you need anything.”

  Still no reaction from the two.

  “I think you broke the ice,” Paige whispered in Jerome’s twitching ear. “Nice job.”

  Back in her room, she settled Jerome into his cat bed, then checked her computer. She’d been monitoring the news reports all day, checking for updates on the article about Trevor. Marcia had called her first thing in the morning, asking her to do whatever damage control needed to be done on the club’s social media accounts.

  Even though it had torn her away from her fund-raiser organizing, she’d spent the day answering comments and e-mails, repeating the same basic statements. Trevor Stark’s record as a juvenile has no bearing on his performance on the baseball field today . . . The Friars organization stands behind Trevor Stark . . . No, this isn’t a reflection on Crush Taylor’s fitness to be a minor league team owner . . . No, we have not seen the newest “Can the Catfish” petition . . . The Catfish are focused on winning the Triple A National Baseball Championship for the wonderful Kilby fans who have stuck with the team through the years.

  Earlier, she’d sent an e-mail to the legal department asking why his juvenile record had been made public. Finally an answer arrived.

  Looks like his records were hacked. The police department has notified us that MacPhail has some computer experience but hasn’t admitted any involvement. They don’t know how he knew to hack Wayne County, since S
tark uses a different name now. But it wouldn’t be too difficult to find out, since he went through a legal name change and those records are all public.

  She worried at her thumbnail, wondering how she should pursue this further without setting off any alarm bells. Was Tom MacPhail working with someone, or for someone? Had he made contact with anyone else, say, from Detroit? Was this an isolated action by a jealous boyfriend or something more sinister?

  Out of curiosity, she Googled “Detroit gangs” and looked for something with a W, since that was the emblem burned onto Trevor’s back. One recent article surfaced about a shipment of pharmaceuticals that had been carjacked and stolen. The Wachowski syndicate was suspected, but no solid evidence had been uncovered. Alarms were being sounded about the security of deliveries of pharmaceuticals. A task force was being formed and a crackdown was under way.

  A search for the name Wachowski found many, many references to the creators of the Matrix movies. Narrowing it down to Detroit, she found several mentions of the growing menace of this particular gang. One news story from seven years earlier mentioned that a high-ranking member of the Wachowski family, Dinar, was found in a local pharmacy with his head bashed in. He was in critical condition but expected to survive. Although there were no witnesses, a minor had confessed to the attack. Drug involvement was suspected.

  Seeing it there on her computer screen in black and white gave her chills. The news article matched what Trevor had said. She could picture the scene, the man lying on the floor of the pharmacy, blood seeping from his head. Trevor standing over him with a baseball bat. What had happened to Dinar Wachowski? Was he still alive? How bad was his brain damage?

  She did another quick search for “Dinar Wachowski,” but found no more mentions after that particular one. Did that mean he’d left the gang? Died? Lost all brain function?

  Didn’t matter. He deserved whatever bad thing happened to him. She just wished there was a way to relieve Trevor of his worry about retribution.

  Then again, maybe he had good reason to worry. What did she know about this sort of thing?