“This has nothing to do with him,” he said. The mention of Hudson made him crazy. Something shifted inside, some primal instinct coming to the fore.
“No, this is about you and me. You said to bear with you, and I believed you. I believe in you. But now I don’t know what you’re saying, and—”
Clearly, the only way to make her stop talking was to kiss her. He snatched her against him, one arm wrapped around her waist, bending her over. Her beautiful blue eyes went wide with shock. “My turn. You, Paige Mattingly, are the best, absolute best thing to ever happen to me. I love you. I love you like I didn’t know a person could love. You’re everything light and wonderful and real and perfect. I want you, I want to be whatever you need. I want to make you laugh and smile and moan and drop your clothes the second we’re alone. I want those things. I love you. But look at me. I’m an unemployed minor league washout with a juvenile record and a target on my back.”
But he didn’t get to finish all the reasons she shouldn’t be with him because she smiled that wide grin and nearly stopped his heart. “You love me?”
“I love you.” He staggered under his armload of sweet, passionate Paige.
“You love me?” Her face lit up with so much sheer delight that he couldn’t help laughing.
“Is that such a surprise? You’re fucking irresistible. You’re like catnip or pancakes or a cold longneck on a hot day.” He grinned, feeling as light as a long ball hitting the air currents.
She swatted him on the back of his head. “You can’t compare me to beer. That’s not romantic.”
“I’m a guy. You want to know what romance is to me?” Still holding her in place, plastered against him, he walked her back toward the bed. When he got there, he tossed her onto it. Her hair fanned across the beige bedspread in rich waves alive with glints of copper and bronze. “Romance is the way I want to strip you bare. I want to kiss every bit of your skin. Especially the parts that make you squeal. Romance is how I want to fuck you until you forget there ever existed any man but me. You’re mine, Paige. Everyone else can go to hell, because it’s you and me now. We’ll just have to figure out the rest.”
Paige’s heart felt like it would burst out of her throat and soar to the ceiling. Trevor was looking at her the way she’d always dreamed a man would—with complete and utter want. As if she was the only thing that mattered, or would ever matter, from now to forever. As if she was beautiful and absolutely necessary to his survival.
He kneeled on the bed next to her and wrapped his fist in her hair. His lids went to half-mast. “You know something, Paige? There’s no part of you that doesn’t feel perfect to me. I don’t know how you do it. It’s like you’re the only woman I can see anymore. The only woman I want to see. You’re like the sun blotting out all the other stars.”
“You’re crazy,” she whispered.
“Too bad. You can’t back out now. You’re with me, Paige. You’re mine, and I’m yours.” From the way he looked now, passion and devotion written in every line of his face, it was impossible to believe that anyone ever saw him as ice cold. His eyes weren’t crystal clear, the way she’d first seen them. Now they shone like the sun blazing through stained glass.
“Yes,” she whispered, knowing the word was just the last piece of the puzzle. She’d been his for some time. It had happened mysteriously, without her knowledge, but irrevocably. “For better or worse.”
A shadow fell across his face, and she kicked herself for ruining the mood. “I vow to you, Paige, that I’ll do everything in my power to keep my crap from hurting you.”
“You don’t get it, do you, Trevor? If it hurts you, it hurts me. We’re together in this. I want your dreams to be mine, and my dreams to be yours. Equals.” She touched his chest, traced her fingertips across the hard ridges that turned her on so much. Her mouth watered, and she lifted her eyes back to his, letting him see all the desire and need he inspired.
After that, he made love to her with single-minded intensity. He didn’t let her do a thing. Every time her hands fluttered to touch him, he firmly chained them together with one strong hand. He worked his fingers under her jeans, the tightness of the fabric adding an extra layer of pressure. When he felt her wetness—she’d been aroused since that first “I love you,” he made a sound like a snarl of satisfaction. Pulling off her jeans and soaked panties, he spread her open. After staring at her for so long that little prickles of anticipation skittered across her sex, he bent down and buried his face between her legs.
“Oh God,” she moaned, twining her legs behind his head. “That feels . . . oh my God, Trevor . . .”
It felt as if every stroke of his tongue, every flick of his teeth, every press of his fingers, was saying the same thing. I love you. I adore you. I live for your pleasure.
She came almost right away, unable to hold back the rolling tide of her climax. But that was just the beginning. When that talented tongue went to work on her nipples, maneuvering the fabric of her top across the sensitive tips, she reached a level of frantic she would have found embarrassing if Trevor wasn’t urging her on with hot words.
“Tell me how good that feels. Tell me what you want. You want my cock? You want it hard for you?”
“God, yes,” she gasped.
“Touch it.”
Reaching blindly toward his hips, she felt hot velvet against her fingers. Thick, so incredibly thick, hard and urgent, jumping beneath her feather strokes.
“You want that cock in your mouth?” It drove her wild when he talked dirty like that. In answer, she shifted her position, angling her mouth over his erection. She sucked him into her mouth, her throat, her very being, nearly mad with wanting him. With his big hands on the back of her head, he cradled her, adjusting her pace with his fingers. His panting breaths and murmured curses filled her world, the scent of his skin making her dizzy. She surrendered to the rhythm consuming her body and soul, made herself into a vehicle for his pleasure. She stroked his muscular ass as it flexed, let her fingers drift toward the soft sacs of flesh between his thighs.
So vulnerable, in the end. You need me, Trevor Stark. And I need you.
Just before he reached his peak, he pulled his erection from her mouth with a soft pop and spread her back open, flat on her back, legs wide. “I need to be inside you,” he muttered. “Now, before I fucking explode.”
“Yes,” she agreed, since nothing in the world could be better than that. He slipped on a condom and entered her inch by slow inch.
“I’m so hard right now, I don’t want to hurt you.”
“You won’t.” Her inner channel clung to him, the friction making her eyes roll back in her head.
“Oh my God,” he groaned. “Paige, you have no idea what you do to me.”
And the world fell open around them, wide and glorious and free.
Afterward, Trevor fetched a washcloth and carefully tended to both of them. Feeling fresh and deliciously cared for, she brushed a strand of gold hair away from his face.
“Crush wants to make you an offer,” she told him.
He frowned, and she felt a moment of regret that she had to bring reality back into things. “If he’s thinking I can be a coach or front office, no way. I’ll figure something out, I don’t need your dad trying to save my ass.”
“Honestly, I think he’s trying to save his, and you’re just a side benefit.”
He balled up the washcloth and took it into the bathroom. She drew her knees up to her chest and wrapped her arms around them. She knew Trevor had a prickly pride that didn’t allow him to accept help. But he’d just have to suck it up.
When he came back into the bedroom, she hit him with Crush’s proposal. “He wants to keep you on the Catfish through the end of the season and pay your salary himself.”
“What? That’s nuts. The Friars won’t go for that.”
“He already worked it out with them. They don’t have a problem with it, in fact they agreed to wait until the championship is over before releas
ing you. Crush is taking full responsibility for your performance on the field and off. He thinks that if you really show them something amazing, they’ll want you in San Diego for the playoffs.”
Trevor said nothing. He pulled on a pair of boxers, the honed muscles of his thighs moving smoothly under his gold-spangled skin. Why wasn’t he happier about this?
“If you’re worried that I’m tending to your life instead of my own, don’t. I just submitted five college applications and I’m already looking around at MSW programs. Masters in Social Work,” she explained.
“Social work?”
“Yes, I want to work as a counselor. I think I’d—”
“You’d be incredible. I think that’s the best idea I’ve ever heard.” He tumbled her back onto the bed, joy lighting up his face as he braced himself over her. “What can I do to help?”
She laughed up at him. “I’m sure I’ll think of something, but in the meantime, shouldn’t you worry about your own life, slugger?”
He smiled, nuzzling the soft side of her neck. “I deserve that.”
“Listen, if you take Crush up on his offer, you don’t have to leave baseball and you have a chance to get called up after all.”
Still nestled in the space between her neck and her shoulder, he moved his head in a way that could have been a nod or a shake.
“Is it hard for you to let Crush help you out? Because he really, really wants to win the Triple A championship. And he thinks you’re the key to that. He’s not doing this from any kind of charitable impulse. I don’t think he has those. He’s a competitive man who just wants to win. And of course he wants to keep the team.”
He straightened and sat back on his heels, his physical presence nearly overpowering in boxers and nothing else. “It’s not that. I . . .” He hesitated, swallowed.
“There’s something else, isn’t there? Something you’re not telling me?”
He curved his hand around her jaw, his thumb brushing against her bottom lip, his eyes a limpid, sober green. “Yes. And I still can’t tell you. But I love you. With all my heart. Will you trust me?”
Chapter 25
THE TRIPLE A National Championship game was a winner-take-all, one-game showdown between the International League and Pacific League champions. But before the Catfish could reach that game, they had to win the Pacific League playoffs. In order to do that, they first had to win the Pacific Conference. In order to reach the conference finals, they had to end the season at the top of the South Division.
No problem.
As of September 1, they were ahead of the Isotopes by five games and had clinched the South Division. The North Division champs were the Sacramento River Cats. That best-of-five series ended after a mere three games. The Kilby Catfish were on fire—the official Pacific Conference champions.
Next up, the Catfish would play the American Conference champions, the Omaha Storm Chasers, in a five-game series to determine the Pacific League champion. If the Catfish beat the Storm Chasers, then, and only then, would Crush have a chance at making good on his vow.
Most players saw the minor league playoff season as a showcase for their individual skills. It was scheduled in September so that any high-performing prospects could be called up to the parent major league team before the real show—the World Series—and the playoffs leading up to it. Everyone with any hope of a last-minute call-up wanted to make an impression.
Trevor’s head was in a very different place. Crush was paying his salary. But the Wades had a guillotine hanging over his neck.
Before the Catfish set out for Omaha, Dean Wade sent Trevor a command invitation to the Roadhouse. Before he went, he checked in with Nina. She was with Paige at Bullpen Ranch, where she’d been staying since she arrived in Kilby. She was playing squeaky mouse with Jerome, happy as a clam. Paige, she told him, was working on invitations to the fund-raiser.
With the reassurance that the two women he loved so fiercely were safe, he headed for the Roadhouse. He found Dean in a far corner, nursing a scotch and puffing on an electronic cigarette. The Wade patriarch ordered a vodka on the rocks, which was quickly placed before Trevor and promptly ignored. Trevor didn’t want this man’s liquor. Didn’t want anything to do with him.
But he didn’t necessarily have a choice.
“So . . . Catfish made the playoffs,” Dean started mildly enough.
“Yes. That’s to be expected. We had a good season. It might look strange if we crapped out now.”
“So you got a strategy going, is that what you’re saying?”
“You want it to look authentic, don’t you? People might get suspicious if we start losing all of a sudden, with no explanation.”
Trevor jiggled the tumbler, making the ice cubes clink together, desperately wishing he could toss the alcohol in Wade’s face.
Dean laughed, a wheezing bark that sounded like it was being choked out of a squeaky toy. “You ever want a job outside of baseball, you come find me, okay? We can always use a cool head like you.”
A cool head. Well, he supposed it was a compliment, but he was tired of being “cool” or “ice man” or anything on the colder end of the spectrum. When it came to Paige, his sister, or baseball, his feelings didn’t run cool at all. “I’ll keep that in mind, assuming I make it through the season in one piece. Is that it?”
“Not yet. One more thing. Just wanted to let you know that we’ve made contact with Stan Wachowski. Just an initial meet-and-greet, you might say. We asked him if he had a photo of Trevor Leonov, in case we ever ran across him. They sent this.”
Dean turned his phone and flashed him a photo. With a shock, Trevor saw his thinner, sixteen-year-old self, facedown on a folding table. The blistered, blackened lines of a W were seared across his naked back, his arms dangling limply off the table. The photo had been taken after he passed out from the pain. Only the Wachowskis could have taken it. There was no doubt—the Wades had made contact with the syndicate.
Trevor fought not to show his gut-churning reaction. “You don’t know who you’re messing around with, Wade. If that photo proves anything, it’s that you should keep those people out of Kilby.”
“I’m not afraid of a branding iron. I got about ten of ’em back at the ranch. Are you getting the picture, slugger?”
Trevor got it, all right. He was more fucked than ever. “I have the situation handled,” he said brusquely. “It’s got to look natural, so you have to let things play out.”
“You better not be playing us, Stark.”
Trevor pushed his drink away and stood up. “Just out of curiosity, why do you want to buy the Catfish so bad? You’re not a baseball fan. What’s in it for you?”
“Ain’t your worry. We got plans, and they don’t involve steak dinners every time someone hits a homer. The team’s a relic. The stadium ain’t bad. Could be useful. The land, now . . . that’s a sweet piece of property.” Wade grimaced, his long nose giving him the look of a gargoyle. “Not saying one way or the other what we’d do with the Catfish. Kilby’s our town. We do what we want.”
Sickened to his core, Trevor strode away from the man. In the scheme of things, the ownership of the Kilby Catfish didn’t rank as high as Nina’s safety or his future with Paige. But the idea of the Wades getting their slimy hands on the team revolted him. They might disband the Catfish and turn the stadium into “Wadeland,” for all he knew. Why this should bother him, he wasn’t sure. But it did. It was baseball, the Catfish were a part of baseball, and baseball was a part of him.
On his way out the door he texted Dwight. All good. TY for the backup. I’ll explain everything later.
You better. Is he ready for his special delivery?
Give me a minute to get on the road. Wish I could see his face, but better not.
But he knew perfectly well what the rest of the Roadhouse patrons would be seeing. He passed the delivery truck on his way out of the parking lot and chuckled out loud. In a minute, several delivery men bearing coolers would parade
to the bar.
“Delivery for Dean Wade,” they would announce. “Special gift from Crush Taylor and the Catfish.” Then they’d open the coolers and display the fresh-caught catfish on their beds of ice. Then they’d march back outside and place those catfish in carefully arranged letters on the hood of the Wades’ mint-condition Chevrolet. F.U., those letters would read.
One of those crazy Catfish pranks. Business as usual for the notoriously fun-loving team.
But none of this was fun for Trevor. The Wades had his balls in a vise. He couldn’t see any way out.
Game One of the Pacific League championship, featuring the Kilby Catfish versus the Omaha Storm Chasers, would take place on September 13 in the beautiful city of Omaha, Nebraska. Even though local fans got excited if their team made the playoffs, the games rarely got much mention on the national news.
This year, with Crush throwing the weight of his legendary reputation behind the Catfish’s prospects, things were different. People were talking about the series, and not only in Omaha and Kilby. ESPN planned to broadcast the games—tape-delayed at two in the morning, but still a first. Crush’s vow and the team’s performance since then, along with Trevor’s “scandal,” got written up in Sports Illustrated and was a hot topic on various baseball forums. If he weren’t Crush Taylor, the “Playboy Pitcher,” no one would have cared. But Crush knew how to work the media. He even managed to up the ante at the press conference Mayor Trent held to talk about Kilby’s historic moment in the championship spotlight.
The entire team watched the press conference from the visiting clubhouse in Omaha. With the two of them—the blow-dried mayor and the lanky former pitcher—standing before the assembled reporters, Crush threw down the gauntlet.
“If Kilby wins, I’ll donate twenty thousand dollars to the Save Our Slugs fund.”
“If Kilby loses?” a reporter asked.
“If Kilby loses, which is not going to happen, Mayor Trent agrees to console me by going out to dinner with me.” He sent a wink in her direction.
Drive You Wild: A Love Between the Bases Novel Page 25
