by Jen Doyle
He closed his eyes and tried to sleep himself, but it was pretty much useless and he decided to take a shower instead. He was dressed and contemplating what to make Dorie for breakfast when he realized that he hadn’t left the keys to the Porsche at the desk.
“Damn it.” The thing he’d specifically come back to Chicago for and he’d forgotten entirely.
He slammed the refrigerator door and turned. And almost had a coronary as he took an involuntary step back. Holy shit. “Courtney.”
“Hi, baby,” she said, walking toward him. She didn’t seem angry. He didn’t think that was a good thing.
“Uh, hi,” he answered instinctively. And then asked, “What are you doing here?” when his brain caught up. The last time he’d seen her was a few days after the crash. She’d come into his hospital room, told him her assistant had found him a place to live and was having his stuff moved out of their town house that day. That was it. If she thought she was having a come-to-Jesus talk with him now she was seriously mistaken.
His eyes slid over to the pass-through. He was so busy looking for escape routes that he didn’t see the glint in her eye until she was right in front of him. “I was thinking...” she said, slowly unbuttoning her coat. Shrugging it off slowly and revealing lingerie underneath.
Jesus. “Are you kidding?” he asked, amazed at how evenly he managed, given she was now standing there in nothing but black lace—complete with stockings, garters and stiletto heels.
A flash of irritation flitted through her eyes, but it was gone by the time she wrapped her arms around his neck. “I should think it’s obvious that I’m not.” She started to brush her lips over his jaw.
He quickly disentangled her arms and set her away from himself. Looking down, he felt oddly unaffected. She was beautiful, yes. With her deep blue eyes and ash-blond hair up in a twist, she had a Grace Kelly vibe about her—with the body of a Victoria’s Secret model and the mouth of a porn star. Yet he felt nothing, not even as she trailed her hand down his chest. He figured that might have something to do with the fact that he’d been having sex for the better part of the past twenty-four hours, and that Dorie had pretty much...
Well, shit. And now he was hard again. Just at the thought of her name. “Fuck,” he muttered.
“Well that’s what I’m trying to do,” Courtney said, exasperated, “but it’s taking you a while to cooperate.”
Before he could stop her she reached down the front of his pants. “So,” she continued as if they hadn’t broken up badly two months before. “I think we made a mistake.”
He was trying to figure out how to tell her that she wasn’t actually the woman he was hard for when her words hit him. He grabbed her hand and removed it, then took her by the waist and set her away—again. “We?”
She looked up at him for a minute, considering her response. Which, apparently, was to go for the buttons instead. She jutted her chest forward, making sure that the skin spilling out over the cups of her bra brushed his arms. “Yes, Nate. We. We’re two incredibly intelligent—and ridiculously attractive—people. We make more sense together than we do apart.”
“Then maybe you shouldn’t have fucked my best friend,” he replied, vehemently, as he latched on to her wrist and attempted to—
“Um, hi. Hello.”
Courtney’s head whipped around at the same speed as Nate’s did. Shit. Well at least Courtney’s hand was no longer down his pants. But when he started to step away, she just grabbed the waistband and held on.
Without acknowledging him at all, Dorie came into the kitchen, her hand out to introduce herself to Courtney—just as she’d done with Pete last night. Except then she happened to notice where Courtney’s hand was and she stopped short. Her face went a little pale and she jerked her hand back. “Right. Never mind.”
Eyes traveling from Nate to Dorie and then back again, Courtney seemed amused. “Who’s this?”
Afraid to make any sudden moves, Nate very carefully made the introductions. “Dorie, Courtney. And, uh, vice versa.” Christ.
Completely unconcerned that she was standing in nothing but very skimpy underwear, Courtney gave Dorie the kind of up and down once-over that, Nate had seen firsthand, had grown men quaking. Dorie, however, seemed entirely unperturbed.
Not only unperturbed, she actually smiled and said, “Wow. You are beautiful. Seriously beautiful.”
Honestly? That was her response? Not even a little hint of jealousy?
And not because of the beautiful thing, which Courtney was. But Dorie was, too. And he was coming to realize that what he’d had with Courtney was an alliance, whereas what he had with Dorie was...
Goddamn it. It was nothing right now because she refused to believe otherwise.
He got it. He really did. If he hadn’t had something to compare it to, he probably would have felt the same way she did. But, shit, at the very least, he would have given it a chance.
Aw, fuck.
No, if the places were reversed, he probably wouldn’t have. But now that he recognized it, he wasn’t about to let it go.
“So,” Dorie said, coughing a little to clear her throat. “Does anyone want breakfast?”
“Courtney isn’t staying,” he said to Dorie, glaring. Then he turned his glare to Courtney. “She’s leaving as soon as I get her the keys.”
“What?” Courtney snapped. “You can’t seriously...” She looked back at Dorie with a combination of disbelief and disdain. “She’s just the rebound girl.”
Nate didn’t even look over to see Dorie’s reaction. He didn’t doubt that was one of the things she was telling herself.
“I’m entirely serious,” he answered, looking directly into Courtney’s eyes.
She stepped back, her gaze never leaving his even as her eyes widened. This thing with Dorie was different; something he’d never felt with Courtney. Having them both here in the same room only drove home that point. And Courtney wasn’t an idiot. She was, in fact, one of the smartest women Nate knew. The flicker of emotion in her eyes as the understanding came over her was the first sign he’d ever seen that what she felt for him might actually be something close to love.
Dorie, on the other hand, just narrowed her eyes, then rolled them. She came all the way into the kitchen and brushed by both of them on her way to the fridge, where she opened the door and took out the orange juice. “Listen to her, Nate. You make a lot of sense together.”
A lot more than we do, she didn’t add, though it was clearly in her voice. Even Courtney gave a little snort at that.
He reached into the cabinet and handed Dorie a glass. “Really?”
Not at all happy to have been shut out of, well, everything, Courtney straightened out her coat with a loud snap and put it back on. While buttoning it up, she said, “We have some things to discuss. I’m free for dinner tomorrow night.”
Whatever was going through Dorie’s head right now—and Nate was aware he wasn’t coming off in a favorable light—she wasn’t about to let Courtney call the shots, which was...interesting.
“Uh-uh,” she snapped, probably something Courtney had never in her life heard. “You can catch up when pitchers and catchers report. That’s when he goes back to his old life.”
Pitchers and catchers. Less than three weeks. “Good to know,” he murmured.
Dorie frowned, realizing she’d just given him her end date. He didn’t like it, but now he knew. Realizing Courtney had no idea what they were talking about, he added, “February thirteenth.” And he was going to make every minute count.
“Fine.” Courtney pulled her gloves on with a snap. “And just leave the keys at the desk. I’ll have someone pick them up.” Then she whirled around and walked out. The door slammed shut a few seconds later.
“Well,” Dorie said at that point. She raised her eyebrows, drained her glas
s, and then put it in the sink. “Beautiful. Seriously.”
Nate opened his mouth to respond, but she held up her hand and said, “Don’t.” She grabbed the edge of the counter. Not meeting his eyes, she said, “I don’t play games, not like that. And I’m not about to be a pawn in yours.”
No. He stepped toward her, stopping only because she went rigidly still as he got close. “You’re not a pawn,” he answered, wanting so badly to take her into his arms, yet knowing that was the exact wrong move. “I want to make you my damn queen.”
When her head came up, there were tears glistening in her eyes and for once she didn’t deny what he said. It just turned out that had been the wrong move, too.
“But that’s the problem, Nate. I don’t want to be the queen of your world. I want to be the king of mine.”
Well, shit. She’d rendered him speechless for, possibly, the first time in his entire life. Or, actually, not the first time, since she’d tied up his tongue that first night, too. Goddamn he was fucked.
She mistook his silence for capitulation. “See?” she said, smiling despite the sadness in her eyes. “It’s so much easier if it’s just about sex.”
“It’s not—” he started to say, but she cut him off by peeling off her shirt—no bra—and dropping it.
“The really...” she said, lowering the PJ pants—cotton panties again, neon pink—and stepping out of them.
“...good...”
She kicked them to the side.
“...sex.”
Nate let out the breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding. “I know what you’re doing,” he said, trying to take the high road as she hitched herself onto the counter. “We’re not done talking.”
With an evil smile, she merely grabbed hold of his shirt and pulled him to her.
His brain went fuzzy as his dick surged forward to take the lead. “Fuck,” he muttered yet again. Then her hand dropped down and all bets were off.
* * *
Was there anything the man wasn’t good at? Dorie honestly didn’t know how she could walk, much less run nine miles, yet here they were on mile two and she was on such a high from all that amazing sex she’d been having that she felt like she could go ten times that without breaking a sweat.
“Are we going to talk about this?”
She glanced up as he ran next to her, which was something she’d been trying very hard not to do. She still wasn’t entirely sure what she was doing here.
He misunderstood her silence. Rolling his eyes, he said, “Are you going to tell me I think like a girl again?”
She wasn’t, but that would be as good an excuse as any. She shrugged. “There’s nothing to talk about.”
And there wasn’t. That was doubly clear after last night as the men in his world had closed ranks around him—supporting him, reclaiming him. And then Courtney, of course, pulling him back to the land of Nate Hawkins, and reminding Dorie that the Nate of this fantasy didn’t truly exist. That even if it did, guys like him did not get all hot and bothered for women who meant what they said when they threw out words like king.
But that didn’t mean she wasn’t determined to enjoy the rest of the weekend.
“How about we start with Courtney?” he asked, as if putting small-town librarian Dorie in the same category as a trust fund heiress slash morning news anchorwoman made sense—which it didn’t. She knew that, Courtney knew that, everyone in the hemisphere knew that; it was only Nate who didn’t seem to.
Though she felt his glance she didn’t look up to meet it.
“So it didn’t bother you that she basically had her hand down my pants when you walked in.”
Dorie’s cheeks flushed and she found herself running faster. Of course it had bothered her. It had been a slap in the face. But Dorie wasn’t going to tell him that. “If I were her and I’d done what she did to you and was trying to get you back, then I’d probably be putting my hands down your pants, too.”
“Jesus,” he said, obviously irritated. “Do you even want to try to make this work?”
She stopped running. Hadn’t they already had this conversation? “Make what work?” For heaven’s sake. “We’ve known each other for four days. There isn’t a real this to talk about.”
“Five,” he corrected, coming to a stop and glaring down at her.
“Okay. Fine. Five.” Whatever. She’d give him the half hour from Tuesday night even though it was technically Wednesday morning by the time they’d actually begun talking. “Do you have this conversation with all the women you sleep with before you’ve known them for a week?”
His eyes flashed with anger. “I’ve never had this conversation with any woman before. I’ve never wanted to have this conversation. Why do you refuse to believe that?”
He truly needed her to spell this out for him?
She jabbed at his chest. “Because you get paid millions of dollars in a year and I can barely scrape together my car payment. Because you go to benefits for a thousand dollars a plate, but the best dress I own is from the Anthropologie clearance rack. Because...” Oh, hell, no tears. Please, no tears. “Because your ex-fiancée is the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen and she wants you back.”
And when he was bored with this little interlude into normal life—which he would no doubt be the second he was on his way to spring training—it would just be Dorie all by her lonesome, watching House Hunters marathons and bingeing on ice cream again. After blowing her chance to finally do something with her life because she’d spent all her free time following him from place to place rather than stay and do the job that she’d left her whole family behind for.
But she wasn’t going there with him. She wasn’t going there, period, because this was only a short-term thing. Only se...
Goddamn. The tears won. She angrily brushed them away.
As he started to protest, she cut him off. “And even if you don’t want her back, too, there’s another hundred women just like her waiting to beat down your door.” Wrapping her arms around herself, Dorie took a step back. “And I don’t want to always be in a competition for the man I lo—”
When he looked up sharply, she realized what she’d almost just said.
Oh, double goddamn. “You know,” she mumbled, wanting to kick at the ground but settling for rubbing her toe in the dirt instead. “If it ever became more than sex.”
“At the risk of getting my balls chopped off...”
“Kneed,” she corrected, glaring up at him only to see his eyes practically dancing with laughter.
Undeterred, he carried on, “Kings are always fighting off someone.” He raised his hands in surrender as her jaw dropped. “Just saying.”
But then he got serious, wrapping his arms around himself as well—they were like the poster children for the Body Language of a Tense Conversation. The gaze he directed toward her was an appraising one. Assessing. He swallowed hard, then looked down at the ground.
“Okay,” he finally said, raising his eyes and giving her a look so piercing that she took another step back. Then he turned away from her and started running again.
Um, well, good. Glad he was on board.
They were practically back to his building when he finally spoke again. “You need to know something. I’ve lived half my life like this, and sometimes I can’t even believe it. And you’re right—the women...” His voice trailed off as he shook his head. “That part has been beyond surreal.”
He slowly came to a stop, waiting for her to draw up next to him. “But it’s been fifteen years, and in that whole time...” He shook his head as he looked down at her. “You say I’m going to get tired of this. I say maybe I’ve waited my whole life for whatever this is. And if you think that you scared me off by saying you want to go all alpha on my ass?” He grabbed her by the elbows and hauled her close. �
�Then you’d better start coming up with a better excuse. Because you are so off base you aren’t even on the field.”
Then he leaned down and owned her with a kiss so searing it left her breathless. When he pulled away, he smiled. “I also think that the reason you’re resisting is because you’re afraid I’m right and you’re wrong. So maybe you’d better man up and get over it so that we can get on with our lives.”
Still thrown by the kiss, it took Dorie a few seconds to realize what he’d just said. She sputtered, “Did you just... Did you just call me chicken? Is that your idea of romance?”
That made him laugh. He gave a shrug and then reached down for her hand, looking both ways as he stepped forward to cross the street. “Maybe I’ve been taking the wrong approach. Maybe the only way for me to convince you that—”
He stopped suddenly, his eyes on a cluster of people in front of his building. “Shit.” He let go of her hand and dropped down to one knee to tie his shoe. “Please don’t take this the wrong way, but I have to pretend that I don’t know you. If I thought it would do anything other than make your life a living hell, I’d take you with me. But right now, I have to go.”
Then he was off and running down the street, leaving her standing there. Bewildered. Breathless. She opened her mouth to call his name, but realized someone else had just done that for her. And suddenly the small group of people turned into a frenzied mob, swallowing him up into a sea of flashing cameras and shouted questions. Their intensity was frightening, even from here. With a deep breath, she sank back against the wall behind her and closed her eyes.
He’d just torn the rug out from underneath her, shaken it out and then laid it back down in front of her, daring her to take that step.
She squeezed her eyes shut and brought the heels of her hands up to them. It was a one-night stand. A weekend, at most. This was too much, too soon. She didn’t want something with complications and concessions and compromise.
So rather than attempt to make sense of any of it, she pushed off the building and started running again.
