by Jen Doyle
When she leaned her head back to look at him, he bent down, kissed that one spot on her neck, then snapped another one.
“Mmm,” he said gruffly. “That’s the one I’m keeping.” He pushed a few buttons, sending it to himself, and then smiled as he handed the phone back to her.
It wasn’t until ten minutes later, when they were in the basement of his building waiting for the car the doorman had arranged, that Dorie had a chance to look at the pictures he’d taken. The one he’d kept for himself wasn’t anything she’d be sending home, that was for damn sure. With her eyes closed and her head thrown back and Nate practically devouring her skin, it looked carnal. Primal. Freaking amazing.
Dorie sighed. Leave it to Sean to ruin her I-am-woman moment with an incoming text.
I don’t give a flying fuck who he is. If he even thinks about touching you, I will take that heel and ram it through his balls.
Chapter Nineteen
Dorie’s family was a kick. That was a damn good thing, because they clearly weren’t the type to hold back their opinions. The texts had started coming in about the time Nate and Dorie got into the elevator. One after another, through forty floors—basement parking levels included—a five-minute wait for the car he’d called and, now, three cycles of the light at Chicago and State thanks to a bus that had stalled in the intersection.
Hell, if traffic didn’t ease up, they’d be late, which would piss Pete off. If it wasn’t for Nate’s promise to avoid the media, he would have just gotten out and walked the half a mile.
Well, the media, plus there was no way she’d be able to cover the distance in those shoes.
Holy shit, those shoes.
“Christ,” he muttered, shifting as his already uncomfortable meet-with-the-boss pants grew that much more so.
“Sorry,” she murmured, misinterpreting. She shrugged apologetically as she held up her phone. “The shock’s wearing off.”
“Mmm,” he said, happy to turn his attention back to something a little less hard-on inducing. “I can see that.”
And he could. His eyesight was excellent and she wasn’t making much of an attempt to hide the messages. He’d caught more than a few:
JCD: U weren’t serious were u?
Mom: HI m3y Buechler baby!!!
Mom: *beautiful
JCD: Holy shit. Christo just told us ur 4 real WTF????
Tommy: !!!!!!!!!!!!
Shay: Be careful with his knees. I’ve got $150 riding on him.
JCD: *Were* u?
#1 Niece: Does he know Koji? Can he get me an autograph?
Sophie: Holy crap. Tommy just called me. No freakin’ WAY!!!!! Does he know about...
Now that was intriguing, especially when Dorie’s cheeks turned a bright enough shade of red that he could see it in the darkened backseat of the car. And of course that one got cut off.
Christo: cat—> bag—> BAM.
Shay: On second thought, you shouldn’t have anything to do with his knees.
#1 Niece: P.S. Liam wants to know if he’s going to be our uncle. We’d rather have Ellsbury. Can you date him instead?
Col: Dad’s not looking so good. If he has another heart attack, you’re out of the Super Bowl pool and Claudia’s in.
Tommy: !!!!!!!!!!!!
Shay: And no riding of any kind. I’d hate to kill my best player, but I’ll do it if I have to.
And then there was Nate’s favorite:
Sean: I don’t give a flying fuck who he is. If he even thinks about touching you, I will take that heel and ram it through his balls.
Just thinking of that one made Nate laugh. “Your family really has a thing about balls.”
Her thumbs flying across the touch screen, Dorie replied, “‘No head, no nuts.’ That was what the doctor said after every one of their checkups. So, of course, that’s what they aim for. Literally, figuratively, the whole shebang. It’s a bit of an obsession.”
Of course. Nate laughed again, although this time he managed to turn to look out the window and keep it to himself. Yes, this was crazy. No, it made no sense. But all he could think was that she was the whole damn package. She was beautiful, smart and she made him laugh. Plus there was her overall excellence in just about any pastime he could think up, her competitive streak...
Without thinking, he reached over and rested his hand on her leg. He wanted more of her—wished he could wrap his arms around her and just pull her close—but he’d settle for this for now. He couldn’t just keep sitting here and not be touching her.
She went still beneath his hand. He turned back to see her staring at him, her eyes wide and lips slightly parted.
“A little scary,” she said quietly. “Aren’t they?”
Well, Hawk. Do-or-die time. She’d given him the opening; an excuse to tell her what she expected to hear, that this was, in fact, more than what he wanted to sign up for.
And yet he found himself leaning toward her, his hand going to the back of her neck as he drew her closer. “It takes more than that to scare me.” Just as he was about to bend down to her, though, the phone rang again. “They are, however, starting to piss me off.” They’d had a whole lifetime with her; he’d had less than a week—and was on a hard deadline. He wasn’t ready to share.
He took her phone and slid his thumb across the bottom of the screen to answer it. But before he could get a word in edgewise, he was met with a torrent of words. He wasn’t paying attention to the words themselves so much as the fact that they were in Spanish—which, since the woman on the other end of the line had expected Dorie to be answering the phone...
Nate’s eyes met Dorie’s. “You speak Spanish.” That meant she’d understood Rico’s rant the night before.
She shrugged. “A little.”
There was also a pause in the Spanish. And then, “Who is this?”
“This is Nate.” He ignored the sharp intake of breath. “And you?”
“Nate,” the woman repeated. “Nate Hawkins.” Not her name. Obviously. According to the readout on the phone that was Claudia, who, from the little he had paid attention to as she’d been speaking, was big brother Sean’s wife.
“That would be the one,” he replied.
Another pause, before a whispered, “Dios mío.”
He supposed he shouldn’t have been surprised when, after a muffled side conversation, a man came on the line, a whole hell of a lot of challenge in his voice. “So you’re really Nate Hawkins. As in I-just-signed-a-contract-for-hundreds-of-millions-of-dollars Nate Hawkins.”
“That would be me.” Settling back against the seat, Nate forced himself not to be defensive. Or, for that matter, to go on the offensive. “I’m guessing you’re Sean.”
Dorie somehow managed to snort and give a little laugh of disbelief at the same time.
“You know who I am?” Sean asked.
“I know you’re obsessed with my...” Nate stopped talking when Dorie’s hand clamped around the very body part that he’d been about to mention. The look in her eyes was pure death glare: the hand giveth and the hand taketh away. Gripping her wrist, he managed to say, “...interest in your sister.”
To be honest, Nate couldn’t entirely blame him. If he was talking to a man who wanted to do the things to one of his sisters that he wanted to do to Dorie, well...
“She’s special,” Sean said quietly. “She deserves so much more than a love-em-and-leave-em kind of guy. Even if that guy is one of the richest men in the world.”
That was an exaggeration. Nate wasn’t even in the top hundred in the US. Granted he was ranked as one of the top-earning athletes, but that wasn’t the point. And, unfortunately, he understood exactly what Sean was saying. “I agree. One hundred percent.”
He reminded himself that Sean was just looking out for his
sister when he answered, “I’m hoping you’re a nicer guy than they make you out to be. But if you’re not, do not for one second think that we won’t come at you with everything we’ve got.”
Damn it. Nate definitely needed to get someone back on board to handle his PR because he was, actually, a nice guy. He had no intention of hurting Dorie.
Then again, he wasn’t exactly thinking the warmest thoughts about her family at the moment.
“They don’t know a thing about me,” Nate answered.
“Yeah, well,” Sean replied, “I hope that’s true. Can you put my sister on?”
Not letting go of Dorie’s wrist, he held the phone out, closing his eyes against the unwanted emotion that had suddenly come over him. It wasn’t until she threaded her fingers through his—after releasing her deathly hold, incidentally—that he felt the calm come back.
“Yes, Sean,” she was murmuring. “I know...For heaven’s sake, I’m not twelve...Let me talk to Claudia, damn it!”
From there followed a diatribe in Spanish about how Claudia was a saint among saints for putting up with the Donelli men. And maybe, just maybe, if Sean and company hadn’t been so ridiculously overprotective, she would have settled down by now with a nice, safe guy who hadn’t slept with half of the SI swimsuit models and—
“Stop.” Not sure whether to laugh or be offended, Nate took the phone from her once again. This time—in Spanish—he said, “Claudia? We’re hanging up now.” And then he did that very thing.
Mouth open, Dorie seemed about to protest but then she said, “You speak Spanish.”
He hadn’t mentioned that? He supposed they were even. “And Japanese.” Plus he’d been picking up some Portuguese. Tools of the trade.
She folded her arms in front of her chest. “You didn’t say anything last night when Rico went off.”
“Because you kicked me every time I started to speak up for you.” He nearly laughed at the look on her face. She clearly couldn’t decide whether to apologize or tell him that she was entirely capable of defending herself.
He supposed he shouldn’t have been surprised that she took it in an entirely different direction. “Well, I wasn’t about to let Rico know that I understood what he’d said. It would have embarrassed him.”
“But you had no problem cleaning everyone’s clocks instead.”
There was that low laugh of hers. “Nope. That felt good.”
Which, of course, had Nate thinking of all the ways he could make her feel good. “Any other special skills hidden up those sleeves of yours?”
Although it was a rhetorical question, she paused to give it thought. “I once did 532 chin-ups in a row, although I’m not sure I could even do half that now. But I can still Hula-Hoop for three hours straight.”
That stopped Nate cold. “That’s, um, a lot.”
With a smile, she leaned into him, pulling his arm around her shoulders. “When I was too old for Toss the Toddler, my brothers needed something else to get me out of their hair, so they convinced me to go for the world record.” When Nate didn’t answer—for sheer lack of ability to speak as he considered the stamina required—she added, “You know, as in Guinness?”
“I know,” he answered, half wanting to laugh, half still caught up in thinking about three hours of her hips moving like that.
“Kept me busy for hours,” she said. When his laughter won out, she whirled around to glare at him. “What?”
Bending down to kiss the top of her head, he had to admit, “Your brothers are geniuses.”
The glare held for all of two seconds before she laughed, as well. “Tell them that and I’ll—”
“Knee me in the balls.” More content than he’d ever known he could be, he pulled her close against him. “I know.”
Chapter Twenty
True to his word, Nate had the car pull around to the back of the building the restaurant was in, avoiding the photographers at the front. They were then escorted through underground hallways and up through a back entrance to the private dining room. She felt like James Bond.
Or, rather, the Bond girl. Who didn’t even have a name.
Dinner wasn’t exactly a reality check. It was like she’d won one of those radio contests where you got to go to a meet and greet with, like, Bono. She felt all goofy and tongue-tied; terrified she’d say something foolish. After a while she found that if she managed to think of the owner as her Uncle Sal and the GM as her cousin, Stephen, she was able to be coherent. Luckily, Uncle Sal and Stephen—or, rather, Bobby and Lou, as they’d insisted she call them by their actual names—seemed intrigued that Nate had brought a rabid Red Sox fan to dinner, not to mention that they were both highly amused by the outcome of the previous night’s poker game.
Everything was going great, in fact, right up until the moment Bobby said, “We’ll be hosting the Watchmen in July. How about you come up and watch the game in the box?”
The box. As in the one the owners sat in. She actually laughed. “Thanks. But I, um...” She ducked her head, not quite able to look Nate’s way as she mumbled, “I don’t think I’ll be at the games.”
Though Bobby seemed a little surprised—probably didn’t get many noes—he just smiled as he looked between her and Nate. “Well, anytime. You just call my office and let them know you’re Nate’s, uh, friend.”
With Nate tense beside her, Dorie made every effort to smile. “Thanks. That’s very nice of you.”
Things were a lot less enjoyable after that, especially as Nate shifted into professional ballplayer mode—surly, and kind of, well, cold—when talk turned to his contract. Dorie forced herself to just sit back and observe rather than let on how knowledgeable she was about the subject of Nate Hawkins. The pitchers he worked best with, the way he could read an opposing lineup like nobody’s business...
She found it fascinating, in fact...until she fully processed what they were saying.
“We couldn’t gamble that kind of money, son,” Bobby said, not even trying to beat around the bush about why they hadn’t fought harder to keep him. “Not at your age. And you know the reason they did is because they want you to bring up the new kids and then move you over to management.”
Dorie didn’t realize she’d let out a little squeak of outrage until everyone turned to look at her. Nate was hands down one of the best players in the league. Completely in his prime. Hell, the Watchmen were building a whole franchise around him.
They’d clearly passed the Dorie-speaking part of the evening, however.
“You manage a game like nobody’s business,” Lou was saying. “There’s a place for a player like you. And we’d like that to be with our organization.”
When Nate didn’t respond—when he looked down at the spoon that he was twisting around in the fingers of his right hand—Mark stepped in. “Well, right now his place is on the field. But we’ll be sure to remind you of this conversation when the time comes.”
Though Nate smiled vaguely, he’d gone distant in a way that Dorie hadn’t seen before. She let her hand drift toward him, brush his side just to let him know she was there for him if he needed her. She was surprised that he actually reached down for it, entwined her fingers in his and then brought their hands up to rest on the table for anyone in the world to see.
Dinner ended shortly after that, to Dorie’s great relief. It was emotionally exhausting—and she was only a bystander. A fact, incidentally, that she did not point out, given Nate’s mood. The back entrances and underground tunnels felt ridiculous this time around and she couldn’t believe she’d made him arrange it. She was so ready to take off these damn shoes, change into pajamas and climb into bed. But she hated how quiet he’d been on the way back, even though they were alone. Especially since they were alone.
“What can I do?” she finally asked when they were safely inside his condo
.
His head jerked up as though he’d forgotten she was there, even though he’d been holding her hand. Up until she spoke, that was, at which point he let go. His eyes went dark and brutally hot. “Don’t ask if you don’t want to hear the answer.” Then he yanked his tie loose and headed toward his bedroom.
Oh, my. Dorie took a deep breath.
Well, no one had ever accused her of playing things safe. She hung up her coat and then walked down the hall.
His jacket was thrown over a chair and he was unbuttoning his shirt by the time she got to the doorway. “Do you want to talk?” she asked.
Glaring at her, he finished with the shirt, tossed it over the jacket and walked past her into the walk-in closet that was bigger than the bedroom she’d grown up in. She followed him in there, too.
“About what?” he snapped, untucking the T-shirt he’d worn underneath. “How I’ve probably only got a few more years in me, and that’s only if my knees hold out? Or maybe about the idea of what my life looks like when this is all gone. With...” He sank down to the bench that ran against the wall, legs spread apart, and leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees. “With nothing to come home to.” He ran his hands over his face and then just let his head rest there. Voice muffled, he said, “So, no, I don’t want to talk right now.”
Closing her eyes, she reminded herself that this was exactly the problem. It wasn’t so much that he wanted her, it was what she represented. A warm body in a bed. A smile to welcome him home.
Then he added, “I especially can’t talk about this with you.” His voice cracked a little at the end there and something inside her broke right along with it.
Okay. So maybe she really was a little bit more to him than a passing thing. It still did nothing to change the fact that he was at a crossroads and she was just a way station. She supposed she could call him out on that.
