His hands gripped the wheel tighter, and his sight blurred. He couldn’t think about this shit right now.
“Mr. Zeke?”
He startled out of wherever he’d gone.
“The light’s green.”
“Oh, uh, yeah. Sorry.” Zeke accelerated and glanced in the rearview mirror. Paisley’s minivan was still on his tail.
He relaxed a little. The demons might follow him, but he’d be damned if he’d let them win.
He pulled into the lot of the pizza place. There were several cars there despite how late it was. One of his teammates claimed this place had the best pizza in Seattle. Putting the SUV in park, he got out and waited for Paisley. She parked next to him, and he opened her door for her.
“Did you and Bray have a nice drive together?”
“Yeah, we did. I’m going to help him with his baseball skills.”
She lit up like the Rockefeller Center Christmas tree. “You are?”
“Yeah. I am.” He shuffled his feet, feeling oddly self-conscious and incredibly good about himself.
“Thank you.” As they seated themselves at a table near the back, she met his gaze. Brayden and Sophie busied themselves with noisily comparing notes about the game, arguing over the tastiest color of cotton candy and whose uniforms were the coolest. Sadie said nothing but wore a half smile.
Paisley leaned over the table and spoke in a low tone. “Your brothers?”
He slid his gaze to the three kids, who had forgotten the adults existed. “They ambushed me in the hallway outside the locker room.”
Her beautiful mouth formed a perfect O. “Are you okay?” Her concern warmed his heart, even though he didn’t want it to.
“Yeah, it’s all good. They won’t bother me again.” He wished he believed those words, but he knew better than anyone that his brothers were stubborn bastards, and he hadn’t seen the last of them by a long shot.
By the cute way her forehead furrowed, she didn’t buy his story. A second later she perked up and directed her attention to the kids.
Zeke wondered if she ever did anything for herself. When she turned back to him, he asked the question that sat on the tip of his tongue. “How long have you had custody?”
Paisley’s gaze shifted to the children and back. “About six months.”
His agent had done a background check and found nothing but a three-year-old traffic ticket.
“Mr. Zeke?” Sophie drew his attention away from Paisley. The little girl had somehow managed to get red crayon all over her face.
“Yes?” He tried his damnedest to keep a straight face.
Sophie held up a drawing of a person with three really long stick legs, hair that stood up on end, and clown-sized feet. “That’s you.” She beamed, extremely proud of herself. “I couldn’t decide whether to use red or yellow for your face. I don’t have the right color. But I think the red looks good, don’t you? I put you on first base, too, and with your bat.”
So the third leg was the bat. Good thing. He’d hate to think it was anything else.
Paisley leaned forward and studied the picture while Sophie rattled on. “I can see the resemblance.” She made a show of glancing from Zeke to the drawing and back. Zeke rolled his eyes.
“You can have it.” Sophie held it out toward him, then snatched it back. “Let me sign it.” She scratched something illegible on the paper and gave it to him.
Zeke smiled. “Thank you.” He was getting quite a collection of these drawings. He’d put the last one on the refrigerator. Isn’t that what normal people did? At least he thought it was, even though no one in his family had ever bothered to do it.
Sadie watched him through lowered lashes, and he smiled at her. She smiled back, just barely, but it was something.
They drove home after pizza. This time Sophie and Sadie wanted to go with him. Not having a car seat, he switched cars and drove them in the minivan, hunching down in the seat and praying none of his teammates saw him.
When they got out of the car, Sadie hung back while Sophie ran into the house. “Are you okay?”
She nodded, sticking her knuckles in her mouth. With her free hand, she reached out tentatively and patted his hand. “It’ll be okay, Mr. Zeke.” Her big eyes told him she understood, and a shiver ran down his spine. Somehow he didn’t think she was only talking about tonight.
He nodded. “Yes, yes, Sadie, it will.”
She smiled a bigger smile and took off after her sister.
Instead of sequestering himself in his part of the house, he followed them downstairs. He was enjoying the night too much for it to end, which came as a complete and total shock to him. He didn’t really like kids, and he wasn’t sure how he felt about Paisley, either, beyond wanting her naked, sweaty, and screaming his name as he buried himself inside her.
Damn. He stomped on his X-rated thoughts. There were kids around.
Loneliness did weird things to a man. He’d been lonely all his life, but he’d never before sought the company of a woman with children. There was a first time for everything.
Zeke waited while Paisley put them to bed, helping himself to some lemonade he found in the refrigerator. She walked down the hall and did a double take as if surprised to still find him still there.
He managed a half smile as he devoured her with his eyes. She was really lovely, and he appreciated every curve of her body, every tilt of her beautiful head, and every giggle that escaped her lips. He wanted her so fucking bad, he was in physical pain. He’d never wanted a woman like this, and he’d been in denial, which wasn’t working for him.
Paisley must’ve recognized his hungry gaze for what it was, as she kept the kitchen counter between them.
“I know you told me their mom is dead and father is in jail. What’s the rest of the story?”
Paisley shook her head. “My sister disappeared about six months ago. They found her body last month. She’d been shot and dumped in a culvert. That’s when I knew we needed to leave town.”
“I’m sorry. Is that why the father is in jail?” He truly was sorry.
Paisley shook her head. “No, he’s in jail on drug charges.” She met his gaze, her own eyes flashing fire. “I know he killed her, but they don’t have enough proof to charge him.”
“And you came to Seattle because?”
“After they found my sister, I needed to get out of Idaho and away from Virgil, my brother-in-law. When my cousin offered, I jumped at the chance. I think Sadie saw something, and I’m not sure how far he’ll go to keep her from talking.”
“Oh, shit.” Zeke knew that story, too. Way too much. He was home when his mother fell down the stairs. He’d heard the argument and the struggle. He’d seen things he shouldn’t have seen. “Have you taken her to counseling?” Like that’d ever helped him.
“The state did some counseling, but it wasn’t very good. I couldn’t afford anything better.” Paisley hugged herself and looked so lost and weary, Zeke couldn’t help himself. He circled to the other side of the counter and pulled her into his arms, wishing he could absorb her pain.
Chapter 9—Swing and a Miss
Regardless of how many times Paisley replayed the next few minutes in her mind, she would never be able to pinpoint who kissed who first, but it happened. Their lips touched, careful and tentative at first. Zeke slid his tongue along the seam of her lips, then sucked her lower lip into his mouth, biting gently. She moaned and dug her fingers into his hair. Opening her mouth for him, she welcomed his tongue with her own, letting them dance together until the heat inside her combusted into flames. Need pulsed through her, urgent and demanding.
Grasping her waist, he lifted her and sat her on the counter. He slid his hands up her T-shirt with the expertise of a man who did this often.
Their kisses became more desperate, more bruising, brimming with rough passion and scorching desire. He tasted of lemonade and man, and she loved it.
His big hands on her bare skin made her whimper. His fingers were ro
ugh with calluses as they slid against her smooth silkiness. She wanted him to touch her breasts, her nipples, and she arched into him, hoping he’d take the hint.
He did.
She ran her fingers down his chest, across the ridges of muscle in his belly to his waistband.
He sucked in a breath and growled.
“It’s been so long,” she admitted, her words coming out as a hiss.
“Me, too.”
She didn’t pause to decipher his words, because right now words had very little meaning unless they involved things like get naked and on your back.
With one deft flick of his fingers, he undid her bra. His exploring hands discovered the path to heaven.
“Please, oh, please, touch me there,” she begged him.
“Oh, yeah, baby. Yeah.” He cupped her breasts.
“They’re really small,” she apologized.
“They’re perfect.” The heat in his eyes backed up his words.
“What’s this?” he asked as he slid a finger over her nipple ring. “You’re pierced.”
“Only one nipple. It hurt too much to do the other one.”
“One is good.” He pushed her onto the counter and pulled up her shirt. A slow smile spread across his face as he took in her bare breasts in the harsh kitchen light. “They’re beautiful. You’re beautiful.”
Without waiting for an answer, he leaned down and sucked her nipple ring and nipple into his mouth. He pulled with his teeth, biting just enough to send sparks of pleasure through her but not enough to hurt. She arched her back as a strangled cry escaped from her mouth.
A thread of sanity reminded her where they were. “Not here. The bedroom.”
He picked her up and carried her down the short hallway to the last door on the right. Shutting the door behind them, he turned the lock and deposited her unceremoniously on the bed.
“You’ve been killing me, Paisley.” He dipped his head low again and gave her nipples his undivided attention.
Determined to give as good as she got, Paisley massaged his erection through his jeans. He was large and thick. Sliding one hand lower, she cupped his balls and squeezed, wrenching a growl from deep in his throat.
“This really isn’t a good idea,” she pointed out, feeling that she should at least offer some kind of resistance, however feeble.
“No, it’s not.”
“We really shouldn’t be doing this.”
“No, we shouldn’t.” He unzipped her jeans.
“The kids could hear.”
“Yes, they could.” Zeke walked his fingers down her bared skin and cupped her mound through her modest white panties.
“Then why are we doing it?” Paisley moaned softly, tossing her head back and forth on the pillow, as the wicked man pushed aside the crotch of her panties.
“Do I really need to answer that?” He pushed a finger deep inside her and curled it, finding just the right spot.
“Oh, heaven have mercy,” Paisley cried out.
“Honey, no one is going to have mercy on you tonight.” A slow smile crossed his lips as his blue eyes burned with a passion so hot, her skin should be blistered.
“Thank God.”
He laughed and yanked on her underwear.
A sharp rap came at the door.
Crap.
They both froze.
“Yes?” she managed in a shaky voice.
“I have a stomachache,” Sophie whined from the other side of the door.
Paisley sighed. She’d be a wrinkled old prune by the time she got any action with these kids around. She glanced apologetically at Zeke, but he was already straightening out his clothes.
“They can’t find you in here,” Paisley whispered, now in a panic. This particular room had a glass door opening onto the ground-floor patio, and Zeke headed for it. Paisley threw off the remainder of her clothes and slipped into her pajamas.
Casting one last longing look at the door Zeke had disappeared out of, she walked to the door and opened it to the little girl on the other side.
* * * *
Paisley sat on the deck, drinking iced tea and fidgeting. She hated mornings after, even if they had been interrupted by a child before they’d done the deed. At least they’d been spared the walk of shame.
She should be cleaning and unpacking, but she couldn’t concentrate on anything but Zeke. She still hadn’t run her designs by him, and she needed his approval on the redecorating of the old house. He’d been MIA all morning, and she suspected he was avoiding her. The coward.
Paisley smiled smugly, reveling in her superior ability to meet problems head-on and deal with them. He obviously didn’t. Just look at his estranged brothers. Whatever the hell was the issue there, his stubborn resistance to forgiving and moving on hurt him more than either of them. After all, they had each other.
And he had no one.
Just as she had no one, except the kids, and she was hanging on to them by a thread. Who knew what would happen once their father was released from jail. She only had temporary custody. She needed to make it more permanent.
She glanced up as Sophie let out a bloodcurdling scream. She was fine, just evading her brother as they ran around the yard, playing tag. Well, at least two of them were playing. Sadie was curled up in a chair with a dog-eared copy of Giraffes Can’t Dance. At least a half dozen books were stacked on the table next to her. She ran a finger over the words, and her mouth moved as she read.
Zeke walked out onto the deck, finally making an appearance. He patted Sadie on the shoulder as he walked by, and she rewarded him with a shy smile.
“Mr. Z, watch me run,” Sophie yelled as she raced her brother across the lawn and lost.
Zeke leaned on the railing and indulged the kids, grinning as he watched them. “Good job,” he called out.
“Zeke, we need to talk about the designs.”
He waved his hand in the air. “Do whatever. I trust you to make the right choices.”
He trusted her? He didn’t even know her. “You don’t want to see what I have planned in case it’s not your style?”
He laughed. “I don’t have a style. I told you, I like old stuff, but substantial enough for big bodies to be comfortable in. You do that, and I’ll be fine with it.”
“Okay.” She sighed. “Zeke?”
He turned to face her, his expression blank and his entire posture closed and wary.
“About last night—”
He crossed his arms over his chest and rested one butt cheek on the railing.
Paisley wrung her hands in her lap and gathered her courage. She’d rehearsed over and over what to say to him, but now that she was face-to-face with the man, she drew a blank.
Zeke took pity on her and came to her rescue. “It seems we have a mutual attraction for each other.”
Oh, really? He’d just noticed? She bit back the sarcastic reply on her tongue. She didn’t do sarcasm. It went against her “positive at all costs” promise to herself. Paisley waited for him to say more, but he didn’t seem so inclined. He studied his feet as if they held the key to world peace.
“What do we do about it?” she asked, unable to stand his silence.
He shrugged and lifted his gaze to meet hers. “We have two choices: ignore it or act on it.”
She nodded. She wanted to act on it, but she didn’t want to jeopardize the best job that’d come her way in a lifetime. Her new start would sputter and die if he decided to boot her out on her butt at the end of the month.
But if sleeping with him kept her in this beautiful place and away from her brother-in-law for a while longer, she’d be good with that. Really good with that.
His next words crushed her. “Nothing. We do nothing about it.”
* * * *
Zeke usually turned down any invitation by his teammates to go out after a game, but tonight he couldn’t stand going home and torturing himself with fantasies about Paisley two floors below in her bed. He’d carried not-so-nice-guy visions of her
ever since early Saturday morning.
The Skookums had finished a three-game series with the Yankees at home, and won one. Now they were two games into a three-game series with Cleveland. They’d lost the first two. Zeke managed to get a hit in three out of the five games. His batting average was blown to shit, and he was too worried about an encore appearance by his brothers to get in the zone, which grated on his frayed nerves for more reasons than he could name. The only thing that could make things worse would be an appearance by his drunken father.
If they did show, he could ask management to request they leave. Then again, that’d open up a whole different can of worms. Zeke didn’t want anything to contradict his carefully constructed fictional family or dispel his good-guy image. Sometimes he wondered why it mattered so much. His former shrink claimed his obsession with his reputation went back to desperately needing approval as a child and never measuring up.
Then there was Paisley. It’d been six nights since that near miss in the sack with her. He’d run like hell and avoided any physical contact. He felt like a coward. Hell, he didn’t even want to be in the same room for fear he’d jump her bones in front of the kids. She had him all tied up in knots, just one more thing he didn’t need. Blowing off some much-needed steam with the guys would be a good thing.
He walked into the noisy sports bar, past the crowded tables, paused to sign a few autographs, and found the guys in the back at a large table guzzling pitchers of beer.
Fernando sat in the middle of it all, entertaining the troops with stories of his eccentric Uncle Jose, who fancied himself an inventor.
Zeke had heard most of the stories, so he settled into an empty seat and listened. Grabbing an empty glass, he filled it and took a long gulp. The guys paid him little attention, and he was good with that.
Rex stole the stage from Fernando and expounded on his various pranks against rookies. Zeke had to smile as he watched the two rookies at the table start to squirm. Their numbers would be up soon.
Bottom of the Ninth: Seattle Skookums Baseball (Game On in Seattle Book 6) Page 9
