Make Me Yours (Top Shelf Romance Book 4)

by Devney Perry

  “It could happen to you. Yeah, I know. I think I’ve had my heart checked every which way possible to make sure I don’t have the same condition.” I nod, the nagging worry just something I live with. “And obviously, my dad was checked too . . . but his situation is a different issue all together . . . and now it’s going to take him from me, too.”

  Easton reaches out and pulls me into him. And this time, I let him. I accept the warmth and comfort and reassurance of his arms around me. I listen to the beat of his heart and memorize the feel of his skin beneath my cheek as I nuzzle his neck.

  “When Ford died, it broke my dad. He was his pride and joy. He was the light in our house, the one we looked to for our laughter. And then, like that, he was gone. I was left to try and pick up the pieces and fill the holes that seemed to surround us constantly. So, I changed my major in school. I’d always been interested in following in my dad’s footsteps, but my dad wouldn’t let me. He told me I had to go take the world by storm and do my own thing. But when Ford died, it was like he wanted to keep me close to make sure I was okay, and so he finally agreed to let me learn the trade. Once I was given the chance, I threw myself into everything about it to make him proud. To try and make him happy.”

  “He’s proud of you, Scout. I have no doubt about that,” he murmurs into the crown of my head, the heat of his breath hitting my hair.

  “Pride doesn’t mend a broken heart, though.” I speak my thoughts out loud and am grateful that he doesn’t refute them, doesn’t disagree with my opinion, no matter how irrational it may seem. “So that’s why I’m here in Austin. Securing the last job for him, so he can know he fulfilled the one career goal he still had remaining.”

  “That’s honorable and selfless.”

  “I’m terrified that I’m going to let him down.”

  “You won’t,” he murmurs. “Not if I have anything to do with it.”

  I snuggle further into him, appreciative of the reassurance, but more than aware that the front office has the final say. Not him.

  “Is there anything else we need to lay on the line before we get up from our naked ball-field confessional?” I tease. His chest vibrates against mine with his laughter, but when he doesn’t say anything, I’m suddenly paranoid. “What is it? What else do you need to tell me?” When I try to lean back and look into his eyes, he just holds me still.

  “For a girl who spooks easily, you sure ask a lot of questions. Didn’t anyone ever tell you to not ask questions you can’t handle the answers to?”

  “Easton.” His name is a playful warning, but my pulse quickens with his comment. “Please tell me you don’t have a wife in every city, or I’m going to be royally pissed.”

  “Hardly.”

  “Then what?” Impatience rings in my tone as my body comes to life with the feeling of his naked body and dick slowly hardening against me. I try to tickle him to get an answer. We wiggle and squirm away from each other, but he has the upper hand in the strength department.

  “Let’s just say, you’re not yet ready to hear what I have to say,” he laughs out amid my tickle torture, but the simple statement knocks all the fight out of me as my mind races with possibilities. Good possibilities, ones I never dared to think could even be possible but which flicker and fade through my mind nonetheless.

  And he uses my momentary lapse in attention to scoot away from me. I scramble on all fours to go after him.

  “I know how to make you talk, Wylder.” My voice is full of suggestion, and my body is renewed with desire as I crawl slowly toward him.

  “Naked batting practice?”

  It’s sad that there’s hope in his voice when he says it, but I burst out in laughter. And it feels good to laugh after everything tonight—my trip to visit my brother at the cemetery, the tension with Santiago, our fight, my confession, him making me feel, the last hour we spent talking—that I welcome the humor.

  “Mmmm,” I murmur with a raise of my brows. “That’s not exactly the bat and balls I was thinking about using right now.”

  “They weren’t?” He fights his grin but lets his eyes roam over my breasts as I crawl over his legs so my face is perfectly poised above his cock.

  “Nope. Besides, I’m more fixated on making you talk than proving I can swing a decent stick.”

  Easton shifts his hips beneath me. “Fixate away.”

  It’s my turn to give him a lightning quick grin as I slowly dip my head and take him into my mouth and all the way to the back of my throat.

  His groan fills the room as his taste assaults my senses in the most intoxicating of ways.

  “Good God, woman. You’re going to be the death of me.”

  Easton

  She’s gorgeous.

  An absolute mess of gorgeous chaos with her hair fanned around her, pillow creases in her cheeks, a soft smile on her lips, and a well of emotion in her eyes.

  God. Damn.

  Chaos has never looked so damn inviting.

  I won the battle last night, but I know there’s a war still ahead of me. She’s been left, is going to be left again, and there’s nothing I can do to protect her from it.

  But it all makes sense now. Her not wanting me to get too close. Her closing herself off. Trust being a hard thing and fear being a reality.

  Her fears are valid. I get them but don’t understand them. And yet I need to figure out how to make her not feel them when she thinks of me.

  Last night was the first step in a long journey, but fuck if I don’t want to take it with her.

  Look at her. She’s fiery. Beautiful. Funny. Intelligent. But more than all of that, she gets me—my thoughts and my love/hate relationship with this game. She gets this career I have, which to most others is exciting but disruptive as hell to relationships.

  I reach out a hand and wipe a strand of hair from her face as those lips of hers spread into a sleepy smile and she snuggles a little deeper into the covers.

  What in the hell am I letting myself fall into?

  If she doesn’t scare the hell out of you, East, then she’s not worth the trouble.

  And last night she scared the hell out of me. When I thought she’d moved on. When I thought she’d played me. When I thought I’d lost her.

  “Morning.” Her eyes light up at the sound of my voice, and I’m a fucking goner.

  Toast.

  “Morning,” she murmurs, in a rasp of a voice that feels like fingernails scraping ever so gently over the underside of my balls. It makes me want. She makes me want, when I should be so damn exhausted after last night that even my dick should be fast asleep.

  “Just because my cleats will hit the dirt again, doesn’t mean I’ll move on from the people in my life.” The words are a truth she needs to hear the morning after confessing her secrets, her fears, to help reassure her that I heard her and I’m still not going anywhere. I run my hand down the line of her torso, rest it on her hip, and squeeze it for emphasis. “You’re not one who can easily be forgotten, Scout Dalton.”

  Her eyes cloud with emotion, but it’s her shaky inhale that catches my attention. “Uh-uh. I’m not going to let you do it, Scout. I see that look in your eye. After last night . . . you don’t get to spook anymore. I know why you’re scared. I get it. But you don’t get to shut down, you don’t get to shut me out. Talk to me. Tell me what’s going on in that beautifully, scared mind of yours.”

  “You can’t control our lives, Easton. I may not get the contract with the team. You could get traded. There are no guarantees.” Her voice is soft, the emotion I couldn’t read is obviously fear.

  “You’re right, I can’t. But it’s the possibility that should keep you going, not the guarantees. And I can tell you this—you’re going to get the contract. I’ll do whatever it takes to get back on that field so Cory sees you got your job done, and I’ll put in every single good word I have for you to get the job.” She shakes her head, starts to refute, but I just lift my finger to her lips to quiet her down. “And as for being t
raded, that’s always been my biggest fear because of my mom. So, I hear your spooked-ness, Scout, but I’m matching your bet, so what else are you going to throw at me that I can debunk.”

  Our eyes hold, and I’m shocked to shit when she reaches out, wraps her arms around me, and snuggles into me. The woman who keeps pushing me away has finally pulled me in. And fuck does it feel good.

  The only thing that rivals the feeling is her body snuggled up against mine.

  My dick stirs to life—how can it not—and every little move she makes, combined with the scent of her shampoo in my nose, makes me want to have her all over again.

  “I need to get to work,” I groan, hating my own lips for even speaking it.

  “I hear you have a mean, wretched trainer who likes to crack the whip.” Her lips move against my neck, their heat only making the urge to bury my dick into her tight, addictive pussy that much more enticing.

  “You have no idea,” I murmur, and press a kiss to the crown of her head as my hands slide down to the curve of her ass, pulling her thigh up and over my hip to open her up for me. “She’s demanding.”

  “And manipulative,” she chuckles, and then sighs as my fingers touch ever so softly over that perfect, pink flesh between her thighs.

  “Mmmm.” Fuck. She’s already wet for me. I can feel it and I haven’t even slipped my fingers in yet.

  “Or we could go bat another round downstairs.” She spreads her legs farther, granting me access as my fingers slide inside.

  Her hands tense on my shoulders. Her teeth nip into my collarbone.

  I chuckle at her comment. “It’s not the same. It will never be the same again,” I murmur as her breath hitches.

  “What won’t?” I love how she’s trying to act unaffected, but when my fingertips hit that little rough patch inside of her slick, wet pussy and her nails dig in reflexively, I know I’ve got her.

  “Every time I set my helmet in that net shelf, it’ll be my face between your thighs I think about.” Rub, stroke, slide. Her moan fills my ears. The heat of it sears my skin. “Every time I stand at the plate to take a swing, it’ll be you I picture. Naked. Swinging the stick like you own it and hitting that line drive back at me.”

  “East.” A sigh of pleasure. My thumb to her clit. Her coming all over my hand.

  “And then your little happy dance as you jogged around the bases.” Tits bouncing, hair down her back, laugh filling the gray space.

  I angle my body, open her wider, and line the head of my dick up right where I want it.

  “No, it will never be the same.”

  I push into her. Become consumed by her.

  Her feel.

  Her touch.

  Her sounds.

  And I’m well aware that when I speak the last words, when her hands tense on my back and her mouth finds the curve of my neck, I’m not just speaking about my field downstairs.

  I’m talking about me.

  Easton

  “Looking great, Easton. I don’t see anything in the X-ray or otherwise that would impede your recovery any further.”

  If I could kiss my doctor, right now, I would.

  “Whew.” I blow out a sigh of relief. “That’s good to hear, because it’s getting stronger every day.”

  “Still stiff?”

  “Less and less each day.”

  “I don’t feel the click anymore when I move it. I don’t feel any resistance either. Your surgeon must have done a wonderful job, if I do say so myself.” He winks at me and chuckles.

  “No complaints here.”

  “I’ll file my report with Cory. Let him know I see no reason why you shouldn’t be able to move to the active roster by the end of the month.”

  “Music to my ears.”

  “It’s up to your PT though. He has the final say, since he’s the one working with you, day-in and day-out. Does the club still have you working with Doc?”

  I smile automatically. “I’m working with Scout Dalton.” Images flash through my mind of her earlier. At least I know I was right about the kitchen counter theory.

  “I hear she really knows her stuff.”

  “Seems to.” I meet his eyes. Hope he doesn’t see that I’m talking about a helluva lot more than just her job.

  “Haven’t heard much from Doc though, lately. Rumor is he’s planning on retiring.”

  “I’ve heard the same,” I murmur as I stand and pull my shirt back over my head. I think of Scout yesterday, and the tears she tried to hide when she hung up the phone with him. She won’t talk about it, and I won’t push her. That’s her dad. It’s her frustration over wanting to be with him and him being a stubborn cuss and telling her to finish the job first.

  To get me back on the field first.

  Fathers and their unexplained actions.

  I shake Dr. Kimble’s hand and say good-bye.

  Let’s hope he’s right. That my arm should be good to go. While the X-rays may be clean, sometimes it’s the things you can’t see that are waiting to bring you down when you least expect it.

  I’m on fucking cloud nine.

  Dr. Kimble gave me his clearance.

  The Literacy Project just got approval for a huge grant that’s going to help us expand our reach to more inner-city schools.

  Scout and I practiced throwing down to second base yesterday and not a single fucking thing hurt.

  Then, of course, Scout rewarded me for my progress. Surprised me with a little takeout on a picnic blanket on the private field, gave me a full body massage to work out any muscles that may be tight, and then let me work her out.

  And Christ did we work out.

  So, I add a few extra reps in while I’m down here putting my time in and take advantage of all the things that are falling in line for me.

  “You should be activated by the end of the month.”

  Kimble’s words echo in my head as I scrub a towel over my face and head toward the locker room.

  Three weeks.

  Looks like my stint in hell—the disabled list—might be coming to an end.

  “I thought you’d already put your time in?” Miguel says as he passes me in the tunnel, an odd expression on his face that I chalk up to surprise.

  “Yeah. I did. But Mathers told me I could come in and catch bullpen if I want to warm the pitchers up and help get my reflexes up to speed.”

  “Nice. That close, huh?”

  “I want back on the field so bad I can taste it. I might even give up sex at this point.” He looks at me like I’m crazy and we both laugh. “Nah. I’ll never give that up.” I laugh as we pass each other.

  “Hey, Wylder?”

  “Yeah?” I turn around to face him. He’s standing in the middle of the tunnel, the daylight from the field at his back as he just stares at me.

  “Nah. Nothing. We’ll be glad to have you back.”

  “Thanks. Me, too.”

  Pumped to be getting my gear on and be part of the game in some way, I head into the locker room, ready to shower and check my phone to see if Scout’s going to swing by.

  “Hey.” I lift my chin in greeting as I pass Drew. He startles when he sees me and flicks a glance over to J.P. across the locker room, a concerned look on his face when he meets my gaze again.

  What the fuck is going on?

  Is this the prank I’ve been waiting for? Are they finally going to man up and get me back for that stunt in Cleveland? Bring it on, boys.

  But when I meet J.P.’s eyes and he glances across the room, I start to doubt it. I follow his line of sight and see a group of guys, some with towels wrapped around their hips, others with just their jock on, some in sliders and their jersey shirt.

  Something’s up.

  Gonzo’s locker is empty and the placard with his name is gone. Poor kid. He had a good run but has probably been sent back to Triple-A. Dr. Kimble was quick with filing his report if they already sent him back.

  But then who’s behind the plate for now?

  Just as
the thought crosses my mind, I notice the bag on the floor in front of the locker, about the same time the entire room falls silent. Fucking bad juju. I can feel it instantly but have no clue why . . . until a man strolls through the center of the square room. His head is down, he’s using one white towel to shake the water out of his hair, and another towel is around his waist.

  But I’d know that tattoo on his bicep from anywhere.

  And as if he can sense the whole locker room is staring at him, he lowers the towel from his head and looks up and straight into my eyes.

  It’s not a prank.

  Santiago.

  Mother. Fucker.

  “Tell me it’s not fucking true, Finn,” I grit the words out.

  I keep my head down, the bill of my hat pulled low over my face as I weave my way against the flow of the crowd milling around the ballpark, here to catch batting practice.

  I don’t know where I’m going, but I know I need to walk. Run. Fucking punch something. Anything to abate the rage controlling me right now.

  “I’m trying to get answers.”

  “That’s not fucking good enough.”

  “It’s fucking bullshit is what it is,” he sneers, and thank fuck for that because I need him to be just as livid as I am. He was about to be fired if he wasn’t.

  “Cory wasn’t there. The front office was the first place I went for answers.” Neither was my dad. “And no one had any answers for me other than ‘Cory will be back late tonight.’”

  “It’s probably best you didn’t talk to him right now.”

  “He’s a chickenshit fucker to make the trade and not give me a heads-up.”

  “I’m in agreement with you there.”

  “They know the history here. He’s the bastard who took me out of their starting roster, and then they go and sign the fucker?”

  “I know, Easton. It’s not making sense.” I’m so angry I start to walk one way, and then start back the other way, not sure where I’m going, what to do now, or what to do next. “How bad was it?”