by Devney Perry
I love how this little bit of confidence he gained today has made him care less.
“Where are we going?”
“I don’t know, Scout, but we’re going to have some fun.”
And the minute I buy into his infectious mood and turn to go get dressed, the buzzer on the door rings.
“Buzz kill,” he says with a laugh as he heads over to it. “Go get dressed. I’ll get rid of whoever it is quickly.”
But for some reason, I don’t move. There are a select few who have elevator access to the penthouse. Security didn’t call to tell us there’s a visitor so it has to be someone on the list.
“Dad. Long time, no see, Derek. How long has it been, man? What are you guys doing here?”
Cal steps off the elevator and gives Easton a pat on the back of his good shoulder and greetings are given all around between the three. I stare from where I’m standing in the kitchen at baseball legend, Derek Penbrooke. The man known for his bat in clutch situations, his three thousand-plus hit career, and his ten Gold Glove Awards for fielding.
“Derek was in town, so we had a late lunch together to catch up. We talked about the club, about that asshole Tillman, and then he asked how your arm was doing so I thought we’d stop by and check on you.” Cal looks every part the proud father. I hate that I question if it’s an act or if it’s the truth.
Easton glances my way, an apology written all over his face and I just shrug. It’s not exactly how I thought our night would unfold, but the smile on his face is sincere and I love seeing it there.
“Oh, Scout, I didn’t see you there.” Cal walks over to me, voice booming, chest puffed out. “Derek, are you familiar with Doc Dalton?”
“Very much so.” He smiles. It’s warm and genuine and draws me to take a step toward him. “He worked on my shoulder way back when.”
“You mean back in the Ice Age?” Cal asks.
“If I was playing then, so were you, Wylder,” Derek says with a laugh.
“This is Scout,” Easton interjects. “Doc’s daughter.”
Derek narrows his eyes as he stares at me for an odd moment. “Well, what do you know? That is you. Last time I saw you, you were about this tall,” he says, holding his hand at about three feet high. “You were chewing a wad of bubble gum too big for your mouth, had a bunch of freckles on your nose, and were giggling like mad with that brother of yours. Scout Dalton. My how you have grown.”
“Good to see you again, Derek,” I say with a smile and warm shake of his hand.
“How is that old man of yours? Rumor has it he hasn’t been working much lately. Has the retirement bug gotten hold of him?”
“Something like that.”
“Scout’s taking over the business if and when he does,” Easton says, saving me from having to add one more white lie to the mountain I’m making.
“Come on in, gentleman,” I say with a smile. “Can I get any of you a drink?”
“So there was a purpose to his little stop by.” Easton laughs before bringing the bottle of beer to his lips.
“Your old man had ulterior motives,” Derek says with an unabashed shrug. “Like that should surprise you. Two surgeries on this cuff, Easton, and the second was definitely harder to bounce back from, but once I did, wowee, it was perfectly fine. I won a Gold Glove and smashed forty-something homers that next season.”
“Is this your way of trying to tell me it’ll be okay, Dad?” Easton asks with a roll of his eyes as he taps the neck of his beer against Derek’s.
“Just trying to give you a little positive reinforcement is all. Let you see that if you do what you’re supposed to do, you’ll return next season and kick some serious ass.”
“Pushy fucker,” Easton says but his lips are all smile.
“Someone’s got to be.”
I stand in the kitchen and listen to them drone on and on. The laughter is rich and continuous as the three men talk baseball and club politics and the upcoming match-ups for the playoffs. It’s the most at ease I’ve ever seen Easton with his dad, and it’s the most I’ve ever heard him talk baseball outside his teammates.
I pour more wine in my glass and when I turn around, Cal is standing on the other side of the island, head angled to the side, blatantly studying me.
“Did you need another beer?” I ask, suddenly nervous under his scrutiny.
“No. Thanks.” He glances back to where Easton and Derek are laughing about something and then back to me. “So, Scout, are you living here now?”
I purse my lips as I contemplate how to answer, because for some reason, I feel like I’m being judged. “I have my own place still, if that’s what you’re asking.”
“But this thing between you two is serious then?”
What’s with the fifty questions?
“I’d say so, yes.” I watch and wait for a reaction but his expression remains stoic.
“That’s good. I’m really glad he has someone like you to help him through this tough time. Between the shoulder being reinjured and the damn broadcasting blunder, he needs someone supportive on his side.”
Exactly. It’s not like he can count on you, Cal, to be that for him.
I stare at him for a beat, hearing the words he’s saying. However, I get the sense that he means something else. “He’s a good man,” I finally reply following Cal’s glance to the family room where Easton listens intently to a story Derek is telling him.
Every part of Easton’s smile is worth a missed night out with him.
“I know the next few months are going to be difficult for him. Itching to start rehab. Mentally readying himself so he doesn’t fear injuring his shoulder again.” He takes a sip of beer. “And whatever else life throws at him.”
I murmur a noncommittal sound, wondering what that means. There can’t possibly be more life can throw Easton’s way to shock him after the year he’s had.
Scout
“Sorry again.”
“Don’t be.” I look up from the bed where I’m perusing my iPad and stare at Easton. He’s fresh from the shower, jogging pants slung way too low on his hips—like it-should-be-illegal low—and his hair is still dripping wet.
Definitely don’t be sorry if this is the view I get as a consolation prize.
“I’m the one who should apologize. I know this has been hard on you—all of it—but until I listened to the three of you talking tonight, I don’t think I realized exactly how hard.” I scrunch up my face because I know that sounds stupid. “I mean, of course I realized it, but after listening to Derek describe his injuries and recovery I kept thinking about you and how you must feel going through this for a second time in less than a year. It must be maddening.”
“That’s putting it lightly,” he says and twists his lips in thought. “This time is different though. I don’t feel as isolated as I did the first go-round.”
“Why’s that?” I’d think it would be the exact opposite. The season’s moved on. Teams have moved on. The postseason is here.
And he’s basically missed all of it.
“Of course, I feel left behind. It’s like I was with the cool kids and then all of a sudden I’m on the outside looking in on a life I used to have.”
“You’ll be back next season, though.”
He shrugs. “Hopefully. But like I said, it’s different this time.”
“How’s that?”
“I have you.” The words alone make my heart skip a beat, but the matter-of-fact way he says it causes me to melt in a way I never imagined possible.
I stare at him, our eyes hold, and I stutter over how to respond properly to a comment like that and not sound like an idiot, because that’s how I feel right now. He’s told me he loves me—and nothing can take away what those words mean to me—and yet for some reason these three mean more to me.
Maybe it’s the setting, maybe the moment, but regardless I don’t think I’ve ever loved him more than I do right now.
“Thank you,” I finally say, touched beyond words.
“No need to thank me when it’s true.” That cocksure smile is back. “Tell me what else you learned tonight.”
“How much you truly love the game.”
He narrows his brow and chuckles. “I thought you had that part figured out by now.”
“I do . . . but tonight. I don’t know, listening to you talk . . . I could hear it in your voice. In your laugh. Your love for all things baseball was more than obvious.”
“We talk baseball all the time.” He shrugs.
“True, but not like that.” I shake my head and look out the window for a beat before looking back to him. “Your voice tonight, the passion for the game in it . . . you had the same zeal that night in the press box before everything else happened.”
“Hmm.” He walks a few steps and stops in front of me, hands on his hips, and eyes alive. “I can’t remember the last time my dad stopped in just to talk. There was no criticism. No second-guessing. And then Derek. There’s so much to learn from his experience. So much I can learn from him.”
I smile. “Leave it to you to take a simple conversation and turn it into a chance to make you a better player.”
“The minute you get content, is the minute you lose your edge.”
“Does that pertain to all things, Mr. Wylder?” My tone is suggestive, my smile coy. He watches my finger as it trails up my inner thigh.
His tongue licks out to wet his bottom lip. “Are you telling me I’m losing my edge, Kitty?”
“Mmm.” I glance down to where his dick is hardening against the loose fabric of his pants before scraping my eyes up his mouth-watering physique. The view never gets old. When I meet the amusement in his eyes, it takes everything I have to play the seductress when my patience is all but nonexistent. “I’m not sure. I might need you to demonstrate your skill set so I can judge for myself.”
“I’ve got a damn good skill set.”
“That remains to be seen, Mr. Wylder.”
His chuckle rolls over my skin and makes me think of how his tongue feels when it does the exact same thing. He takes another step forward and without warning drops his pants to the floor. His dick springs to life and the sight of it—and the knowledge of what it can do to me—causes chills to chase over my skin.
“Show me your tits, Kitty.” His voice is an aphrodisiac.
I purposely make a show of biting my bottom lip as I reach for the hem of his shirt I’m wearing and pull it over my head. His groan is all I need to hear to know he appreciates that I’m braless and my panties are nothing more than strings holding a scrap of lace in place.
“That right there should be illegal,” he says.
“Me?” I ask, feigning innocence as I spread my legs wider. “Or my panties?”
“All of it,” he murmurs as he steps between them and runs a finger ever so softly over the heat of my sex.
My gasp is audible, the feel of his touch addictive as I look back at him. “Are you looking to get arrested then?”
“Any man worth his salt wouldn’t hesitate getting arrested if it meant he got to taste you.”
“Should I take that as a warning, then?” I moan as he slips a finger under my panties and slides it up and down my slit before pushing into me.
“You can take it any way you want so long as you understand when I say by any man, I mean me.” He adds another finger and works both of them into me, moves them, and then slides them back out. He takes my arousal and rubs it over the length of his cock before stroking the full, hard length of it himself. “Only me.”
God, he is sexy. His head is back, his bicep bulging as he pumps his hand over his shaft, and he groans in pleasure.
“Hey, Easton. You need to fuck me to show me your skill set. Not your hand.”
And as quickly as I say it, he grabs my ankles, yanks me toward him, and then does some tricky move where he has me flipped over onto my stomach on the edge of the bed before I can even squeal in surprise. It’s only when the palm of his hand lands firmly on my ass that I make a sound. And this time it’s a yelp as the pleasure-versus-pain thrill races through my blood and ignites every part of me from within.
His hand fists in my hair as the stubble on his chin scrapes over my shoulder. “You want to be fucked?”
“God, yes.” My answer is a breathless plea. This dominant side of him so very different than I’m used to. It’s so goddamn hot.
He rubs the head of his cock up and down my seam, and I press into him to let him know how bad I want it. And oh, how I want it. His laughter is deep and rumbles through the room before it turns into tested restraint as he slowly presses his way into me.
“That okay?” he murmurs, heat on my ear, once he’s seated root to tip inside of me.
“Mm-hmm.”
That chuckle again. “Good, because that’s the last time I’m going to ask. I’m not in the mood for soft and slow tonight, Scout. I want you. Plain and simple. And I’m going to take you. You got that?”
I grind my ass against him in response and knowingly ignite the fuse to his control.
And when he moves, there is nothing gentle about it. He sets a bruising pace I can’t keep up with even if I wanted to. I’m so lost in the bliss of his cock and what it does to me that it takes everything I have to keep my legs from turning to jelly. Thank God, I have the bed beneath me or I’d collapse.
He drives me to my climax and instead of milking it out of me—slowing down so I can ride the soft waves of it—he keeps going, keeps thrusting, so before I know it I’m already primed for another one.
I slide my fingers between my legs and rub my clit to help bring me there. I know he’s close too. He moves his hand from my hair to my shoulder to hold me in place so he can slam into me from behind.
He wages an all-out assault on my senses.
The sound of his groan. The slap of our skin connecting. My whimpers of pleasure. It feels so good it borders on painful.
The feel of his cock. Its head as it slides over every spot I need within me. The possessive grip of his hand.
The scent of his shampoo. The smell of sex. It surrounds me. Consumes me.
My name is on repeat with his every stroke. Each time it sounds more strained, more like his control is about to snap.
And when it does, I’m ready for it. For him. He bucks his hips and his fingers mark my skin from their grip.
“Jesus Christ,” he says as he leans forward and lays his chest atop my back, his chin on my shoulder, his mouth by my ear. “Scout . . . you . . . damn . . .” he pants and presses a kiss to the nape of my neck.
“Mmm.” I revel in the heat of his body and the feel of his skin on mine.
“See? Even with only one good arm, I haven’t lost my edge,” he says with a chuckle once he catches his breath.
“A skill set like that has to be illegal,” I tease.
“Well, if we’re going to jail, we might as well break the law again and again so we get our fill worth.”
“Does that mean next time we get to use handcuffs?”
“I like the way you think, Kitty.” I yelp as he straightens up and smacks my ass. “Teamwork at its finest.”
Scout
I glance around my apartment one last time.
Nothing here feels like home to me. Not the bed. Not the couch. Not the vanity in the bathroom.
Not the way Easton’s place does anyway.
So it’s time.
To walk away from this—formal surroundings that never really felt comfortable—and jump head first into what comes next.
Officially living together.
I laugh. It’s not like Easton and I haven’t been doing it already, but this next step will make it official.
I came to Austin—to this furnished apartment—to do nothing more than fulfill my dad’s wishes before moving on to the next city. The next ball club. To keep living the transient life I’ve grown accustomed to.
I glance over to the last box to bring to my car. There is nothing significant in it. No mementos t
o hold close. No memories to remind me of a special occasion. Everything I have that’s meaningful is already at Easton’s or at my dad’s house.
It’s funny how I moved here six months ago, content with my life. With the constant travel. With the lack of permanence. And now, all I can think about is staying in Austin long-term. Winning the contract to satisfy my dad’s wish all the while allowing me to remain in the only place other than my childhood home that I’ve ever really felt like I belong: Easton’s place.
It takes me a second to remove my key from my keychain before setting it on the kitchen counter and heading to the door.
I came here closed off from the world, and I’ll walk out open to the future.
I take one last look around. Give a half-hearted goodbye to the single life before willingly shutting the door on it.
I’m opening a different door now. One toward a new life.
To chances.
To possibilities.
To Easton.
Easton
“So whataya say, Doc?” Nerves rattle around as Dr. Kimble continues to manipulate my shoulder without talking. The little noises he makes to himself as he moves it here and there only add to my anxiety.
After his examination is done, he takes a seat opposite me. And fuck if I don’t suddenly feel the need to throw up. A doctor facing you is never good. The whole needing to get on eye level to break the bad news is bullshit.
“I’m not sure, Easton.”
“What does that mean?” My heart feels like it’s going to pound out of my chest.
“It’s healing on par with what I’d expect of it and the amount of days you’re out from your surgery date . . . but I’d be remiss if I didn’t tell you that your shoulder has suffered significant damage.”
“I thought you fixed it during the surgery.”
“I did, but sometimes what happens in surgery isn’t always how the body wants to heal.”
There’s a buzzing in my ears. My head grows dizzy. “What are you saying, Doc?”
“I’m saying it’s repaired, Easton. I’m saying with the proper rehab, you could report to spring training next year and hold your own. But with every ball you throw, you will risk permanent damage.”
