Perfect Catch

by Sierra Dean

  She lifted onto her toes, her mouth right against his ear. “We try some of the high level things I want to do…together. Then you can see that it is actually hard for me and get off my ass about it…or you show me that it’s fine and alleviate my fears and then I’ll listen to all your instructions from here on out.”

  He worked on simply breathing. He wanted to press her more firmly against the railing and test some of her hip range of motion right here and now. And he couldn’t deny that the idea of her listening to all his instructions from here on out was really fucking tempting. “I’m guessing we’re not talking about jogging now.”

  “I hate jogging.”

  “I don’t know much about yoga.”

  “Then we’ll stay away from the yoga.”

  He pulled back to look down at her. Dammit. He couldn’t sleep with her, but there were so many reasons that he wanted to and with her standing so close, the dark and the music and her scent and her lips right there…the reasons why it was a bad idea were fuzzy.

  Nate didn’t do fuzzy. A woman who muddled his brain and distracted him so easily was the last person he should—and would—get involved with.

  He liked to be in control in his relationships.

  It came from a history of a controlling son-of-a-bitch grandfather and two women who had made choices, without his input, that had changed his life profoundly.

  He was never going to be in a position again where someone else made decisions that affected his life and his loved ones.

  Staring at Emma now, he shook his head. It was ironic, but he loved strong, independent women and knew that none of the women he was attracted to would put up with his chauvinistic, controlling tendencies in a full-blown relationship. Therefore, he kept women specifically compartmentalized to the bedroom. There they didn’t seem to mind him being demanding.

  Bringing Emma into his bedroom seemed inevitable. But he knew Emma Dixon would not stay compartmentalized. Keeping Emma to one part of his life would be like telling a tornado to only tear apart a room instead of taking the whole house. It would never work and he’d be left with a big mess to clean up afterward.

  “You’re thinking about it too hard,” Emma told him.

  She gripped the front of his shirt and pulled him down for a kiss.

  The moment their lips met, as heat and desire and need swirled in him, Nate knew the tornado comparison was exactly right. And that it was futile to try to resist its force.

  Nate had been fighting this for months. There had been opportunities before this. He could have had her before this; he knew that. But he’d fought it. Fought against his natural instincts. Fought against his body clamoring for hers whenever she was within a few feet of him. Fought because her brother, his teammate and a damned good guy, would want to kick his ass. Fought because there was no way they could make this more than a night. Or two. Maybe a long weekend.

  Now it was happening, in spite of all that, and he couldn’t fight anymore.

  He was going to let the tornado sweep him away this one time. For just a moment.

  He slanted his mouth on hers, taking over the kiss. One hand still held her head, the other gripped her ass and brought her fully against him. He stroked his tongue deep, tasting her mouth fully, reveling in the feel of her lips against his as she arched closer.

  Her hands went from his shirt front to his neck, holding on tight and he backed her up the two inches to the railing, the firm support behind her enough that he could press his hips into hers.

  He felt her groan more than heard it and he wanted to see her face, to see how he was affecting her. He held her face in both hands and pulled away.

  Her lipstick was smudged, her lips swollen and parted as she breathed fast. Her cheeks were pink and her eyes opened slowly. When she did lift her gaze to his, she definitely looked dazed.

  “Holy shit,” she said. “We should have done that a long time ago.”

  She’s the one woman who can get his ball back in play…

  Protecting His Assets

  © 2014 Cari Quinn

  Deuces Wild, Book 1

  For a while, MLB pitcher Chase “Deuce” Dixon used his bad-boy reputation as a smoke screen to cover up his elbow injury. But plummeting pitching stats don’t lie, so now he’s a free agent, spending the off-season in surgeons’ offices, and considering a post-baseball career in security.

  His first night moonlighting as a nightclub bouncer, he’s surprised that the singer on stage is his little sister’s pure, sweet, spitfire of a best friend. And some drunk guy is getting way too personal.

  Summer Maitland doesn’t need Chase strong-arming one of the few fans she’s managed to accumulate during the career she keeps secret from her family. And despite her body’s shimmering reaction to his touch, she certainly doesn’t need a self-appointed bodyguard following her around.

  Chase has other ideas. If anyone’s going to lay a hand on Summer, it’s going to be him. Now if only he could keep his tongue out of her mouth long enough to keep her safe. And his hands to himself before he scares her off.

  Warning: Contains an ace hurler moonlighting as a bouncer moonlighting as a bodyguard, and an angel-voiced chanteuse who’s up for anything he can throw at her—in and out of the bedroom. This one could make you rethink the definition of fastball.

  Enjoy the following excerpt for Protecting His Assets:

  By the time they arrived at her place, he’d come up with a plan to combat their aloneness for the next hour and a half before they started the trek into the city. He’d nail her shutters or whatever and then he’d stand at her sink and scarf down the ice cream without making eye contact or conversation. That would succinctly convey his disinterest.

  Or it might’ve if she hadn’t parked ahead of him in her driveway and rushed inside, declaring she needed to change. Hard to ignore someone who wasn’t paying you any mind.

  He dawdled in his SUV, not wanting to spend any longer in her personal space than necessary. In and out—that was his motto. No entanglements, no drama.

  When he knew he couldn’t stall any longer, he trudged up the wide plank porch steps to the door, noting the shiny urns full of thriving fall flowers and cheerful half moon welcome mat, and pulled open the screen door. He’d taken two steps inside when Summer bounded downstairs in a tiny ass robe that showed her legs approximately up to her nipples. Maybe even higher.

  “What the frig is that?”

  Slyly, she held out the object she’d hidden behind her back. “This, my dear Deuce, is a hammer. One uses it to nail…things.”

  “I don’t mean the hammer. I mean that piece of clothing. Why are you practically naked?”

  “I need to take a shower before my show.” She inched closer, the hammer still clutched between her perky breasts. And there was that word again. Perky. “You don’t want me to stink when I’m on stage, do you?” She lifted her wrist and sniffed. “I reek of—”

  “Chocolate and vanilla and everything nice?” He barely resisted a snarl.

  She smirked. “You seem stressed. Maybe you should sit down and eat your ice cream before you go play with my hammer.” As she stroked it, he shifted uncomfortably. If he didn’t have sex soon, he’d probably shoot off from the image of those golden fingers wrapping around the wood. Squeezing again and again.

  Christ. He needed ice cream or a cold compress or something. Maybe he should stuff his dick in the pint of chocolate. Couldn’t hurt.

  “I’m fine,” he gritted out. “Give me the freaking hammer. And go get dressed. We need to leave soon.”

  “Oh, we have plenty of time.” The way she caressed the word plenty made his balls throb. Stupid balls. Stupid celibacy.

  Like his pathetic truck trick, he took as long to mess around with her shutters as humanly possible. If they’d actually been loose, it would’ve helped. They weren’t. He still hammered and banged the outside of her house, hoping she’d feel guilty for driving him out into the cold and wind to avoid her numerous blatant sexua
l overtures.

  They had been blatant sexual overtures, right? Sometimes he just wasn’t sure. Not that it mattered. His fish couldn’t be lured with pink, perky nipp—hooks.

  When he came back into the living room, his hands ached from his vigorous needless pounding. Other parts of him ached because they hadn’t pounded anything in way too long. Seeing Summer all curled up in the corner of the couch with a spoon in her jar of sauce and his ice cream stuff spread out on the coffee table didn’t help with the latter.

  “Hey. Thank you. You’re so sweet.” She leaned forward and her robe gaped almost to the point of indecency. She didn’t seem to notice. “Here, let’s eat. I’ll get showered and ready to go when we’re done.” She waved her dripping spoon. “I had paperwork to do,” she added, all blue-eyed and pink-cheeked innocence.

  “Uh huh.”

  He took the opposite end of the couch and reached for his melting ice cream. Instead of his plastic spoon, she’d given him a fancy dessert one with a long handle. “You didn’t need to go to any trouble. I’m not company.”

  If she noticed his peeved tone, she didn’t react. She smiled around her spoon, currently hidden between her luscious pink lips. Then she slid it out, nice and slow. “No, but you are doing a service for me. Protecting my assets and all.”

  “Uh huh.” That would now be his standard answer to everything.

  “Come on, Chase. We used to be friends.” She stretched out her bare legs and nudged his thigh with unpainted toes. The surprising lack of artifice turned him to stone faster than any coat of passion red or whatever they called that crap. “Can’t we hang out and have fun?”

  “Sure. You having fun yet?”

  She heaved out a sigh. “No, but I know how to get the party started. I have a confession to make.”

  “God help me.”

  “I have a pair of Daggers team panties with your name on the ass.” Though he was too busy swallowing his own spoon to look her way, he heard her sucking on hers. “I’m wearing them right now.”

  The Daggers had team panties? That fabric got to cup her slick pussy while he nursed the hard-on from hell?

  Surely there had to be an appropriate way to redirect this conversation. Until his brain cells regenerated he’d focus on not adding fuel to her fire. “That’s nice. Always glad to have a fan support the team, even if it’s not technically mine anymore. Did you catch any games last season?”

  “I never missed one of your games.”

  His chest tightened and he dropped his forgotten spoon in his waffle bowl. Pretty soon he’d be able to drink his ice cream. “Why?”

  “I’m a baseball fan. Can’t say I kept up on much of the drama that surrounded you and the team, but I like the sport itself.” She shrugged and swirled her spoon in the jar, clinking the sides. “I like you too. Not that you’d ever see me that way.” Her mirthless chuckle echoed in his head. “Sister’s best friend equals no stray zone, right?”

  His brain had detoured somewhere around the mention of her watching all his games. Then he clicked into the rest. “What way?” he asked, knowing full well. He shifted to face her, needing to watch the words form on her damp lips. Hearing them wasn’t enough. “You know I like you too.” Too much. Dangerously much.

  “It’s different.”

  “And?” He motioned for her to continue. “Don’t stop now.”

  She pulled her knees up closer to her chest, slightly parting her thighs. Letting him glimpse the royal blue color that belonged to his team. Had been his team. The pang came swift and hard, dissipating only when she whispered, “And I’m wet for you. Every day. Every night. All the moments in between.”

  A groan ripped from his throat. He couldn’t let the images form behind his eyes or he’d never get the words out. “Dammit, Summer.”

  “I’m sorry you can’t handle the truth.” She didn’t sound sorry. She sounded pissed. Yeah, well, join the club.

  “With you and me, it’s not that simple. It can’t be.” Big blue eyes bored into his and made his throat go dry. He couldn’t seem to figure out what to say to stop all of this, and worst of all, he wasn’t even sure he wanted to. “Yes, there’s Cass. We have so much history…”

  “Why is that a bad thing? We know each other so well.” She flung her toes at the vial of white chocolate chips on the coffee table that, now that he’d given up alcohol, served as his most potent vice. Other than her. “I know you don’t want anyone to know you love chocolate and hate peas.”

  His mouth twitched. “I don’t care if people know I hate peas. They’re vile.”

  “I also know you’ve bought into your persona more than anyone else. You’ve actually convinced yourself you’re a boozer who bangs any chick who moves. That’s your identity now and you wear that badge of shame with pride.”

  Chase pressed his knuckles into the cushion beside him, craving that quick, obliterating pain that would shoot up his arm and erase everything else for an instant. For once, it didn’t come. “What do you know about pride? You watch my games on TV and you remember what vegetables I hate. That doesn’t make you some expert on me.”

  “I’ll tell you what I know about pride. I know it won’t keep you company in bed at night. Neither will those women who don’t care about how you like your ice cream or how you bob your knee when you’re nervous—” she gave his leg a pointed glance until he went still, “—or that you miss your mom the same way I miss mine, even if you’d die before saying it. I know you, and I’m still sitting here. Tell me that doesn’t count for something and I’ll call you a liar.” She studied him with way too knowing eyes. “One more thing you can add to that list of failures you wave around so much.”

  The chaos in his head could be quieted with one simple statement. He could disavow a million honorable reasons for why he shouldn’t take what he wanted and take it hard. Except one.

  “You’re my employer and I won’t compromise your safety for any reason, including unnecessary personal involvement.”

  “I can’t employ someone who refuses to accept payment.” She spooned up more chocolate and reminded him that he hadn’t finished his. A thought that vanished as soon as she trailed a thick line of white sauce along her full lower lip.

  He might as well admit defeat. She’d officially signed his death warrant.

  He wasn’t thinking about her mouth wet with chocolate sauce. Not even close. He wanted her lips wet from him. Wanted to lean down and drag his teeth over her flesh and taste what he’d left behind after she’d relieved the relentless throb in his balls.

  “You don’t know what you’re stirring up, little girl.”

  Perfect Catch

  Sierra Dean

  Is their love a home run, or merely a pop fly?

  Boys of Summer, Book 2

  Minor league umpire Alice Darling loves everything about baseball. That means hunky ball players are strictly off limits—dating one would be professional suicide. With a young daughter and a brother to care for, she can’t afford to slip up.

  Truth is, as a young, stupid, nineteen-year-old townie, she did once date a player. That’s how she wound up with her precious, nine-year-old daughter…and a determination to never make that mistake again. Alex Ross’s arrival in Florida for spring training, though, shakes her resolve in a big way.

  Alex, a catcher for the Major League’s San Francisco Felons, has never let much get in the way of his game. One look at Alice changes everything, and he finds himself pursuing her with a single-minded purpose that plays hell with his concentration.

  Booted back to the minors, he returns to Florida with his tail between his legs to work on his swing…and heat things up with Alice. But when rumors of their affair hit the sports blogosphere, Alice’s career is put in jeopardy, and their love starts to look more like a strikeout than a home run.

  Warning: When a catcher struggling with his swing meets a stubborn single-mom umpire, his bat won’t be the only thing that heats up. Contains car sex, bed sex, sex sex, and a
little angst for good measure.

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  This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the writer’s imagination or have been used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, actual events, locale or organizations is entirely coincidental.

  Samhain Publishing, Ltd.

  11821 Mason Montgomery Road Suite 4B

  Cincinnati OH 45249

  Perfect Catch

  Copyright © 2014 by Sierra Dean

  ISBN: 978-1-61922-062-1

  Edited by Sasha Knight

  Cover by Kendra Egert

  All Rights Are Reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

  First Samhain Publishing, Ltd. electronic publication: March 2014

  www.samhainpublishing.com