by Tessa Bailey
As she reached the sink, she remembered the packaged toothbrush and oh-so-casually shoved it into the wastebasket. “I promised myself I would start training for the Tough Mudder today. I don’t want to disgrace the family name.”
Without missing a beat, Travis leaned past her and took the toothbrush out of the trash. He popped it open, sliding the red object into his hands, tossing it from one to the other. “I’ve got sneakers in my truck. Give me a few minutes. I’ll come with you.”
“Sure, sure.”
Travis applied toothpaste to the brush, ran it under the water, and stuck it in his mouth. “You’re doing that thing again where you don’t touch me. Which is funnier than usual seeing as how we spent the whole night plastered together.”
“Did we?”
“Yeah.” He scrubbed his teeth and spat. Like a damn baseball player. “Is that why you’re acting weird? Because I forgot to leave?”
“Am I acting weird?”
He gave her a look of pure male exasperation. “You’ve got until I finish brushing my teeth to stop freaking out on me. Otherwise . . .” Dramatic pause. “We’re going down to tickle town.”
A tingle of alarm ran down her spine. “You wouldn’t.”
“I would.” Brush, brush. “Bottoms of the feet, right?”
“We’re adults now.” Trying to be inconspicuous, she sidestepped toward the bathroom door. “You can’t use a weakness against me you learned when I was a child. That’s unethical.”
He rinsed and spit, nestling his toothbrush alongside hers in the cabinet. Thunk-thunk-thunk went her heart, waiting for him to respond. “I gave my best friend’s sister her first time on the couch last night. Didn’t go easy on her, either.” His attention dropped to the apex of her thighs, his jaw flexing. “Trust me, I didn’t think of ethics once.”
“Good,” she said in a shaky whisper. “I’m more than the youngest Castle sibling.”
“You’re telling me.”
Oh God. Her knees wanted to collapse. “All of this is irrelevant, because I’m not freaking out anymore. No need for tickling.”
He sauntered toward her like a rangy-hipped cowboy. With a chub. “Why did you throw the toothbrush away?”
Her laughter was hysterical. “I think the court will agree that was an accident.”
Travis stopped and crossed his arms. His big, buff arms with shadowed cuts and mouthwatering valleys. Boy, this bathroom had seriously great lighting. “You still haven’t touched me. I’m starting to get annoyed.”
“You can be aroused and annoyed at the same time?” She shifted on the balls of her feet, preparing to run. “There’s one for the résumé, right?”
Her words were still hanging in the air when Travis lunged and threw her over his shoulder. Disoriented, she somehow managed to deduce where they were going—the bed—and she yelped on the way down, landing on her back. “Don’t do it!”
“You had your chance.” Travis shook his head, planting a hand on her chest and easily holding her down while he pried off a running shoe. “I didn’t want to visit tickle town, but you left me no choice.”
“Stop calling it that.” Georgie half laughed, half squealed, attempting and failing to twist onto her belly. “Oh my God. A naked man is tickling me by force. I never want to hear clowns are scary again.”
She peeked up to find his fingers poised above the arch of her right foot. “This hurts me more than it hurts you.”
“Travis, please.”
The gorgeous jerk had the nerve to wink. “There’s that word I love so much again.”
Her skin was on high alert, waiting for the dreaded sensation. “The anticipation is the worst part,” she wailed. “Just do it or don’t.”
“There’s only one escape.”
Hope caused her to jackknife, but Travis pushed her back down. “What is it?”
“I want a proper good morning from you, and I’m not even sure what one looks like. Just know I wanted you lying there when I opened my eyes.” His mouth was in a smirk, but his eyes were deadly serious. Dark. Her thighs turned watery in response. “I want your hands all over me. Your mouth on mine. And next time you get out of bed without giving me both, I’m going to find you, pull your pants down, and backhand that little tush you had tucked up in my lap all night. We clear?”
Georgie’s pulse thundered in her ears, her intimate muscles searching for their counterpart, wanting to clamp down. Wanting friction. “Yes.”
Travis watched her from under hooded lids for another second, then freed her foot. He sunk back on the bed in a kneeling position and waited while Georgie scrambled up. Intuition told her a single hesitation would earn her a one-way ticket onto her back again, so she didn’t wait. She climbed him. She locked her thighs around Travis’s waist and ran her palms up his shoulders, stopping when they were framing his face. And they fell into a groaning kiss, his hard flesh lifting and prodding the seam of her yoga pants. His hands slipped beneath her shirt, gripping her waist on each side, calling attention to their size difference.
Mint and male assaulted her senses, sending a rush of moisture between her legs. She scooted closer on Travis’s lap and he broke the kiss to watch her—intently—as she writhed on his erection. As she moved, he gripped the nape of her neck and looked down, watching her. Watching their lower bodies slide and grind together.
“I say we skip the run,” she gasped, as Travis captured her earlobe with his teeth.
“We’re going.” He slid his hand down to her ass and squeezed, thrusting his hips up into her at the same time. “Now you’ve got an incentive.”
Denial seeped in. “But—”
Travis cut her off with a drugging kiss, but it was mixed with something else. Yes, there was lust, but she knew this man. And she was starting to think she’d hurt his feelings. Or made him worry. “I’m not used to waking up with other people, either, Georgie.”
“I know.”
He searched her eyes. “If it’s too much, I won’t do it next time.”
In that moment, she couldn’t think of anything but banishing the insecurities she’d caused. “Don’t tell my siblings or I’ll kill you, but . . . I always check under my bed for serial killers before I turn out the light and go to sleep. It didn’t even occur to me to check for the ghost of Ted Bundy last night.” She tilted her head. “I didn’t worry about a thing with you snoring in my face.”
A laugh boomed out of him. “Way to tarnish the moment.” He studied her. “You really felt safer with me here?”
“Safe as houses.”
He looked satisfied as he brushed her bangs back. “I like knowing that.”
Georgie’s heart was in her eyes. She could feel it. How much she showed him in that moment. Ten years of nursing an all-consuming crush she’d assumed was love, when she’d had no idea that this was what love felt like. This. This was it. So heavy at times it couldn’t be lifted, so light at others it made you capable of floating. Protect yourself, a voice whispered in the back of her head. He doesn’t love you back. Then or now. With a tight smile, Georgie was off his lap. She hit the ground running, her voice unnatural when she called over her shoulder. “We leave in five minutes. Think you can keep up?”
The route she took on their run brought them past the high school. Honestly, Georgie didn’t plan it. But after that, it seemed only natural to cross over through the baseball field. Since the season wouldn’t start for months, the expansive green sat deserted beneath a cloudy gray morning sky, automatic sprinklers ticking and spraying in the distance. Without looking at Travis, she could feel the tension creeping into his frame—his reluctance to go toward the diamond.
He’d started talking to her more about baseball, especially since he’d started gunning for the commentating job with the Bombers. But the idea of actively playing the sport again seemed to make him uncomfortable. As if he wouldn’t allow himself full enjoyment of baseball unless he could be the best at it. Sadness settled over her. Made loss spread in her belly. She c
ould blink and see him in his starched gray Port Jefferson uniform, standing at home plate and tapping the metal bat off his cleats. Trash-talking the catcher. Absorbing love and excitement from the crowd—especially her. He’d so obviously been the best, no one ever questioned his superiority. They celebrated it. Add to that the fact that Travis Ford practically glowed while holding a bat, and Georgie couldn’t help but miss watching him play. The sport was a part of him.
Jogging beside him through the outfield and remembering the deafening cheers from the crowd, Georgie’s gut told her not to stop pushing him. It could be something he loved, even if he couldn’t make millions of dollars playing. More importantly, like she’d told him last night, he didn’t have to be the best baseball player to be the best Travis.
With these thoughts dancing in Georgie’s head, it couldn’t have been a coincidence that the gray light happened to glint off a bat that someone must have left propped against the dugout. No. Coincidences that perfect didn’t exist.
She veered right, praying she was doing the right thing.
“Where are you . . .” Travis stopped following her around second base. “Georgie.”
She didn’t let his warning tone deter her. “I’m just going to grab this bat. I’ll drop it off at the lost and found later.”
“Someone will probably be back to look for it before then.” God, he looked so uncomfortable, rolling his shoulders in that stressed-out manner he broke out only when truly out of his comfort zone. “You should leave it.”
Georgie hummed. “Okay.” She started to return the bat to its original position, but swung it up onto her shoulder instead, bending her knees in a pitiful stance. “Too bad we don’t have a ball.”
“You don’t have a hope in hell of hitting a ball standing like that.” He made an absent gesture that wasn’t really absent. His eyes were zoned in on her. “Choke up, Georgie. If you swing like that, you’re going to knock yourself out.”
“This is how Stephen taught me,” she returned with a frown.
“Stephen was always better at hockey.” Travis took a few steps into the diamond and sighed. “Bend your knees, weight on the back leg.”
She locked her knees and leaned forward.
Travis groaned up at the sky. “You’re killing me, baby girl.”
When he stomped toward her, crossing over the pitcher’s mound and looking like the cover of Sports Illustrated, Georgie took a bracing breath. But she could do nothing to stop the flood of excitement that pooled in her stomach. “What?”
“I know what you’re doing.” He leaned down and growled into her neck. “Come here, anyway. You’re mocking the baseball gods.”
His front curved to her back in such a delicious fashion, Georgie had to close her eyes. His strong, capable arms bracketed her, the scent of male sweat and mint toothpaste giving her no choice but to sway. “Um. Who are the baseball gods?”
“Ruth, DiMaggio, and Gehrig. No question.”
Georgie dropped her voice to a whisper. “Are they watching us right now?”
“They’re too busy spinning in their graves. Slide your hands up, grip tight—and try not to make a sexual innuendo about it.”
She giggled like an honest-to-God middle school girl but somehow managed to follow the dictate, even with pheromones having a rave in her bloodstream. “Like this?”
“Good girl,” he said huskily against her ear, bringing his flexing thighs up against hers, securing her backside tightly in his lap. “Now drop that beautiful ass a little. Weight on your back leg.” He groaned as she complied, thanks to her bottom dragging right over the swell of his manhood. “God yeah, just like that.”
Oh boy.
It was safe to say the situation was getting away from Georgie. She’d chanced picking up the bat in an attempt to draw Travis back into his happy place. But the longer this went on, the greater the chance they would end up in an entirely different venue of happiness. She couldn’t let this opportunity pass, though. Who knew when she’d have another chance like this?
When his hand traveled beneath the front of her shirt to massage her breast, his lips leaving an openmouthed kiss on her neck, it was now or never. “I think I got it,” she said in a tremulous voice. “But could you show me, just so I’m sure?”
Travis’s breath sighed out onto her neck. Above them, the sky darkened further, blurring their shadows on the ground, releasing a hint of salt into the air. “I think we’ve done enough for one day.”
Knowing she played dirty, Georgie gave Travis an innocent yet beseeching look over her shoulder. “Please?”
A muscle twitched in his jaw. “Why is this important to you?”
It was so hard to keep the love hidden. This morning in bed. Now. Every time they reached this point where her heart ached to come clean, she drew back, afraid he might catch on. Right now, though, with something so vital on the line, she pushed through the nerves. “I used to sit in the bleachers and watch your games.” She turned and eased away, casting a look at the seating area in question. “By the time they were over, I’d have little moon-shaped nail marks on my palms . . . and they wouldn’t fade for hours. That’s how exciting you were to watch.” She rolled her lips together. “Not because of your batting average. Just because you made everyone want to love something as much as you loved baseball. To feel what you felt.”
Travis seemed frozen. Or maybe they both were, because she couldn’t attempt movement until he gave some sort of reaction. Finally, his chest lifted and fell on a heavy shudder. “When I used to play, we always kept a stash of balls in the eaves of the dugout. There’s probably a ball or two.” He sniffed and took the bat from Georgie, weighing it in his hands. “Better hit a few before the sky opens up.”
She had already turned and was walking at a fast clip to the dugout, a cheer going up in her mind. It was happening. She’d done it. Her foot skidded on some loose dirt as she rounded the corner onto the dugout steps, breathing a sigh of relief when she saw the row of balls. Using her T-shirt as a carrying device, she gathered as many balls as she could and waddled back under the weight, probably resembling a harried duck. “What should I do?”
Travis took a practice swing, tension riddling his shoulders, and Georgie had a moment of panic. What if pushing him backfired?
Instead of answering, he held up his hand.
Georgie tossed him the first ball. He caught it with ease, staring at it a moment. His narrowed gaze eventually drifted out to the fences, his sturdy frame expanding. Preparing. “Stand back, baby girl.”
She looked down to find herself mere inches from the batter’s box. “Oh.” Quickly, she scooted back. “Right.”
Holding her breath, she watched as Travis tossed the ball up in the air. It had been months since he’d swung a bat, yet his body fell right into the familiar motion. His stabilizing leg bent, his arms carrying the bat back, his tongue tucking into his cheek. Muscle memory. And oh my God. Legs twisting, arms and torso flexing, he was magnificent. The ball cracked off the bat and went soaring, up toward the rapidly darkening clouds, and dropped way out in the outfield, rebounding off the fence with a ping.
Georgie could no more stop her loud whoop of pure joy than she could stop the rain that started to fall in gentle drips around them. Travis turned to her with stunned optimism, and she didn’t hesitate to throw him the next ball. And the next. One by one, they dropped into the outfield or roared down the third base line, every thwack of the ball meeting metal making Georgie’s heart sing louder. The rain grew heavier, soaking their clothes and hair, but they didn’t stop until all the balls were gone from her T-shirt. If she had a million more, she would have stood there tossing balls to Travis until the sun went down, watching him grow more confident with every swing, but she couldn’t have been any more victorious when he dropped the bat.
Tears blurred in her eyes as he strode toward her, lifting her into a bear hug. She laughed without restraint as he spun her in a circle around home plate, her arms clinging to his neck
. “Show-off,” she breathed into his ear. “How did that feel?”
“Good.” He shook his head. “No. Great.”
She held him tighter, sensing them walking but uncaring of where they ended up as long as he kept her wrapped in his arms. Remembering their morning conversation about wanting her touch, a dam inside Georgie split down the middle and burst open. She licked a stream of rain off his neck. Her thighs itched to climb higher on Travis’s hips, so she let them and then twisted her fingers into his shirt collar to keep him in place for a kiss.
“Goddammit, Georgie.”
“What?”
“Thank you.” His eyes ran laps over her face, his fingers stroking the side. “How do you do that? You . . . accept me. Exactly as I am. But you still change me for the better.”
I love you. That’s how. She couldn’t say it out loud, so she leaned in for a kiss instead.
When their mouths joined, it wasn’t just a kiss. It was gratitude and adrenaline. Excitement and support and love. And it was frantic, rain-soaked glory. Georgie sank so deep into the kiss, she didn’t realize they were in the dugout until Travis fell onto the bench, her legs still fashioned around his waist, their faces a mere centimeter apart. Breathing heavy. The change in position brought her aching center down on Travis’s erection, catapulting her into a deep abyss of lust. She clung to his wide shoulders and worked herself up and back on the rigid flesh, encouraged by his biting curse.
“Please. Please, baby girl. Don’t grind that little thing on me unless your pants are off,” he growled against her mouth. “I need inside that pussy.”
“You can have whatever you want,” she whispered brokenly, drifting into that mind space that made her the hottest. Let Travis put his needs on display so she could be the one who took care of them. And after last night, she knew giving led to Travis worshipping her in return. Giving until his body couldn’t anymore. The promise of that made her all the more eager to match his hunger now. “Tell me what you want.”
Travis’s energy shifted and he lifted her off his lap with a harsh expletive, yanking down her yoga pants and practical white bikini underwear. Revealing her flushed sex. With a groan, he lowered the front waistband of his shorts, taking out his thick arousal, stroking it once in that big hand—never taking his eyes off her. “Get on your knees and suck this cock.”
