by Pippa Grant
And right when I think she’s going to bolt, instead, she meets my gaze while her hands drift down her breasts, cross over her belly, and grip her T-shirt hem.
My dick’s so hard it could smack the seams off a baseball.
And that’s before she slowly lifts that shirt, exposing one tantalizing inch of skin at a time. Her belly’s sporting the same rose glow as her cheeks, and I want to know where else she’s hot and bothered.
I can’t breathe. Can’t think. Can’t move.
She’s not wearing a Fireballs bra.
She’s wearing a red lace bra.
She finishes pulling her shirt over her head and tosses it aside. It might’ve landed on the floor, or it might’ve landed on the stove and be in imminent danger of catching fire, and I don’t care.
She has a Fiery belly button ring.
And I have the hardest hard-on in the history of hard-ons, and the brainpower to go with it. “I want to touch you so bad.”
“I fantasize about your cock when I masturbate.”
That. Mouth. “Show me.”
She bites her lower lip, her electric blue gaze skimming my bare chest and making my skin light up like fireworks after a night game.
And then she trails her pink-tipped fingers over the edge of her lace bra, and I. Am. Dead.
Pick me up off the floor dead of over-arousal.
Pretty sure my dick would like to detach itself and clobber me over the head until it bashes my brains in for all of these years of denying it sex.
It can shut the ever-loving fuck up though, because if my reward for my patience is this woman, then it’s all been worth it.
Forget baseball. Forget winning. Forget everything else.
I want this woman whose neck is arching back and whose eyes are sliding closed while she pinches her own nipples through her red lace bra, and I would wait a hundred years if I knew she was the light at the end of my tunnel.
“Mackenzie.”
She peers at me through lowered lids. “I want to see you.”
I’m not in my ugly-ass kitchen with Mackenzie framed against the backdrop of an olive fridge that’s making noises like a dying rhinoceros.
I’m standing firmly in my own fantasies come to life where a crazy-sexy woman with mussed hair and bedroom lips and the breasts of a goddess is slipping a hand into her pants while asking to see me naked.
I strip out of my sweats and boxers and toss them, only hazily noticing my dog’s bark and the subsequent “Dickhead!” translated by his collar.
So, so fucking accurate right now.
Mackenzie’s gaze drifts to my morning salute, and she licks her lips.
I fist myself, because if I don’t, I’m going to ask her to, and I can’t.
I can’t take that chance. Not if it’ll make her feel responsible for anything else that happens the rest of today.
“You would feel so amazing inside me.” Her breath is coming faster, and it’s not enough to watch her hand disappearing under her leggings.
I want to see her too. “Take them off.”
She bites her lip again. Looks down at my dick, which I’m stroking as slowly as I can.
Must. Maintain. Control.
“Show me your sweet pussy, Mackenzie. Show me what you’re doing with your fingers.”
Show me what I’m missing.
Her fingers are wet when she pulls them back out of her pants and teases me with lowering her pants even slower than she took off her shirt.
Half an inch down one hip. A quarter-inch down the other.
I jerk harder.
She smiles triumphantly, and I make my fist slow.
Torture has never been this enjoyable.
“Do I do that to you, or is it any red-blooded woman?” she whispers.
“It’s you.”
Her gaze demands my full attention while she continues to peel those tight leggings off her hips and down her thighs, and not even the matching red lace bikini panties can distract me from the demand that I prove to her I’m telling the truth.
She’s seen me at my lowest.
Hitting on anything that moved.
Actively hating being here in Copper Valley.
Trying to sabotage her favorite team. The team that I get paid to play for. Not her.
“From the minute we met, I haven’t been able to look at another woman without thinking of you.”
“I’m a hot mess.”
“You’re a spicy taco with extra guacamole.”
She laughs, and what little blood I have left in my brain surges straight to my dick. The sight of her with her eyes sparkling happily and her skin flushed and that wide mouth spread in a smile will fuel my next four dozen jack-off sessions.
At least.
Her gaze lingers on my cock, still fisted in my hand, because I have this erroneous assumption that I won’t have a premature issue here if I hold myself still.
She licks her lips again. “You’re very big.”
“Pent-up frustration.”
“Stroke yourself.”
“You first, Kenz.”
Our eyes lock once more. “Where?” she whispers.
“Touch your pussy. I want to see you touch your pussy.”
“Like this?”
It’s a good thing I’m already dead, because watching her slide that lace aside, part her legs, and stroke a finger into her blond curls would’ve finished me off.
“Pinch your clit.” I can barely talk, but I force the words out, and I’m rewarded with her doing exactly as I ask.
Her lips part. Her eyelids lower. And a soft moan of pleasure fills my ears as she plays with her nub.
I’m yanking my cock erratically. I can’t control my fist, and I don’t want to. “More, Kenz. Put your fingers inside yourself.”
She groans as she obliges, and watching her jerk her fingers in and out of her wet channel is taking me to the edge of control.
“I don’t…usually…have an audience,” she gasps.
“Usually?”
“Ever. I’ve never…done…this.”
“It’s hot as fuck.” And I’m gonna come. I’m gonna spill everything right here in my porny kitchen before she gets off. “You’re the sexiest fucking woman in the world, and one day, that’ll be my dick you’re riding. I’m gonna take you so hard we’ll both go blind, Kenz. So fucking hard. All night long.”
“Oh, god, Brooks, oh, god, I’m coming.”
Thank sweet fuck.
Her head arches back. She braces a hand on the fridge, and she moans, her fingers buried deep in her pussy, and the sight of her getting herself off pushes me over the edge.
I come in my hand, roaring out my own release at how fucking good it feels to not be alone, to be watching her ride out her orgasm while mine rips through me with the force of a hundred-mile-an-hour pitch splintering a baseball bat.
I can’t catch my breath.
I can barely stand.
I have to hit a damn grand slam every time I step up to the plate today if I ever want to get close enough to touch Mackenzie again.
But fuck, it’s all worth it.
Every bit.
I grab a paper towel and clean myself while she sags against the olive green fridge, panting, eyes squeezed shut.
And that’s not a pretty rose making her whole body blush.
It’s red blotchiness.
Like her skin itself is telegraphing the regret already sinking in.
I toss the paper towel and step beside her, gripping her chin until she looks up at me. “I’m gonna have the best fucking game of my life today. And when I get back from this road trip, we’re doing this again.”
She visibly swallows. Her gaze wavers, and fear settles in the deepest pits of my stomach.
“And we still need pancake sandwiches,” I add as I release her chin.
It’s normal.
It’s what we do.
We eat Nutella-bacon pancakes.
And the Fireballs win.
Regardless of how I play.
“I like you,” she whispers.
I grin. “Thank god, because I’d hate to see what you do to someone you don’t like.”
Coco Puff barks, and his collar does its thing. “Fuck you all, motherfuckers!”
“Oh, is someone feeling neglected?” I glance at my dog, realize he’s made himself at home right in the middle of Mackenzie’s discarded shirt, and suddenly have images of him peeing all over her clothes.
Which would mean she’d have to wear one of my shirts on her way out the door.
Huh. Suddenly can’t see the downside.
I grab my pants, because I don’t really want to risk going on the injured list for cooking injuries sustained to my junk. I survived getting head-butted in the cup by a goat, but I’m not wearing protective gear right now. “Extra Nutella for luck?”
She blinks at my sweatpants and starts smiling like she knows what I’m thinking, and the entire world rights itself back on its axis. “Only for me. You need everything else to stay the same this morning.”
I stagger with a hand to my heart. “Cruel, cruel woman.”
Something wavers in her gaze again, and I know we’re walking a fine line.
But she doesn’t run away.
And an hour later, when she’s on her way out the door to get ready for handing out Fiery Forever buttons at Duggan Field before the game, she slaps my ass. “Play good today, tiger.”
Good.
Fuck that.
I’m giving her my best.
25
Mackenzie
I basically spend the entire afternoon holding my breath. Every time a ball bounces Brooks’s way at the game, my hands clench into fists, I squeeze my eyes shut but still try to peer through them, and every muscle in my body goes into fight or flight mode. And don’t ask how bad it is when he steps up to the plate.
The game isn’t even in the second inning before Sarah demands to know what in the hell is wrong with me today.
Politely, I mean.
Sarah’s never rude.
“I can’t tell you,” I whisper to her. “It might curse us more than it already has.”
The mascots race through the stands between the third and fourth innings, each carrying a picture of one of the players’ faces, and seeing who can get the most people to kiss their favorite player.
Cooper Rock wins by a landslide, naturally.
Brooks isn’t even an option, and now I’m wondering if that’s good or bad luck for him, because Cooper hit a home run after he won the kissing contest. Maybe the same would work for Brooks?
Or maybe it would be the opposite?
By the fifth inning, I’m wound so tight my neck and jaw are sore, and Sarah’s not having it anymore. She marches me past security—they love her here, but then, people love her everywhere—and up to the owners’ suite.
It’s decorated in Fireballs colors with all-new lighting, paint, furniture, and flooring, with sliding glass doors opening to enough seating for about fifteen on the deck. Tripp and Lila and their kids are all here, along with Beck, his sister, her husband, and their son.
I dig my heels in before the suite door closes behind us. “Sarah, seriously, I cannot talk about this in front of them.”
She points to a cozy Fireballs-red leather chair in the corner, which is more orange than red, because Tripp and Lila are changing everything. “Sit. Stay. And don’t make me regret the birthday present I’m already planning for you.”
It’s only loyalty to my oldest non-family friend that has me obeying.
She pokes her head out onto the deck, says something to everyone else, and then slides all the glass doors shut. Then she turns and crosses her arms. “Talk. Now.”
“Brooks and I masturbated together this morning.”
I bury my face in my hands so I can’t see the disappointment in her face, because now that I’ve come down off the proximity orgasm high, I’m truly ashamed of myself. “I let my sexual desires get in the way of what’s best for the team.”
“Was it good?”
I peek at her from between my fingers, and I realize she’s holding in a laugh. “This isn’t funny.”
“Mackenzie. He got a hit.”
“Only because St. Louis’s short stop fumbled the ball.”
She sinks into the chair next to mine and pulls my hands away from my face. “It takes two to mutually masturbate. Did he participate because he’s trying to punish you for cock-blocking him and he’s taking advantage of your feelings to make you feel bad if he performs poorly on the field today, in which case I’ll be calling my parents to come join yours in castrating him, or has he finally realized what an amazing woman you are?”
“He asked me to puppysit Coco Puff.”
Her eyes narrow. “Did you masturbate with him to talk him into letting you babysit his puppy?”
“I would never.”
She’s pinching her lips together again like she’s fighting a smile. “Do you have any idea how much I love you?”
My shoulders sag. “Yes. And I love you too. And I’m not ashamed of masturbating with a man. Just of how it’s going to impact his game. This isn’t like last year’s superstitions, Sarah. Or even the rest of my life’s superstitions. I have contact with him every day. I influence how he feels every day. I’m one degree of separation from all of the players now, and what if I’m in a bad mood one morning and I can’t hide it and I pass him my cosmic anger, and he says the wrong thing to Lopez, who flips off Cooper, who tells Darren that the name he and Tanesha picked for the baby is ugly, and then the whole season goes to crap?”
“The very fact that you’d worry about that being a possibility is why it’s not going to happen. Your love for the Fireballs is too pure for you to ever impact the team negatively.”
“But I masturbated with Brooks when I know he can only hit a ball because he’s stayed a virgin. Like, did I virtually take his virginity? Is his aura no longer a virgin?”
Tripp knocks at the door, and we both jump.
He points at James, his four-year-old, who’s doing the potty dance, then shrugs apologetically.
“What did you tell them?” I whisper.
“That we needed a minute.”
“Sarah—”
“Cross my heart, I won’t even tell Beck.”
“I don’t deserve you.”
“Mackenzie. Yes, you do.” She hustles across the suite to let Tripp and James in, and the little boy dashes to the bathroom.
Tripp smiles at me. “I don’t know what you’re doing for luck these days, Mackenzie, but keep it up. The team’s getting there.”
I stare at him, because he did not just tell me to mutually masturbate with Brooks before every game.
I know he didn’t.
Sarah makes a strangled noise and turns an unusual purple-red that flags Beck’s Sarah-is-uncomfortable radar, and he leaps over the back of his chair to charge the room.
Sarah gives him a subtle head-shake that’s mostly her eyeballs telegraphing that she’s okay while she smiles at Tripp. “Must be Mackenzie’s bring back Fiery campaign.”
Now Tripp’s the one turning interesting colors while she silently dares him to argue. He scrubs a hand over his face when he looks back at me with guilt written all over his face. “Mac…”
“Go on. Tell me it’s impossible.” I wave a hand. “You know what I have? I have faith. You’ll do the right thing.”
Sarah lifts a brow at me.
I get it.
I hear her.
Have faith that mutually whacking off with Brooks isn’t going to blow the Fireballs’ season.
I do. I hear her.
But I have a lifetime of superstitions to contend with if I’m ever going to believe it.
26
Brooks
As expected, this Fiery thong is uncomfortable as hell.
I can see why Mackenzie’s dads call it making peace with the universe.
I’m the last one to leave
the locker room to head out to the dugout for warm-ups before our series opener with Minneapolis, where it’s colder than my sister’s third boyfriend’s nipples after my brothers and I iced them until he cried and promised he’d never take nude photos of another woman as blackmail material, especially given how he doctored her photo, which I still can’t think about without feeling psychologically scarred.
I was ten or twelve, and it was my initiation into helping my brothers avenge our big sister.
You could say it left an impression.
On me, I mean. I was old enough to know that my sister was awesome, but some fuckwads didn’t see it. And with three brothers between us who understood the world even better than I did—even if we were all kids—I got plenty of lessons in respecting people of all sizes, shapes, colors, and personalities.
So yeah, I’m wearing my thong for punishment, because I was a total dick to the universe in fighting against joining the Fireballs.
Still wouldn’t have been my first choice if I had to leave New York, but it’s where I am, so it’s where I’m going to play my heart out.
Luca’s tying a shoe outside the batter’s box when I hit the field, and he stops and stares. “What. The. Fuck?”
I turn so he can admire my cape. “Don’t be jealous, Rossi. Not everyone can make an eye mask look this good. You’re gonna have to settle for being less than Fireball Man.”
“Dude, I think you gave Santiago heartburn.” Cooper’s on the ground stretching, and he’s unabashedly grinning at my crotch. “That’s some thong.”
I grab my crotch. “Fucking right.”
“Elliott, what the hell are you doing?” Addie Bloom—our batting coach, who takes zero shit from any of us and who’s been trying to get me to change my stance to improve my swing—looks up from monitoring Lopez in batting practice. Even with her sunglasses on, I can feel the why me? glare coming off her.
I pick the thong string out of my ass and hope it doesn’t leave marks on my uniform. All the cameras are turning to get me at all angles, and I hope Mackenzie’s watching, because she was right.
