But, shit, did she have to run every single time Tyler hit the ball? Couldn’t the kid like strike out or something?
Brody, who stood on the pitcher’s mound in a pair of well-worn jeans and a too-tight black T-shirt, glanced back at her. That was her other problem. She kept missing the ball because she spent too much time staring at Brody’s ass.
She lifted her baseball glove–covered hand and waved at him. “Don’t mind me,” she called from the outfield. “I’ll just be back here sucking.”
He turned to face her. Even with dark sunglasses shielding his eyes, she still felt the scorching heat of his gaze. “Do you want to come pitch?” he asked.
“Oh, no,” she replied with a shake of her head. Hadn’t he seen her running around like a headless chicken back here? What would make him think she could pitch the ball? “It’s much better for me to be way out here than it would be for me to potentially give your son a concussion. Trust me,” she added.
“Dad, come on,” Tyler said from home plate. He’d lowered the bat and bounced from foot to foot. So far the kid had rounded the bases countless times. Mostly because Elisa kept chasing the ball around like she was deaf, dumb, and blind. Then she couldn’t throw it for shit. One time she’d hit Brody in the shoulder, which he pretended hadn’t hurt.
“Just a sec,” he said to Tyler. Then he turned back to Elisa. “Come here,” he demanded.
Elisa shook her head. Personally she felt like she’d made enough of a fool of herself. Why had she let him talk her into playing baseball with them? Wasn’t that more of a father-son thing?
“Elisa,” he said in that low tone of his. Almost like the one he used in bed with her.
With a roll of her eyes, she trudged across the field until she came to a stop in front of Brody. His delicious mouth turned up in a grin, as though he sensed exactly how much she disdained sports.
He tossed the ball in the air and caught it with the same hand. “You don’t want to be doing this, do you?”
“Because I suck,” she said again.
His chuckle danced over her skin. “You don’t suck,” he reassured her. “You’re just… not practiced.”
One of her brows lifted. “That’s a polite way of saying I suck.”
With another slow grin, he snagged her hand and tugged her toward him. When he placed himself behind her, Elisa was instantly reminded of that morning, when she’d awoken to feel him placing light kisses down her spine. The memory brought a wave of goose bumps over her flesh.
He tugged the glove off her hand and let it fall to the ground beneath their feet. Sort of how he often tugged the clothes from her body.
“I think I know what your problem is,” he said in her ear. “You can’t keep your eyes off me.”
Well, duh.
But, yeah, she also sucked.
“That’s not the problem,” she managed to reply as he picked up her right hand and placed the baseball in her palm.
His hand covered hers, so much bigger and harder than her own. Was this supposed to be helping? Because it wasn’t. Even though this was so much better than standing in the outfield and pretending that she liked baseball.
“Getting old over here,” Tyler called out like the impatient eleven-year-old he was.
“Just a minute,” Brody said back to his son. “Now, the key,” he murmured in her ear, “is a nice, firm grip.”
Oh, Lord.
She cleared her throat. “You’re so going to pay for this later.”
“Oh, I hope so.” He grinned against her neck.
Her eyes dropped closed. Oh, man, she was getting turned on in front of a kid. Bad Elisa. “Not playing fair,” she warned.
“This is tame compared to what I really want to do.” His lips touched the soft flesh beneath her ear. Not really a full kiss. More of a caress. But it was more than enough to have heat blooming across her belly.
“Dad, seriously,” Tyler called out. “I’ve been standing, like, forever.”
Brody straightened almost as quickly as he’d started his seduction. “All right, sorry. I was just… showing Elisa how to hold the ball.”
Tyler placed the baseball bat over his shoulder. “No, you weren’t. You were, like, kissing and stuff.”
Elisa tossed Brody a lifted-brow look over her shoulder.
He cleared his throat. “Okay, here we go,” he said in a normal voice as though the past few moments hadn’t affected him.
Yeah, right. The bulge beneath the fly of his jeans said otherwise. Maybe that was why he hadn’t moved from behind her yet.
“I’m just going to help you pitch the ball. You might like that better than standing in the outfield.”
“Doubtful,” she replied.
His chest rumbled against her back with a deep chuckle. “Just go with it.”
In one fluid motion, he lifted her hand behind her, instructing how to do one of those girly underhand pitches. Probably because he thought she hadn’t a normal overhead pitch.
And, yeah, he’d be right.
When he brought her hand forward, she let go of the ball, having really no clue if it was the right time to let the thing go sailing. Felt right to her.
And apparently it was, because Tyler swung the bat and made beautiful contact with the ball, sending it sailing right past Brody and Elisa. The boy dropped the bat and went running toward first base. He rounded the bag and gunned it toward second.
“Uh, shouldn’t we get the ball?” Elisa asked just as Tyler touched second and kept pumping his legs.
“Can’t move,” Brody said from behind her.
Elisa turned and graced him with a grin. Her eyes dropped down to the tenting action in the denim hugging his incredible package.
“Now who’s sucking?” she teased as she looped her arms around his neck.
His body was so much bigger than hers yet cradled it in all the right places. Thighs against thighs, her mouth a perfect level to run over the stubble on his cheek. Yes, they were built perfectly for each other. The only cryin’ shame was knowing how long she’d lived her life without Brody in it, missing out on the perfection of his body and all the ways he could bring her to another planet with just his hands.
“I already told you, you don’t suck,” he muttered right before dropping his mouth to hers and teasing her lips open with his tongue.
Oh yes, this was the best part. Having that masterful mouth of his play havoc with her nerve endings until her head spun a thousand miles an hour.
And she kissed him back because… well, she loved him. And she couldn’t stand to be near him and not touch him.
“Hey,” Tyler said from somewhere behind them. “I just scored again and you guys weren’t even watching.”
Brody lifted his head but didn’t take his eyes off Elisa. “No, we saw you, buddy.” Then he lowered his lips to hers again. “But he’s not the only one scoring.”
And she shut her mind off to everything else except the man who’d given her what she’d been missing for too long.
A family.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Erin Kern was born in Houston, Texas, but spent the majority of her life in the Bay Area. She married her high school sweetheart and began her writing career while being a stay-at-home mom to her daughter. Her first book, Looking for Trouble, was on the Amazon top one hundred for four months, and on the IndieReads.com top ten for four weeks. The second book in the Trouble series, Here Comes Trouble, was also a top seller on Amazon. Both books have sold more than 200,000 copies worldwide. She currently lives in North Texas with her husband and two children.
You can learn more at:
ErinKern.com
Twitter @erinkern04
Facebook.com/ErinKernAuthor