“No. I did it for attention at first. My mother was an addict and it took a lot to get her attention. Later, I did it to feel alive since sometimes I felt damn invisible in my house.”
“Ah, damn, Lisa. I’m so sorry—”
“No.” She waved a rolled-up weightlifting guide under his nose. “I’ve made peace with all that. I just wanted you to know that’s why I’ve avoided thrill seeking for years. It felt too much like an addiction. But being with you made me realize I wasn’t always acting out. There was a lot of escape and genuine joy in pushing the limit. I’m athletic and coordinated, healthy and smart. Why shouldn’t I be as active as I want to be?”
Alarm pricked along his nerves.
“As long as you’re careful.” He couldn’t keep his hands off her anymore, needing to feel her against him. “Okay?”
He’d begun to appreciate how much he had to lose if he wasn’t more cautious in life, and he hoped she felt the same.
He rose to wrap her in his arms and thanked God that he had found her before he took one too many foolish chances with his life. He felt like he’d awoken from a long sleep since meeting her.
She nodded against his chest, her fingers smoothing the fabric of his T-shirt along his shoulders. Warmth filled him along with all that same fierce possessiveness he’d experienced that night in his hotel, only this time, he knew he wouldn’t succumb to wayward fears that she wasn’t as she seemed.
He knew better. His tough, Bond-girl trainer was a straight shooter. A sexy, vibrant woman. And she spent her free time planning hikes in the Rockies.
He couldn’t believe his good fortune.
“Javier?”
“Mmm?” He kissed the top of her head and wondered if he could talk her into making good use of that massage table.
“I heard something about you being in a hitting slump.”
It took a moment for the comment to sink in.
“Are you asking about this as my trainer or my girlfriend?”
“I’m not your trainer anymore, remember?”
“I hope to lobby for a few very private sessions.” Thoughts of the massage table returned. “But since it’s my girlfriend asking, I can tell you confidentially that I’m in a slump because I’ve been craving sexual satisfaction.”
He felt a shiver pulse over her skin and he smiled to think he had that effect on her. Heaven help him, he would not take it for granted.
“Don’t you dare try to play me, Velasquez. I think I’d better critique your swing before your game tomorrow. Shouldn’t you be with your team tonight, by the way?”
She blinked up at him, her eyes accusing even though her mouth remained soft and open, ready for his kiss.
He slipped his hands beneath her blouse to caress her bare skin.
“When the head trainer told me he thought he’d finally convinced you to come into the office tonight, I damn well wasn’t going to miss the chance to see you.”
The days he’d waited felt like weeks.
“How are you going to get to St. Louis in time for the game?”
“Depends how long it takes me to convince you to come with me.” He kissed her lips, tugging on the soft fullness of the lower one for a long moment before he released her. “If it’s soon, I’ll drive down. If you require a lot of persuading, I can try to pull together a charter flight.”
She swayed toward him, dropping her weight-lifting guide as she wrapped her arms about his neck.
“Hmm. How persuasive can you be?”
“You’re looking at the next Gold Glove winner, sweetheart, and they only give those things to guys with very good hands…”
THE LAST INNING
1
TO NIGHT, RICK WARREN wasn’t going to be leaving the locker room. Delaney Blair would make sure of it.
She stood just inside the empty administrative offices of the Atlanta Rebels’ clubhouse, a mere few yards from where Rick sat in the nearly vacant locker room. Her fingers shook a little as she tightened the tie on her sarong and then fluffed the silken tails of the knot to fall between her breasts. She’d dressed carefully—or rather, undressed—for this night when she could find him alone.
Rick was frequently the last to leave the locker room anyhow. A fact she knew because she’d been paying close attention to the Rebels’ first basemen since he’d joined the team her father owned. Delaney had never been all that interested in her father’s organization while she’d been growing up, her overriding idea of baseball players being that they were overpaid and thought highly of themselves. But since Rick had come to town, Delaney had to revise that opinion.
She peeked out through the blinds in the front office to watch Rick as he joked around with the cleaning crew. Six foot two with golden-brown eyes and longish dark hair that made him easy to pick out even in his ball cap, Rick was the quiet sort around his team. A loner. But he always had time to ask the woman who gathered the dirty uniforms about her two sons in college or razz the guy who ran the floor washer about being a die-hard New York Scrapers fan.
One of many things that made Rick Warren worthy of the risk she planned to take tonight.
Carefully closing the gap in the blinds before anyone noticed her spying, Delaney waited for the cleaners to vacate the locker room. Rick liked to avoid the press at all costs, so he always took his time leaving the clubhouse after a home game. The press had started paying more attention to him this season, speculating about what he’d do now that his two-year contract would be expiring with the Rebels.
That damn contract had forced her to brash action tonight. Well, that and a recent bit of news that had inspired her to take life by the horns.
She’d wanted to catch Rick’s eye for months. His habit of keeping his head down and his MP3 player cranked up around the clubhouse made that difficult, however. Add to that her own natural shyness and she figured the two of them would never move past the occasional lingering glances across a crowd.
That would change tonight. As she peered out once more between the gap in the blinds, she noticed the big bins of dirty uniforms were gone and Rick was alone. He sat on a bench between his locker and Dwight Wrigley’s, his baseball cap on backward as he clicked the controls on the MP3 player.
Luckily, it didn’t matter how loud he had the tunes cranked in his ears. Taking a deep breath, Delaney checked the knot on her bright green silk sarong and slipped into her fuchsia high-heel mules. The vivid colors made her feel a little more strong and confident when she was scared inside. She’d never done anything drastic to make a man notice her. Never put herself on the line so completely.
But a cancer scare could light a fire under anyone. And after waiting for tests on a lump that had turned out benign, Delaney didn’t plan to wait anymore. Starting tonight, she was going after what she wanted.
Drawing open the door of the administrative offices that led into the locker room, Delaney eyed the man who’d captured her attention with his head-down, plow-through-anything work ethic.
“Rick?”
She said his name even though she knew he wouldn’t hear her with the ear buds in. Still, he must have sensed someone else in the room because he looked up.
Their eyes met. Locked. And reaching for the knot of silk just above her breasts, she loosened the tie.
Her sarong fluttered to the floor like a drowsy butterfly as Delaney bared the new, bolder woman who wouldn’t take no for an answer.