He cradled both sides of her face in his hands and tilted her head upward for a thorough inspection. Her upper lip was swollen and split. It looked raw and painful. He could forget about kissing her any time soon. He whistled through his teeth.
“Wow. Good one. I had no idea your job was so dangerous.”
“It didn’t help that thanks to Freddy’s height, his tray was perfectly level with my face. An inch or two in either direction, I probably would have been okay. Or lost an eye. Amazingly, he didn’t drop the dishes. It was in the middle of the dinner rush, it was just so hectic.” She laughed weakly and flat-out lied about the dinner rush, which had already petered out. She had no intention of telling Chase that she had been watching him turn a double play from the TV over the bar when her lapse in good judgment occurred and she collided with the waiter at full speed. It was bad enough she had to endure the endless teasing of the staff, many of whom were instantly suspicious of any reason she would give for faltering. She blinked up at his concerned face again, whispering, “I didn’t want you to see me like this.”
He studied her a minute more before planting a solid kiss on her forehead and proclaiming, “Nope. Still beautiful. Is this the reason for the locked door and the dead phone?”
“Yes,” Amanda admitted bashfully.
“Don’t ever hide from me again,” he said sternly before releasing her. “Do you still want me to go?”
Amanda was all at sixes and sevens. She had been having trouble thinking of anything besides him. Now he was here, in the flesh. Barking orders and being generally domineering. It was a departure from his seemingly limitless tolerance and definitely hot. But she didn’t want their first time to be like this. It was going to be extraordinary. She was supposed to look like a temptress, not a platypus. Whisper words of love, not sound like Mushmouth from the Fat Albert cartoon. But he was still as charming and sexy as sin. She must have been crazy to think she could avoid him until she was more presentable once he showed up at her door. His affection had become addictive and impossible to fight. She shook her head. “Of course not.”
There was no mistaking the look of relief that passed over his face. She turned and he followed her back into her apartment.
“Amanda Cole,” he said from behind her after closing the door, his voice full of barely contained delight, “what exactly are you wearing?”
Amanda froze, squeezing her eyes shut tight. She had completely forgotten. He wasn’t talking about her jeans or her bedroom slippers. She waited for the first wave of the flush to pass through to her hairline.
“Angel girl,” she heard him breathe softly from behind her. He had gotten closer. “You’re wearing my number.”
She couldn’t deny it. Figures it would have to be the one with his name stitched in bold letters across her shoulders as well. She certainly wasn’t expecting him to show up unannounced when she bought the jersey from the local Modell’s the day after their first real date. She wasn’t about to admit she had been wearing it exclusively for the better part of a week when home alone, either. She struck an overly casual pose and then turned back around to him.
“This old thing?” she asked breezily in spite of her flaming face.
He was staring at her, eyebrow and head both cocked, grinning from ear to ear.
“Caught,” he mouthed to her.
“Don’t go overboard, Walker. It’s just a shirt,” she scoffed, then added a tsk. “Of all the arrogance.”
In the fractional moment of silence that hung in the air before he could respond, his name was said loudly and clearly. They turned their heads in unison to her high-definition fifty-two-inch flat screen mounted on the wall. For several seconds, they both watched the image of Chase filling the screen, adjusting his gloves, the bat neatly tucked under his arm. He tapped the bat one time against each of his spikes and took several practice swings while masculine voices talked about him in the background using words like impressive and stellar. His batting stats appeared in a box on the bottom of the screen. Chase turned back to Amanda, his eyes wide and bright with wonder.
“This game is from four days ago.” An ecstatic, boyish smile took over his face. “I had a really good night. I think I dove into the stands.”
Amanda hastened around the couch to reach for the remote, her face already feeling the rush of heat making its way up and into her cheeks. Hell’s bells, the television got me again. She internally whined. There was no point in continuing the façade anymore. Any chance of pretending she wasn’t preoccupied with him was dashed. She looked at him a second more on the screen, in the batter’s box, where ten minutes ago she’d been safe to admire him without his knowing it. She pointed the remote at the television and turned it off. She looked back to him timidly, hoping he would go easy on her.
“So caught,” he whispered, his eyes aglow. Then they began to devour her, one blink at a time.
“I DVR them so I can see you up close,” she offered up feebly, her mouth suddenly dry. His gaze was hypnotic. Playing hard to get was no longer an option. Neither was lying to him. Not when he was looking at her like that. And he hadn’t run away when he saw her all banged up, like that jerk did to Marcia when she broke her nose on The Brady Bunch. Chase Walker looked like the only taking off on his mind involved their clothes. “When they show you before you’re getting ready to swing, you get a look I like. I certainly can’t see it from any seat in the stadium.”
Chase casually stroked his chin as he slowly took several long strides to join her near the couch, his eyes never leaving hers. “A look you like? And just what sort of look might that be?”
Amanda felt like melting under the heat of his stare burning into her. It should be illegal for a man to be that handsome. He was going to laugh at her after hearing her silly reasoning. He was going to know he had her hook, line, and sinker. The rain was pounding against the windows. Her heart was pounding in her chest. As if in a trance, she answered him, her voice soft. “The same kind of look you get right before you kiss me.”
But he didn’t laugh at her. Instead, Chase took another step closer, his gaze finally coming off her eyes and drifting down to her puffy upper lip again. He sighed and shook his head. “You’re so clever, Amanda. They both require the same level of focus. You’ve barely begun to see that look. But it almost pains me to say, if you’re intent on getting that look out of me tonight, you’re going to have to get more creative. That shirt is a pretty good start. I’m up to it if you are.”
She swallowed, but it was difficult with the lump that was now fully formed in her throat. She knew if she tried any sort of comeback, it would result in saying the only words that kept repeating in her head: I want you. She had pretty much given him the go-ahead to sweep her up and have his way with her, but he was just standing there, staring at her mouth, his arms casually flung across his chest. He appeared to be thinking. Dear God, if he didn’t touch her soon, she thought she might spontaneously combust.
He looked back up and dropped his arms. He began smiling, the same sort of smile that a cartoon cat gets when it eats the canary with one bite. She fully expected to see him hiccup and a yellow feather fly out of his mouth.
“Amanda, do you touch yourself while you watch me? Do I make you come?”
She dropped her head and began to blush furiously again, refusing to respond. She’d be taking that answer to her grave. The question itself was so personal and he asked it as though he had every right to do so. Chivalry was indeed dead, at least for the moment, and its replacement was oozing pure sexuality. Her skin began to prickle with excitement. He reached out and took her chin, lifting her head to meet his eyes.