Total pages in book: 26
Estimated words: 24270 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 121(@200wpm)___ 97(@250wpm)___ 81(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 24270 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 121(@200wpm)___ 97(@250wpm)___ 81(@300wpm)
Busted. “Just wanted to make sure you weren’t pulling me. Looking forward to it.”
When the announcer calls my name as the first hitter, there’s another rain of boos.
My manager gestures toward the stands. “You getting what you came for?”
Not even close. “Yep, sure am,” I say, then grab my bat and go to piss off a few more fans.
12
Josh
After the game, I find Chris in the parking lot, leaning against my car. He’s holding a paper bag with the neck of a champagne bottle sticking out of it.
My teammates stream out to their cars. A few call greetings to Chris. Some grumble more or less good-naturedly. Zach, our catcher, gives us a wave and a slight smile, before going to his own truck where the Gothams’ catcher stands, waiting.
I thump Chris on the back in greeting. He smells clean and freshly showered, and I want to kiss him against my car the way we didn’t all those months ago.
But I also want to be alone with him more.
“C’mon,” he says, and opens the passenger side door.
Objectively, it’s a five-minute drive from the ballpark to my condo. Subjectively, it lasts approximately five hundred years.
Chris mostly keeps his hands to himself while I’m driving. That’s disappointing but probably necessary since the roads are full of Florida drivers. And also, if he touches me, I might combust.
We park at my rental apartment. I go for the door handle, but stop when Chris grabs my arm, then leans halfway across the center console.
“Hey,” he says, soft. “I missed you.”
“You came to Tampa to see me.”
He smiles. “I did.”
“And brought me champagne.”
“I brought me champagne. Maybe I’ll let you drink some though. Off me.”
“Chris—”
“Yes?”
I don’t say anything else, mostly because I reach for Chris just as he reaches for me. It’s like touching a flame to a fuse. His lips open against mine, and his tongue finds its way into my mouth, and his shoulders are solid where he’s half-draped over the console. My hand curls around the back of his neck, fingers teasing into his hair. His breath is minty, like he brushed his teeth for me, like he was getting ready for me. It’s a heady thought—that the guy you want is just as eager for you too. As that idea echoes in my mind, I deepen the kiss, wanting more of his taste, more of those lips.
Just more.
As I tug on his lower lip, his breath hitches, and I groan. And then I clutch him harder, gripping him. I’ve got to have Chris, and I kiss him the way I feel—a little out of my mind for him.
Maybe I can’t get enough of him. Maybe he likes that.
Chris pulls back, chest heaving. “Inside?”
And I nod in frantic agreement.
A few minutes later, we’re in my apartment, stripped down to nothing, clothes pooled on the floor somewhere. Chris pulls me onto the bed, on top of him, and at last, at long fucking last, there’s nothing between us. Just warm skin and need.
He wraps his legs around me, and grabs my face in his hands, holds me hard and rough. “Stay there.”
As if I’d go anywhere.
He gets up, padding toward the bedroom door, and I lean up on my elbows to admire the flex of muscles in his back.
Chris bends, hunting for something, then comes back holding the bottle of champagne.
I wave at it. “What’s that for?”
“We never got that champagne toast.”
“You think I’m gonna raise a glass to your beating us?”
“Who said anything about a glass?”
Chris works the wire cap off the bottle, then grips the cork, yanking it out. Champagne gushes onto his hand in a river of bubbles. He climbs back on the bed, kneeling over me, bottle aloft. “I know I came to Tampa to see you. I know I just spent three hours getting booed by a bunch of Florida retirees. So yeah, I’m gonna get my champagne toast.”
He tips the bottle, sending champagne splashing down on my chest, then sets the bottle on the nightstand. The liquid settles in the center of my chest before running off in drips.
In a flash, he leans over me, chasing them with his mouth. When he arrives on a nipple, licking, I thread my fingers through his hair like I did on the couch in the photo studio. Delicious, mind-bending heat flares down my spine. But something about this feels not quite right. He took a team bus across the state to see me, and I want to say thank you and show my appreciation. I want to make up for the celebration we missed in October.
I sit up, sending more champagne onto the bedspread. Yes, I will be doing laundry tonight, and I’m so good with that.
“You good?” Chris asks.
I reach for the bottle, putting it in his hands. “If we’re celebrating, it seems like you should get something to celebrate. Sit back. Against the headboard.”