Interference st michaels.., p.33
Interference: (St. Michaels Duet #1), page 33
“You were listening in? Why did I think you would wait in the car?” He chuckled softly and then sobered. “Fuck, Ash. Why have you been so worried? I told you. I will always choose you.” He paused and inhaled through flared nostrils. “You heard everything I said to him?”
I nodded my affirmation.
He smiled then.
A brilliant, full-watt, infectious thing.
“I meant every word, Soot. Every fucking word.” His declaration sparked a sudden electric charge. “Now, I guess I’d better find a way to show you.”
When he fingered the elastic band of my panties, I moaned in protest, thinking he’d try using his fingers instead of his cock to get me off. The sound of my panties being ripped right down the middle caught me by surprise.
He threw the scrap of pink lace over his shoulder toward the back seat. Grabbing my ass, he lifted me up a little, opening me wider, as he thrust up into me in one harsh, demanding stroke. I threw my head back and made his favorite noise in the back of my throat. He stilled completely, drawing himself back so just the tip of his erection stayed inside me.
“You sure you trust me?” he asked, his voice husky.
“Oh, shit,” I whispered. “Now, Brayden. Please. Yes, I trust you.”
He didn’t need any more convincing. He thrust up into me again in one motion that knocked the wind right out of me. I cried out his name and a long string of gibberish that made no sense.
“Holy hell. We shouldn’t be doing this. Too risky. Oh, Jesus. I’ve never . . . without anything . . .” He wasn’t making much sense either. He groaned and slammed his head back against the headrest. “You feel so motherfucking good. Your pussy is so hot, I think my dick is melting.”
He pulled my knees up more to nestle right next to his thighs. He thrust up again, so hard, I couldn’t speak anymore.
“You remembering now? Who owns this pussy?” His words were totally controlling, but he said them through painfully gritted teeth that gave away how fiercely he was fighting to keep himself in check. His face displayed exactly how much I owned him, too.
I nodded and looked down into his eyes. The connection between us felt different than ever before. Maybe it was the skin-to-skin contact in the most primal of places, out here in the wild neverland. Or maybe it was remembering the way he’d spoken to his dad earlier. It wiped away the film that had still stained my heart after all the bouts of rejection.
I needed this.
I wanted to show him what he still wouldn’t let me directly say.
I tapped two fingers on my lips and carried them down to my chest. He responded by pulling at the hem of my shirt till he had it up over my head and flying back to join the rest of my clothes. My bra was soon to follow. He placed his lips right over the spot where my fingers just rested.
Right over my heart.
Which was young and dumb and totally, stupidly, in love with him.
Hands framed my face. His thrusting slowed to match their gentle caress. “I love you, too,” he murmured. “So much, it makes me feel like I’m barely holding on to sanity sometimes.”
He kissed me again. Tracing his tongue around the edges of my lips till I was reaching out to tug on his hair and force him to give me more. I rotated my hips around in a circle, crying out when he hit that spot that made me feel insane. He did it over and over again.
My chest bounced in his face till he leaned forward and sucked one of my nipples into his mouth. I reached out and held on to the oh-shit handle above the doorframe.
“Brayden, I’m so close. Is it . . . is it okay?”
“God, yes. I wanna feel you squeeze my dick with nothing between us.”
His words pulled a trigger. I went off like a rocket, crying out his name and a new compound word made of colorful expletives.
I was barely back down on earth when he moaned, “Fucking hell. I’m too close . . . I gotta . . .”
He lifted me off him with quick force and another groan that sounded almost painful. My head bumped the ceiling. His elbow hit the door. We were awkward and frenzied, trapped inside the confines of a brand new bubble.
One finally strong enough to shut out intruders.
I reached down with both hands and covered him, pumping back and forth against hard, slick skin. His eyes widened with surprise.
“Sweet Jesus. Ash, move. I’m gonna . . .”
My thoughts crystalized, guiding my movements from strained and unsure to suddenly purposeful. I wanted him to brand me. With his words and his body. I wanted to wipe him into my skin, so the intimate part of me could be all his, reclaimed from his father’s voyeur eyes.
“On me, Brayden.” I leaned over and slid my hands up and down harder. “I want you all over me.”
“You’re . . . you’re sure?”
He hesitated, but I was already nodding and leaning forward.
“Best. Dream. Ever.” He laughed breathlessly as he reached down and replaced my hands with one of his, holding firm as he pumped warm streams of himself out onto my breasts.
His mouth fell open. He stared in amazement as I trailed my hand through the wetness, rubbing him into my skin.
“That is the hottest fucking thing I’ve ever seen. Damn.”
He couldn’t take his eyes off what I was doing.
“Did I just blow your mind?” My voice came out girlish and giggly instead of sultry and wicked like I’d planned.
“Hell yeah, you did. I’ve never . . .” He kept staring without finishing his thought.
“That’s the slut who lives inside me. Between the bad sci-fi novels, she reads a lot of smut and Cosmo.”
He laid his head back against the headrest and closed his eyes. “I love her, too. I love all the crazy people you have locked up inside that head of yours. Tomorrow, I’m buying you a lifetime subscription to that magazine.”
We laughed together as we struggled back into our clothes, bumping elbows and noses and flailing our way back into our seats.
We’d been hiding for so many months. Keeping everyone in the dark about us. Now that everyone knew, we were beautifully, blissfully . . . free.
We drove back toward town, belting out bad pop songs. Our hands lay clasped on the console, filling the space between us. Just like they always had.
My mind stored another mental snapshot to save for a rainy day.
I had no idea how soon that day would come.
38
Rising Tide
Ashley
A brown cloud of dust spun up from the ground between second and third base. One of the freshman paced back and forth with a rusted drag mat slung over one shoulder, erasing the cleat marks left behind by another victory. They hadn’t bothered to turn off the scoreboard or the glaring overhead lights. They shone down like a spotlight on the only other player remaining on the field.
“There’s a lot of them today, huh?” Bobby asked as he came over to the fence where Dillan and I stood, eavesdropping, while Brayden gave postgame interviews to a surprisingly large group of reporters.
“How do you feel about rolling the dice with the draft?”
“Are you sad to miss out on college?”
“Still considering any of the schools that’re trying to change your mind?”
“You feel ready to face big league hitters?”
Their twisted words asked the same basic question.
Hey, buddy, sure you aren’t making the biggest mistake ever?
“Yeah. The one in the green shirt is from the Post. She’s the chick who did that article, slobbering all over him, last spring. Dude in the gray is USA Today,” Dillan said in a hushed tone as he wedged the toe of his shoe in a space between the chain links. “The tall guy is Baseball America.”
“Not bad for a schmuck we used to tag home runs off of,” Bobby said, turning his head to spit in the grass before he flipped his ball cap around backward and crammed a handful of fresh sunflower seeds into his mouth.
Dillan chuckled. “Bobbo, we haven’t tagged home runs off him since we were playing on the 10U team and barely knew how to piss while standing up. He’s getting ready to ink a deal that will make him an instant multimillionaire.”
“Fuck. Say that again.” Bobby closed his eyes and raised his face toward the evening sky, soaking in something the rest of us couldn’t see.
“Millionaire?”
“No. Ink a deal. It’s like foreplay.” Bobby good-naturedly pounded his chest, caveman-style. “Fucker had better damn well get drafted toward the top and get himself called up fast. Next year, I wanna be able to tell all the college chicks that I’ve hit off a major league pitcher.”
Dillan snickered.
“What? I have no shot at college ball. My best hope is to be the endearing chubby guy in the entourage. Chicks all dig that guy, right, Ash?” He slung an arm around my shoulders.
I smirked and turned back to watch the reporters around Brayden begin to disperse.
One curiously lingered.
A woman Dillan had said worked for The Baltimore Sun.
She looked like she ought to still be in high school herself. She’d for sure never been on a ball field before. Her feet were strapped into ridiculous wedge heels that made her almost as tall as Brayden.
Who the hell wore heels to cover high school baseball? I tried to quash my instant disdain for her. Women like her would be a constant fixture in his life soon.
I needed to get used to it.
She bit down on the end of her pen cap while Brayden finished answering a question. They started walking toward us. She fought to stay upright as they crossed through the soft infield dirt.
When they were just a few feet from us, she opened her mouth to prove she her level of idiocy. “So, how old were you when your mom and dad first gave you a mitt? Are you like the baseball version of Tiger Woods? I bet you were an adorable toddler, wandering around, swinging a plastic bat, with your mom chasing after you.”
I cringed.
“Damn,” Dillan muttered beside me.
“Not the brightest bulb in the pack, is she?” Bobby whispered. “Damn good thing she’s got those legs.”
Brayden skirted the question. “Actually, ma’am, I don’t know how old I was when I first held a bat, but my grandmother is the one I’d credit with getting me here. She drove me to every practice. She scrubbed the dirt and the grass stains out of the knees of every uniform. My grams was always behind the scenes, helping prepare me to play. She just passed away last year, and I sure wish she were here now to see all this happening.” He channeled the accent a little at the end and treated her to the infamous half-smirk.
I thought she might ask for mouth-to-mouth resuscitation.
Brayden’s interview skills were pitch-perfect now, too. None of the nerves broke through. No doubt his father had been coaching him on that aspect of the game. He looked like a god, spoke like a humble gentleman, and gave delicious sound bites that made articles write themselves. He cast a wicked spell.
This chick became his latest victim.
She smiled up at him, transfixed.
“How were things in the locker room today?” I asked Dillan, distracting myself so I wouldn’t puke in my mouth while she stumbled through another question.
“Pretty much the same,” he answered quietly. “There hasn’t been any more of the pushing and shoving past that one day I told you about. They completely ignore each other on the surface, but at the same time, they watch each other’s every move.” His mouth quirked up apologetically. “Your brother and Brayden have been a buy-one-get-one-free deal since we were little kids. It’s weird, not seeing them together all the time.” He paused and then added, “How are things at home?”
“Pretty much the same there too. He patched things up with Cindi, so he hasn’t been around as much to ignore me.”
“Maybe it’s good they’re back together. Gives him something else to focus on.”
Focus.
I’d grown to really hate that word.
It followed Brayden around like a shadow.
Along with more press, there were also more fans than ever before, all focused on getting a little piece of him.
The small-town high school stadium wasn’t built for a superstar. The games he pitched enjoyed a standing-room-only crowd. His dad would come home for most of them. He’d stand next to the dugout and pace while he watched his son play. Everyone said the last part of this season didn’t matter. Neither of the Ross men had received that memo.
All things considered, Brayden was holding up remarkably well.
I kept watching for signs that his outer calm could be propped up from sneaking pills, but he’d seemed to replace one addiction for another. He’d hit in the cage a lot to vent steam, he’d go running almost every morning and he would fuck the daylights out of me whenever and wherever he had a minute to spare. We’d finally mastered the awkward confines of car sex.
Those outlets seemed to contain his anxiety.
Other than his ongoing standoff with my brother, we’d settled into a smooth pattern.
We coasted right along.
Until Murphy’s Law bit us in the ass.
His father stood by the fence during the one outing where Brayden’s perfection slipped. He was just off.
It happened.
The normal rhythm wasn’t quite there. The opposing team wasn’t very good, but two of their mediocre hitters lit him up. One guy tagged a double in the bottom of the second. He walked two more batters. Then, some kid, who looked barely able to hold the bat, hit a two-run homer an inning later.
Our team still had the lead. But, I could tell by the stiffness in his back and the way he kept shaking off calls, that things were far from all right.
They pulled him at the top of the fifth. He didn’t stay on the bench to watch his team soldier on. He stalked toward the locker rooms with his fist smashing into his glove.
I approached him too soon.
I stupidly thought he’d be ready for consoling. I found him thrashing around, tossing things against lockers in a full-fledged tantrum.
“You okay?” I asked, sitting down on the bench in the middle of the room.
“Fuck no, I’m not okay.” He threw a batting helmet across the room, denting the red metal locker it crashed into. “Goddamn it,” he said, plowing both hands through his hair. “I can’t believe I just did that. Of course it’s on a day my dad is here to watch. I’m gonna catch so much hell for this.”
He slammed his non-throwing hand, open-palmed against a locker, and then pushed over a cart loaded down with towels and empty water bottles.
“You guys are still winning. You kept it together. You didn’t let anyone else on base the last two innings.”
He kicked one of the bottles.
“You’re allowed to have a bad day once in a while,” I added, dropping a match in gasoline.
“No, I’m not,” he said, roaring back at me. “I have to be perfect right now. A bad day is gonna fuck everything up. If my goddamn ERA skyrockets ’cause I let a bunch of backwater fuck nuggets get on base against me, it could cost me what I’ve been working for since I was six years old.”
He picked up another helmet and chucked it toward the first one, so it wasn’t so lonely all the way across the room.
“You don’t get it, do you? You don’t get what I just did out there. If I can’t pitch against some crappy high school hitters who can barely swing their dicks, how am I gonna take down minor league guys this summer? Maybe I can’t. Maybe I’m not good enough. All those reporters are constantly asking me if I think I am. What if I’m not? What if I get there, and I’m shit? If I get lit up like I did out there, then what? What the fuck will I do? I can’t jack this up by throwing like the pussy I was out there today.”
He’d been holding it all together.
Himself. His team. His father’s expectations.
The whole damn town’s.
One bad performance had cracked the tough outer shell he’d encased around that burden.
“You have no idea what I’m dealing with right now. You have a storybook life. Your biggest worry is next week’s trig test and what you’re gonna wear to my prom.” His tone sounded as ugly as the words themselves. “Those aren’t even real problems.”
I bit down hard on my tongue, holding back my sassy retort. My impotent silence gave him an exit. He stormed off toward the showers. I started to pick up the shrapnel scattered around the room.
I could hear him in the shower, talking to himself, beating himself up more with his own words. He’d already be black and blue from the inside out by the time his dad got ahold of him.
I was stacking water bottles when he reappeared twenty minutes later. A white towel was wrapped low around his waist. Wet hair still dripped water down his naked chest.
“You know I’m the world’s biggest asshole, right? That shit I said . . . I didn’t mean any of it.” His voice was soft around the edges now, his eyes full of apology.
The fury he’d taken in there with him had washed down the shower drain with the dirt and sweat.
He slicked his wet hair back with the palm of his hand. “The last thing I should be doing is taking my junk out on you.”
“You don’t need to apologize,” I replied, looking up at him with sorry eyes of my own.
“Fuck yeah, I do. I didn’t mean that crap about you not understanding. You’ve been by my side through all of this.”
“It’s a lot, Brayden. Everything on you right now. I don’t know how to help you. What you said earlier . . . you have more than just baseball. You know that, right? If it doesn’t work out, you’ll come home. We’ll go back to our notebook and make new dreams.”
“I don’t want to let you down either. I don’t want to be a disappointment to you.”
“You know that’s a crock of shit, right?” I scornfully pursed my lips. “There’s nothing you could do to disappoint me. Brayden, I’ve wanted you since you were a bratty kid serving time in the library. I don’t care if you’re a baseball star or a busboy.”
