When he stepped back to wrestle off his suit coat, I dashed for the stairs, ditching one shoe and then the other so I could move faster. But he caught me around the waist when I was halfway up, taking me down to my hands and knees. From there he hiked up my dress and yanked off my panties. “I can’t wait. I need you now. Right here.” Bracing himself with one arm on a step above my head, he reached around and slipped his hand between my legs, groaning when he felt how wet I was already.

Trapped by his size and strength, I panted beneath him, torn between wanting to get him out of that suit and feel his naked skin against mine and wanting to let him have his way with me on the stairs. God, he was so good with his hands. His fingers had me on the verge of an orgasm in no time at all.

Then he snared my waist again and flipped me onto my back. Moving down a couple steps, he pushed my thighs apart and buried his face between them, using his tongue the way he had last night, greedily, mercilessly, relentlessly, until my body convulsed with pleasure beneath him.

Somehow we made it from the stairs into my bedroom—a haze of clothing being torn off and flung wherever, of tripping up the steps and scrambling down the hallway, of hands that wouldn’t stop clutching, mouths that wouldn’t stop claiming, and hearts that wouldn’t stop pounding.

Then finally—finally—his huge, hard cock was easing inside me, his broad chest was hovering over mine, and his scent filled my head. I raked my nails across his skin, gasping as he plunged in so deep it hurt, yet desperately wishing I could take him even deeper. Wishing he didn’t have to leave tomorrow. Wishing I could stop time and stay wrapped up in him this way, even as we raced toward the inevitable finish, our bodies unwilling to slow down, to savor the moment or make it last.

My need for him shocked me. I cried out with abandon, I bit his shoulder, I pulled his hair. I arched my back and rocked my hips and begged him not to stop. I let go completely, unashamed of the way I wanted him. And he wanted me just as badly—I felt it in the violent way he moved, heard it in his ragged breathing, knew it from the way he cursed and growled my name. We gave in to the rush together, spiraling higher and higher until we careened off the edge together, the world reduced to one blissful, rippling pulse shared between us.

Afterward, we lay on our sides, limbs tangled atop twisted sheets, hot and sweaty and panting.

That’s when I thought I heard him say something crazy.

“What?” I whispered, struggling to hear him over my thundering heart.

“I don’t want to leave here tomorrow.” He pushed my hair back from my face. “I want to stay.”

Thirteen

Tyler

She paused, like maybe she hadn’t heard me right. “You want to stay?”

“Yeah. What do you think about that?” It was so dark I couldn’t see her expression, even though our faces were only inches apart.

“Are you serious?”

“Yeah.”

“Tyler, I’d love that.” She sounded surprised. “Did you think I might say something else?”

“I wasn’t sure.”

She laughed. “What would give you any doubt? I spent last night in your hotel room. I gave you a blowjob in my office. I was ripping your clothes off the second we walked in the door tonight. I am currently naked in your arms—all these things are indications that I like being with you. A lot.”

“Good. That’s how I feel too, although right up until a few minutes ago, I was planning on getting on a flight tomorrow afternoon. Or is it today already?” I tugged a strand of her hair. “I lose track of time when I’m with you.”

“I think it’s today already. But I have the same problem.” Another pause. “So . . . how long would you stay?”

“I’m not sure. Maybe the rest of the week.” I hadn’t thought it through at all—I just knew that I wasn’t ready to leave yet. This place or her.

“What made you change your mind?”

“Well, I’d be lying if I said the sex wasn’t part of it. Does that make me an asshole?”

“Hmmm. Let me think about that.” She tapped her chin. “No, I don’t think it does. Because it’s sex with me. Unless, of course, you’re having sex with other people in this town I don’t know about.”

I laughed. “Uh, no. I’m not having any other sex, in this town or any other town, frankly. And I haven’t in a long time.”

“Really?” She tucked both hands under her cheek. “Why?”

I wound the strand of her hair around my finger. “Just haven’t felt like it.”

“I thought pro athletes were supposed to be players. Women throwing themselves at you everywhere you go.”

“Some guys are players,” I told her. “And I’ll admit, there were plenty of willing women everywhere we went, and I used to like the attention. But I wasn’t really a player. The game was always my top priority. I never had sex in the three days leading up to a game I was starting, so that put a lot of days off limits.”

“Why no sex for those days before a game?” She giggled. “Did it zap your manly strength? Or were you just superstitious?”

“A little of both, actually. Some guys believe abstaining from sex keeps the testosterone pumping harder because you don’t get that release. But I was also superstitious.”

“I remember you telling me you always put your left sock and shoe on first.”

“Always. I still do. It’s a whole process.”

She laughed. “What else?”

“Well, my number was eight, so on game days I used to do everything eight times. I’d swipe my deodorant on eight times, flip every light switch eight times, blink eight times at every stoplight on my way to the clubhouse.”

“Wow. And you believed all those things helped?”

“I must have. I couldn’t not do them.” I thought back to the painful weeks after the first wild pitches. “When everything fell apart and I couldn’t throw anymore, I was even worse for a while. I was doing it all the time, game day or not. I was completely compulsive, convinced that if I was better about it, my arm would come back.”

“How’d you finally stop?” she asked, a little quieter.

“It wasn’t working, for one. Therapy helped too. And then I finally just quit playing. It was sucking the life out of me, trying to be something I wasn’t. I just couldn’t do it anymore.”

She snuggled closer to me, looping one arm around my back and resting her forehead against my chin. “Does it make you sad to talk about it?”

I wrapped one arm around her shoulders and put one hand beneath my head. “Usually. Sad or angry.” I paused and realized something. “But I don’t feel that way right now.”

“You don’t?”

“No. And you know what? I didn’t feel like telling a single person to fuck off today. I actually had a really good day. Best one I’ve had in a long time.” For a moment, I wondered about that. What had made today so much better? Was it because of the sex last night? Seeing my sister so happy? Being around baseball again? I wasn’t sure.