She took a bite of pizza, studying him as she chewed. “I knew that kiss made you uncomfortable.”
“I wouldn’t call it uncomfortable.”
“What would you call it?”
He looked into her eyes and had to take a breath. “Turned on as hell.”
She smiled. “Good.”
“You’re direct.”
“It was just a kiss, Pace. And just a hug.”
A hug that had involved having her strain up against him, all warm, sexy, curvy woman. “I know.”
She cocked her head. “Do you? Because it seems like maybe you’re having some trouble with it. Need me to back off? Am I scaring you?”
“No.” He shook his head at her smile and had to let out one of his own. “Okay, yes. Yes, you’re scaring me.”
“Aw.” She slung a friendly arm around his shoulders and squeezed. “I’ll be gentle.” She went back to her pizza with gusto. “I loved watching you play tonight. You looked good out there.”
She was looking good, too, but he kept that to himself, as well as the fact that she was messing with his head without even trying. Both heads.
“So when you’re out there on the field, can you hear us cheering you on?” she asked, catching a string of cheese off the tip of her pizza with her tongue.
“Yes,” he said, staring at that tongue. “But it’s more like white noise if I’m in the zone.”
“Well, I made plenty of white noise today.” She laughed at herself. “I really lost myself.”
He was feeling a little lost himself, in both the sound of her laughter and the warmth of her eyes.
“What?” she asked.
“Ignoring you is going to be a hell of a lot harder than I thought.”
She didn’t point out the obvious, that he was a grown-up, that he could chose not to ignore anything, but she simply sat there and ate her pizza, easily becoming the most enigmatic, intriguing woman he’d ever met.
The next morning the news was buzzing about what had happened after the Atlanta game with those wild fans. The story had gotten exaggerated, with some of the papers reporting that Sam had been beaten and nearly raped. The Heat flew home, where they were met by Sam’s entire family, all of them royally pissed off and ready to kick some ass.
While Sam cooled their jets and assured everyone she didn’t have a scratch on her, the players got ready for their game. Pace wasn’t pitching, but his shoulder felt good—okay, not good but not bad—so he still dressed out, as he’d be practicing in the bullpen while watching the game.
Which they lost.
As well as their next three games.
At the end of that week, the players chaired a 4 The Kids auction, raising $250,000 before facing another home game, this one against the Colorado Rockies.
This time Pace was on the schedule to pitch. He’d had to see the team doc every single day that week to get approval, but he got it, and two hours before the start, he stood in the Heat’s luxurious clubhouse in front of his locker, looking down at the few vitamin packs he still had left. Most of the guys swore they noticed a difference in their energy and strength levels, but other than sleeping better, Pace hadn’t noticed anything. Still, for Tucker, he kept taking the stuff. He was pulling on his jersey when Henry, Ty, and Johnny joined him. He glanced over, but they said nothing, just stood there staring at him like Curly, Mo, and Larry.
Ty shoved Johnny, who shoved Henry. Who then looked at Pace. “You’ve got to kiss her, man.”
“What?”
“Holly,” Ty clarified. “You have to kiss her the same way you did in Atlanta, or we’ll lose again.”
Henry nodded.
Johnny nodded.
And Pace just stared at them. No one knew he’d kissed Holly, no one but him and Holly. And . . . Red. Dammit. “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he said, sliding Red a long death stare across the clubhouse.
From twenty feet, Red lifted a shoulder, then ambled over. “They guessed.”
“They did not.”
“Okay, they didn’t.” Red jerked his head toward Holly, who was taking pictures of Mason and Kyle goofing off at the food table. “But the last time we won was the last time you kissed her.”
Jesus. Normally Pace had a healthy respect for the superstitions of his sport, but this one . . . This one just might kill him.
“Just do it,” Henry said. “Kiss her.”
Yeah. Hardly that easy.
“If you want,” Ty offered. “I can do it for you.”
Over his dead body. Pace looked at Holly. She’d written two more intriguing, fascinating articles without more than a mention of him, and though the writing had been insight ful and quite hard-hitting, she hadn’t exposed any big secrets or been negative on the sport in any way. He kept waiting for the other shoe to drop, but it never did.
“Don’t mess this up,” Red said.
Pace tried to figure a way around this, but as he knew all too well, it was immaterial whether or not he believed that they’d lose if he didn’t kiss Holly again.
The guys believed it.
Shit.
“Here,” Henry said, offering up a Dr Pepper. “For fortification.”
“No, dude, he quit.” Ty offered his Nalgene bottle instead.
Pace downed the water in it, but his mouth was still dry.
“You ready?” Henry asked.
Wade had joined them, soaking up the conversation with interest. He slapped Pace’s back. “Go take one for the team, big guy.”
“Goddammit.” He headed toward the woman he’d been doing his best to avoid for days and found her in the middle of an off-color joke that was actually pretty funny.
He waited until she turned and looked at him. “Hey, you,” she said, a warm smile curving her mouth.
“Hey.” He shifted on his feet, trying to figure out a way to ease into this. “Uh, can I see you a minute?”
“Sure,” she said easily, because she had no idea how not easy this was going to be.
“In there?” He gestured to the shower room, following her there, until Gage caught his arm and whispered, “Kiss only.”
Pace looked at him. “What?”
“Yeah, no sleeping with her or we’ll lose.”
“Okay,” Pace said on a long exhale. “What the hell have you been smoking? What have you all been smoking?”
Gage hesitated. “Listen, certain people think it’s the sexual tension between the two of you that gave us that win.”
Certain people. Pace craned his neck and slid Red a look of disbelief.
Red pulled out his inhaler.
Dammit. Low blow.
“So kiss her,” Gage said quietly. “But don’t f—”
“Whoa.” Pace shook his head and pulled free. “You’re all a bunch of fucking nuts.”
Holly was waiting for him at the door to the shower room, which he opened for her. She was carefully put together today, surprise, wearing a white shirt opened over a red tee and snug, hip-hugging jean capris. Her hair had been contained in a ponytail, with long sweeping bangs outlining the face that continued to tease him in his dreams all damn night, every night, where he’d done a whole hell of a lot more than kiss her.
The shower room was humid from the team’s recent showers, and as she turned to face him, her careful hair began to frizz adorably. “I didn’t think women were allowed back here,” she said.
“They’re not, usually. This is a . . . special circumstance, approved by management.”
“Really? What’re the special circumstances?”
Stepping forward, he put his hands on her hips and pulled her up against him.
“Oh.” Her hands went to his chest as she tilted her face up, her lips parting in a little breath of surprise that he leaned in and swallowed whole with his mouth, and God, just like that he died and went to heaven.
With her own soft little murmur of pleasure, she sank her fingers into his hair, pressing her soft, warm body up against his, completely su
rrendering to him and completely snagging his heart in the process.
Pulling back with reluctance, he stared down into her glazed-over eyes and nearly drowned.
She licked her lips, just a little dart of her tongue as if she needed that one last taste of him and gave a sweet, pleasure-filled sigh that went straight through him. “Not that I’m complaining, but what was that for?”
“Luck.”
“Really?”
“Yeah.” He grimaced. “Listen, you should know, the guys think you’re a good-luck charm.” He paused, expecting her to get mad, which she’d certainly be within her rights.
But once again, she surprised him.
“Well, then,” she murmured, her voice still a little husky. “Best of luck to you.”
The Heat won, then went on to take the series two out of three games. Back at home, Pace coached Chipper and the others through a pickup game and then worked another 4 The Kids charity event with his teammates, this one a big, fancy dinner where they served up the food to the rich and famous. He had a surprisingly good time, especially watching Holly, who’d volunteered to serve drinks, easily and sweetly helping warm up both the guests and their wallets.
They made a cool $150,000 that night for the charity’s pockets, then flew to Houston. At two in the morning, with Pace scheduled to pitch to the Astros in less than twelve hours, his cell phone rang.
“Bad news,” the Skip said without preamble. “Ty and Henry were just pulled over outside of some bar. Henry’s been arrested for DUI, and Ty was hauled in along with him for disorderly conduct.”
Pace’s gut tightened. “Oh Christ.”
“Sam is working on getting the disorderly charge dropped, but brace yourself for a media frenzy with the DUI.”
He wasn’t kidding. By the next morning, the papers and blogs had gotten a hold of the story, claiming Ty had been held for suspected drug possession. One paper even suggested that the relief pitcher had been taking a new highly controversial stimulant, controversial because it wasn’t easily detected during drug testing. The rumor went that it worked better, faster, and with fewer side affects.
The rumors couldn’t be traced, but they were persistent and spread like wildfire.
Henry admitted only to having two beers in his system when he got behind the wheel, stupidly attempting to drive himself and Ty back to their hotel, but that was it. He continuously and adamantly denied drug use, while humbly admitting that the DUI was bad enough, as it was going to cost him both personally and in the eyes of the fans.
In Ty’s case, however, he refused to apologize, saying the papers were not only wrong but slandering him, because the so-called drugs they’d found on him were nothing more than vitamins.
None of it mattered. Hell, the truth didn’t seem to matter as the press continued to slaughter the Heat the whole time they were in Houston, proclaiming that they were young and wild and far too cocky, that they thought they could do anything and get away with it. The MLB commissioner came under pressure to do more random drug testing, and promised to respond.
Before the next day’s game, Pace was in the clubhouse when things went from bad to worse: his father called. “You forget my number?” the old man asked.
Just what Pace needed, that disapproving tone right before a game. “Hi, Dad.”
“I’m in Houston. You going to win or lose today? Because if you’re planning on winning, I thought I’d come watch.”
Edward Martin didn’t make it to many games because of his busy schedule. And in truth, their relationship was far better for it. They had one of those things-are-fine-if-we-don’t-spend-too-much-time-together relationships. “I’ll get you a seat.” Pace hung up knowing he’d either disappoint his father or not, but to stack the deck in his favor, he searched the clubhouse because he had a girl to kiss.
“She’s not here,” Wade told him. “No extras in the clubhouse today. Given our press problems, management thought it best.”
Hell. He reminded himself that he wasn’t superstitious, that of course he could win without kissing Holly.
“I’ll go pull her from the stands,” Red offered.
“Not necessary.”
“Yeah, it is,” he said, and headed out the clubhouse door, only to come back a few minutes later, flushed and wheezing—and alone. “Not in her seat,” he said, calling Gage, who was just about to use the PA system to comb through the entire stadium looking for her when Pace stopped them both. “This is ridiculous. We are not hauling her in here for some stupid superstition.”
But then he went out and pitched like crap and was yanked at the bottom of the third.
They lost.
The guys gave him shit on shit. Hell, Red didn’t even speak to him the whole flight back. The only one who did was the sole flight attendant, who somewhere over Arizona pulled up her skirt and asked him to sign her inner thigh.
He sat alone on the plane, head back, eyes closed, until he felt a set of legs brush his.
Her scent teased his nostrils, some complicated mix of exotic fruit, maybe flowers—all he knew was that it was amazing. She was amazing.
He opened his eyes as Holly squeezed in past him and sat. Around them, the plane was silent. The lights were dimmed; most everyone was sleeping.
“You okay?” she asked after a minute.
“Been better.”
“Is it your shoulder?”
“No.” Nope, he’d stunk up the diamond all on his own today.
“You know what they all think,” she murmured. “That we should have—”
“Yeah.”
She stared at his mouth. “I wouldn’t have minded kissing you.” A smile curved her lips. “For the cause and all.”
He felt a stupid, helpless smile hit him. “No?”
She shook her head, and she leaned in. “Maybe we should . . . I don’t know . . .”
His heart leapt hard against his ribs. “Practice?”
“Great minds,” she said, repeating his own words from Atlanta back at him.
Yeah, now see that’s what he liked about her, he thought, sliding a hand to the nape of her neck. Always game. The leather seats crinkled comfortably as he shifted closer, and he watched as her lips parted in anticipation.
Oh yeah. His parted, too, and he let his eyes drift shut as he kissed—
Gage’s hand. Because Gage had shot it between them from the seat behind them.
“You couldn’t be bothered to kiss her earlier, but you’ll do it now?” came the Skip’s pissed-off whisper, the one that could skin alive. “Fuck, no. Not on my fucking plane.”
“No disrespect, Skip,” Pace said, eyes still on Holly, “but I can kiss whoever I want.”
“Get off my plane.”
Holly laughed, but Pace knew Gage was only half kidding. Maybe only one-quarter kidding.
“No kissing,” Gage instructed. “And absolutely no fu—”
“Okay,” Pace said quickly. “Somebody needs a nap.”