~*~
As soon as the door closed behind Ray, Quigg did just what he’d been longing to do. He scooped her up to straddle his lap, crushing her within an inch of cracking her ribs. Still, it wasn’t close enough, safe enough.
“You left your alarm on the damned brief case.”
She pulled back, reached between them and lifted the gadget from between her breasts, suspended from a thin nylon cord. “It’s around my neck, now. I’ll wear it all the time, I swear.”
“Great. Glad to hear it.” He lifted it over her head and laid it aside. “But it has to come off for a minute, ’cuz I plan to kiss you until this fear goes away and we don’t need that thing going off by accident.”
With that, he enfolded her again, kissed her, muttered reprimands for her carelessness, gratitude for her safety, praise for her courage. And all of it punctuated with urgent kisses and touches meant to reassure—who? him? her?—that she was safe, whole.
Only when passion threatened to overcome good sense and morality laws did he pull back. Even at that, all he did was lift her so she was sitting in the more conventional sideways fashion on his lap. Her soft bottom was a torture, but one he couldn’t bear to deprive himself of just yet.
“This can’t go on,” he muttered into her hair.
“I know. Someone’s bound to walk in.”
He laughed. “Not that. Though we do have to cool it. I meant this stalking thing. It can’t go on.”
She lifted away from him to search his gaze, her own eyes bright and brilliant as gemstones. “I’m all for that, but how do you propose to stop it?”
“Let’s think about this.” He settled her more comfortably against him. “It’s the bottom of the ninth. Bases are loaded –”
“Baseball? You’re turning to baseball for an answer to my nightmare?”
Her expression made him smile. “Sweetheart, baseball has all the answers. Now, are you going to let me think?”
“Baseball?”
“Okay, they’ve got home-field advantage. It’s bottom of the ninth, and you’ve got a slim one-run lead that you have to preserve.”
“Wait a minute. Why does he have home-field advantage?”
“Because he knows who his opponents are, but we don’t know him.”
“And why do I have a lead?”
“Because he hasn’t caught you yet.”
She shivered, delicate but unmistakable. “Okay.”
“All right, back to the game. If you can shut ’em down in this last at bat, game’s over. You win. But it’s not going to be easy. Bases are loaded. The count is full, three balls, two strikes.”
“So he’s the batter and I’m the pitcher?”
“Correct. He’s the guy with the big stick who can hurt you. You’re the one who has to out-think him.”
“Great,” she muttered. “So, what do I do?”
“Bases loaded with a 3-2 count, he’s sitting dead red on a fastball.”
“So I throw him a curve ball?”
He shook his head. “He knows you can’t afford to miss with a breaking ball. If you do, game’s over.”
A frown pleated her brow. “So I throw him a fastball?”
“Hell, no. He’d be all over that.”
“And God knows my slider is rusty.”
He grinned. “Smartass.”
“Okay, coach, what do I do?”
“Throw him a change-up.”
“Huh?”
“Something off-speed. Same arm action as a fastball, same plane of delivery, but you take a little off. He’s sitting on a heater, thinks he’s gonna get it, and then wham, he’s way out in front of it, off balance. At your mercy.”
“That’s all well and good, but what are we going to do?”
He barely heard her words, her voice drowned out by the turbulent rush of thoughts colliding, coming together. Of course!
“Come on.” He spilled her off his lap and leapt up. “We have to find Ray. I have a plan.”