“Luke,” I said, my voice breaking. “You have nothing to explain. I understand all of it.”
His head lowered. “I was just so desperate for comfort after my parents died, for some kind of companionship. I needed someone I could forget about the pain with for a while.” The end of his bat tapped the sides of his sneakers. “My parents had the kind of relationship no one thinks is real, but they had it. Even as a kid, I knew my sisters and I had it good. I wanted what my parents had so badly that I was willing to overlook a lot to find it. I should have trusted my gut with Callie, but I let my desire to find true love justify fake love.”
My hands wound around my stomach like I was trying to hold myself together. “I understand. You don’t have to explain any of that to me. I get it.”
“But I do have to. Don’t you see?” His eyes lifted to mine and stayed there. “Because I want you to know all of me. Not just the good stuff, but the not-so-good too. I don’t want you to know the pretend Luke Archer. I want you to know the real one. Because that’s the Allie Eden I want to know too.”
Flickers of hope were shooting through my veins. “Can you forgive me?”
“Allie.” He exhaled, looking at me like he was surprised I even had to ask. “I forgave you before there was anything to forgive.”
My body rocked from the sob I held back. “How can you say that?”
“Because forgiveness is part of a relationship.” He took a breath and made his first step toward me. “Listen, I’m going to screw up. Everything from a simple mistake like forgetting to bring home milk to a serious fuck-up.” His tongue worked into his cheek. “Like coming on way too strong from the start and making you think all I wanted was a fuck buddy.”
“That’s not why I thought that,” I said. “I mean, yeah, you came on so strong you probably set a few records there too—”
“Can you forgive me for that?” The promise of a smile was in his eyes.
“Forgiven.”
The smile started to spread, but then something seemed to hit him. “Wait. If it wasn’t because of me coming on too strong, why did you think all I wanted was sex from you?”
“I didn’t think that. Not really. Or not at first,” I rambled.
“Not at first? So it was only after getting to know me that you started to think that?” Rightly so, Archer’s face was creasing with confusion.
“No, sorry, this is harder to explain than I thought it would be.”
His brow peaked. “Imagine trying to keep up with it.”
“Someone said something to me,” I tried again. “Something about you and why I was on the team.”
He circled his bat at me. “Because you were the best person for the job?”
“You’d think, right? But no, that’s not what I was told.”
Luke’s jaw stiffened. “What were you told?”
There was no easy way to put this. No gentle way to phrase it. “That I’d been hired to pretty much be your beck-and-booty-call girl. Oh, and after that main priority, to fill in as an athletic trainer.”
Luke was quiet for a minute, his face a blank canvas. Then a few dark strokes of anger lashed across it. “And you believed it?”
I shifted. “This person made a convincing case. He brought up Callie, who’d been on board with the team your first season. The physical therapist the next season, and the dietitian last season.”
His chest was moving fast, the grip on his bat turning his knuckles white. “Other than Callie, I barely knew those women. If they were some perk the Shock lined up for me, they failed to mention it in my contract because I sure as shit wouldn’t have signed up for something like that.”
“I know,” I interrupted. “I know that now.”
“But you didn’t at first?”
My head bowed as I scuffed at the dirt with my toes. “No.”
“Why?”
I made myself look at him. He didn’t seem angry anymore, maybe just a little disappointed. “Because believing someone like you could only be interested in me for sex was so much easier than believing someone like you wanted the rest too.”
His gaze roamed me before settling on my eyes. The look in them siphoned the air right from my lungs. “Someone would have to be the world’s biggest fool to look at you and not want everything, Allie.”
If it was capable of bursting from being overfull, my heart would have right then. “But everyone looks at you, Luke Archer, and wants everything. I’m just one of those millions.”
Luke tossed the ball back into the bucket and started toward me, each step slow and purposeful. “No, everyone looks at me and sees a number, a team, stats. It takes a rare person to see the stubborn ass I can be at times and not walk away. A rare person to put up with this lifestyle, the schedule, my moodiness, and my seeming inability to hit the brakes once I get started. It takes a special person to see the real me and not be scared away.”
“Rare? Another word for abnormal. Atypical. Unusual.” I smiled as he approached me. “So are you saying I’m you’re abnormal person?”
“Hell yeah, that’s what I’m saying.” When he was in front of me, he wound his bat around my back and pulled me to him with it. “And I’m your abnormal person too.”
My hands lifted to his chest as he held me to him like he had the day of the photo shoot. The cool metal of his bat running across my back, the warm planes of his body spanning my front, the heat in his eyes made me weak at the same time it made me strong.
“Before I kiss you, before I do more”—his dimple pierced into his cheek—“I need to know who told you that.”
“Why? Are you going to threaten to kick his ass too?”
He groaned, giving me a little shake. “Please don’t bring up that first line fail ever again. It will haunt me to the grave as it is.”
“I’ll never bring it up again. Except for when I have to.”
The lightness left his face as he held my stare. “Who was it?”
“Who do you think?”
“I know who I think, but I want to know if I’m right.” He waited for my answer, not saying anything else.
One side of my face drew up. “Shepherd.”
Luke’s head fell back, a grumble vibrating in his chest. “That night at the charity event?” When I nodded, another sound erupted from his throat. “That son of a bitch. I saw you and him all up close to you, and I wanted to tear his throat out. If I’d known what he was saying to you, I actually would have.”
My hand floated to the bend of his neck, trying to calm the anger I could see in his eyes. “Because nothing says charity auction like someone’s throat getting ripped out, right?”
“He told you those other women were only on the team to warm my bed? That that was the reason you’d been brought on this season?”
My silence answered him.
“Anything else?” he asked.
I thought about everything Shepherd had said that night—everything I’d believed. Not anymore. “Not much. Just a few other stupid lies.”
“God, Allie.” Archer tucked me closer to him, tossing the bat away so his arms could hold me instead. “I wish you would have told me sooner. That night.”
“I wish I would have too.” My arms wound around his back, and I let him hold me so there was nothing between us.
“I wish you wouldn’t have believed it.”
My eyes closed as I turned my head into his chest. His heartbeat was thudding against my ear, so strong and sure. “Me believing that has very little to do with you, Luke, and more to do with me. I believed it because of my shortcomings, not because of yours.”
Kissing the top of my head, his chin tucked over it afterward. “I’m sorry. So damn sorry. I’m going to make this right though. Shepherd’s going to remember the day he went after the woman I love. He’s going to be lucky if anyone lets him inside the gates of a baseball park as a spectator when I’m done with his lying ass.”
Luke kept going, but I drowned out most of it after that first part. I’
d read it on the screen of a phone, but it was entirely different hearing it from his mouth.
“I love you, Luke.” My head lifted from his chest so I could look up at him. “You were right. You are more. We are more.”
His hand left me just long enough to turn his ball cap around. “No,” he said, then his hand molded onto my cheek as his face angled toward mine. “You’re everything.”
“SO HOW DID you get in here? Jump the fences with your bat and bucket of balls? Find the power switch to the stadium lights?” Looking up at Luke where we were still straddling the third base line, I waited.
His eyes roamed the empty stadium, looking sheepish. “I might have had someone let me in. The same someone who knows how to turn on the lights.”
“Because this big, prestigious university is so generous to do that for any guy who shows up in the middle of the night wanting to hit a few balls on their pristine field?”
He sighed, knowing what I was hinting at. “The night guard might have season tickets to the Shock games.” When my eyebrow stayed lifted, his shoulders slumped. “Box seat season tickets.”
“Ah, so Luke Archer is not above bribery.”
“Hey, for your information, he started letting me onto the field before the season tickets came into the equation. That was just my way of saying thanks.”
“And no doubt that plays no factor in his willingness to continue breaking the rules for you.” I blinked at him, my arms still tied around his back.
“Oh, please. The university doesn’t mind.”
“They said that?”
His arms tightened around me despite me giving him a hard time. “It’s implied in the thank you note they send me every year for my considerable alumni donation.”
“So you are above bribery?”
The corners of his mouth started to lift. “Bribery, yeah. But threats, not so much.”
“For example?”
“For example, I’d threaten you.”
My eyebrow lifted. “With what?”
“What do you think?”
“Then threaten me.” Stepping out of his arms, my arms crossed in front of me and my fingers pulled at the hem of my shirt.
Luke wet his lips, glancing into the stands. After giving them a cursory check, his gaze moved back to me. “Take off your shirt or else . . .” His brows came together. “Or else . . .” He scrubbed his face, searching. “Or else something.”
“Good enough for me,” I laughed, pulling my shirt up and over my head. I tossed it at his face.
His hazel eyes went darker when they explored my body. “Take off your shorts.”
When my fingers dropped to my button, I waited.
“Or else something.”
Biting back a smile, I worked the button and zipper free, then wiggled out of them until they were around my ankles.
“I like this game,” Luke breathed, a grin stretching from one ear to the other. “I like this game a lot.”
“Of course you do. We’re playing it on a baseball field.”
Like he was reminded of our environment, his eyes wandered back to the stands. They were empty. “Take off the rest,” he ordered when his search was done.
My arms wound behind my back, waiting.
“Or else I’ll tear them off myself.”
“As tempting as that is, this is my favorite, and one of my only matching, bra and underwear, so I’ll take care of the removal to keep things civilized.”
“That’s the only civilized thing you’ll be having from here on,” he growled, adjusting himself as I let my bra fall down my arms and onto the grass.
“Looking forward to it.” I worked my underwear down as I kept moving toward him.
Now that I was all the way naked with one thing on both of our minds, he wasn’t checking the stands anymore. They could have suddenly filled to capacity and he wouldn’t have noticed, judging by the look on his face.
“You know we already made up, right?” He waved his finger between us.
“This isn’t make-up sex.” I shook my head, moving closer. “This is I’m-sorry-for-being-such-a-crazy-insane-nut sex.”
Half of his face pinched together. “You were especially crazy.”
“And I plan on especially saying I’m sorry for that.”
Luke shifted. “Saying?”
My smile tipped up on one side. “Well, expressing just how very sorry I am.”
“I am here for your expressing pleasure.” He held his arms out and did a spin.
The moment he was facing me again, I leapt into his arms. He caught me like he was expecting it, his lips finding mine.
Luke kissed me softly for a minute, like he was trying to prove that even though I was naked in his arms and ready for the rest, he was content with and capable of just kissing. He spun me around slowly, the lights from the stadium seeming to wink down at us.
“I thought I’d lost you,” he whispered as his forehead pressed into mine.
“No.” I closed my eyes and breathed him in. “I just had to find myself again first.”
Backing up until we were straddling home plate, his arms tightened around my back. “I need you, Allie.” There was so much meaning behind those words, so much more than four words could ever hold.
“You have me,” I promised.
“All of you this time?”
When my eyes opened, I found his waiting for mine. Trust was as much something you gave a person as they earned it. Luke had earned every bit of mine, and I was finally ready to give all I had. “All of me all of the time.”
My answer was barely out before his mouth was on me again, but his restraint was gone. His hands lowered down my back to start working his pants loose, but the urgency of our mouths seemed to impair his coordination. He stumbled back a step but wasn’t able to catch himself before we landed on the ground with a couple of surprised grunts.
“Shit, are you okay?” Luke dusted off my knees , which were still pinned around his lap, as he sat up.
My hands finished what his had started, lowering his zipper just enough to free him. I didn’t slow down or take time to stretch out the moment. I needed him, all of him, but this part in particular right now.
When I slid down him, his head rolled back.
“I’m okay,” I breathed, giving myself a second to enjoy the feeling of oneness. Sex with Luke had been many things, from filthy to redefining, but the one thing it had always been was transcendent.
Lifting, I slowly lowered my lap back over his. With a moan, he fell the rest of the way back. A small cloud of dust erupted behind him. His hands moved to my hips, gripping them as he moved below me. His hips thrust into me, making my body tremble with each thrust.
I was making love with Luke Archer in the middle of a baseball field. How did a person top this? But looking into his face as my body moved above his, I knew there’d be no end to these kinds of experiences. With someone like Luke, every day was an adventure. It was a journey I was looking forward to.
“This is the fucking best thing I’ve ever done in my life,” Luke growled right before spinning me over so I was the one on my back. “But I want to be right here”—his face lowered to mine, his hips rocking into me from above, sending me closer—“looking into your eyes when I feel you come undone.”
Curling his hand behind my side, he grabbed a chunk of my backside, riding me harder. “I want to be inside of you when I come.” His other hand cradled my head to keep it from continuing to hit the ground. “Do you want the same?”
My head was dizzy from what he was doing to my body, but not lost enough to answer. “I don’t want that, Luke.” My words stilled his body, and I shook my head. “I need that. Always.”
Something low echoed in his chest before he moved inside me again. Neither of us lasted long after that, his climax spurring mine. The entire time, his eyes stayed above mine, unwavering.
Only after our cries had receded and the silence had settled around us again did his eyes close. Leaning his
forehead into mine again, I felt his sweat slide against my skin. He stayed deep inside me, like separating in that way would be the catalyst for waking up from the dream we’d found ourselves in.
“I have scored plenty of times on home plate, but this”—Luke’s sweaty forehead left mine as he hovered above me—“this is a first.”
My hands curled into his backside, holding him in place when he tried to shift his weight. “Is this a last?”
“Hell, no.” Luke leaned up just enough to stare at me naked and spread out beneath him. “This is the start of a great tradition.”
My hands formed around his face. “This is the start of a lot of great things.”
THE SHOCK HAD made it to the big game. It had been one hell of a season, and this game had stayed with the same theme. It had come down to the last inning, the Shock and the Miners going back and forth leading the series. I’d never been so nervous watching a ball game, and I wondered if by the end of this, I’d have any functioning nerves left.
We were the visiting team, so we were last at bat in the ninth, and we needed a run to tie. Two to win. Archer was next up with one on base.
After those two games where Archer had not been the number eleven fans had come to know, he’d come back with a vengeance. There wasn’t a ball a pitcher could throw that he couldn’t hit. He was back, but that wasn’t all. He’d come back even better.
He’d already sent two balls over the fence this game—and we could really use a third.
“Why don’t you run out there and give him one of those big kisses with that look in you women’s eyes that says there’ll be more of that to come if you hit a homer?” Reynolds sat down beside me in the dugout, taking a break from his pacing.
“I’m working, Reynolds.”
“I know, I know. You’re the team’s athletic trainer first on game day, Archer’s girlfriend second, but come on, Doc.” Reynolds waved at the giant scoreboard that seemed to loom above the outfield. “This is the last inning of the last game of the biggest series in our lives. A little motivation couldn’t hurt. Compliments of your lips and feminine guile.”