Double Play

She needed the truth. And she really hoped she hadn’t just accidentally found it. “Pace—”

“Look, I’ve had a fairly f**ked-up evening, so I really don’t want to go around and around with you on what you think you might have heard just now.”

She’d come to see how he was. To talk about what had happened in the shower room.

And to retrieve her underwear.

And maybe . . . maybe to figure out what the hell they were doing with each other, if it was real or imagined on her part. “Fine enough, except I don’t remember asking you to go around with me at all.”

“Ah Christ. We’re going to.” He shoved his fingers through his hair and turned in a slow circle, coming back to face her, arms still up, eyes resigned and exhausted, body tense.

He wore only knit boxer shorts low on his hips and getting lower with his every movement, a fact that was hugely distracting, emphasis on the huge. “Your shoulder,” she said softly, clearly her throat and trying to clear her mind as well. “You’ve got some mobility at least.”

“I can lift it up until the cows come home,” he said wearily. “It’s lowering it again that kills me.”

She looked at the taut strength in his arms and shoulders, at his hard chest, the ripped abs. At the way his shorts gaped away from those abs with every breath.

Concentrate.

Noting the pain he was clearly in made it easy. “Pace,” she murmured softly.

He turned away, carefully lowering his right arm. She couldn’t see his face, but she heard his low breath of pain, which shot straight to her heart.

“How bad?”

Not answering, he strode to the duffel bag open on his bed and pulled out a foil pack. Ripping it open with his teeth, he poured what looked like at least five different pills into his hand and then tossed them into his mouth, dry swallowing them whole. “Better call the DEA,” he said when he noted her watching him.

“Those were just vitamins, right?”

Without answering, he turned and headed straight for the minibar, grabbing a small bottle of vodka.

“What are you doing?”

“Getting some good old-fashioned pain relief.” He tipped his head back and drank it down.

“You shouldn’t mix pain meds and alcohol.”

“Jesus.” He set the now-empty glass bottle on the nightstand, grabbed another, downed it, too, then strode to the door, which he whipped open.

A not-too-subtle invitation to leave.

Well, it wasn’t the first time she’d irritated a man beyond repair, that was for certain. And if she was being honest, she could admit that maybe, just maybe, she’d pushed his buttons to see how easily he’d cut their tenuous relationship.

Pretty darn easily, apparently.

She moved toward the door, then stopped only a breath away from his tall, built, hurting body. Lifting her head, she looked into his eyes, searching for the truth, or a flicker of regret, some knowledge that he was sorry it had come to this.

Nothing.

“You can be pissed at me all you want for asking about drugs,” she said. “But why would Red so easily offer you some if you never use them?”

He stared down into her eyes and then at her mouth. And then the next thing she knew, he’d slipped his good arm around her back and tugged her up until her toes were dangling off the floor. His eyes were sleepy and at half-mast as he licked his lower lip, then kissed her—a deep, wet, hot kiss that came out of nowhere and stole her breath, her reasoning, and more than half of her brain cells.

She heard her purse hit the floor. One of her shoes joined it. He groaned into her mouth as her arms entwined around his neck, ripping a shockingly needy little sigh of pleasure from her as she gave him everything she had.

Until he pulled back.

Her eyes slowly opened as he let her slide down his body so that her feet were back on the floor.

“Sometimes,” he said, his voice hoarse, “Sometimes, Holly, people do crazy odd things in the name of caring and love. Things they normally wouldn’t do. Things that might look wrong in a black-and-white world. But see, in this world, my world, not everything is black-and-white.”

She was so turned on, so revved up, it was nearly impossible to put words together. “You’re talking about what you might put into your body in the name of your love for baseball.”

He stared at her, then let out a low breath. “No. I’m talking about what Red would do for me. Which is anything, by the way. The very definition of love.” Seeming weary to his very core, he shook his head. “You know what, forget it. You wouldn’t understand.”

She felt like she couldn’t breathe. “Because I told you I don’t believe in love? Or because I turned my last boyfriend in for his unscrupulous actions?”

When he didn’t say anything, she took a step back, pressing a hand to her chest because her heart hurt. “You know what I think?”

“That I’m right?”

She’d been about to say that his fear of her was showing, but the same was true in reverse as well, which felt too revealing, so she swallowed hard. “I’m thinking that you, Pace Martin, are a very stupid male.” She bent for her shoe and purse. “And I want my panties back.”

“No.”

“Oh, for God’s sake.” She had to brush against his body to get out, that warm, hard, amazing body she’d been hoping to have pinning her down on the bed right about now. Ha! Turned out he was no better than any of the other men she’d known.