I SNUGGLE IN CLOSER, ONE arm draped across his chest and dangling off the side. There should be no cuddling right now. I should be in my damn car and driving home. Alas, here I am. Tucked into his side. Feeling him draw what I believe are baseballs on my back with the tip of his finger.

“I’m hungry now,” he says.

“Well, I’m not cooking.”

“Damn right you’re not.”

“And why is that?”

“Because I had to fight like hell to get you into my bed. You aren’t wasting time by spending it in my kitchen.”

I just snuggle into him more.

“I like when you do that,” he admits. “It makes me feel . . . happy, I think.”

“You think it makes you happy? That’s a weird thing to say.”

“Maybe.” He kisses the top of my head. “Things feel different these days.”

“How?”

His chest rises as he fills it with air. “I’m not sure,” he says finally. “Before this injury, I didn’t have time to think about much. I just went from game to practice to game to a party. I didn’t just lie in bed and contemplate the world, you know?”

“So you’re lying here considering world peace?” I tease. “Good to know.”

“The only piece I’m thinking about right now is this one,” he says, turning onto his side and looking at me in the eye. “I’ve just had some time to myself without anything to do. It’s made me think about things.”

“Sounds dangerous.”

“It does, doesn’t it?” He gives me a grin I haven’t seen before. It’s sweet and soft and I want to lift up and press a kiss to his parted lips. So I do.

Nestling back against him, I’m falling hard and fast just like I knew I would. He’s too easy to be around—too kind, too sexy, too sweet. I can try to play like I don’t realize it, but it would be a big, fat lie. I don’t know that it’s love or just unbridled lust, but whatever it is, it has me wrapped up tight.

“You know you’re all I’ve been thinking about right?” he whispers.

My heart stills. I let my fingers drift up his bicep and back down again, watching the goosebumps pop up in their wake. “Sounds about right,” I joke.

“Who’s cocky now?” he laughs.

“Cocky? I call it logical. You think about me. It happens. But prepare yourself: you’ll just think about me more now that you’ve had me in the sack.”

“That’s the truth.”

I feel him quiet against me, his palm lying flat against the top of my ass. It’s a long couple of minutes before he outlines what I think are baseball bats.

“Where does this put us?” he asks. Hope drips through the question and lands right on my heart.

I pull away and look up in his eyes. My own hope is reeling all too high and I have to be smart. “Let’s just take it one day at a time.”

“I told you,” he says, “I’m always a step ahead. We call it a bird-dog step in baseball.” He lets his head burrow into the down pillow and he pulls me up under his chin again. “Why won’t you just admit you want to be with me?”

“I will admit it,” I say simply. “I want to be with you.”

“You are the most confusing woman I’ve ever met.”

I smile. “I’m not confusing. I’m fairly simple, actually.”

“Then help me out here, Ms. Simplicity. If you know you want to be with me, and it’s obvious I want to be with you,” he says, rolling his hips against me so I can feel him, “why aren’t we together?”

“We are.” I swing a leg over his hips. “Feel me? I’m here. With you. Together.”

He sighs in frustration. “Okay, let’s try this another way. Most women are all over me.”

I roll my eyes, even though I’m sure it’s true.

“I can’t help it,” he winks. “But you—I feel like I want you more than you want me and that’s really fucking weird.”

“I don’t think that’s true. Arrogant on your part, but not true,” I laugh.

“Then help a guy out,” he groans. “Fix my ego.”

“Your ego is fine.”

“And you’re deflecting, babe.”

I roll away from him so he can’t see my face. “You bring things way too close to home for me. That’s the truth,” I tell him.

“Go on . . .”

“Getting involved with you puts me one step closer to becoming my mother, and that’s the one thing I’ve promised myself I won’t be.”

I’ve never admitted that out loud before and it’s a damn personal thing to admit to the man that’s pretty much from the perfect family. It’s also embarrassing.

“Hey,” he says. His arm drapes over me. “What’s this all about? You don’t want to be like your mother? What’s that have to do with me?”

“My father was in sports,” I say, glossing over the topic. “My mother ended up losing both him and herself to the game. Professional athletes are where they are because it’s their passion, the one thing that matters more than any other. You wouldn’t be where you are if that weren’t true.”

“Dani . . .”

I turn so I can see him over my shoulder. “I promised myself I’d never be like them. I’d never put those I love second to a game, and I’d never let another person take the game over me.”

“I’m not taking anything over anyone.”

“But you would,” I say, fighting my voice from breaking. “I get that. I respect it even. You can do something only a handful of people in the world can do. You have a giant opportunity in front of you. But I don’t want to be crushed as you go crushing the world.”

“I’d never crush you.”

“I know you wouldn’t,” I say, touching his cheek. “At least not on purpose. But it’s more than that.” My hand falls and I take a deep breath. “It’s not being crushed but it’s not having a life like my mother too. Waiting on my guy to come home. Hoping he calls. Listening to statistics over dinner and trying to get your man to squeeze some time for you in the middle of a couple of hundred games. It’s not the life I want. That life broke her. I watched it. I don’t even really have parents because of it. What I want out of life is the polar opposite.”

His features crease, his eyes darkening, as he takes that in. The soberness of his expression makes me think maybe he realizes how right I am, just how much I know what his life is like. And how this thing between us can never deepen too much.

“I like the way things are between us,” I say, my voice soft. “You are so much fun. Smart. Sexy as hell. But we really need to try to keep it on this level.”

“I feel like this is completely unfair,” he says, a sort of laugh in his voice that doesn’t mean he’s amused. “Out of all the chicks that want me, I have to like you.”

Slapping at his chest, we both laugh. He pulls me in close again. There’s a tenderness in his eyes that tugs at my heart. and if I let myself, I could fall right in. I also know I can’t do that. As much as it hurts to claw my way back from the ledge of doing just that.

“Don’t take this the wrong way, Landry, but you’d be impossible to watch leave.”

“You don’t like the view of my ass?” he teases.

“Not as much as I like the view of your face.”

He takes a deep breath, his eyes troubled. “I like you. I really fucking like you. You make me remember what it’s like to be . . . more than me.”

“You don’t need to be anything more than you are.”

His grin hits me in a soft spot deep in my heart. “See?” he says softly. “Right there. That’s why I want to lock you up.” He peers into my eyes, like it’s going to drive his words home.

“Damn it,” I sigh, trying to keep this light before I succumb to his words. “You make it so hard to resist you.”

“So don’t.”

I consider this. “Do you know Weston Brinkmann?”

He makes a face like he just sucked a lemon. “Why?”

“He wanted to date me a year or so ago and I turned him down.”

“Smart girl. He’s a complete fucking cocksucker.”

I laugh, squeezing him tight. “I turned him down even though I kind of liked him just because he played baseball. For the same reasons I’m telling you about.”

He just watches me.

“See, that’s the thing,” I say. “I turned him down. I can’t tell you no. I don’t know what that means, exactly, but it scares me.”

“You shouldn’t be scared alone. It’s like drinking when you’re sad— have a partner,” he winks. “Let’s hang out. Take some batting practice. Have dinner, breakfast if things go well. I promise to use all my Southern manners.”

My leg slings back over him again, this time so my pussy is lined up with his cock.

“I can feel your heat,” he says, his breath picking up. “Want round two?”

“Only if you promise not to use those Southern manners.”

“Deal.”