Troy

Whoa. He had not meant for this to happen.

By compelling her to throw her whole body to the ball every damn time for a hundred or a thousand pitches, Troy had only meant to show her the physical toll it could take.

“Hey. Are you OK?”

Troy knelt down on the ground next to Remy. “Shh…listen, I didn’t mean to make you cry, I was just trying to demonstrate something. I was just trying to get through to you that Elliot is overworked. I pushed too far. I’m sorry.”

He put a hand on her back and rubbed it sympathetically. Awkwardly, but genuinely sympathetically.

Damn, he enjoyed rubbing her back. All right, keep it under control, man. This woman is probably going to sue you for … something, any minute now.

All he wanted to do was show her how hard these lessons were on Elliot, and now he’d made her feel like a terrible mother. That was not his intention. Now he had to help build her back up. How was he going to do that?

“Mrs. Dawson. Remy. I’m sorry. I went too far.”

She sniffled and kept her face in her hands.

And then he felt like an idiot for not offering her something. “Ah, sorry I don’t have a tissue. Here.”

He sat down next to her and offered her the bottom of his tee-shirt.

“That’s gross, I can’t use your shirt…” Sniff. “But…well, OK.” Remy wiped her face on his shirt hem and dabbed her eyes.

She looked down and then started laughing. “You have my mascara all over you now.”

He looked down at the spot and chuckled. “That’s OK. Let’s go inside.”

He helped her up as she muttered about finally going inside after giving the neighbors a floor show from the backyard.

Inside the kitchen, she blew her nose and dabbed her eyes, pulled herself together with the help of a paper towel.

He kept close to her in case she felt unsteady.

“I’m sorry you had to see me ugly-cry.”

Troy didn’t like hearing her use the word “ugly” about herself, in any context. “If that was ugly cry, then I guess I’m done for if I ever see you ‘pretty cry,’ because you might be the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen sobbing her eyes out.” Yep. He went there. Called her beautiful. She was a hard woman to deal with, but she was in a tender spot right now and he thought she needed to know it. It was a calculated risk.

She sniffed and dabbed her nose again. “I would take that as a compliment except now I’m wondering exactly how many women you have made cry.”

“Only you, so far.”

“I find that hard to believe.”

“Well, on a normal day I would argue that that is an insult to my treatment of women, but in your current state, I’m not prepared to spar with you,” Troy said.

“Hello!? I’m not saying you’re a jerk, I’m saying…look at you! You’re some kind of a demigod in Middleburg. All the other baseball moms are probably throwing themselves at your feet. You probably make women cry because you’re prettier than they are and you don’t even notice them.”

Troy turned until he was facing her. “Why would I care or notice when I can’t keep my eyes off you?”

Remy took a deep breath. “You’re joking, right? You like my splotchy face and red eyes?”

“Yes. And even taking into account your huge-pain-in-the-ass emails and stalking me at school.”

“So, I guess this means we’re gonna talk about that kiss, huh?”

“No, ma’am. We’re definitely not gonna talk.”

Remy froze as Troy moved a lock of her hair out of her face, then took the next step and smoothed his hand over her head, combing his fingers through the soft brown waves. He stroked the back of her neck as she looked up at him and gave the slightest of sighs and closed her eyes. In the next moment he was massaging her shoulders. She was tense. A ball of nerves. He worked his fingers in circles on the back of her neck, over the tops of her shoulders, then back up and down her neck again.

He looked at her clear skin, watching the goosebumps form on her chest—framed by the V of her tee-shirt—and her cheeks flush. Her deep brown eyes opened and searched for his. Her lips parted and he could not believe she wasn’t trying to say anything yet. Troy leaned in, his hands getting lost in her hair and her scent. He rested his forehead against her forehead and listened to her breathing. It was growing ragged with need, and it was turning his cock as hard as stone to think he was the cause of her arousal. He wanted every inch of her on him. He wanted her wrapped around him like chocolate on a frozen banana.

Troy couldn’t help himself. He laughed.

“What’s so funny?” she asked.

“Nothing. I was just thinking about bananas.”

She cocked an eyebrow up. “Oh. You mean like this one?”

Troy sucked in his breath at the sensation of Remy’s hand suddenly and firmly pressed against the front of his jeans, and then, without warning, her stroking until his cock was begging to be set free from his pants.

“Oh, I guess you do know how to have fun.” He smiled as his lips slowly inched toward hers.

“No, I’m just a pleaser,” she said, continuing to rub him, making him need to feel himself inside her mouth. She was slaying him, yet somehow they were both still fully dressed. Why had he not ripped her clothes off yet?

“I have to leave to pick up Elliot from Brandt Fuller’s house in 20 minutes.”

“I don’t know who that is, but I guess we’d better hurry.”

They locked their lips together as desperately and as hungrily as the day before, but this time Troy was feeling something else as they kissed. And not just a serious boner. Her body fit so perfectly, leaning into his, he couldn’t imagine anyone else fitting so well. He felt for the first time…welcome in Middleburg. Funny that the Welcome Wagon had finally arrived, brought to him by the most uptight, intense Tiger Mom in town.

Remy pulled at Troy’s tee-shirt. Troy let her grasp away as he slipped his hands under her top, feeling the soft curve of her delicious lower back against his palms. His lips worked over her mouth, and then he began to kiss his way up her jawline and down her neck, down into the V at the front of her shirt, where he could feel her breasts tease him to go lower. His hands slid up farther across her ribcage and hastily helped her pull her tee-shirt up over her head. Her hard nipples beckoned him through her bra to have a taste.

He had thought he was most interested in her ass—which in his daydreams reminded him of the famous ass of that one reality TV star, the one with that show with all the sisters, and the mom who was even weirder than Remy, the one that he never officially watched, ever, and that was his story, the end—but those breasts of Remy’s looked mighty incredible.

He feathered her breasts with kisses before taking small nips at her hard buds through her bra, feeling Remy relax into his arms. A little sexy sigh escaped from her as he gently teased her with his mouth. It occurred to him she had no tan lines, and it likely meant she somehow sunbathed naked, which, where do you even do that in Middleburg? He filed that away for the spank bank later—the image of this dark-haired beauty spread out naked on a blanket in her backyard while the neighbors were all at work. Fuck, that’s hot.

Remy’s hands explored Troy’s abdomen, and soon his shirt joined hers on the floor. They attacked each other with renewed enthusiasm. His lips teased, his able fingers squeezed. Her breath shortened, her whimpers of pleasure grew more intense. She caressed his bare abs and chest as if she couldn’t decide what to explore first. Damn.

Her fingers swept over his shoulders, feeling his back, finally settling on putting her hands in his hair, which gave him a better angle to kiss his way down to her sweet little tummy. Now he just needed to get her horizontal. Time was running out. Her son was with a friend, Remy could be late to pick up…what was his name again? Something familiar about it…

Troy moved things along by reaching between her legs and rubbing through the fabric of her yoga pants. He could feel her slit completely open up to him, and she wasn’t wearing any panties. Troy slid his hands back around to her lower back, down her waistband and finally had both hands full of her ass. She was somehow both soft and rock hard. Jacked but curvy. Damn. Damn damn damn, he wanted her right now. The feel of her in his hands made his mouth water and drove him to kiss her with an even wilder intensity.

He was ferociously hungry for her and he was tugging away at her yoga pants.

And then, someone’s phone rang.

Remy groaned and pulled away. “It’s Elliot,” she said.

Well, that was the end of that. Shit. Did it have to be? Yes, it did, you enormous cad. He cursed in his head again and again, but he could not begrudge her that phone call. No way he wanted to keep her from her son.

“Sure, I’ll come get you right now, sweetie.”

After hanging up, she looked apologetic and embarrassed.

Not wanting her to ever feel that way around him, Troy helped her put her shirt back on and he took care of getting fully dressed again himself.