Chapter Four
Jake
There’s a moment in every game when I know my entire day rests on the next few seconds. Sometimes I make it, and it’s glorious. Sometimes I miss, and I have to suck it up until the next key moment arrives. But it’s rare indeed when that moment happens outside a ballpark. And that always makes the stakes a bit higher.
The first time, I was headed for second base…on a girl. Result: glorious. It had me grinning for days.
The second time was when I was writing the SATs, and I realized I sucked at standardized tests. There was no way I’d get into a good college with my brains. Result: miserable. But it meant I worked harder than ever at baseball.
The third time was right now, here with Ellie. Sure I’d pulled out all the stops to make this date memorable, but the girl had a different agenda than I did and I wanted to know what it was. Especially since she’d shown up in that dress.
For someone who had no intention of having sex, she looked like pure temptation, with every curve on tantalizing display. From the moment I’d laid eyes on her, I’d been harder than granite, even in front of her parents and sister.
I needed an explanation. I just prayed that I could focus on her words long enough to understand them. Because damn, she had nice legs.
She took two tries to find her voice, and even then, it came out half croak, half squeak.
“Um, what?”
“You said you wanted an old-fashioned date. I’d pick you up, say hello to your parents and family, and we go out to dinner.”
“Y-yes?”
I cocked a brow at the length of leg on display and had to stop myself from caressing it. “That is not an old-fashioned dress.”
“Um, right.”
It took me a moment to realize she’d stopped talking and that I needed to look at her face, not her legs. So I dragged my gaze up to her mouth. She was chewing her lower lip, licking off the gloss in her nervousness. I was suddenly flooded with the image of what else she could be doing with her mouth on me.
Yeah, it was immature, but damn, I couldn’t figure out what she wanted.
“Ellie?” I said, her name coming out in a low, lust-filled growl.
“It’s Rachel’s dress. I didn’t pack for a date.” Then she shrugged. “Remember? I live in Indianapolis and drove up here for the barbecue. No dresses required.”
“And Rachel didn’t have anything in her closet that was a little less…” What? Sex in black knit? “Modern.”
“You were expecting a poodle skirt? Sweater and pearls? Nun’s habit?”
I flushed. I hated it when someone caught my inner thoughts. “Look, I know I’m a jock, but that doesn’t mean I’m stupid.”
She jolted upright. “I never thought—”
“So what’s the agenda here? There’s going to be press, and I need to know your game plan.”
She blew out a breath. “You weren’t supposed to say yes.” And then she frowned. “Wait…press? What press?”
I leaned back and folded my arms. It was the only way to keep them off her. “You made a big show of asking me out publicly.”
“In my parents’ backyard!”
“In front of the team. And Gia.”
She frowned. “Who’s Gia?”
“You remember the bouncy brunette in heels. She had a thing for your mom’s ambrosia salad. She’s the team’s publicist.”
I watched as her eyes widened in memory. Yeah, for all Gia’s perky beauty, the woman knew how to fade into the background when needed. Neat trick for a publicist.
“But this isn’t about the baseball team.”
“Gia’s job is to make us popular. There’s nothing better for clickbait than an old-fashioned date.” I watched her expression closely. “In fact, I considered the possibility that you and Gia had set this up beforehand.”
Her eyes widened in shock. “No! This has nothing to do with publicity. God!” Her expression morphed into horror genuine enough that I knew she wasn’t faking.
“So what’s the deal?”
She swallowed and her gaze slid away. Clear guilt and embarrassment. The girl carried her emotions on her sleeve, and part of me wanted to make this easier for her. It’s not like I enjoyed embarrassing pretty girls, but the Bobcats took publicity very seriously. And I’d just been chewed out by team owner Joe Deluce about how my playboy ways were unacceptable. I had to cool my bad-boy antics. Which meant I couldn’t afford to go out there not knowing what was going on.
“You were supposed to reject me,” she said in a low moan.
“You said that before. It still doesn’t make any sense.”
She huffed out a breath, making her breasts bounce in a really distracting way. Then she glared at me as if it were my fault. “I was trying to get rejected. Rachel thought if I made it clear there’d be no sex, you’d turn me down flat.”
Okay, so now my eyes were on her face. Well, her mouth specifically, but that didn’t help me process her words. “You thought I’d say no?” To going out with a beautiful woman? While in front of the girl’s parents and the guys? Was she crazy?
“Well, nicely, of course. I, um, thought you’d say you were tired after a game or something like that.”
“Keyed up.”
“What?”
“After a game. I’m usually physically tired, but emotionally keyed up. Almost hyper.”
She blinked. Long lashes, soft brown eyes. I knew from yesterday that when the sun caught the irises just right, her eyes shimmered with gold.
“Oh,” she said.
Right. I took a deep breath and tried to figure this out. It didn’t work. “So why are you trying to get rejected?”
“Because I’m a wuss. It’s, um, exposure therapy.”
I started to put the pieces together. “Exposure to being rejected.”
“Or, um, humiliated. Like if you’d laughed in my face or something. If I didn’t die from embarrassment—”
“It would be easier to get rejected the next time? That’s like saying you should bang your head against the wall because it will feel good when you stop.”
Her mouth tightened a bit as she processed that. Then she squared her shoulders. Uh-oh. Fighting stance. “Look, there’s no way you can understand this, but some of us struggle to be strong. To, you know, speak up and stuff. I’m trying to find my voice. And realizing that rejection doesn’t kill anyone is part of the process.”
“So you go around asking celebrities out, just so they’ll say no?”
She flushed and looked away. “That was Rachel’s idea.”
“Oh no.” I grabbed her chin lightly and tugged her gaze back to mine. “You did it, not her. Tell me why.”
“Because you were supposed to turn me down.” Her voice came out as a breathy whisper, and her eyes were huge, liquid pools. She was just so damn beautiful that it hurt a little to look straight at her. Sure, the media machine always had me with dramatic women. Flashy, sequined bodies with wild makeup and very short skirts. But that’s because those were the baseball babes who strutted around the media circus. They were easy, and they never wanted anything more than their picture in the paper and maybe a night of sexual antics. My fantasy women always had big, honest eyes and freckles on an apple-pie face. And a mouth that was plump and tasty.
And then…hell…I took a whiff. Jesus, could she get any more perfect?
“Are you wearing apple perfume?”
“What? No. Chanel or Burberry or something. Rachel had it.”
“I smell apples.”
Her mouth dropped open in shock. And there I was staring at that lush, wet center and thinking filthy thoughts.
“It’s my lip gloss,” she said. “Apple strudel.”
Of course it was. And I was supposed to treat this as a hands-off date? Who was she kidding?
“So this was an exercise in getting rejected, but I didn’t say no.”
“You were supposed to.”
“I didn’t.” I was waiting, trying to get her to say yes. To anything. I just wanted to hear the word on her lips. I wanted to remember it in my fantasies after this night ended in old-fashioned blue balls.
“No, you didn’t.”
Damn. Maybe it was time to take a different tack. “Well, your experiment failed. So maybe we can change the rules of this evening? Maybe—”
“No.”
Still not the word I was waiting for. “Why not? I said yes.”
She took a deep breath. It shuddered into her as if she was trying to settle her nerves. And then she gently—make that firmly—pushed me away from her. I hadn’t even realized I’d gotten that close, practically pressing her backward into the seat. But she put a single hand on my shoulder and nudged me. Any gentleman would slide away. Too bad I wasn’t a gentleman, even if I was with a good girl on an old-fashioned date.
I forced myself to draw back. But then I caught her hand and kept it on my shoulder. If I couldn’t smell that apple strudel from this distance, I sure as hell was going to keep hold of her slender fingers.
Meanwhile, she squared her shoulders, and I was distracted by cleavage again. Then she set down the rules.
“There will be no sex. No kissing. This experiment isn’t just about me getting rejected. It’s about me standing up for myself. For saying what I think, despite the consequences.”
“And you think we shouldn’t kiss?”
She arched a brow at me, a clear challenge in those liquid brown eyes. “I think,” she said, each word distinct, “that I said, no sex and no kissing. I can’t just change my mind because you want me to.”
“Not even if I ask extra nice?” I asked, tempting her to smile with my most charming look.
“Not even then.”
I nodded and tried to look like I’d been defeated. “Okay,” I said, “the rules have been established.”
“Good—”
“No nice asking. Just dirty, naughty asking.”
Her breath caught and her nipples puckered. I was watching, so I saw them clear as day. And a blush rose up her cleavage—a green light if I ever saw one. Except, of course, it wasn’t a green light for sex. It was a “game on” light. One that said she was interested, despite her words. I wasn’t going to force her. Of course not. But I was going to play. I wanted to see how far I could push her. Or rather, how far I could tempt her. And maybe I could make my fantasy come true tonight. Get an apple strudel girl in bed for a night of naughty heaven.
That was my plan. It usually worked for me because good girls rarely came back for a second taste if I was especially filthy. Sure, Ellie would party tonight. I’d make sure of it, and it would be heaven. But as long as I pushed her well beyond her usual limits, odds were that she wouldn’t come back. We’d both remember the evening fondly as she went off to marry a tame accountant or something.
Perfect. And from the way she bit her lip—in anxiety or excitement, I couldn’t tell—she knew exactly what I was thinking.