Love of the Game Read online

  “You might just have to accept that we’re not that great in the sack.”

  “It’s a romantic myth that sex is fantabulous the first time out of the gate. Anything worth doing well takes practice. Lots and lots of practice.”

  “Hmm,” she said noncommittally.

  “Kidnap fantasies?” he asked. “Bringing food to bed?”

  “If you wash the sheets afterward.”

  “That could be arranged. What else? Ménage à trois?”

  “In your dreams, bucko. I’m the jealous type. I don’t share my lover with anyone.” Kasha didn’t even know that until she said it, but damn if it wasn’t true. If he was her man, she wasn’t about to share him.

  And that scared her because it made her think of her mother who killed her father for being unfaithful. She pushed against his hands, wanting up. Wanting out of there. He was pushing her out of her comfort zone, and she didn’t like that.

  “Hold on,” he said. “We’re starting to get somewhere. Do you like sex toys? What about having your toes sucked?”

  She shivered.

  “Oh ho. So that’s it? The toe thing?”

  Her toes were very sensitive, but she didn’t want him going down there, doing that. It would unhinge her completely.

  He chuckled like some black-hatted villain in a cowboy movie, let go of her wrists, and slid down the length of her body, his naked skin against hers. She could get away now, but she didn’t.

  “No,” she protested weakly. “Don’t.”

  His mouth was planting a hot kiss at her navel, but he didn’t linger there, just kept going down and down and down, dropping a kiss at key points along the way.

  “You can stop there,” she said when he reached the center of her womanhood. She ran her fingers through his hair, and twisting the strands to hold him in place.

  “Not yet, babe. Not yet.” He pushed downward.

  She clung to him.

  “Ouch. You’re pulling my hair.”

  “I know. Leave my toes alone.”

  “No way. I’ve got to see what happens when I give those little piggies some attention.”

  “Please,” she whimpered, as he pulled free from her grip, his mouth kissing her upper thigh. “Don’t.”

  “Please?” he said. “Or don’t? Those are two different things.”

  “Don’t …”

  But he wasn’t listening. His tongue skimmed over her knee. She fell back against the pillow, weightless, helpless. Waiting. Tingling. Buzzing. The farther south he went, the more her body tightened.

  “Wait,” she said knowing if she didn’t stop him now she never would. “At least let me go wash my feet.”

  “The rest of you tastes delicious, I’m sure your feet do too.”

  “Let me go. I’ll come back. I promise.”

  “I don’t trust you,” he murmured, his mouth pressed against her shin, his hand stroking her ankle.

  “I need a pedicure.”

  “Your feet are beautiful just the way they are.”

  “I would have gotten a pedicure if I’d have known you were going to be mucking around down there.”

  “I’ll give you one,” he vowed. “After.”

  “I—”

  His mouth touched the top of her foot, and his fingers slipped around to knead the arch. Her foot burst into flames, sent a rolling flash fire straight up her leg to lodge in her groin.

  Every cell in her body throbbed with each beat of her pulse. Thump. Thump. Thump. A slow heat spread through her abdomen, oozed through her blood.

  “This little piggy went to market,” he said, and his mouth closed over her big toe.

  “Oh!” She inhaled a massive sigh. Of their own volition, Kasha’s hips arched right up off the mattress and her head pressed down deeper into the pillow.

  He sucked gently and she completely came undone, panting and writhing as his teeth lightly nibbled her toe.

  “This little piggy stayed home …” He moved to the second toe, leaving her first damp and twitching.

  His hand massaged the balls of her feet, rubbing pressure points, creating a sexy rhythm that destroyed her ability to think anything but more, more, more.

  “This little piggy had roast beef.”

  Kasha moaned, wriggled.

  His mouth was a vortex, sucking her in, eating her up, driving her through the roof and out of her mind.

  “And this little piggy … now this delicious little thing … had none.”

  “No … more …” There was barely enough air in her lungs to carry the words out.

  “Oh, lots more,” he said. “We’ve got six more piggies to get through.”

  “Come here,” she said, reaching down to pull him up. “I have to have you right now!”

  “I’m not sure you’re ready—”

  She grabbed him by the neck and tugged him on top of her.

  “Mmm, okay, I see there’s been a change in plans.”

  “Shh,” she said. “Just shh and do me.”

  “Yes, ma’am.” He grunted, breathing heavy and pressing his chest against her breasts, which were busy drawing in ragged, quick breaths. “Just don’t lose it while I get this damn condom on.”

  “Hurry,” she insisted, full of urgency and need. “Hurry!”

  “I loved sucking your toes,” he said while he fumbled for the condom. “It makes me so horny. Your toes are so hot, muscular but delicate. Strong and salty and …”

  Kasha groaned and bit down on her pillow.

  “There,” he said. “All done.”

  And then he was sliding into her, slick and hot and big and masculine.

  Hot fudge sundae, he was glorious. Halle-freaking-lujah. Was she up? Was she down? Was she in? Was she out?

  He was in to the hilt, filling every inch of her with his size and heat. The pressure was unbelievable, heavy and hard. He moved painstakingly slow, prodding and pushing, testing to see how much she could take.

  She exhaled deep and long. Gripped his shoulder, sank her fingers into his skin. What sweet, sweet torture. She spread her legs, letting him sink deeper into her.

  He gripped her hips, yanked her pelvis upward to meet his as he set a punishing pace—thrusting and thrusting and thrusting. His thumb found her hot button and gently he stroked it, pushing her to the outer limits of sanity.

  Part of her wanted to hold on to her reserve, to keep leashed the part she feared most—the power of her femininity. But the primal, primitive part kidnapped her rationality and held on for dear life.

  “Let go, Kasha. Let it fly,” he crooned, moving to readjust the angle of his hips, and the action was enough to send her completely into orbit. “C’mon, babe, come for me.”

  He pounded into her, the headboard thumping wildly against the wall in time to his energetic thrusts. She opened her eyes and looked up at him, his face full of sweet agony that matched her own. What a beautiful man.

  How had she gotten here? What were the consequences going to be? Was she ready for the fallout?

  Hush. Enjoy the moment.

  “Stay with me,” he coached, rocking higher.

  She tried to hold back the moan, couldn’t. Failed.

  “Music to my ears,” he said.

  She bit her lip, but there was no shutting the gate now. A long, low keening sound shot from her lips, spun around the room, a declaration of her total surrender.

  They were galloping together, thundering toward a cliff, heat and moisture, pressure and friction.

  Oh gosh, oh wow, oh heaven, oh my.

  He rocked inside her, dropped his head, pressed his mouth against her ear and began to whisper the erotic things he wanted to do to her toes. “I want to lather them in whipped cream and slowly lick it off. I want to watch you squish those toes around in a vat of peanut butter.”

  Kasha wriggled and writhed, shoved past the limits of her boundaries, ensnared in the fervor and the glide and the dread and the beat that he was hammering into her.

  And she came so hard
she momentarily went blind.

  CHAPTER 23

  “I have a confession to make,” Axel said once Kasha had drifted down from the rafters.

  “What’s that?” she murmured dozily into the darkness.

  “You make me feel more alive than I’ve ever felt in my life.”

  “In bed or out?”

  “Both.”

  “That’s sweet.” She cupped his face with her palm, thought how it was the most handsome face in the whole wide world. “I don’t believe you for a second, but great confession.”

  “That wasn’t the confession,” he said. “It was a sidebar.”

  “Oh? What’s the real confession?”

  “I have two actually. Is that going to be a problem?”

  “Depends on what you confess.”

  He kissed her deep and firm and long, and she kissed him back as if it was the last kiss of her lifetime and she knew it.

  “Wow,” he said. “Wow.”

  “I will hear your confessions now,” she said in a queenly tone.

  “I lied,” he said. “No way is this casual.”

  “I know,” she said. “I lied too.”

  “I wasn’t fooled for a second.”

  “What else you got for me?”

  He kissed her again, then pulled her into the crook of his arm and snuggled against her, making sure she felt his erection.

  “I meant confession-wise,” she clarified.

  “Before I tell you, you have to promise not to get mad.”

  “How can I promise that until I know what you did? What did you do?”

  “Not me. You can’t get mad at Jodi.”

  “Did she tell you about the toe thing?” Kasha swatted Axel’s upper arm. “Because if she told you about the toe thing …”

  “No, I figured that one out on my own.”

  An uneasy feeling rippled over Kasha. “What did you do?”

  “I went to see Jodi, and asked her about what you were like as a kid. She gave me the newspaper clippings about your parents’ deaths. I wasn’t going to tell you I went poking around, but I can’t keep anything from you. I don’t want there to be any secrets between us.”

  Kasha wasn’t mad. In fact, she was pleased he cared enough to find out more about her. “Why didn’t you ask me for the clippings?”

  “There’s a reason I call you Sphinx. You don’t like to talk about your past.”

  “Still, to sneak around behind my back …”

  “It was underhanded,” he admitted. “I needed to know all the details about what happened to you, and I didn’t want to stir up any more bad memories.”

  “Why did you need to know the details?”

  “Why you can’t let go and be yourself. Why you’re so afraid of your own passion.”

  She could hear the digital clock on the desk turn over along with her stomach.

  “I get it now. Why you’re afraid that if you show any emotions at all you’ll totally lose control.”

  Kasha tried to suck in a deep breath, but it was like trying to suck a thick milkshake through a crushed straw. “I’m doing the best that I can.”

  “I understand, but I needed to know what I’m up against. If you’ll ever be able to—” He broke off. Shook his head.

  “What?”

  “Never mind.”

  “What?” she insisted, a band of anxiety rising up and squeezing her throat closed.

  He met her gaze, and his eyes looked so sad it robbed every bit of air from her lungs.

  “Axel?”

  “Love,” he said. “I wonder if you’ll ever be able to love me the way I love you.”

  Love.

  The word quivered in the air between them, a gelatinous thing, half formed but growing stronger by the minute.

  “You … you …” She moistened her lips.

  He reached out, took her suddenly cold hand in his warm one. His eyes drilled into hers. “I love you, Kasha. Can you deal with that?”

  “But you … but I … we barely know each other.” Oh God, she loved him too. Why was she resisting? Why couldn’t she just open her mouth and say the words?

  I love you.

  “When it’s right it’s right, and nothing in my life has ever felt so right, except for Dylan. I realized I loved you when we were sitting on that dock drinking wine and you looked at me with those soulful eyes and I just knew you were the one I’d been waiting all my life to find.”

  The wine. It was back to the prophetic wine. Destiny. Kismet. True love. Soul mates. Her heart was an eagle soaring in the heavens, proud and bold and hopeful. So very hopeful.

  But her head, her stubborn head was too terrified to let her heart have what it wanted.

  “That’s quite a speech, Richmond,” she said, trying to make light of his declaration, trying desperately to calm her galloping pulse.

  “Are you going to lie there and tell me that you don’t feel it too?”

  No, no, she wasn’t going to deny it. She wasn’t a good enough liar to pull that off.

  “Are you sure it’s me you love and not simply the challenge of me?” Her heart was beating so loudly she feared he could hear it pound.

  “That’s a legitimate question,” he said honestly. “I do love a good challenge and you’ve put up one helluva fight. But you’re the one I love.”

  “Are you sure it’s not just pity,” she asked. “Because I was the poor kid whose parents died in a murder-suicide you feel sorry for me.”

  “Not pity,” he said. “Compassion. But I know the difference between compassion and love. I don’t feel sorry for you.”

  “No? Here’s the deal, Richmond. I don’t want anyone’s pity, especially yours.” She ground out the words as if she were chewing gravel.

  “Do you still have so little faith in me, Kasha?”

  “It’s precisely because I do have faith in you that I’m scared. I see how passionate you are about baseball, and I know you stir passion in me.”

  “Passion you’d rather not have stirred.”

  “Yes.”

  “That’s why you couldn’t come,” he said. “Until I coaxed you into letting go. You think if you stay above the fray of life, keep your emotions contained, you won’t feel any pain. I got news for you, Sphinx. You might not feel any pain, but you won’t feel any joy or ecstasy either.”

  She knew that. Knew it far better than he did.

  “Until you let go of the past,” Axel said, “you can’t move forward into the future.”

  “Are you hearing yourself right now?” she asked. “What is this? A case of do as I say, not as I do?”

  “How do you think I know you’re stuck?” he said. “Been there, done that.”

  “You’re still there.” She reached out and tapped the tattoo on his chest. “You’re still trying to impress a little boy who is no longer here.”

  He tensed beneath her touch, threw back the covers. “I’m hungry, you hungry?”

  “Running away?”

  “Want an omelet? I can make us an omelet.”

  “All right,” she said. “Make me an omelet. But we’re not through hashing this out. Not by a long shot.”

  They sat at the kitchen table, Axel in pajama bottoms, Kasha wearing his paint-stained artist T-shirt that was way too big on her, omelets and two glasses of milk in front of them.

  Axel looked at the food. Thought of Dylan. His appetite vanished. Kasha was right. He’d pushed her to release the past when he couldn’t do the same.

  Hypocrite.

  He studied Kasha, wished he’d handled this better. It wasn’t how he’d planned to tell her that he loved her, but he’d been so full of the feeling he couldn’t hold back.

  Absentmindedly, his palm went to his heart, and he felt the strong pump of it.

  “What is it?” she asked.

  “After Dylan died,” he said, “I couldn’t understand how my heart could still be beating when his had stopped. It didn’t seem fair for me to be alive when that quick, bright boy
was gone. It’s not supposed to be like this. A parent shouldn’t have to bury their child.”

  Kasha let out a tiny squeak of empathy, pure and swift. “I can’t imagine.”

  Axel gave a curt nod, acknowledging her sympathy. It was all he could manage at the moment.

  She reached across the table, placed her hand on top of his. “You don’t have to go on. I’m sorry I goaded you into reliving this.”

  “No. I want to talk about him. I want to let you in. Share all my secrets. Air my dirty laundry.”

  “Do you have a picture of Dylan?”

  He smiled involuntarily, went to get his phone. He showed her the camera roll of snapshots he couldn’t bring himself to delete from the device even though he’d already backed them up.

  “Oh my gosh, Axel, he’s such a handsome child.”

  The bittersweet tone of her voice tore a hole right through him. Part of Axel wanted to put the phone away to lessen the pain of seeing his son’s smiling face, but another part of him, the proud father part of him, wanted to show off his son.

  “This one is my favorite.” He flipped through the camera roll until he found the shot of him pitching to Dylan, who was wearing a miniature Gunslingers uniform, bat cocked over his little shoulder, feet rooted, expression serious as he concentrated for all he was worth.

  “How old was he in this picture?” Kasha asked.

  “Six. It was …” He gulped. “Just days before we got Dylan’s diagnosis.”

  He closed his eyes, touched the part of his soul that was forever damaged, drew courage from that pain. Dragging in a fortifying breath, he raised his head and met the concern in Kasha’s gaze.

  “Rhabdomyosarcoma is a cancer of the connective cells of the skeletal muscles,” he recited the information by rote. He could never forget the day the doctor said the same words to him and Pepper in that cramped exam room that smelled of antiseptic and citrus air freshener.

  Kasha put a palm over her mouth and a world of tenderness in her eyes. Tenderness that clipped him low in the belly.

  “The cancer occurs more often in boys than girls,” he continued. “If caught early, it has a seventy percent cure rate. If not … well … .” He shrugged, the gesture anything but casual. “The majority of cases are diagnosed before the age of five. Those tend to have a better survival rate. Dylan was six and his cancer was well advanced.”