Bases Loaded (Mustangs Baseball) (8 page)

He reluctantly
pulled out of her and sat up. While he peeled off and disposed of the spent
condom, he said, “I’m far from done, and as for
over it
, I don’t have a
clue what you mean by that.” He reached for his jeans and found the condom he
kept in his wallet for emergencies. If this wasn’t a five-alarm, call up the
Reserves emergency, he didn’t know what was. He rolled the condom on while he
talked. “Babe, I want to be over you, under you, in you. Anything but
out
of you.” He reached for her. “Here, let me help you out of those clothes then I
think maybe we’ll try the desk this time. My legs might hold out long enough to
do it standing up.”

He helped her to
her feet. “Ever done it on a desk before?”

“Uh…no.” She eyed
the surface in question. “Really, Antonio, you don’t have to do this.”

She made no
protest when he slid her blouse off her shoulders and tossed it on her chair.
“You are so wrong about that. Not only do I
have
to do this, I
want
to do this.” He flicked the back closure on her bra then spun her around to
face him, yanking the garment off in the process. “I don’t know what’s going on
in that pretty head of yours, but I can assure you, I need to be inside you in
the next five seconds or I’m going to explode.”

He pulled her
close, and when she opened her mouth, probably to spout out some more nonsense,
he covered it with his. Blood rushed south, making him painfully aroused.
Kissing had never been like this before—exciting and
promising
. In fact,
he rarely kissed the women he bedded, but he could kiss Clare all day long and
never get enough of her taste. That was a conundrum he would have to sort out
later. His first order of business was getting her skirt off.

It took some
groping, but he found the zipper. More fancy handwork and the fastener slid
down, allowing the skirt to fall to the floor. He broke the kiss and stepped
back to get a better look at what he had unwrapped.

He gripped her
waist and lifted her to sit on the desk. “I need you so damned bad.” He stepped
between her splayed legs, forcing them farther apart. “Tell me this is what you
want, too, Clare. Tell me you want me.”

She reached
between them and wrapped her hand around his throbbing dick.
Dear God
.
He was going to die, right here, right now. He sucked in a harsh breath and
tightened every muscle in his body in an effort to keep from shoving her back
and slamming into her, or at the very least from collapsing at her feet.

“I want you,
Antonio.”

He slid her ass,
desk blotter and all, to the edge of the desk. “Guide me in.”

Their heads bumped
as they both bent to watch his cock slide in. His heart skipped a beat. Heaven.
He had died and gone to Heaven. Nothing on Earth could feel so good, and Christ
Almighty, nothing could be more beautiful than this woman. His dick slowly
disappeared inside her. She gave a little gasp when his pubic bone met her
clit.

“Okay?” he asked.

“Mmm.”

She leaned back,
placing her hands flat on the desk behind her. Her head fell between her
shoulders, allowing him an unfettered view from her upturned chin all the way to
her womanhood. Her breasts were twin mounds of erotic fantasy he was dying to
explore thoroughly. He couldn’t resist. He touched them, flattening them with
his palms. The sound that escaped her lips came from deep inside and told him
she liked what he was doing. Her nipples poked his palms. Rolling them between
his thumbs and forefingers, he wrenched another strangled sound from her.

He bent and tasted
her, sucking hard on one distended bud, keeping the other occupied with his
fingers until she writhed beneath him, offering him everything and begging for
more.

“I’m going to move
now.”

“Mmm.”

Returning his
hands to her hips to hold her steady, he pulled almost all the way out and slid
back in as slow as his out of control libido would allow. A half-gasp, half-moan
escaped her lips.

“Harder.”

The word, directed
at the ceiling, was more of a growl, but the request suited his needs. He
pulled back again and this time, the slide back in was faster. Her breasts
bobbed with the force of their bodies meeting.

Suddenly, Clare
sat up. Her arms came around his neck, and she looked him straight in the eye.
“Harder,” she said. “I need it fast and hard, Antonio.”

Who was this
woman? He’d promised her slow and sweet, thinking that was what she needed, but
looking into her eyes, he could see she meant what she said. He’d be damned if
he wasn’t the man to give her what she wanted.

“Hang on.”

He slid out,
flexed his hips, and drove into her hard. The metronome on the corner of her
desk swung into action.

Tick. Tock
.
Tick. Tock.

Her head fell back
again, her silken hair brushing the backs of his hands at her waist. The
moan/groan that escaped her lips was unmistakable. He repeated the process, and
her hands fell from his neck. She slipped to her back on the desk, wrapped her
legs around his waist, and raised her arms over her head in complete surrender.

“Faster.”

Hell, yeah!
He dug his fingers into her hips and gave her what she asked for. Each hard
thrust elicited a guttural response from her throat fueling his need even more.
Her breasts bounced and jiggled. The metronome kept time. The roller coaster
had come completely off the rails. He couldn’t stop the wild ride even if the
plunge at the end meant sure death.

“Sooo good,” she
moaned. She moved one hand to her clit and worked the small nub with her
fingers. “Oh, God, Antonio.”

Shit.
He
couldn’t take his eyes off her hand, the way she touched herself, taking what
she wanted, needed. “Babe. That’s so fuckin’ hot!”

He wouldn’t last
much longer, and he prayed she wouldn’t either. It was a crapshoot as to which
would go first, his legs or his cock. He prayed both would last long enough for
her to find pleasure.

“Come for me.”

He felt it
begin—the way her body went rigid, the way her breath caught then exploded out
of her on a long, drawn out, primal utterance. Her pussy clenched around his
cock in an age-old rhythm that made him want to howl at the moon. He continued
to plunge into her, savoring the tight fist drawing his manhood from him.

His climax began
as a fireball in the small of his back then like an exploding sunspot, shot to
his groin, down his legs, and out to the tips of his ears. His cock rivaled
granite on the hardness scale. His release, when it came, was liquid fire. He
pressed his palms flat on the desk and ground into her in short, powerful
thrusts until his body ceased to spasm.

Heaven.

Clare moaned, and
her legs fell away from his waist.
Christ.
He needed to take care of
her. He opened his eyes. Her body was flushed with passion, her chest still
heaving with exertion. Her hair fanned out over the desk, her head lolled to
one side. There was a smile on her lips. God, he’d just fucked an angel.

“Tell me about
Bases Loaded,” she said.

Hell.

Chapter
Nine

Tick. Tock
.

Little hammers in
his brain counted off the seconds to self-destruct.

What was that
saying? The best defense is a good offense?
Please, God, let it be true.

“You really want me to explain baseball to you?
Right now?” He poured every ounce of incredulity he could muster into his
response and waited. For the love of all that was holy, his dick still throbbed
inside her. And he was supposed to think?

Clare used her
elbows to prop up, looked at him with a smirk that said she wasn’t the idiot he
hoped she was at that moment, and said, “No. That isn’t what I meant, and you
know it. I want to know about the secret club you belong to.”

Well, shit
.
There is no God.

“I don’t have any
idea what you’re talking about,” he hedged. He flexed his hips and his dick
slid free. He peeled the slick condom off and tossed it into the wastebasket
beside her desk. “You might want to take your own trash out today.”

She glanced at the
waste receptacle, and her face turned crimson, but only for a moment. She sat
upright and looked him in the eye. “I saw the tattoo on your ass, Antonio.”

Distraction and
misdirection, the only tricks at his disposal, weren’t going to work. Not with
a woman as intelligent as Clare. Time for outright lying. “I play baseball for
a living. What else would I have tattooed on my ass besides a baseball
diamond?”

She raised her
heels to the edge of the desk, exposing her glistening pussy to his view. He
completely lost track of their conversation. Blood rushed south, and his cock
responded to the stimulus. She kicked him in the stomach.

“Huh?”

“I
said
,
open the drawer.”

“Okay, okay.” He
stepped back and slid the center drawer open. He stared at the small, jeweled
charm laying right there for anyone to see, and his erection withered
instantly.

There were only a
handful of those charms in existence, and she owned one.

It wasn’t hers, he
was certain of that. So…where did she get it? Did she know what it represented?
If he lied to her now, would he ever see her again? If he told her the truth,
would he ever see her again?

It was a
cluster-fuck of epic proportions, and he was caught in the middle with no
acceptable way out.

“What do you need
out of here?”

“Don’t be an
idiot, Antonio.” She scooted back on the desk and reached between her legs to
retrieve the damning charm from her drawer. She used her heel to kick the drawer
shut then dropped her thighs to the desktop.

“Tell me about
Bases Loaded.”

“It’s a baseball
term that means there’s a man on all three bases.” He couldn’t take his eyes
off the piece of jewelry lying in the palm of her hand. A ray of failing light
shone through the window behind her desk and winked off the diamond chip
representing home plate.

“We aren’t talking
about those square white things on a baseball field, are we?”

He couldn’t speak
past the lump of dread in his throat. He shook his head. Lying wouldn’t work.
She clearly knew more than she should already.

“That’s what I
thought.” She curled her fingers inward and the damning charm disappeared
inside her fist. Rocking side to side, she scooted to the edge of the desk and
hopped off, forcing him to take another step back. She reached for her skirt
and stepped into it. Tony followed her lead, sorting through their discarded
clothes, passing hers to her and putting his back on. The small, overly warm
room smelled of sex. The metronome on the corner of her desk had been set in
motion sometime during their encounter. The steady clicking measured the human
silence, broken only by the whisper of clothing and zippers. Muted voices and
footsteps sounded in the hallway. Neither one of them had been especially reserved.
Chances were someone had heard them. Clare might have some explaining to do.

How in hell he was
going to explain Bases Loaded he didn’t have a clue, but he needed to come up
with something fast. Clare was buttoning her blouse, and she still had the
charm clenched in her fist.

“Where did you get
that?”

“The charm?” She
arched an eyebrow at him then turned to straighten the things on her desk. She
stopped the arm of the metronome with her index finger, silencing it. “I found
it in an antique mall in Plano. I contacted the owner of the booth to see if
she could tell me where she acquired it, but she couldn’t remember. She said it
was in a box of costume jewelry she picked up somewhere—probably at Canton
Trade Days.”

“What the hell is
a Canton Trade Day?” He raised a hand to stop her from speaking. “Never mind.
It doesn’t matter. You obviously thought there was more to it than being an
interesting piece of jewelry. So, why don’t you tell me why you bought it?”

Clare leaned
against her desk and crossed her arms over her midsection. “Sit down, Antonio.
I want to tell you a story. Then you’re going to tell me one, too.”

Running sounded
better, but that wasn’t an option, so he sat in her desk chair and looked up at
her. “I’m listening.”

“I was at a
fundraiser. One of those events like the one where we met. Lots of people were
invited. Players past and present. Anyone who might have a few dollars to
contribute to the cause. It boggles my mind why they always invite me, but they
do, so I go. Anyway, I was in a stall in the ladies room and a group of women
came in. I think they’d had too much champagne because their conversation was
loud and inappropriate for…well, anywhere. I could see them through the crack
around the stall door. I was just about to leave the stall when one of them
hopped up on the counter and spread her legs. She wasn’t wearing panties, but
she
was
wearing one of these.”

She opened her
fist, and the charm winked in the harsh fluorescent overhead lights.

Shit.

“I was intrigued,
so I kept quiet and listened. Needless to say, the explanation as to how she
had
earned
it was informative. She was quite proud of it.”

Clare nudged the
tiny charm with the index finger of her other hand. “So…when I saw this one in
the antique mall, I instantly knew what it was. I bought it, thinking if I was
going to have one, that was the only way I would get it. Earning one wasn’t an
option.”

“Damn right it’s
not an option.” He placed a hand on her thigh and slid it beneath her skirt.
“No one touches you but me.”

If her metronome
had still been going, it would have kept time with the one word mantra playing
on an endless loop in his brain.
Liar. Liar. Liar.
He did want her all
to himself, but damn it, he couldn’t stop thinking about how lovely she would
be—

He derailed that
train of thought and tried to focus on what she was saying.

“I have to admit,
at first I thought I was just something you wanted to check off your bucket
list. Fuck a fatty. Some guys do. But after what we just did, I’m beginning to
believe you really might find me attractive. But I’m a realist. I’m not the
kind of woman men invite to do the things that woman described. I just want to
know if what she said was true. So spill, Antonio. Tell me what she did to earn
her charm.”

He’d deal with the
fact she thought she was fat another time. At the moment, he needed to get her
mind off that charm. Once she knew the particulars, no way would she want to
earn one.

“Fuck.” He stood
and paced the two steps to the bookcase against the far wall. He turned to face
Clare. “She got fucked. A lot.”

“How much is a
lot?”

“The charm is only
awarded for home runs. If they quit before, they get nothing.”

“Go on,” she said.

“It’s the same as
in baseball. You’ve got to have a man on all three bases at the same time. It’s
three men and one woman. Do I have to tell you what the bases are?”

“No. I think I can
figure that out on my own.”

“Okay then. The
woman has to…well, the men…take turns on all the bases. If they all come, in
all three bases, she’s hit a home run, and she gets the charm.”

She pursed those
wicked lips that could drive him insane. While she thought about what he’d
said, he imagined how those lips would look wrapped around his cock and almost
missed her next question.

“Timeframe? A few
days?”

“Huh? Oh, one
night.”

“Oh.” A crease
appeared between her eyebrows.

“Look, Clare…none
of this matters because I’m through with the club, and you aren’t going
anywhere near it.”

“How did the woman
I saw get the charm…
there?
”

Tony grew hard remembering, imagining doing the same
to Clare. “The charms are custom made in advance. The jewels on first and third
represent the team colors of the guy who invited her. Second and home plate are
diamonds. If she earns the charm, there’s this doctor, a former girlfriend of
one of the original club members. We meet at her office after hours, and she
does the clit piercing.”

She dangled the
charm between her thumb and forefinger. “How many women have one of these?”

He speared his
fingers through his hair. “How the fuck would I know?” he shouted, instantly
hating himself for letting her get to him. He took a deep breath and let it
out. He tried again. “I know of maybe a dozen. But it could be ten times that,
for all I know.”

“How many players
are part of the club?”

“I don’t know
exactly. There are a few on each team, I think. People get traded, retire, get
married. You know how it is.”

“How many women
have you invited to run the bases?”

“None.”

She arched an
eyebrow. “Seriously?”

“That’s the truth,
Clare.” He’d never wanted to, until he met Clare.

“How many times
have you played the game?”

“Fuck! I don’t
know. More than I can count.”

“Did they all earn
the charm?”

“No. It’s not an
easy thing to do.”

She sighed. “I’m
sure it’s not.” She opened her desk drawer and dropped the charm back into the
small, curved indentation meant to hold paperclips. “I know if I earned one, it
certainly wouldn’t end up in a flea market or an antique store.”

“Why in God’s name
would you want one?”

Clare shrugged. “I
don’t know. Maybe because it would mean three hunks found me attractive enough
to do that with? But I’m sure that’s never going to happen.”

What the hell?
He closed the distance between them and clasped her elbows in his hands. “Look
at me, Clare.” He waited until her gaze met his. “I don’t know what else I can
do to make you believe you’re desirable. Hell, you’re the most desirable woman
I’ve ever seen. I’ve wanted you from the first moment I saw you at Holder’s
fundraiser, and I’ve wanted you every minute since. It makes me crazy to even
think about another man looking at you and wanting you, but I know they do.”
Yet,
I can’t stop imagining you on your knees, impaled….

“Antonio,” she
protested. “You’re in the tabloids and on the news all the time with skinny
models and actresses.”

“You. Are. Not.
Fat. You aren’t even close to being fat. You have curves. Women are supposed to
have curves. Having sex with a stick thin woman is about as much fun as I
imagine fucking a knothole in a piece of lumber would be.” He held up his right
index finger. “Once, Clare. I did it once, and swore I’d never do it again.”

“But—”

“My publicist sets
those dates up for me. It’s all for publicity. They’re her clients, too.
They’re seen with a baseball player, and we get out picture in the papers. TMZ
talks about us. She gets modeling gigs, and I get endorsement contracts. That’s
all it is.”

“Well, I can’t
compete with that.”

“You aren’t
competing with anyone or anything. There’s only you.”

She dropped her
gaze to the toes of their shoes.

“After what we did
today, you still think I’m lying? Christ, Clare. What do I have to do to
convince you you’re a beautiful woman?”

“Invite me to
Bases Loaded.”

He backed away,
coming to a stop when his heel hit the bookcase. He raised both palms in
defense. “Oh no.” He shook his head. “No way. No. Fucking. Way.”

Her eyes shot
daggers at him. “Why not?”

“Haven’t you been
listening? First off, you don’t need other men—” He choked on the word.
“—touching you in order to feel beautiful. I’m telling you, you’re beautiful. A
knock-out. And I fuckin’ don’t want other men so much as looking at you, much
less…
fucking you from here to Kingdom Come.
” He closed his eyes and let
his shoulders slump against the row of books behind him.
Tony, you’re a
lying, perverted ass.
“Ah, Clare, you’re killing me here.”

“Your friends wouldn’t
want me. That’s why you won’t invite me.”

His eyes snapped
open. He growled. Damn it. How could he make her believe him? “That. Is. Not.
True. I won’t invite you because they would be all over you like fucking horny
rabbits. If I put your name up, there would be a fight over the two other spots
on the team. And, if I let you do this, I’d have to kill two of my friends
afterwards. Scratch that. I’d kill them before, just to keep them from seeing
you naked.”

“I want to do it.”

He squeezed his
eyes shut again and counted to ten.
God damn it all to hell. How could he
make her understand when every word out of his mouth was a fuckin’ lie?
He
forced his eyes open. For her sake and his he needed to put a stop to this
nonsense.

“Trust me, you
don’t want to do this. It’s three men.” He held up three fingers. “
Three
,
Clare. At the same time. Three times in one night. Do the math. That’s a lot of
fucking. I’ve seen women who never made it through the first session, much less
all three. It’s a physical as well as a mental challenge.”