How to Lose a Groom in 10 Days (8 page)

He sat next to her, pressing his leg against hers.

Her pulse leapt. “I imagine you prefer high action, shoot-em-ups.”

“Not so much,” he said truthfully. “I like period pieces, old films, and documentaries.”

“Really? You’re a movie buff? Where does that fit in with your major-league, fast track lifestyle?” She chased around a chunk of cheese with a chip, scooping the heap ungracefully into her mouth.

“What does my career have to do with a love of old movies?” Try as he might, he couldn’t work out the accusatory statement and stare.

Melanie’s shoulders shrugged. “Don’t you spend your evenings going to parties with the team?”

“Not if I can help it. That’s a fast way to burn out or tick off the manager.” He licked his fingers.

“Uhm, okay. I can see that.” She channel surfed, frowning.

“Wait! Stop!” His head whipped toward the screen at the familiar sound. “Is this
High Society
?”

“Yeah. Lame, I know. It’s one of my favorites. So romantic. And I do love the singing.” Her tone fell low, “You probably hate this kind of thing, don’t you?”

There she went again. Assuming so many things about him. Maybe, just maybe, if he could open up a little bit more to her, she would realize they were more alike. That there was common ground between them. That he meant his vows.

“I meant it when I said I love classic movies, but this is probably in my top ten.” He laughed out. “I know all of those songs by heart.”

“Really?” Eyebrow arched in disbelief.

Grady’s arm snaked behind her head, and rested on her shoulders, allowing himself to toy with a lock of her damp hair. “Truly. When you are on the road for weeks on end, you have the opportunity to watch a lot of television and movies. Which I wholeheartedly take advantage of. I skip out on parties in favor of some old-fashioned relax time.”

“You are a man of pleasant surprises. I’ll give you that much,” she teased. A genuine smile spread across her face. Nestling against his chest, she sighed deeply.

“I do try. What other movies do you love?” His hand gently pushed hair from her face, and he began to massage her scalp.

“Hmmm.” She practically purred. “That’s nice.”

He damned well hoped so, because just the feel of her was turning him inside out. The movie rolled along, the songs filling in the small spaces of their conversation. They were more alike than even he had realized.

This felt so right. He ached to be closer to her. To keep them in this moment forever. Kissing her on the forehead, he released a deep sigh.

Pushing off his chest, she stared at him, eyes intense. Full of longing.

“Oh, Grady,” she whispered, “I give up.”

She kissed him. Deeply.

And then again. More urgently this time.

“Are you sure, Mel?” he said between kisses. “I don’t want you regretting this. God, we don’t need any more regrets.”

He didn’t want to rush this. Wouldn’t let her think he’d ignored her concerns. But the chemistry between them was a vivid, hot, sexual need that wouldn’t go away if they ignored it.

“I’m unsure about many things. But about this?” She nodded, the movement swift. Jerky. “I am one hundred percent certain I want you. Now.”

She flattened herself against him, her full breasts robbing him of his last shred of sense.

“You’ve always felt right to me.” He whispered it to himself as much as her. “Exactly right.”

*

Melanie couldn’t remember
why she wanted to deny herself this.

Grady was a potent, sexual male even when he stood in a batter’s box or ran down a fly ball in the field. But when he sat this close to her, his brown eyes searing her with silent, simmering heat, he was a temptation no woman would ever resist. That powerful body of his. That demanding mouth. She wanted all of it for however long this fever between them lasted.

Tomorrow would come soon no matter what happened in this hotel room.

She kissed him. The barriers between them melted like they’d never been there, her defenses crumbling as fast as his. Not that she’d ever had any with this man. From the first night they met, passion seethed just beneath the surface all the time. The slightest touch could turn her inside out. Or the taste of a marshmallow could transform into an erotic experience because he was watching. Before Grady, she’d barely been orgasmic. With Grady? She could reach that peak again and again in a single night.

He bent her back over his arm, kissing her like he was starved for her. She clung to him like he was the only thing keeping her anchored to the world. Impatient hands tore away the cloth belt holding her robe closed and in an instant, she was naked against him.

The shock of his body—ripped, hard, male perfection—made her breasts bead against his chest. Her thighs heated with a liquid ache.

She broke their kiss.

“You need to be naked.” With unsteady fingers, she gripped the drawstring of his shorts and tugged. “Now.”

“I can make that happen.” He reached for the hem of his shirt and drew the tee up and off.

She forgot what she was doing for a moment to enjoy the show. Leaning closer, she kissed the tattoo of a smoking hot baseball bat on his biceps. He tasted like salt, soap and man. Perfect.

Taking a random path down his chest, she licked along the outline of more colorful ink—an impossible staircase that led in circles, geometric fractals. She went lower as he stepped out of his shorts and kicked aside his boxers. Lips moving along the proud thrust of manhood, she licked the ridge until he gripped her shoulders.

“I’ve missed you too much for that.” The hoarse rasp of his voice pleased her.

She smiled up at him. “We were only apart two nights.”

“And it was too long.” He scraped back her hair with one hand and tilted her chin up to look at him. “Come here.”

Teasing him, she kept an eye on him as she circled the tip of him with her tongue….

She yelped as he lifted her in his arms, spinning her around until she realized he was carrying her to his bedroom.

Cool sheets enveloped her while he paused to find a condom. Sheathe himself. Then his hard body covered hers.

He sank into her. Deep.

Her breath caught. Her heart stuttered to a stop for a second before it began again at a frantic pace. She bit his shoulder for a moment before she realized what she was doing. Letting go, she tucked her forehead to his chest and wrapped her legs around his waist to hold him close.

He stroked her hair with one hand even as he stroked her insides with powerful thrusts. Opening her eyes, she peered up at him, visible in the moonlight streaming through a skylight over the bed. He was so beautiful it hurt to look at him. Not just because he was a sexy baseball star. But because she loved him.

Always.

Meeting his gaze for a long moment, he bent over her to take her mouth and kiss the ever-loving hell out of her. She let him, meeting his tongue stroke for stroke, rolling over him until she sat on top. Her hair fell forward, a dark curtain that closed out anything but their kiss.

There was a hushed, awed quality to lovemaking that had never been there before. She felt it in the way he moved against her. In the way he looked at her. It was because it was their first time together as a married couple. And he treated her with a level of reverence that she couldn’t afford to think about right now.

Shaky, she straightened.

She fought for words that would dispel some of the seriousness that would make sex light and playful again. But Grady sat up with her so that she sat in his lap, straddling him intimately.

“I want to keep you in the moonlight.” He edged her back under the skylight, keeping them sealed together as he spun her beneath him again. “You’re so beautiful.”

Dizzy from the spinning and the heady words, she could only clutch at his shoulders as he went to work on her breasts, lavishing them with kisses she could feel everywhere in her oversensitive skin. He plucked at her sex with his thumb and forefinger, catapulting her into a thousand sparks of delicious fulfillment. Then he did it all over again until she held him too tightly to let him do that again.

“Please,” she whispered in his ear. Needing him to come with her the next time. Wanting to feel him burn the way she was burning.

Then he moved inside her and she couldn’t think anymore. She could only hold on tight as he took them higher. Higher.

When she flew apart this time, he went with her, their shouts muffled against each other’s shoulders, the heat sealing them together in a molten flame. Pleasure filled her to her fingertips, a languid, satiated joy that pulled her mouth into a smile. Lying beside him in the dark she tipped her forehead against his chest, snuggling close.

She wasn’t sure how long they’d lain intertwined in his bed when his cell phone rang, the shrill chime jarring her out of half-formed dreams of lying beside him forever.

Beside her, Grady rolled off the bed with a grunted apology that she was too languid to answer. She tugged the sheet around her and curled into the warmth of where their bodies had been together. The scent of his aftershave lingered on the pillow.

When he returned to the bedroom a moment later, his scowl chilled the last of the warmth from their lovemaking.

Sitting up, she clutched the sheet around her. “Grady? What’s wrong?”

He dropped to sit on the side of the bed, cell phone cradled in his hands, tendons in his neck strained. “Someone at the courthouse and a picture of our marriage certificate landed on social media.”

“Oh no.” She tucked the sheet tighter around her, trying to think through what that and their inevitable breakup meant for him. For his career. “I hadn’t thought about that.”

“Right. You didn’t think the wedding would happen.” His face was scrubbed clean of expression as he scooped up his shirt from the floor and pulled it on over his head. “But I’ll need to deal with the fallout.”

“What do you mean?” She felt his retreat, and it didn’t have anything to do with him heading for the door.

“Considering all the questions the team is fielding about us since the story broke, the Stars rescinded their permission for me to drive to Atlanta.” He retrieved his overnight bag and starting pitching in his belongings. “I need to be on the team plane so I can handle this with the press secretary in Atlanta tomorrow. We fly out at dawn.”

‡

G
rady had the
hotel room packed in record time, even making room for Polly in the back seat in a pet carrier they’d gotten from the vet. He’d offered to call a cab so Melanie didn’t have to drive back to Orlando with him, but she’d insisted on going with him.

Not for a minute did he think that meant she’d decided to be his wife for real, however. He hadn’t forgotten the talk of annulments the night before and he wasn’t foolish enough to think that great sex would change her mind. Hell, they’d had great sex for a few weeks and she hadn’t taken his proposal seriously in the first place. Why would he think she’d want to attend a press conference with him as his bride just because they’d shared another night together?

“I’m sorry about this.” She sat in the passenger seat of the Honda, wearing jeans and a yellow tee that said “You are my Florida sunshine.”

Something about that made his mood all the blacker since it felt like false advertising. She wasn’t the easygoing, fun-loving woman he’d fallen for. By her own admission, she was more complicated than that. She’d hidden things from him. And she didn’t want to be a “part time” wife. So basically, screw him and his proposal.

Screw their whole short-lived marriage.

“You didn’t leak the photo.” He’d switched off his phone half an hour ago when he realized how big of a deal this marriage had become in social media.

“But if we’d had a regular marriage, all of this would be easier because we’d face this together.” She cleared her throat. “Like a couple.”

“Yeah. We would.” He drummed a beat on the steering wheel, not sure how much more he could risk his heart with this woman. She’d turned his life upside down in the last twenty-four hours.

Still, he wondered if he could have convinced her to stay with him if they’d had more time.