Love Bats Last (The Heart of the Game) (33 page)

“I sometimes forget how exquisite this city is,” she said as she stepped to the window.

Alex slipped up behind her, slid his arms around her waist and pulled her against him. He traced his lips along the curve of her neck. Goose bumps rose along her skin.

“You’re cold,” he said as he brushed his lips against the curve of her ear.

“Not exactly.” She smiled to herself. She might be sore, she might be hungry, but with the fire his touch lit in her, she definitely was not cold.

“Well, you must be hungry.”

To her dismay, he released her. She turned and followed him to his kitchen. He frowned as he rummaged through the refrigerator.

“Do you ever buy groceries?” she asked.

“Looks like it’ll be ramen noodles and champagne.”

She couldn’t help but smile. “As long as they’re not in the same bowl.”

He opened the freezer and grabbed a container of ice. With his uninjured hand he began wrestling ice cubes into a plastic bag.

She couldn’t bear to see him struggling with a flimsy plastic bag.

“Let me help you.” 

He offered up his wrist and she unwound the elastic bandage from around it. She knew he was watching her face and tried not to react as she peeled away the now lukewarm ice pack and noted the severe bruising and swelling. Both indicated a possible fracture, but without an X-ray, it was hard to tell. She knew something about joint injuries—there was a good chance he wouldn’t be holding a bat anytime soon.

“You need a doctor,” she said in the most noncommittal voice she could muster.

“I have one.” He grinned.

“I warn you, I’m better with seal flippers.”

She sealed the ice in the bag, and he held out his arm. She wound the elastic bandage around the makeshift compress and bound it to his wrist.

“A forty-million-dollar wrist and a five-cent ice bag,” she said with a cluck of disapproval and an undertone of guilt. “Don’t you have any proper ice packs?”

“Jackie.” He turned her into his arms, cradled her face in his hands. “I
chose
to come after you.” He pushed his forehead to hers. “I chose.”

A shiver ran through her. It was not from the chill of the ice bag against her cheek.

“I know,” he whispered as he leaned her back against the counter and brushed his lips to hers. “You’re not cold.”

He kissed her then, gently at first, but as she opened to him, all gentleness dissolved in the force of her passion meeting his. Everything melted away—the day, the past months, her fears—and she lost herself in his plundering kiss.

Her stomach growled, and he pulled back.

“Ramen?” he said, his eyes dark with arousal. “I know it’s tempting beyond words.”

What was tempting was him. But one look at his wrist told her that anything more strenuous than kisses should wait.

“I’d like to have that bath first,” she said, giving them both an out. “And a cup of tea.”

“If you insist.” He stepped back but didn’t release her. She dragged in a breath and slid away.

“Through that door,” he said with a nod. “There’s a robe hanging behind it.”

She walked through the door, the thrill of his lips and hands on her body coursing through her.

She ran water into the elegantly tiled tub, stripped off her torn clothing and dropped it to the floor. She spied a bottle of amber liquid at the side of the tub and opened it. Yum... fresh. She tipped its contents into the steaming water. Citrus-scented bubbles sprang to life. As she slid into the embrace of the warm, fragrant water, a moan escaped her.

She sank below the surface, letting the water envelop her with heat and scent. She surfaced, brushing bubbles and strands of hair from her face. She leaned back and let the water swirl around her, let it dissolve some of the fear and shock she’d kept penned in. She closed her eyes, took in a deep breath and let it out slowly, resting her head back against the cool tile as the tension in her chest eased.

A gentle tap sounded on the door.

She felt ridiculous saying come in, but loved him for knocking.

He’d removed his grimy shirt and was bare to the waist. He held a small tray in his unbandaged hand.

“This Jacuzzi is big enough for a water polo team,” she said. It wasn’t the first thought that came to her mind as she stared at the muscles that planed his torso and cut to a distinct vee that dipped into his jeans.

“Hadn’t thought of that,” he said, still holding the tray but tracing his gaze over her. “Where do you think the net should go?” His eyes glittered challenge.

She fired a handful of bubbles and splashed him square across his chest.

He set the tray on the marble counter and grabbed her hand before she could fire again. She thought he might kiss her, but he dropped her hand and reached toward the tray.

“Truce?” he said as he leaned over her in the tub and handed her a glass mug. “At least long enough for tea?”

“Tea,” she murmured as she took the cup from him. She sipped and the heat slid into her.

He laughed. “Tea seems to be the English antidote to everything,” he said.

“It’s a scientifically proven
fact
.” She grinned.

He knelt at the side of the tub and ran his hand along her shoulder. Neither the deliciously hot bath nor the steaming tea could compete with the heat kindled by his touch. And not only did it heat her, but it countered every memory of Bennett’s hands on her. She wouldn’t forget what Bennett had done, what he’d wanted to do, but Alex’s touch was a healing balm.

He held her in his gaze. They’d talked on the way to his place. Mostly he’d listened and let her find her way through the shock and the pain. As they’d cruised across the Golden Gate Bridge, she’d asked if they could put all talk of the ordeal aside for a few hours, not churn it all up over and over. Talking to the police the next day would be hard enough. But there was one thing he couldn’t let slide, one she knew he wouldn’t be able to let go.

“You know, you could’ve told me about
Lady
Jacqueline.”

She moaned her protest. There were a lot of things she could’ve done, things she
should’ve
done.

“I have a sense of what you’re running from,” he added.

“Maybe not,” she said, setting the mug on the marble-tiled ledge circling the tub. She knelt in the tub, careful to keep her breasts below the bubbles. This discussion had to happen sometime; it might as well be now.

“Being a woman in science, overcoming prejudice, it’s still real... it’s still hard. Having a title, being an aristocrat, I had to shed both to have my work taken seriously.”

“Heirs aren’t exactly welcome in the dugout.”

He had her there. She’d never considered what he’d had to overcome to find his place in the game.

“But baseball’s only a hundred years old,” she said, knowing that she wasn’t making sense. “The English aristocracy goes back centuries. Some people are
still
moored way back when—”

He smothered her words with a kiss. Fire slid into her as he parted her lips and slipped his tongue in to taste. She met his coaxing kiss with the power of pent-up passion she’d held back for so long. Then he pulled away. She felt like she’d been unplugged from the source of life itself. Was he trying to torture her?

He reached past her and picked up a cloth from the stack at the end of the tub, dipped it into the water, and then stroked it across a bar of soap, making it froth.

“Athletic competition goes back to the Olympics, to Greece.” He smiled and drew the cloth along her shoulders with his unbandaged hand. “I think I have you trumped by about two thousand years.”

He stroked the cloth down her arm, and her breath caught as he drew it to the front of her chest and brushed along the curves of her breasts.

“But I can see the headlines now.” He chuckled. “Lady Jacqueline Makes Heroic Effort: Takes Down Villain Who Could’ve Destroyed Wine Country. The
Daily News
will love it.”

“Stop now,” she said as she rose out of water and the bubbles slid down her body, “or I’ll know you have pulp for brains.”

“I hate to tell you,” he said, also standing, “but brains are the last thing on my mind right now.”

Ignoring the bag of ice strapped to his arm, he stepped into the swirling water and drew her to him, soaking his jeans and melding their bodies in bubbles and heat. He pulled her against him and lowered his lips to hers. His hand cradled her breast with a gentleness that shocked through her more than any fierce display of passion could have. He trailed a path of kisses down the nape of her neck. She tracked her hand up his chest and felt him shudder under her palm. Then she curved her face to his, found his lips and kissed him, the force of her racing emotions pouring through her and into the heat of him. His tongue danced over hers and probed. Warmth flooded her—dizzying, releasing, delicious—and she wavered, unsteady, her only mooring the touch of his lips. He put his hands firmly around her waist and tugged her down into the billowing bubbles. She slipped, then slid below the water. Laughing, she leaned onto her elbows and righted herself, brushing bubbles from her face.

She stopped laughing when she saw that the ice pack had come undone from his wrist and was now bobbing in the Jacuzzi.

“You shouldn’t be doing this,” she said. Though her heart pounded harder than the jets of water frothing the bubbles, she moved away from him.

“I know
exactly
what I should be doing.” He stood in the center of the swirling water, slithered out of his wet jeans and then tossed them across the room.

She put out her hand and braced it between them. “Heat, right now, is likely not a good thing.” She wrapped her other hand around his forearm and lifted his injured hand.

He wriggled his arm free and pulled her through the churning water and up against him. She gasped as he reached under her bottom and dropped back onto the tub’s seat, pulling her squarely onto his lap.

“Heat, Dr. Brandon, is
precisely
the thing.”

Before she could protest, he entered her. Coherent thought dissolved with the force of pulsing, ancient instincts. As his hand slid between her thighs and circled her most sensitive flesh, the cry that broke from her had nothing rational about it.

The jets of the Jacuzzi had stopped and it was quiet except for the sound of their breathing, though Jackie was sure she could hear the beating of his heart against hers. She rested her chin on Alex’s chest and tried to slow her breaths. Wrapped in his arms, she realized that never had she felt so blissful, so met, so alive.

As she glanced around the bath, everything had the soft focus that passion leaves in its wake. Her eyes rested on a photo on the opposite wall—rays of sunshine playing on vines heavy with fruit, with Trovare’s castle perched on a distant hill, a tiny silhouette above the vineyard.

“It looks like something out of a dream,” she said.

“It was a dream. In some ways, it still is.” He stroked a wet curl away from her eyes and traced his fingers along the nape of her neck. “But dreams cut deep.”

“Don’t they.” She slid her eyes to his swelling wrist.

He tipped her face up. “Welcome to mine.” He cradled her chin with his other hand and ran his finger gently along her jaw. “I hope you know I love you, Dr. Lady.”

His straightforward admission stunned her, and the look in his eyes was a blazing, healing miracle. She felt as if she were looking at him across a sacred fire, as if she’d been transported into a mythic tale and met the man who made her whole, the man who could stand beside her and who wouldn’t fear her living in her true power—living life as her calling and dreams demanded—the man she’d nearly stopped daring to dream existed.

Certainty flowed through her. She didn’t care how long the moment lasted. What mattered was that she’d felt it and knew she’d never forget.

She started to reply, but he put a finger to her lips and then drew it slowly, ever so slowly, away and dipped his lips to hers.

His kiss was the last thing her mind registered. Everything after that was feeling. And just when she thought she could bear no more, his fingers were between her thighs, stroking her, stoking a fire beyond bliss, beyond words, beyond facts, beyond mind.

When she returned to reality, the water in the Jacuzzi had cooled. Jackie was grateful for the warm towel Alex wrapped around her as he helped her from the tub.

“At least we managed to get out of the kitchen,” she teased as she bent at the waist and ruffled a second towel though her hair.

He wrapped his fingers around her hips and pulled her against his thighs. “I have plans for the kitchen,” he murmured. “Perhaps you’ve forgotten my promise of ramen noodles.” Mischief sounded in his voice. “But first”—he turned her and lifted her to the marble counter, then snatched away her towel—“I think we’ve yet to finish exploring in here.”

She reached and pulled him toward her. “Exploring’s my weakness,” she said as she met his heat with her own.

Chapter Twenty-six

Searing pain woke Alex the next morning. He tried to nudge his arm free without waking Jackie, but she woke with his movement. She sighed and turned into him, but then jolted up and frowned after she opened her eyes and saw his swollen wrist.