As I watch my other cousin with the kids, I can’t say I disagree. “That’s if he could actually grow up and stop being a child himself.”
24
Colleen
July Fourth is an all-out celebration at the ballpark.
This holiday has always been a favorite of our fans, with our marketing department implementing games, free T-shirt raffles, and the grand prize of a brand new red car from the dealership we sometimes partner with in Packton. It’s an all-out fun fest, and one of my favorite days at the park.
It’s especially nice to admire the players in their specialty uniforms, with red and blue stars on tight white baseball pants. Especially since I get a view of Hayes’ butt in them this year. My lord, that man has assets for days. I’ve never really ogled the opposite sex before; sure, I’ve found men attractive and maybe lusted after one or two in high school or college. But it’s never been this intense. My eyes can barely be dragged from his tall drink of water stature, and I notice things on Hayes that I would have completely overlooked before. The taper of his waist, the indent of his ass cheeks in his pants, so sculpted and globed in a way that should be criminal. The way his biceps flex and curl when he throws the ball. I’ve even memorized the way his pants mold to his thighs and calves when he bends to field a ground ball.
My lips have been tattooed with his taste since that night in Baltimore, and we’ve picked up our texting right where we left off before his date interrupted the flow of our connection. I have to try to keep my focus, not let it affect me too much, but I’m finding that my girlish guilty pleasure is rearing its ugly head at the exact wrong time. I’ve never been boy crazy, never spent hours doodling in my notebook or following a guy around the college bars just to get him to notice me.
I’m not really doing those things now, but I find myself nodding off into daydreams about Hayes far too often. And right now, I’m in the best place I’ve ever been in my career. The scandal news has died down a bit, even with my father still trying to hock his story for a buck. We’ve gotten a lot of the indiscretions in terms of contract or bribe money cleared up. We’re in talks with players who were brought here under false pretenses and constantly checking in on their mental state and comfortability with the team.
Those are only my post-Jimmy Callahan responsibilities. The regular duties of a GM are always on my checklist, being written and crossed off almost weekly, with each new opponent and game.
All in all, I have absolutely no time for a relationship or to be thinking about the taste of Hayes Swindell’s tongue in my mouth. Doesn’t mean my heart, and the tingling bud between my thighs, are listening to my brain.
I decided to come up to my office just before the fireworks start. We have them every year, a colorful, all-out bloom of pyrotechnics over the ball park for the guests and players who stay until after the ninth inning. Watching them from up here, where you feel like you can almost touch them, is something I’ve always wanted to do.
The rest of the executive offices are dark, quiet, most of my employees or coworkers have long gone home. But this is my home, even more than my ranch house. And I could use a couple quiet moments of wonder.
With a big Pistons-red clap, the fireworks start, painting the sky above the stadium a rainbow of colors. I watch in awe, seated in my white velvet desk chair facing the wall of windows that are usually at my back.
Someone clears their throat, and I whirl around in my chair to Hayes, leaning one gorgeous bicep against my doorway. Clad in dark jeans that accentuate every muscle in his legs and a soft gray T-shirt, his blond Thor-hair is damp and hanging to his shoulders. Stubble dots his cheeks and jaw, and he looks … dangerous. Like the kind of man who could make a woman’s clothes fall off from a single snap of his fingers.
Low in my belly, fire simmers, causing a snarl of tingles to float both up to my heart and down between my legs.
“I had it on good intel that you were up here. Alone.”
There is something in his presence that feels lethal, that alerts me to the fact that we’re no longer flirting with the line of no return. I’m pretty sure we’ve passed it.
I stay seated. “You found me.”
He walks into my office, closing the door behind him, and I audibly gasp when he flicks the lock closed.
We’ve been messaging for days, probably a week now, and it’s gotten increasingly more intimate. The other day, Hayes asked me what I wore to bed. And then I had the nerve to ask him if he preferred going out to dinner or spending the night at home when on a date. We were all but coming out and saying the whole damn enchilada, but I have a feeling that stops now.
Not that he’s talking much. He isn’t even halfway across the room and I’m sweating, a single trickle falling between the cleavage of my breasts.
“Good game tonight,” I say, trying to infuse some cooling agent to the fire that is starting to burn out of control between us.
It had been, for everyone, but especially for Hayes. He’d gone four for five in the batter’s box, hitting two home runs and driving in a grand slam during one of those.
“I can’t not do this anymore.” His voice is thick with raw sex, and it’s a miracle I’m not a puddle on the floor.
“Hayes …” I warn, but my voice is weak.
With no idea where his sudden lust is coming from, or why it has to be brought up in my office, I stand anyway. I shouldn’t play into this, I should tell him to leave. But my body is already buzzing with the anticipation of his hands on it, and maybe it’s the magic of the fireworks painting the dark walls of my office every color under the sun that has me capitulating.
Wordlessly, he reaches me, and we’re standing toe-to-toe. I can feel the rapid rise and fall of my chest, and then he licks his lips. Slow and so painfully hot in that one tiny motion, and I’m a goner.
I’m pretty sure I lunge for him first, but he catches me, our hands snagging in hair and on clothing. My fingers are met with the wetness of his shower as they dive into his hair, our mouths sealing over one another. The kiss is sloppy and fueled with desire, our bodies forced together by something magnetic. It’s like I can’t get close enough to him, and in one fell swoop Hayes is picking me up and carrying me over to the built-in cabinets on one wall of my office.
Strong hands dig into my butt as my legs circle his waist, and I rub myself against the massive erection bulging against his zipper. Oh good God, I could combust right here. I’m vaguely aware as he sets me down, our kiss never stopping while skilled fingers shove my dress past my hips and pull my thong down my legs.
Then they’re stroking me, testing my wetness, teasing the swollen bud at my core. Suddenly, I can’t breathe, the reflexes in my back sending my eyes rolling to the ceiling with a guttural moan.
“I could come from that sound alone.” Hayes growls, green eyes sparking with need.
And I could come just from the look he’s leveling at me. Possessive, driving with domination. This is not a man who will go quietly into the bedroom, make love kindly, or whisper sweet nothings. He’s an animal, one who takes until he’s had his fill.
Right then, my mind spurs to action, causing my hands to go to his belt. Two of Hayes’ fingers pump inside me as I race to pull his cock out, unbuckling and unsnapping until I can finally get his jeans sliding past his hips.