The Ninth Inning Read online

  “I can be done working by then,” she said, still eyeballing me like I might pull the proverbial rug out from under her at any moment.

  “I actually do need to head to the field though. I’ll see you later?” I kissed her cheek first before turning her face and kissing her mouth, tasting the zing of hot salsa on her lips.

  “See you later.” She smiled, her eyes so soft and filled with so much emotion that it fucking melted my insides.

  No one—and I mean, no one—in my entire life had ever looked at me the way she did.

  Practice had dragged by at a snail’s pace. I wasn’t used to feeling bored and wishing I were somewhere else during those hours. I had always wanted to be on the field, in the cages, or working hard to improve my game and chances in the draft. But not today. Today, I had been officially, one hundred percent distracted. I couldn’t stop thinking about my girl. Not even the sight of Logan and his piss-poor attitude fazed me.

  The need to be with Christina consumed me like a fire with no help in sight. It raged, devouring everything in its path until there was nothing left to burn. We’d go up in smoke together, our ashes now one, and everyone else could go to hell.

  In any other circumstances, I would have considered this moving too fast, but this wasn’t a normal relationship. We had years of history under our belts, and we’d slept together before. More than once. But there had been no post-sex cuddles or sleeping over after it was over. Sex in the past had usually been a wham-bam-thank-you-ma’am type of deal that I suddenly wasn’t very proud of.

  Nothing about our situation now was the same as before. And even though it wouldn’t technically be the first time that we shared our bodies with one another, a strange anticipation lingered like it was. Parts of this were completely brand-new. I almost wished we’d never done it before, so I could treat her the way she always deserved to be treated—with care, with reverence, with love.

  I balanced the pizza, breadsticks, salad, and wings that I’d brought over in my hands as I pressed the call button, and knowing I was on my way, she buzzed me in. Her front door flew open before I had a chance to kick at it, and she yelped in surprise before taking some of the food out of my grasp.

  “Thank you,” I said as I closed the door behind me and followed her toward the kitchen.

  “You bought enough to feed us for a week,” she said, looking at the sheer amount of food that covered her countertops.

  I wasn’t sure if Lauren would be around, and I had no idea what Lauren ate if she was, so I’d bought a little of everything.

  “Uh, you haven’t seen me eat pizza. There won’t be leftovers,” I said, and she let out a nervous giggle.

  “Are you hungry now?” she asked as she opened a cupboard, but her eyes were asking me something else entirely. They weren’t talking about the food.

  I wondered if she knew how easy she was to read. How every single emotion she felt was written all over her face, no matter what her words said.

  I took a step toward her, wrapping my arm around her waist before kissing her senseless. Her body relaxed in my grip, molding against mine.

  I pulled away for only a second to say, “I’m hungry for you,” before I continued kissing her and moving us out of the kitchen and in the direction of her bedroom.

  If I had expected Christina to hesitate or push me away, I would have been wrong. She practically climbed my body, wrapping her legs around my middle so I had to hold her up by her ass, like she’d been counting down the seconds for this moment to happen.

  “Lauren’s not here,” she admitted once we reached her doorway, and I kicked off my shoes without breaking contact.

  “Good,” I breathed against her, my mouth fused to hers once more as I walked through, closed the door behind us, and deposited her on top of the bed.

  She scooted back, giving me room to join her, but I could tell something was on her mind. I climbed on top of the bed, my body hovering over hers, and she looked so vulnerable, so trusting.

  “What’s the matter?” I asked as her hand snaked around my neck, and she pulled me down.

  Her tongue found mine as she teased, nipping at my bottom lip before kissing me deep. She was trying to distract me.

  “Christina,” I said, my breaths labored. “Is it too soon?”

  “No. It’s not that,” she said, but her voice was soft, hiding something.

  “What is it?” I asked as I rolled off of her but still stayed close. She hesitated, so I reached for her hand and kissed it. “You can tell me anything.”

  Her hand caressed my cheek, and I closed my eyes for a second before she started talking, “I just don’t want this to disappear. I know we’ve had sex before, but it doesn’t feel the same. This feels different. Does it feel different to you?” Before I could answer, she crushed me as she said, “I just don’t want you to go away after. I don’t think I could take losing you this time.”

  Her confession damn near broke my heart in two. To hear her be so honest and to know that I had hurt her so deeply in the past caused my chest to ache. I didn’t deserve her. And I definitely didn’t deserve another chance with her, but she’d given me one anyway, and I wasn’t going to fuck it up.

  “I’m not going anywhere. I’m here. Today. Tomorrow. And the next. I’m not leaving you,” I said, hoping that she would not only believe me, but also find it in her heart to deem me worthy of having her. Although I thought that was my own insecurity rearing its ugly head and not hers.

  She closed her eyes and breathed deep, as if she was giving my declaration time to sink in and become a part of her somehow. When her eyes opened again, she nodded before saying the sweetest words, “I believe you.”

  Emotion coursed through me, but I pulled myself together as I looked her dead in the eyes. “I want you to know how lucky I feel to be the one who is here with you right now. You didn’t have to give me another chance, but I’ll never make you sorry that you did,” I said the words easily, but I was giving them to her as a promise.

  “We all make mistakes, Cole.” She looked at me with soft eyes. “Do things we aren’t proud of or wish we had handled certain situations differently. You’re worth the second chance. I need it as much as you do.”

  “Really?” I angled my elbow underneath my body and propped myself up.

  “Yes,” she said the single word like I was an idiot for even asking the question. “I would have always wondered what-if when it came to us. We never really tried. So, yeah, I needed this too.”

  I leaned down, moving my arm next to her head to brace my weight as I kissed her. “And just for the record”—I stopped before kissing her again—“you asked if this was different for me. The answer is yes. It doesn’t feel the same as before at all.”

  She exhaled against me, her breath warm. “Thank God. I was afraid it was just me,” she said before grabbing my lower back with needy hands.

  Reaching for my shirt, she tugged at it, ripping it over my head and tossing it somewhere. I stopped paying attention as I helped her remove her top as well.

  There was no stopping us now. We craved the connection. Needed it. And even though my hands had touched her body before, it felt like I was exploring new territory as I unbuttoned her shorts and tried in vain to get them off. She wiggled underneath me before kicking them free.

  Her fingers worked at my zipper, but she hesitated when she felt the tip of my dick pressing against it. “Am I going to hurt it?” she asked, and I laughed.

  “No. He’s tough. But it will be easier this way,” I said before taking them off myself. It took every ounce of my willpower to not plow into her. I felt desperate. I wanted to handle every curve, caress every soft part of her skin before committing it all to memory.

  Christina’s eyes widened as she stared at my boxer briefs. “I know what you’re going to say,” she groaned before adding, “that I’ve seen him before, so I shouldn’t be so surprised.”

  I smiled because it was exactly what I was going to say.

&
nbsp; “But how do you know I wasn’t surprised all those other times too? And you just never knew because we didn’t really talk before.”

  “Is that what we’re going to do now? Talk? Because I’d really like to be inside of you if you don’t mind.”

  “By all means, don’t let me stop you.” She narrowed her eyes like she was upset with me, and I reached down, my fingers easily finding her panties as I heard her gasp.

  My hand moved down lower, her heat beckoning me, and I pushed two fingers inside, her wetness instantly surrounding them. She moaned and squirmed, her body writhing beneath me, and I almost had an embarrassing American Pie movie moment. I was as worked up as she was.

  I pulled her panties completely off and sat on my knees to pull briefs down, my dick springing free with relief.

  Standing up, I kicked them off as Christina asked, “Where are you going?”

  Searching the pile of discarded clothes on the floor, I reached for my shorts and fumbled for the right pocket before pulling out a condom and holding it up for her to see. She smiled as I opened the wrapper and rolled the rubber down my length before positioning myself back on top of her.

  “Ready?” I asked, and it was a stupid question, but I couldn’t take it back now.

  She nodded, and I lined up the head of my dick with her entrance and slowly pushed inside.

  Christina gasped a little, her mouth forming a perfect little O as I moved all the way in, burying myself in her warmth.

  “Jesus,” I said before realizing my eyes were closed tight. Opening them, I found Christina watching me, her blue eyes glassy and gazing into my own. “You okay?”

  “I’m okay.” She gave me a teasing smile, and I lowered my mouth to hers, wanting to feel every part of her against every part of me.

  Will it ever feel like she is close enough?

  My hips moved back and forth, working faster than I wanted but I couldn’t help it. My dick craved a release, and I wasn’t stupid enough to ask him to stop. He might end up betraying me and never come again, and I’d have no one to blame but myself.

  “You feel so good. I love being inside you,” I confessed against the hollow of her neck.

  “Look at me,” she pleaded, and I did as she’d asked. I would do anything she wanted. “Don’t stop.” Her voice was breathy, her hips grinding against my own, creating a friction I knew she craved for her own release.

  I sent up a silent prayer that she’d get there before I did.

  Our bodies continued to move in unison, finding a rhythm that wasn’t forced or unnatural. We’d had sex before, but I’d never allowed myself to feel the kind of emotions that currently ripped through me. But maybe that was just it—this wasn’t simply sex. It felt like more.

  The closer I got to coming, the harder I had to work to stop myself from blurting out that I was falling in love with her. I’d never wanted to say those words to a girl in my life, and now, I had to stop myself from shouting them every time my dick dived deeper.

  “Christina,” I said her name like it was my lifeline to staying in this universe as my pace quickened.

  “Cole.” My name on her lips was the sweetest damn sound.

  I took it from her. My name, her lips, her breaths—I took it all as my mouth covered hers, ours tongue tangling, and I couldn’t hold back any longer.

  By the time my body stopped jerking, I focused on her again. She was breathing fast, her chest heaving up and down as I stared at her in awe.

  “Did you ...” I didn’t even have to finish the question. She knew what I was asking.

  “You couldn’t tell?” she asked, sounding winded.

  I shook my head because, to be honest, I didn’t know if she had gotten hers or not. But I was damn glad that she had.

  Rolling off of her so I didn’t crush her beneath me, I tried to steady my rapidly beating heart but to no avail. Beads of sweat dripped down my cheeks. I hadn’t even noticed them before.

  Reaching for her body, I pulled her against my chest, needing to feel her. “I’m not ready to let go. Hope that’s okay.”

  “That was nothing like before,” was all she said, and I knew exactly what she meant.

  We had always shared a connection, but I’d ignored it, pretending it wasn’t there and giving it no life. Now, it felt like I was living for that connection.

  I couldn’t stop thinking about how I’d almost told her I loved her and how, now that it was over, I knew I was definitely falling. Suddenly, her body tensed against mine, and I reacted in kind, wondering what the hell had just happened.

  Her head moved up from my chest, and cold air swooped in. “Was that real, or an accidental, postcoital, in-the-moment, slip-of-the-tongue kind of thing?”

  Shit.

  Did I say the words out loud? “Which part?” I asked as I navigated my next move depending on her response.

  “That you’re falling in love with me?” She sounded more cautious than hopeful.

  “I ...” I stumbled, not wanting to scare her off and wondering if it was way too soon to feel that strong, even with all of our shared history. “I’m definitely falling for you.”

  I swore I’d never seen my girl smile so big before, like she knew a secret I didn’t. “If it’s any consolation, I’m pretty sure I started falling the first night we met,” she said.

  My heart felt like it might explode—in a good way, if there were such a thing.

  “I’m pretty sure I did too. Sorry it took me so long to realize it.”

  “It’s okay.” She smiled and kissed my bare chest.

  “Is it?” I asked with a laugh because okay was the fishiest word in the female vocabulary, and even a relationship rookie like me knew that.

  “Yes. Because we’re here now. Together. And it was worth the wait.”

  Forget playing it cool or trying to act like her words hadn’t fazed me. I was all in. “I’m never letting you go,” I said as I ran my fingers through her hair.

  “Good,” was all she said. Then, she shot up from my chest, looked me in the eyes, and shouted, “Pizza!” and my stomach instantly grumbled in response.

  I’d forgotten all about the food. Can you blame me?

  Road Trips

  Four Weeks Later

  Christina

  Being a couple with Cole had become as natural as breathing. It was almost like we’d always been together. Sometimes, it surprised me how considerate he could be—which I knew sounded bad, but it was just that, for someone who had never been in a real relationship before, he sure was good at it.

  He texted all the time, never making me wonder or guess where he was. It wasn’t that I wanted to control his every move or needed to know his whereabouts twenty-four hours a day, but there was something extremely comforting in the fact that he kept me in the loop.

  It was especially helpful when a girl I’d never met before tried to tell me that Cole was currently at her house, in bed with one of her sorority sisters, because I knew that he was at a training facility with Chance, working on his bat speed. He’d sent me two videos of him hitting in the previous ten minutes.

  I remembered smiling at her and thanking her for the info before walking away while she screamed that she wasn’t lying. And to be fair, maybe she wasn’t. Her sorority sister probably had been in bed with someone at that very moment ... but that someone wasn’t Cole, and I had known it.

  We’d even survived our first road trip apart.

  I had been more nervous than I had anticipated the night before Cole left my apartment and boarded the team bus, heading to the airport.

  “How does this work?” I asked.

  We were lying on my bed with my head pressed against his body.

  “How does what work?” His abs tightened, and I knew he was straining to look at me.

  I tried to dig and maneuver my head into his hard muscles like they were a fluffy pillow that might move around for me.

  “What are you doing?” He laughed as he wormed out from underneath me.
r />   “It’s not really that comfortable, lying on your rock-hard chest, to be honest. Can’t you make it smooshier?”

  “Smooshier?” he repeated before grabbing a pillow and placing it on his stomach and pulling my head back down. “There. Better?”

  “Actually, yes,” I said because it was.

  “Now, what were you asking?”

  “How this works. While you’re away.” I swallowed around the insecure lump in my throat, hating that it even existed in the first place. But I would have hated myself more if I’d never asked him and let him leave while I sat at home with a million questions in my head. It wouldn’t have been fair to either of us.

  “The same way it works when we’re here. I’ll text and call you and FaceTime you before I go to sleep. And I’ll be back before you know it.” He sounded so confident. Like he hadn’t even realized that I was starting to spin out in my own head.

  “Okay,” I said, but it wasn’t believable. It was the least believable okay in the history of okays.

  “What are you thinking in that head of yours?” He tapped the top of my head with one of his fingers.

  “Don’t think I’m crazy, but I just got kind of nervous out of nowhere.”

  “Christina.” His voice was so soft and comforting, like thinking I was crazy was the last thing that would ever enter his mind. He pushed up to a sitting position and lifted me off of him at the same time so that we could face each other. “You can tell me anything. What’s going on?”

  I blew out a breath, squeezed my eyes shut, reopened them, and then dived right into his sea of blue. “It’s our first road trip as a couple. And I’m sure that, over the years, there have been girls in other places. I guess I just wondered if they would show up at your hotel or if you’d see them again? Do they know you have a girlfriend now? Would they even care? Do you have, like, a set girl in every state?” I asked before covering my face with my hands. I felt so dumb. Dumb for asking all these things and dumb for never thinking of any of this before.

  “I’m not going to lie to you,” he started.