Time to upend my own damn schedule.
Besides, one day won’t distract me from my goals.
Hell, I spent my entire rookie season with blinders on, lasered in on the game. Now it’s my second year in the majors, but I’m still all about the focus. This afternoon is a reprieve from the eat, sleep, breathe round-the-clockness of pro ball.
I want to devour this afternoon with her.
“You ready to do the walk-around-campus thing so you can show me all your favorite places here and share your favorite memories?” she asks.
I flash her a grin, feeling it deep inside my soul. “I’d be ecstatic to show you everything.”
A faint blush crawls across her cheeks, a sexy splash of pink. “Let’s do it, Holden.”
Yeah, she gives good banter too.
Already today is shaping up to be one of my favorite memories of this place.
That was not in the plan at all.
But it is absolutely in the chemistry.
3
Reese
The man has a mouth for innuendo and lips made for dirty talk. Words seem to fall from his tongue laced with seduction.
And I can’t not give him a hard time about the particular word he just used.
“Ecstasy?” I say as we leave the media booth. “Is that your favorite word now?”
“Seems it’s yours,” he counters.
“I did start it,” I admit.
“And I continued it. So, apparently, for today, it is my favorite word,” he says, all playful.
“Do you think listeners will know you kind of blushed when you said it there at the start of the interview?”
“I did not blush,” he says, like he’s highly affronted.
I shoot him a doubtful look. “You’re kind of blushing now too.” He’s so easy to tease. Maybe because he seems to love the push-pull, the back-and-forth.
“I don’t blush,” he insists, lifting his chin, handsome even when indignant.
I laugh, admitting the truth. “I know. It’s ridiculously fun—and easy—to tease you.”
“And you seem to be ridiculously good at it, Reese,” he says in a low rumble that rolls down my spine, slow and lazy, leaving heat in its wake.
We near the exit, and he swings the door open for me then holds out his arm, saying ladies first.
“Such a gentleman,” I remark.
He narrows his eyes and says as I pass, “Not always.”
My breath catches, and there’s a part of me—an aching, hungry part—that wants to grab hold of that remark. To clutch it against my breasts and ask when he’s not a gentleman, whether he’s a bossy guy at times.
A kick of possibility intrigues me. Is that my type of guy? Do I want a potent combination of charming, kind, and bossy? Do I like gentlemen who flirt by day and go rough at night? I wish I knew. I wish I’d have the chance to know Holden so much better.
When he speaks again, he’s gone back to lightly, irresistibly provocative. “Or maybe it’s not my favorite word, just the right word. Maybe I was truly ecstatic.”
Was he? Ecstatic? And what’s he like, then, when he is lost in the throes of ecstasy?
I shouldn’t be thinking this.
But it seems the dirty-thought train has left the station and I’ve booked a first-class ticket.
“Were you really? Enjoying it that much?” I ask, my voice feathery.
“I was,” he says in a low rasp. “I enjoyed talking to you very much.”
“Same. Same for me.” He turns toward the quad, but I stop him with a hand on his arm. “Actually, we’re headed this way—”
Oh, holy guns. That is one fine mountain of muscle right there.
I am kind of a touchy person. And he doesn’t seem to mind that I’m touching him. But still, I drop my hand, reluctantly.
I try to collect my thoughts, to narrow my focus to the task as we walk to the main building where I want to start. “I’m glad you’ve enjoyed the interview so far. I appreciate how open you were. You spoke honestly, it seemed. Some sports stars are so. . . sanitized. Do you know what I mean?”
He nods as if he knows exactly. “They all learned from the Crash Davis School of Public Relations?”
I cock my head. “The minor league player who logged a record fifty doubles in one season with the Durham Bulls?”
His jaw drops. “Tell me you’re showing off and you do realize I mean the main character in the greatest baseball movie ever.”
I shrug, biting back a smile. I knew what he meant, but I was also showing off a little. “I haven’t seen that movie.”
He brings his hand to his heart. “How can you call yourself a baseball fan, woman?”
I give another casual shrug. “It’s kind of old. It’s from, what, the eighties?”
“It’s a classic. I’ve seen it, and I’m not that much older than you.”
“I figured you weren’t.” I know all his baseball stats; of course I know how old he is. But he seems to be emphasizing a point, one that I definitely get.
“I’m twenty-five,” he says, and it comes out like an invitation, like he’s saying he’s just the right age for me.
My skin prickles with the awareness that he’s telling me something, not for the interview, but for me alone. And maybe he’s asking something too.
“I’m twenty-two,” I offer, letting him know I might be in college, but I’m well above legal in every single way. Besides, I graduate in a week.
His heated gaze lingers on me. “Good to know.”
“Is it? Good to know?” I ask, all breathy, my skin tingling from his tone, his words, his confident gaze that travels up and down my body.
“So very good to know,” he says.
We’ve paused in our walk, and before the moment veers too far into dangerous territory, I shift back into motion and back to the topic of the movie, trying to keep this interview professional. Mostly. “So, this old movie. Tell me about it.”
He rolls his eyes. “Old movie, my ass,” he mumbles, like I’m just too much. He clears his throat. “In the flick, Crash Davis is teaching the new pitcher how to interact with reporters. All you have to say is this: ‘I’m just happy to be here. Hope I can help the ball club. I just want to give it my best shot.’ It’s basically a bunch of platitudes.”
I laugh. “Yes, you’re the opposite of Crash Davis. It was so refreshing to see that you’re so very . . . real.”
A smile spreads across his face. His handsome, chiseled face. His stubbled jawline. His strong cheekbones. His piercing eyes. They’re the most arresting shade—forest green flecked with gold.
But he’s so much more than a handsome face. So much more than a strong, firm, muscled frame.
Holden Kingsley is not what I expected. Yes, I expected the intensity. But I didn’t anticipate he’d be charming, clever, passionate, and . . . interested.
The second that word touches down in my brain, I can’t stop thinking it.
He seems interested.
Incredibly interested.
As interested as I am.
Another spark of pleasure ignites in my chest.
A dangerous, tempting spark.