“Come again?” I asked.
“That’s what she said.” I barely resisted the urge to smack the cheeky smile off his face. Those dimples of his would be the downfall of society.
“Yeah, what does that mean?” Soren asked, arching a brow.
“Growing up, I used to go to a lot of bigwig events.” He leaned forward on his elbows. “One of the crowd pleasers that always racked in donations was a bachelor auction. So, maybe we do some kind of dinner date thing with the farm-to-table event, where ticket holders can bid on the . . . company of a Roasters player?”
“Bid on a Baller,” I finished for him, the wheels already churning. “Oh my gosh, I love that.”
“Really?” An out of character hesitation rang through his voice.
That was probably my fault. Throughout our faux relationship—and even before then—I had never given Pink the benefit of the doubt. It wasn’t personal; I didn’t trust anyone until they gave me a reason to. That had backfired on me too many times in the past.
“Yes.” I was stubborn, but I could acknowledge a clever idea when I heard one. Even if it wasn’t mine. “It’s a great idea, Jared.”
His eyes sparkled with glee.Does Jared Pink have a praise kink?I shook that dangerous thought clean out of my head.
“Um, hello,” Soren interrupted, thrusting his hand in the air. “Some of us are in committed relationships and would prefer not to be auctioned off to strangers like cattle.”
“Oh, honey,” Clarke said, swatting at his chest. “It’s for charity. Besides, you’re still coming home with me at the end of the night.”
The look they shared was enough to make the scarecrows blush.
A possessive hand landed on my leg. Heat radiated through the thin material of my leggings when Pink’s thick fingers stroked my inner thigh with a featherlight touch. My hand clamped down on his, not to remove it, but rather to keep it from wandering.
My panties were soaked—had been from the moment he’d demanded I show him how to touch me—but I didn’t want him to know that. We had already complicated the hell out of this situation. A finger-banging session behind the Twisted Misters Farm would only make things stickier. Literally.
That didn’t stop me from reaching for my toy drawer later that night though.
After a long shower and my even longer one-on-one session with my favorite vibrator, I dropped back against my mountain of pillows, still trying to catch my breath. Fuck, I hadn’t come that hard in weeks, and it had nothing to do with my sex ban andeverythingto do with Jared Pink.
If that was what he gave on a first date—afakefirst date, no less—I couldn’t imagine what date ten might look like. Not that there would be ten dates. Between our equally busy schedules and his upcoming on-the-road series, it would be almost another week before we saw each other again.
Hopefully, that would be enough time to get ahold of my raging hormones.
I slid deeper under my mountain of blankets, shivering when the cool bamboo sheet rasped against my overly sensitive nipples. I replayed today’s date for the umpteenth time, marveling over how much fun we’d had together, how natural it had felt to have Pink by my side—or at my back, which he seemed to prefer.
In fact, as far as I could tell, and as much as I didn’t want to admit it, the only thing that could have made it any better was Jared’s magnificent cock tunneling in and out of my pussy instead of the silicone one lying limp in my hand.
Hell, for all I knew, his vibrated, too. The man was full of surprises, each one more potent than the next.
And I feared my pussy—and heart—might not survive another.
Pink
“Dude, are you sure? This place is kind of a shithole.” I nodded my head toward the abandoned swimming pool covered in brown gunk. “Literally. That pool is covered in shit.”
Matty prodded the corner of a raised garden bed with his sneaker. The wood splintered in two. “You have to look at the bigger picture.”
I didn’t know what picture he was looking at. His Ray-Bans must have come equipped with some sort of X-ray vision because all I could see was a shit-stained, banana-colored money pit.
“I don’t know,” Soren said, shaking his head. “I might be with the kid on this one.”
Unbeknownst to the rest of us, Matty had been scoping out local property for months—something that he could fix up and potentially flip depending on how long the Roasters kept him around. Unlike me, he was only locked in for a two-yearcontract. His position on the team would be renegotiated after that. It was one of the many drawbacks of being a professional athlete. Most players’ permanent addresses changed as often as their socks.
But Matty had at least two years in Rose City, and during that time, he was determined to plant some roots. I just wished he hadn’t settled on a place that already had roots protruding out of the ground and into the foundation.
Wait a minute. That’s not the foundation. That’s—
