“I followed your career,” I said. Then I flushed. “I kind of stalked you.”
“Really?” Did he doubt it? He probably had hundreds of women stalking him.
“You’re amazing. You said you’d go straight to the majors and you have.”
“My life is boring,” he said with a casual flick of his wrist. Then he smiled at me with those all-American blue eyes and I lost my train of thought. “What have you been doing since college?”
How could a man be that pretty? Seriously. Those blue eyes, that chiseled jaw… Had he been this rugged three years ago? Or had a little more maturity given him manlier distinction softened by the boyish charm of his freckles? I didn’t have to think hard about the answer. In my mind’s eye, it was all him. But the answer was yes, he had more maturity now, but I still saw the boy who’d made me think of rings, kids, and a house in the suburbs. Looking back, it seemed ridiculous, but right now I felt it again. Like being with him was perfect, and all he’d done was ask about me.
“Heidi?”
I jolted, quickly scrambling back in the conversation. “TheIndianapolis Sunneeded an intern coordinator. I applied and got the job.” No, no. Don’t start talking about myself. This had to be about him. “Did you ever figure out what it is that makes you a great player?” I focused on his eyes and tried not to melt into the blue.
He hesitated a moment, then shrugged. “My normal answer is the brain game. I excel at the mental stuff. But it didn’t happen today. I kept thinking about you.”
Talk about a gut punch. Simple words but they stole my breath. Had he really been thinking about me? Like I had been standing at the back of the Press Box and remembering every second of our night together?
Pull it together!
“Mental toughness, huh? What exactly does that mean?”
“What does it mean when you manage interns? Do they give you shit?”
“All the time,” I groused.
He chuckled. “Come on. Give me a little more. I’ve been waiting three years to hear this.”
If he was so interested, he should have called. But I put away that mental grumble and tried to get on a more casual footing with him. “Well, I had to get obsessively organized. And then I had to be a Nazi about assignments. Kids are used to talking their way around teachers, but a newspaper can’t survive that way. One screwup and they were out.”
He touched my back with one hand while pushing open a heavy door with the other. Really gallant. I remembered the same gesture from three years ago, and my skin had tingled then, just like it was now. And as I stepped through the door, I lost myself in my favorite what-if fantasy. What if he’d stayed that night? What if I’d been with him all through his minor league career and had celebrated with him when he came to Indianapolis? Would I be struggling to pay my rent right now? Would I have fought so hard to work at the paper? Or would I have lost myself among all those baseball groupies and become just another hanger-on? Would he have tired of me then and dumped me years ago?
Meanwhile, he was chuckling. That low, sweet vibration I felt all the way to my toes. “And here I thought pro sports were competitive. Thankfully I don’t get fired after one error. So, what’s a firing offense in journalism?”
He was being charming, and I tried not to fall into it. The echoes of three years ago kept haunting me. Not just our sex fest, but how easily we’d talked about everything.
“The usual,” I answered. “Bad facts. Skating the edge of true. You can’t completely eliminate bias, but journalists are supposed to report, not opine.”
He looked down at me, his blue eyes warming. “I forgot how smart you are.”
Lust, pure and core deep, surged through my blood. Was I really that simple? That a single compliment turned me into goo? But hell, he said it like he meant it. And he looked at me like he really saw me. No one else did. Not even my parents.
Flustered, I looked away, my voice coming out raw from the emotions clanging inside me.
“I’m not smart.” A smart woman would have a career by now, like he did.
“Sure you are. ‘Opine.’ Who uses that word?”
I looked back at him. “Oh. Um. It means to give an opinion. At length—”
“I know what it means.” I swear his eyes twinkled. “I just love the way you talk.”
I loved the way he looked at me. The corner of his eyes crinkled, and every part of his face seemed honest. I loved how open he was. His laughter, his thoughts, everything right there on his face or in his body. Right now he held another door open for me, and as I passed through, our faces seemed to hover inches apart. He watched me with an intensity that couldn’t be faked. And I felt the heat of his whole body. He was so large that even at a casual distance, I still felt surrounded by him.
My steps slowed and our gazes held. Suddenly I had a very real-sense memory of being naked in his arms. As if he wereright thenstroking me to orgasm. As if he were inside me, filling me like no other man had since. Every part of me went wet and hungry. If I closed my eyes, I swear just the memory of him thrusting inside would make me come. And I might have done just that. The desire was so strong, but he broke the moment.
He stepped back, color staining his cheeks. Mine heated as well, as I realized what I’d been thinking. Suddenly, I had two goals for the next hour. One: get material for an article. Two: don’t sleep with the man. Because the only thing I wanted more than another night with him was a career as a journalist. And good reporters didn’t sleep with their sources. And then he touched me again, and I was hard put not to forget everything in favor of him. “This way,” he said, pressing his palm more firmly against my lower back. It was like aiming a hair dryer right at the base of my spine. I started heating in expanding waves. My nipples tightened and my mind went straight back to three years ago.
Focus!
