He flashed me a grin. “I did. This morning when you were asleep. But that may be too, um—”
“Provocative?”
“Yeah. It’s hard to play baseball with a hard-on.” Then he flashed me a grin. “Though I’ve done it before.”
I didn’t respond. My body was flushed with desire. When he looked at me like that, I couldn’t think. My heart was too full of hope, and the rest of me was on the edge of arousal. It was always that way lately. But that was the problem, right? Was this a hot time headed toward forever? Or was it just a hot time?
I looked away, rather than give in to the lust that was building inside me. And in that moment, I whispered my biggest question. “Where is this going?”
I felt his hand still on my ankle. He’d gone to massaging higher on my foot, heading toward the calf and what I knew would end in a mind-blowing orgasm. Then he blew out a breath.
“I think that if Sophia finds out about us, she’ll do everything she can to destroy you.”
Talk about throwing a bucket of ice water on my libido. I looked at him and knew he was dead serious. So I countered it with my own determination. “I can handle Sophia.” But when a flash of worry crossed his features, I amended my statement. “I want to face Sophia. You can’t let her control you.”
“She’s not controlling me. I’m controlling her.”
Maybe, but at what cost?
“I also know that I played like shit yesterday because I was thinking about you.”
Okay, this wasn’t going the way my heart wanted it to. “Players have good games and bad games. No amount of superstition, good luck charms, or pre-game rituals will eliminate the bad ones.”
He nodded, acknowledging my point. “I like being with you even at work. I admire you, and you make me laugh. And you push me to talk about stuff I don’t want to talk about.”
I grinned. “You calling me a tough interviewer?”
“Yeah,” he said with a chuckle. “I am. And I know that I shouldn’t trust you, but I do.”
I bristled at that. “Why shouldn’t you trust me?” I’d never do anything to hurt him.
He shrugged. “I don’t trust anyone who lies to me or fudges the truth. And you do it all the time.”
I jerked back, pulling my leg from his hand. But before I could argue with him, he pulled a journal from the bedside table. It was dark blue leather and worn from handling, and the pages were heavy with ink and clipped out articles. He flipped through until he was nearly at the end and started reading out loud.
“Connor Hart’s smarts are what caught the eye of Bobcat owner, Joe DeLuce. ‘He reads the field like nobody else. Thank God, his knees are holding strong. We want him for years to come,’ DeLuce says.”
Connor looked up and held my gaze with a level stare. I frowned at him and shrugged. So he was reading something I wrote about him. So what?
“First off, Joe doesn’t talk like that. Second, I caught his eye because of my throwing stats and because I was cheap. It had nothing to do with any smarts. Third, my knees are crapping out, and last, there’s no way he’d promise me a job for years to come. My contract runs out before next season.”
I gaped at him. “You’re counting that as lying to you?”
He shrugged. “About me. Same thing.”
He couldn’t possibly be that rigid. “Let’s start at the beginning. Joe talks like that when he’s giving interviews to the press. You caught his eye for a lot of reasons, and he’s called you smart a dozen times. No way in hell is he going to tell anyone your knees are crapping out, even if they are. And he does hope you’ll be with the Bobcats for years to come.” I folded my arms tight across my chest. Good God, how had I gone from turned on to livid in two seconds? “That’s what Joe said. Exactly. Because it’s a quote.”
He nodded. “And you reported it. You shaded the whole article about how smart I am. Smart enough to know that I have to up the next area of my game.”
It sounded like we were talking in circles. “You are focused on becoming a better hitter.”
“Not to round out my game. Because my knees are shit, and if I want to keep playing, I have to get better at something other than catching.” He shifted on the bed to extend his legs out before him, and I couldn’t help but notice they were still swollen from yesterday’s game. “You reported a lie.”
“I reported the truth. Just not the truth you see.”
He shrugged. “Facts are facts. And in this world of fake news, accuracy matters.”
“I didn’t lie. There is not one thing in there that’s a lie.”
