Page 93 of SALT

"Oh god," I moan, not expecting it to be so good.

My words spur him on, and he picks up the pace. "That's it. Pump your pussy, baby."

His words have me pushing back on him. I love the unhinged side of him. The side that let's go and trusts me with his heart. I love knowing that I own his pleasure as much as he owns mine. "You want more?"

"Yes, Ev. I want everything." I hear him let out a groan.

"Fuck, I'm going to come." Slowing his thrusts, he reaches around and removes my hand to replace it with his own before saying, "Come with me." His groans and pants already had me on edge, but his words send me over. He feels the second my orgasm hits and holds in deep, finding his own release before falling on top of me. With ragged breaths, he says, "I love you, Cameron Salt. I love you with everything that I am."

"What if we don't win? I didn't even think about that."

"Don't say that," Mackenzie and I say in unison as Stormy threatens to jinx the game with her bad juju. The Bulldogs are taking their last at-bat for the season. We have a man on second and one on third, with two outs. If we don't show up now, that's the game since the Sharks are ahead by one.

"The one thing about this year's team is they perform well under pressure. They all want to go out with a win," I say as I drink my beer and try to calm my nerves. The first batter comes up, and it's Deke. We'd hoped to have a solid lead when Connor and I planned this all out, but maybe a little fun is what they need to swing for the fences this inning and bring home a win, so I call out, "Show 'em those socks, Deke."

Everett's standing at the top of the dugout, his jersey stretching over his biceps and clinging to his back in all the right places, but his fit physique is no match for those molten eyes that turn toward me with an assessing glare, narrowing as he scans my body from head to toe before tracking back to Deke at the plate, raising his pants and sporting socks with pictures of Everett running. Deke's move triggers our players on second and third to do the same. Each pair of socks has different images of Everett working out.

All season, he trained with the team. Harder if you ask me, considering he always started his routine before they arrived. In the beginning, it was to earn their respect and prove he wasn't just a fill-in who wasn't invested in seeing to it that the team had a good season. Game after game, the team saw his dedication, and what started out as respect morphed into something deeper, a reverence, a level of admiration for giving it his all when others may not have. Tongue in cheek, he drops his head, but his smile can't be hidden. From here, I can see it pulling at the corners of his perfect mouth. Connor clasps his shoulders as the guys in the dugout pull up their socks and smack his back.

My eyes are so keenly zeroed in on Everett and watching him have his moment that I miss the pitch, but I don't miss the sound of the bat connecting with the ball as Deke slams one into right field. The right fielder dives to catch the ball and misses it by a foot, and the stadium goes crazy as we close out the season with a nail-biting win.

Mackenzie and Stormy jump up and down and hug as I make a beeline for the field with one target. My man.

When I reach the field, the guys are still huddled around him, chanting, whooping, and hollering, but that doesn't stop him from feeling me. His midnight eyes connect with mine, he starts pushing through the team, and I take off running. He catches me in his arms and twirls me around.

"I like what you're wearing," he breathes against my neck.

I pull back, slap his hat, and say, "Your girl, your jersey." He gives me the biggest boyish smile and I know without a doubt my words, coupled with my grand gesture of running out to him on the field, made his heart swim. "Nothing like closing out the season with a win, two major league contracts, and three farm team drafts. Tell me, Coach, did the season go as planned? Did you know your team would be number one?"

"This season was nothing I could have planned for because I never saw it coming. It was nothing I wanted and somehow everything I needed."

"Is that so?" I wrap my hands around his neck. "You doubted your ability to read a game you love, manage personalities, and change lives? Game part aside, it's what you do as a lawyer too."

He sets me down. "Maybe I'm not saying it correctly. All season, my goal was to change them, help them grow into their full potential, show them their weaknesses so that they could harness their strength. That was planned. It's the incidentals I didn't see coming, that I could never have planned for…" His thumb brushes over my cheek. "Ones like you. You were the absolute last thing I wanted. I hated myself for wanting you, and fuck if you weren't dead set on making my life hell, but hell is exactly what I needed. I had to walk through its fire and test my strength, only then would I know if I was worthy of standing at your side. All season I thought I was changing them, but it was the summer that changed me."

My hand covers the one he has rested on my face. "Change is good, Ev. I liked the old you, but I'm madly in love with the one that's standing before me now."

He leans down and pulls me tight against his front. "I'm glad." He kisses my forehead. "I would much rather be in love with you than the idea of you," he says against my mouth before his lips run away with mine, and the lines that separate where he stops and I begin dissolve, blurring us into a perfect forever.

Chapter 33

Everett

6 MONTHS LATER

"Shit," I hiss when I burn myself on the pan. I never fucking burn myself cooking. I suck the sting out of my forefinger before reclaiming the wooden spoon to scrape the bottom of the pan. I know why it happened, I'm nervous as hell. Tonight is a big night. Cameron graduated this afternoon, and rather than go out, she wanted to stay in. It threw a wrench in the plans I had until she insisted on cooking dinner. That's when I made her a deal. If we were going to stay in rather than going out and celebrating her achievements because, to be fair, there are more than one, I would at least be the one cooking the meal.

She didn't easily relent, which I didn't understand. But that's how I ended up cooking alone in the kitchen while she whips up a dessert downstairs. Apparently, cooking for me tonight was a big deal because she had a new recipe she learned. So we met in the middle and agreed I would cook dinner, and she would make dessert. I'm unsure why we can't share the kitchen upstairs, but I digress.

Cameron is excited about getting into the house early. We weren't supposed to be in the house until February, but with her approval and extra money thrown at the contractors, she allowed me to flex my pull and expedite the construction phase. Last week, we moved out of the RV and into our new home on Salt Lake. Interior work still needs to be completed. The built-ins in my office still need to be installed and trimmed out, and the two spare bedrooms on the first floor need lighting fixtures and crown molding. Cameron's been working closely with Mackenzie on that side of the house since her office is in that wing also. But décor and finishing touches aside, we are in, and I think that's partly why she is downstairs now. She's eager to use everything and start collecting moments.

"Ev, is dinner almost ready?" she calls up from the basement.

"It will be ready in ten minutes, but you're welcome to join me now. I have a margarita waiting for you."

"I'll be up in five minutes," she answers before I hear her footsteps pad back down the steps.

She built a ranch-style, and the square footage compared to my last house is a downgrade. My house was ten thousand square feet. The one she built here is a little over four thousand. The size doesn't bother me. People live happily in less, but when it came to the basement, I convinced her to put in a bar with a full kitchen. It's just the two of us for now, but it won't stay that way forever. She went off birth control months ago, and while we're not trying to get pregnant, we're also not preventing it either. I know she'll want that space for entertaining, and I could see Cameron using that space as a casita of sorts for Lauren if and when we do have children.

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