Page 175 of Vegas Heat

They glance at each other, and my brows dip.

“What?” I ask.

“Is this, uh…is thisbusinessorpleasure?” Rush’s tone reeks of inappropriate suggestion, and I’m sure my cheeks turn bright red.

Does he know about us?

Cooper wouldn’t have told him…would he?

The more people who know, the better the chance there is of my dad finding out before we’re ready to tell him.

“Business!” I practically shout, but it only makes me sound guilty. I draw in a breath and clear my throat. “Joanie told me I’m supposed to be shadowing him to learn more about baseball. Have you seen him?”

“Yeah,” Rush says. “He’s in the cages with Brewer.” He nods toward the door that leads to the batting cages, and I head in that direction. “Have fun, but don’t play with him, okay?”

“Excuse me?” I ask, turning around to face him again.

“He’s a good guy and he’s been burned plenty of times. Just take care of him because he really seems to have a thing for you.”

Whoa. I was wholly unprepared for that conversation, and I have no idea what to say.

“Okay,” I answer a little weakly, and then I head out of the room to find Cooper so I can figure out why the hell he thought telling his friends about us was a good idea.

CHAPTER 30: GABBY

I feel like I might actually be seething as I yank open the door to the batting cages. I glance around and find Danny’s not in here. It’s just Cooper.

And he isn’t wearing a shirt.

He. Isn’t. Wearing. A. Shirt.

I’m not sure why he’d be practicing hitting the ball without a shirt on, but all coherent thought leaves my mind as I watch him wait for the pitch then swing the bat. He slices the wood through the air and makes contact with the ball before lining up again. He wears a batting helmet, batting gloves, and athletic shorts, and the muscles in his chest and abdomen ripple with movement as he makes contact with another ball.

I’ve never watched him bat before. I don’t even know if he’s actually been in here practicing before. But I stand mesmerized, transfixed, riveted to the spot as I watch the shimmer of his body while he does what it was clearly made to do.

And he’s mine.

It’s a fact I haven’t quite grasped yet. He wants me. He loves me.

Somehow watching him do something he’s so completely passionate about causes a deep ache to pulse inside me as I feel myself falling, falling, falling even further into him.

Is there anything in the world I’mthatpassionate about?

Maybe him.

There are many things I enjoy, but nothing I can think of that I’d want to spend the rest of my life doing…other than him.

The pitching machine must run out of balls because he sets his bat down and starts to pull his gloves off. That’s when hespots me standing there with my jaw practically dragging on the ground.

He lets out a soft chuckle. “Hey. I didn’t know I had an audience.”

“Sorry. I, uh…”Forgot what I came in here for, I guess.

“It’s okay. If it was anyone else but you—”

“You want to be alone?”

He walks over toward the chain link fence separating us, and he rests his fingers through some of the links. He shakes his head. “I asked Danny to give me a few minutes to myself in here. It’s just…it’s the first time I picked up a bat since…” He trails off, leaving me to imagine when that was.

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