Page 64 of Unexpected Forever
“Well, just because I’m preg—”
He lays a finger over my lips, his eyes flaring. “Don’t you dare say that. It’s not because you’re pregnant, Charley. I haven’t thought about another woman since I met you.”
His hands tunnel into my hair and he lowers his mouth, almost touching mine, while he stares into my eyes.
I’m frozen in place. My fingers ache to touch him and my stomach somersaults. All thoughts of rules and the reasons for them fly right out the window.
Before I take my next breath, his mouth’s on mine, claiming me.
I don’t hesitate. I open my mouth and welcome him in. My hands curl into his shirt, pulling him closer to me, and I rise up on my toes.
I’ve missed this with him.
His kiss, his touch, the way his cock felt inside me. The connection that’s been there from the start.
It’s a passionate but slow kiss, designed to seduce. He’s chipping away at my resistance until my world consists of nothing but the two of us.
I whimper against those lips slanted over mine, wanting more from the kiss, wanting everything from him.
A loud chiming sound fills the air and we jump apart. He looks around to see where the sound is coming from.
“Shit,” he says, picking up his phone. “I need to take this.”
“Of course.” I walk backward, away from him and his brain-melting kisses. “I’ll see you later.”
I hightail it out of the room, hearing him curse before he answers the call that saved me.
When I made rule number three, I should have been clearer. At the time, I feared it would be his cock that would take me down if I had the pleasure to experience it again.
I should have added his mouth and his hands. Those things have their own brand of weaponry to slay my heart.
With his words and his kisses, it would be easy for me to fall. Easy for me to think we actually have a shot at being a family.
But I know the score.
Nate and I are forever tied together because of the baby I’m carrying and nothing more.
FIFTEEN
nate
Under the earlyJuly Florida sun, the baseball diamond is pristine in a way only a major league field can be.
At my first game in the show, I’d never seen greener grass, redder clay, or whiter, straighter lines on a field.
I spent sixteen years looking at the field from the bench of the dugout. As I sit here now, alone, the quiet stadium surrounding me, I realize just how much I miss it all.
The energy of the crowd, practice, the ice baths, and the grueling schedule I both loved and hated.
Retiring from active play was the right choice, but I’m not ready to let go of being part of the game.
“I thought I’d find you here.” A deep voice fills the space around me, making me smile.
Lucas Raines, veteran star pitcher of the Bull Sharks, and the closest thing I have to a best friend, strolls into the dugout grinning.
Lucas and I practically came up through the organization together, with him being traded to the Bull Sharks the year after me. He’s the only other player on the team that’s been with them almost as long as I have.
And he’s still going. At thirty-nine, he shows no sign of slowing down.
