Page 48 of Off Limits: The Firsts

“Thanks for the good time?”

“Yep. Thanks.”

His hazel eyes narrow, the edges tinged with green today as he squeezes my arm. “You’re scared.” And he makes the statement so matter-of-factly that my denial is automatic.

“No.”

“How did I not see it before? Why do I scare you?”

Mayday. Mayday. I avert my eyes. Shift my feet. “That’s such bullshit. Make sure to flatter yourself while you’re at it.”

“It’s not flattery if it’s the truth,” he quips, trying to get a smile out of me, but it’s kind of hard to smile when your heart feels like it’s beating out of your chest and your first instinct is to sprint but your feet refuse to move. “Besides, there was no need for you to run unless you were spooked.”

“What, so now a woman can’t have a one-night stand without a reason?”

“Nice play, but no dice. You knew this wasn’t a one-night stand, Scout. You knew we were going to have to see each other for the next few weeks. So you can try to convince yourself, but I’m not buying it.”

My thoughts fly out of control, and none of them manifest into words, so I just stand there looking at him, mouth opening and closing, like more of an idiot than I already feel.

“Then why push the issue? If you don’t believe what I’m saying, then why don’t you walk away?” There. I said something.

And yet I feel everything.

He chuckles, but it is anything but amused. “Because talk is cheap, Scout. Your lips are saying one thing, but your body and eyes are telling me something completely different. Did you already forget how incredible the other night was? How good I made you feel?” His eyes pin me motionless with a dare to refute him. “So go ahead and lie to yourself—stand by your one-night stand excuse—but just know I don’t buy it for one minute. I was there. I know the truth.”

“Maybe I’m just a girl who likes to see how many major leaguer notches I can add to my belt.” Deflect. Divert. Distract.

“You’re full of funny today, aren’t you? Do you think the other night would have happened if I thought that you were a baseball betty trying to charm me into the diamond between your thighs?”

“Then why did it happen?” The question is out before I can stop it, and I know it’s surprised him because I can feel his fingers stiffen on my arm. I immediately want to know and don’t want to know the answer.

“Because you’re incredible? Is that a good enough answer?” He angles his head and just stares at me for a beat in a way that has heat spreading from my center out to my toes and back in. “Because we had a day.”

“A day?”

“Yes. It wasn’t good. It wasn’t bad. It was just a day filled with a little bit of everything, and you don’t share a day with someone you don’t like.” His reasoning is simple enough, and sounds so sweet coming from this gruff baseball player who is a mixture of so many things. “And because we danced. We drank. We sulked. You stood in my apartment and looked at a symbol representing my whole life and summed up how I feel but can never put into words. You got me. And then you seduced me.”

“I what?” I cough the words out as that soft smile of his turns big and bright.

“You seduced me. A beautiful woman with a sharp tongue, a sharper mind, and a look in her eye that said she was scared and confident, haloed by the light of a baseball stadium . . . I mean, a man only has so much restraint when it comes to that kind of perfection.”

And I’m a puddle. A big, messy puddle of feelings that are so foreign I’m not sure what to do or say or how to act other than to reject the words. But for some reason nothing comes from my lips because . . . because, look at him. Complete virility mixed with sincerity. Everything a normal woman would fall into the arms of when all I can think of is running away.

But my feet don’t move. They don’t listen to my head because they are too busy listening to Easton. They are too busy letting his words break them down and give them an ounce of hope when hope was supposed to be lost.

All I can do is stare at him—wage a war with everything I’ve conditioned myself to believe—and try to trust what he’s saying.

“Or maybe you were just using me so you could see my private baseball field.” He delivers the joke with a soft smile, but his eyes tell me he knows I’m freaking out inside and is trying to add some levity to calm me.

“Perhaps.” I give him an inch and secretly wonder if I do so because I want him to take the mile.

“See?” He shakes his finger at me as his smile grows. “You forget I can read you. And you like me, Scout Dalton. So, pretend all you want that you don’t. Tell me the other night was a mistake. But I’ll be over here chipping away at whatever is preventing you from admitting it, because that night was incredible. And not just the sex. That was phenomenal, too. But you . . . . You get me. In a world of people wanting the throwback baller they see on the field, you understand there is more to me than just him. For some reason you seem to understand the things no one else does, the parts of me I’m not sure I even get, and yet you’re able to put words to it. So, yeah . . . the sex was great. You can stick to your guns, tell me it wasn’t, tell me it was a mistake, tell me you don’t feel a damn thing when we touch . . . but I do. And I want to go out again.”

He leans forward and kisses me. I’d like to say it’s against my will, but I’m all in, despite trying not to show it. Because we’re here. At the stadium. And I can’t kiss him.

But I do. With lips and tongue and heart, while his hands hold my shoulders still and my body motionless.

I missed him.