Wild Pitch (Dominating the Diamond Book 1)

CHAPTER 23

If this is what an out of body experience feels like, I can only pray that I never have one again. Time stops. I float up out of my body and am forced to listen in horror as I say the cheesiest thing I could possibly think of in my attempt to dispel the overly earnest energy between me and my biggest living sports hero. When it couldn’t get any worse, I watch myself shoot finger guns at Mateo fucking Reyes.

I have never been so mortified in my life. Which is saying something, for a girl who fell down the stairs in her school play while wearing mouse ears in a cardboard sleigh.

But, god, the way he laughs.

The sound is full, and bright, and perfect. It’s the sort of laugh that’s so full of joy, it never makes me feel like it’s directed at me, even if my own incredible awkwardness is what prompted it.

The cage rattles, and I think he’s finally ready to start his batting practice. It’s about time, now that I’m the last teammate packing up for the day, the only one who stayed behind to take advantage of the new pitching machine. This team may be far and away more welcoming than the Scorpions, but I still don’t get much practice time, considering they never plan to have me bat for myself. Trying not to let it make me feel dismissed, I change my focus and wonder how long I can hang around stretching as an excuse to watch the two-time Home Run Derby winner.

“Take that bat back out, rookie.”

I turn around so fast, my foot catches in the strap of my bag. Strong hands wrap around my forearms. Long fingers linger, burning his fingerprints into my sore muscles.

“One of us wasn’t hours late to practice.” Somehow, I summon enough sass to disguise that breathless tightness in my chest.

“You could have been. I’ll have you know, my mom and niece both gave me a hard time about letting you run out without breakfast.”

“Did you want me to stay?” It should be a moot point.

“I wouldn’t have woken up early to start breakfast, if I hadn’t planned to feed you, rookie. I didn’t ask you to stay last night because I was trying to make something happen–”

“Because we’re just a couple athletes too focused on our careers to have social lives, and we just got carried away with a little bit of intimacy?”

He squeezes my arms and rolls his eyes.

“Because you don’t date ballplayers.” He doesn’t have to use air quotes when they’re that obvious in his tone.

I can’t deny the number of times I have said those exact words to him. Too much of a coward to question his intent in quoting me, I respond with a half-truth instead.

“I don’t regret staying.” The late afternoon wind blows my hair. Before I can swipe away the hair sticking to my lip, Reyes’ fingers are there. Featherlight. I feel the static shock of him drifting over my cheek more than I feel his actual fingers. “Or what happened after I stayed.”

“Do we have all that out of the way? Back to normal?” His fingers still cup my cheek as I nod. “Good. Grab your bat.”

“You’re the one who needs to practice.”

“Ramirez, I have over a decade of muscle memory on you.” His laugh makes my stomach flutter, but at least he moves far enough away for me to think straight, without his scent of leather and tropical sun clouding my thoughts. “And don’t take this the wrong way, but you need the practice.”

“Hard not to take that the wrong way.”

I grumble but don’t take offense. While there’s a point of diminishing return to practicing more, I know that I’m nowhere near it. My body feels good. My mind is clear. I didn’t get this far by turning down opportunities to practice with players and coaches who can see my weaknesses better than I can. If I hadn’t learned long ago that this isn’t a sport for the weak of heart, that it has no mercy for fear of failure, my brief stint in Texas would have made that glaringly clear. Those toxic few months probably would have broken me.

The hard look Reyes gives my bat is worth a thousand words, but I can’t read any of them. He crosses the length of the cage to reset the automatic feeding pitching machine, and I try to focus on my set-up instead of the way his hamstrings flex and his ass makes that grey material work.

I don’t try that hard. Whatever we are–or aren’t–and whatever shouldn’t be happening between us, there’s no harm in a little appreciation when his back is turned.

“Ready?”

The question pulls me back to the present. Right foot. Left foot. Tip of the bat to the center of the plate. By the time I square up for the first pitch, Reyes is back behind me with the pitching machine remote in hand. I half-expect him to offer some critique, but he is a silent statue observing as the ball launches toward me.

“Don’t hold back now, just because I’m here,” Reyes says after I send the first blur of white leather skittering over the turf.

I don’t argue that it was a clean hit. I set up for the next pitch without looking over my shoulder, no matter how much I want to return the stare that’s boring into my back with too much intensity.

The next hit is much the same. Solid impact. Straight down the line.

“Am I making you nervous?” he asks while I balance the bat over my shoulder and wait.

“No–” I step back and chance a glance in his direction.

“Good. Stop hitting like I am, then.”

I roll my eyes and pretend that made sense. Another fast ball. Another grounder.

“We’re going to keep this up until you hit like I know you can.”

I step completely away from the plate and stretch with the bat across both shoulders. Reyes’ expression is unreadable. His usual stoic self.

“Not to sound ungrateful,” I say, absolutely sounding ungrateful, “but I’m going to need you to say something a lot less cryptic, and just tell me what you’re trying to get me to do.”

“You’re cute like that.” His olive-brown cheeks flush deeply enough that I know he didn’t mean to say it out loud. Maybe not at all.

“You did not just tell me I’m cute when I’m mad–”

“Nobody said anything about mad, rookie. I meant when you’re–” he pauses with a sheepish grin that adds youth to his face. “When you’re telling me what to do.”

Rolling my eyes, I turn away before that close-lipped smile can make me embarrass myself again. The ball doesn’t come. Reyes leaves me there waiting until I lower my bat and give into that need to look at him again.

“This isn’t a game. There’s no pressure. Stop trying to hit it safe, and show me what we both know you can do.”

He drags his fingers through his hair and pulls his ballcap low over his eyes. When I stand there glaring at his assessment, he raises one hand and makes a twirling motion with his index finger. It’s a small move, full of that joking and endearing not-quite-condescension. There is no reason it should be so hot.

The next pitch finally flies, and I ignore every hitting coach who has ever told me to just try for a base hit. I ignore the malicious snickers still haunting me from a field half a country away.

I square up and swing for the fences.

“Again.” Reyes doesn’t give me time to revel in the thought that I’ve proven him wrong. He lets the next pitch fly before the chain-links have stopped rattling.

The next one sails higher, farther, smoother. Three more in quick succession.

“Why’d it take catching you alone at the batting cage for me to find out you could hit like this?” He moves up behind me, but when I try to pivot, he catches my hips between his palms.

“Because I basically just do batting practice for fun?” I shrug, and lean into the way his hands settle a little lower. A little tighter. Fingers squeezing me through spandex. “I could count the number of games I’ve been in the line-up since high school on one hand.”

“Maybe if you let people see you hit like this, that would change.”

The temptation to lean back and feel the hard support of his chest is dangerously strong. The breeze has died down, and my skin is sticky with sweat and sunscreen residue; the last thing I should want is another body wrapped around mine.

“Don’t pretend it’s that simple.” I try to argue, but he closes that tiny distance between us and interrupts me. His hands still settle almost demurely on my hips, but his body presses against mine. His chest firm against my back. His breath hot and spearmint-scented on my neck.

“Shhhh,” he says, and I should find that infuriating. “Square up.”

I obey. Like the diamond and the dugout, this is his space to be in control, no matter how badly I desire to take that control back the moment we’re off the field.

“Don’t choke up so much.” He’s still pressed against me. His sigh teases the hair at the back of my neck when I don’t immediately adjust my grip. “Am I still being too cryptic, rookie?”

“You know why I choke up on the bat, Reyes.”

“You aren’t in the middle of a game against a pitcher with a great breaking ball. It’s a pitching machine, Ramirez. Move your fucking grip down.”

I comply to the minimum degree. Half an inch, I slide my grip down the handle.

“Really?”

“Get out of the box and let me hit, Reyes.”

Laughing low and slow just behind my ear, so close that I can feel that tiny bit of fat on his belly shake, Reyes reminds me that here he is still in control. His hands coast up my sides, fingers tickling my obliques. The tease stops shy of my breasts; he barely grazes the band of my sports bra, and the sudden loss of his fingers leaves me aching for more.

Hands wrap around my own, sliding my grip away from the barrel of the bat. The movement makes me swallow hard. The suggestion of his hands guiding mine along a very different length. The thought of wrapping my fingers along a very different hardness, of edging until he tries to grip my hand, begging and urging me to move faster–

“Ready?” His question rasps like a wave crashing on white sand beaches. I’m tempted to arch into him. To brush my hips back for the confirmation that he is as flustered by thoughts of what I could be stroking as I am.

I bump my ass to push him out of the batter box and wait for the pitch to come.