Chapter 4 #2
A silence as thick as the humidity hung between us after my honesty. Clearing my throat, I took out my tape recorder and went to turn it on, a feeble attempt at getting us back on track.
But then Cash leaned forward and used his index finger to block the button.
I should have balked at the gesture. We weren’t here for a friendly conversation but a professional interview. And yet Sawyer had just been rubbing my neck with ice, so who the hell was I pretending for?
“So you see baseball as a form of poetry too?” Cash asked.
I hesitated, used to the buffer of the recorder. My interview subjects, however, appeared even more relaxed than usual. As if they wanted whatever we said next to exist only for the three of us and not public consumption.
Sliding the tape recorder back in my bag, I re-met their eyes with a shy smile.
“I’ve always thought of baseball in that way,” I admitted. “This game feels like…it feels like freedom to me. When I played as a kid, I would long for just one more inning. Just one more pitch, one more throw, one more run. Anything to stay in that moment. I wanted to live in it forever.”
Sawyer grinned. “I knew it. I fucking knew you used to play.”
I laughed. “Street leagues. Running bases at whatever park in South Philly we could sneak onto until someone official kicked us out. It was always co-ed, whoever wanted to play, all different ages. I never played formally in school.”
“Why not?” Cash asked.
“Didn’t wanna ruin it,” I said. “Didn’t want to take this thing I loved from its wild and lawless beginnings and have it get turned into something overly-scheduled and strenuous. Besides, what I was really born to do was write about it.”
“Huh.” Cash scratched a hand across the top of his head. “I never thought about it that way. But once you go pro…you’re right. It’ll never be the same as throwing a ball around with your friends and barely keeping score.”
My gaze drifted to his pitching shoulder, wrapped in ice. “They can work you harder in the pros too.”
Cash blushed beneath my stare. “I had a rough game last night. Just feeling a little tired is all.”
“You wouldn’t be this tired if they didn’t start you every goddamn time,” Sawyer muttered. “It’s like they wanna burn his shoulder out on purpose.”
Cash sighed. “He worries too much.”
“And you’re being too accommodating,” Sawyer replied.
“I want to start every game,” Cash said. “Just like I know you wanna be at first base every single time.”
Sawyer looked to me for help. “But the thing is, I don’t have to rocket my arm off the whole damn game. You do.”
“Sawyer.” Cash looked exasperated though his smile was teasing. “What do you want then, huh? For me not to play?” He nudged Sawyer’s knee, trying to get him to smile back. “I can take care of myself out there. You know I’m right about this. I always am.”
Sawyer rubbed his jaw, his lips quirking up with amusement. “You see what I have to deal with, Darcy? The man’s all mouth, no respect.”
I twirled my pen between my fingers. “And I thought you were the cocky one and Cash was the sweet one.”
Cash cocked a haughty brow. “Who told you I was always the sweet one?”
That’s when we heard another crack followed by a flurry of agitated yelling.
In slow motion, I watched both of their faces tighten in alarm. And then, before I knew what was happening, Sawyer grabbed my hand and yanked me forward, covering my head and back with his upper body.
There was a sharp thud and Sawyer swore softly.
But I was only aware of the fact that my body was wedged between his legs, my head resting against his thigh. I heard the harsh edge in Cash’s voice, admonishing someone out on the field. Then there were hands. Two sets that I couldn’t tell apart.
Large palms slid up and down my back. A hand scooped back my curls, nails scraping against my scalp. Fingers gripped my chin and tilted my face up until I was staring into Sawyer’s dark, worried eyes.
“You okay, ace?” he asked in a rush, tipping my head, searching for injuries. My heart was a wild animal inside my chest, clawing at my rib cage. I couldn’t get a full breath.
“Yeah, yeah, I’m fine. At least I think so,” I muttered. “What the hell happened?”
Cash was kneeling next to me. He had one hand on Sawyer’s knee while one hand held the back of my neck.
“Rogue ball,” he said, voice tight. “See for yourself.”
I looked up, and there was a baseball embedded in the wall not six inches from Sawyer’s face. Exactly where the back of my head would have been – if Sawyer hadn’t grabbed me.
“Holy shit,” I gasped. “So those fast reflexes are for real, huh?”
“They don’t call me the best for nothin’,” Sawyer chuckled, but there was a grim determination in his voice. “You sure you’re okay?”
Arousal and adrenaline sang in my veins.
I was on my knees in front of Sawyer. My shoulders were bracketed by his powerful thighs while his fingers grasped my chin, pulling my gaze upward.
Cash’s hands continued to move through my hair, searching for hidden injuries, but I was only aware of every tug and pull on the strands.
“I didn’t get hit,” I said to Sawyer, trying for a smile. “You can tell Cash to stop looking back there. Even if I had, I’ve got too much hair for anyone to notice.”
“It’s like a lion’s mane, Darcy,” Cash murmured near my ear. “Never seen hair this pretty in my life.”
Sawyer clicked his tongue. “Not even mine?”
Cash hummed his amusement. “Stop trying to pretend like you weren’t stunned stupid the first time you laid eyes on her. I remember how goofy you were after.”
Suddenly I was the one who was stunned stupid. I couldn’t swallow, couldn’t breathe. Was trapped between their bodies and completely at their mercy.
Sawyer’s thumb stroked lightly across my bottom lip and every nerve ending lit up like an inferno.
“He’s not lying, ace.” Sawyer said in a hushed voice. “I locked eyes with you in that parking lot and forgot my own goddamn name.”
Cash was very deliberately wrapping my hair around his fingers. So slowly I almost didn’t notice until the tug against my scalp sent even more heat coursing between my legs. If Sawyer’s thighs weren’t squeezing so tight — if Cash’s sudden grip wasn’t so commanding — I would have toppled over.
Would have done a lot of things, really, pliant and eager and almost unbearably turned on.
My mind blazed with an image: my mouth sliding down Sawyer’s cock as Cash held my hair back, guiding me forward. Teaching me how Sawyer liked it, what made this cocky, wicked man fall to pieces.
Take it just like that, Cash would demand. And don’t you dare fucking stop.
“But see, I knew we were in trouble when Cash arrived a few minutes later,” Sawyer said, still referring to the first night we’d met. “There’s this look he gets, when he sees somethin’ he wants. A look that says you’re mine. No argument.”
His fingers left my chin and traced down the front of my throat where I knew he could feel me trembling. “The only time in my life I’d seen that look was the very first moment he laid eyes on me.”
My back was pressed to Cash’s giant chest, enveloping me in his body heat. And somehow in the midst of my fall — and Cash’s dutiful examination — his cock had ended up notched between my legs. Long and so hard I wanted to shamelessly rub against it.
A strangled moan fell from my lips and his cock twitched. The hold in my hair tightened again. Cash pulsed his hips up an inch — a barely-there thrust — and I whimpered.
Cash sighed into the nape of my neck. “Jesus Christ, Darcy, the things I would do to hear you make that sound again. A man can only take so much.”
Sawyer was watching all of this with a dark amusement. His hand gently encircled my neck. “You see? You’ve already got him wrapped around your little finger and you don’t even know it. Because the second time I saw that look…was the first time he laid eyes on you.”