Epilogue #2
She grabs it, checks the screen, then says she has to take it. She signs something to Devon, who nods, and then gives me a quick goodbye wave before they leave the shop together.
I sigh, shrugging. “What can you do?”
But as I make my way out of the café, I keep wondering if, with that surname, she’s related to my friend.
And whether I have the guts to ask him.
When Saturday night rolls around, I decide to quiz Ransom after the fundraiser ends. But it turns out I don’t need to.
Because the next time I hear the name Tempest North, it’s when I learn that she was the bidder on the phone during my turn at the auction.
And she’s won a date with me.
Tempest
The night of the auction
I’m due at the theater at seven thirty for an eight o’clock curtain. As soon as Ransom slides into his Lyft, I turn to my trusty companion.
My phone.
As I march to the theater district, I search for the details on the auction tonight.
The names of the players.
How it works.
And what to do if you can’t be there.
As I cross Fifth Avenue, I learn you can buy a virtual ticket. And you can place a virtual bid. And you can set your bidding limits.
I flash back to Thursday.
To randomly meeting the Yankees pitcher, to that crackle of connection I felt with him, and to that moment at the end.
When I was sure he was asking for my number, for a way to reach out and see me again.
But then I had to dash.
Now, I’ve learned that guy is Marty Boy—my brother’s friend—and he’s going to be up for auction tonight, a date with him going to the highest bidder.
I draw a deep breath, letting it fuel this crazy decision.
I reach another crosswalk and stop to wait at the light.
I have the money. That email from my agent made it damn clear I have plenty to spend.
And it goes to a good cause—his charity of choice supports athletic programs for disadvantaged youth.
Why shouldn’t I do this?
Why the hell not?
It’s been a while since I met someone I clicked with.
As in, years. Most men I meet are flummoxed by my twin careers—they don’t know what to make of them or how to accommodate my crazy schedule.
I’m either feverishly penning columns and books, studying the market, or prepping to interpret.
It’s hard to make time for a date, let alone for browsing the apps trying to meet someone.
This seems like going from zero to sixty on the find-a-date highway, but if there was ever a time to go for it, it’s now.
I felt the chemistry, the connection.
I fill out the form, consider what I’d be willing to spend, and enter the numbers.
Then I add another zero.
There. Done. I turn my phone off, drop it in my purse, and ignore it until Hamilton dies.
As I make my way out of the theater, I turn on my phone, and a message blares at me from the auction organizers.
A burst of excitement flares inside my chest.
I hold my breath as I click open the text, hoping it’s good news.
You’ve won a date with Adrian Martinez.
It’s the best of news.
And I can’t wait.
Martinez
A few days later
The door to the bullpen swings open, and I jog across the field, wiggling my hand in my well-worn glove then adjusting the bill of my cap, as is my custom.
When I reach the pitcher’s mound, the music crests, the crowd roars, and I nod to Jose Carnale, who’s waiting there, his mask pushed back from his face.
We go over the pitches for the guy at the plate—Baltimore’s slugger has been belting homers all season, not to mention plenty of doubles that send runners home. With a man on second, another on first, and only one run keeping us ahead, there is no room for error.
No room to let the runners move around the bases.
“Get ’em with the cutter,” he says, then claps me on the back and trots to home plate.
I inhale deeply and visualize my ninety-eight-miles-per-hour cut fastball whizzing across the plate, teasing the batter and making him think it’ll be straight down the middle.
But it’ll veer to the outside corner, breaking at just the last second.
As I go into the windup, then throw the first pitch, it breaks beautifully, tricking the batter in a futile swing.
And that’s how it goes for all three batters.
The first one strikes out looking, the next swinging, and the third pops up a lazy fly ball to first.
I record my thirtieth save of the season, we wrap up the home stand, and I eventually shower and make my way out of the stadium, finding my driver easily and heading away from the Bronx. But I don’t go to my home off of Park Avenue.
Instead, I stop at a quiet restaurant in the East Nineties, a ramen joint that’s up a flight of stairs and around a corner. The type of place with so many dark nooks it might as well invest in them.
Once I’m there, the hostess shows me to a quiet corner table, and my pulse spikes when I see the brunette with the blue glasses.
Spikes so much higher and faster than when I’m on the mound.
Tempest rises, smiles, and says, “Nice save, Tree.”
“Nice job watching my game,” I say, then slide a hand around her waist, my fingers skimming over her lower back.
She murmurs, slinking closer to me. “Who said I watched it? Maybe I just looked up the stats online to impress you.”
I grin, yanking her closer, her firm, lush body pressed against mine. “I’m impressed, then. So very impressed, mi querida.”
She trembles as I call her my darling. “Fine, maybe I did watch. Also, I love when you talk to me in other languages.”
I tuck a finger under her chin, lifting her face so our eyes meet. “Then I’ll keep doing it. But first did you enjoy what you saw when you watched me?”
“A little. I think maybe I enjoy the feel of you a little more.”
I shake my head in admiration. This woman. Her appetite. It matches mine perfectly.
That I discovered earlier this week when we met for lunch after she won me. The meal was good. The dessert of her was even better.
I experienced it again the next day when we met in the park and walked for an hour, talking about pizza and cats and New York and growing up mostly in Spain, a bit in Italy, and now and then in France, as well as her family and her fascinating careers , then decided being horizontal would be more fun than being upright.
And it was. Oh hell, yes, it was.
Now I have the distinct feeling she wants that again.
“Tempest, are you trying to distract me from eating?”
Her lips curve into a naughty grin. “Oh, no. I don’t want to distract you from eating at all.”
“So deliciously dirty,” I tell her, then, in the middle of the tiny hole-in-the-wall restaurant, I haul her in for a kiss. I gather her close, bend my knees, since she’s a little shorter, and brush my lips against hers.
It starts chastely, as far as kisses go with women you already adore.
But it doesn’t stay chaste for long.
She loops her arms around my neck. I wrap mine tighter around her waist, and I draw her snug against me, all while kissing her more deeply, more passionately, with more tongue and teeth and fire.
She’s heating me up with her sexy sighs, her soft skin, and the way she melts into my touch, her body liquid against mine.
When I break the kiss, she nibbles on the corner of her lips. “Hungry?”
“I am ravenous,” I tell her.
We head to the hostess stand, place an order for delivery, and then book it to my place a few blocks away.
Once inside my penthouse, I press her against the wall.
“Cuore mio,” I whisper. “Italian for my heart. I thought about you all day, cuore mio.”
“Not while you were on the mound in the ninth,” she says, grabbing at my shirt and tugging it over my head.
“Fine, not then. You caught me on a technicality,” I say, stripping off her skirt then pulling at her shirt. “But the rest of the day.”
“All day? That’s a long time to be thinking of me.”
I growl, reach for her wrists, and pin them over her head. I slam my pelvis against her, letting her feel the length of me, the truth of my desire for her. “Does it feel like I’m lying?”
She groans, shaking her head. “No, but you can show me the proof just to be sure.”
And I do just that. Unhooking her bra. Tugging off her panties.
Finding a condom and then fucking her.
Hard, beautifully, and passionately up against the wall.
“So fucking gorgeous,” I groan.
“Harder, more,” she urges.
“And so greedy, mi querida. So greedy when you want my cock . . . deep in you.”
“I do, oh God, I do,” she murmurs as I thrust deeper, stroke faster, and slide my fingers between her legs and over that delicious rise of her, where she wants me the most.
“Oh, yes you do, and you’ll get it. I’ll make you come so damn hard.”
A minute later, she’s crying out, shouting, babbling, groaning as she comes apart.
And I follow her there, shuddering, cursing as an orgasm wracks my body.
After we clean up, I take her in my arms and ask her to spend the night.
She says yes.
The next night, after Fitz’s wedding, she meets me here too, and we do it again and again and again.
As she curls up beside me in bed after midnight, she says, “I should tell my brother about us.”
“Yes, you should tell him you won me and had to have me. And now I have to have you over and over.”
“Is that what I should say?” she asks with a sassy lift of her brow.
“Maybe not all that,” I tease, running my fingers down her waist. “But we should let him know I’ll be seeing you as much as I possibly can—it seems I’m already addicted to you.”
“And you haven’t even had your official date with me yet,” she says.
I shrug happily, draw her close, and drop a kiss onto her forehead. “When you know, you know.”
And I know that there’s something between us.
A few days later, we go on a double date, of all things.
We take pictures for social media. We tag each other and offer cute write-ups about the auction and the charities, snapping pictures as we walk through the Museum of Natural History, then watch a sunset in the park and drink milkshakes.
At the end of the night, as the four of us wander through the park, I fall back with Ransom while Teagan and Tempest move ahead. “Don’t think for a second this changes anything between you and me.”
The hockey star scoffs. “It changes nothing, asshole.”
“Not a damn thing, you ugly bastard.”
Hearing us, Tempest shrugs, and Teagan laughs, saying, “Boys will be boys.”
And that’s fine by me.
Then I say to my buddy, “By the way, about that bet . . . I’m glad you won.”
He shoots me a look. “You are? Even though you had to pay up?”
“Crazy, I know. But I could tell you liked her. I could tell you wanted to be with her.” I shrug. “Maybe you needed a little competitive nudge.”
“Maybe I did,” he says. “Thanks for giving it to me. She’s pretty amazing.”
“She is, and don’t you ever lose sight of that.”
“I’ll do my best. Also, asshole, same for you with my sister.”
“Don’t worry, Puck Boy. I’ll take good care of the woman I’m already falling in love with.”
Ransom offers a fist for knocking, and I knock back.
Life is very, very good.
I’d like to tell that reporter that it’s only gotten better since the day he interviewed me.
Especially since later that night when we’re alone, she loops her arms around me, and asks if I can dirty talk to her in French too.
“Mais oui, mon cheri.”
And then I slide into that language, tell her all the filthy things I’ll do to her, then show her too.
Soon after that, I say something else. Something sweet, rather than dirty.
Tempest, je t’aime.
Which I plan on saying in every language.
Keep flipping pages for the next story in this collection!