Playing Hardball Read online

  An Ellora’s Cave Romantica Publication

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  Playing Hardball

  ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

  Playing Hardball Copyright © 2009 Madison Hayes

  Edited by Pamela Campbell.

  Cover art by Syneca.

  Electronic book Publication March 2009

  The terms Romantica® and Quickies® are registered trademarks of Ellora’s Cave Publishing.

  With the exception of quotes used in reviews, this book may not be reproduced or used in whole or in part by any means existing without written permission from the publisher, Ellora’s Cave Publishing, Inc.® 1056 Home Avenue, Akron OH 44310-3502.

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  This book is a work of fiction and any resemblance to persons, living or dead, or places, events or locales is purely coincidental. The characters are productions of the authors’ imagination and used fictitiously.

  Playing Hardball

  Madison Hayes

  Trademarks Acknowledgement

  The author acknowledges the trademarked status and trademark owners of the following wordmarks mentioned in this work of fiction:

  Hummer: General Motors Corporation

  Chapter One

  Colt straddled the wooden bench that ran the length of the dugout he shared with his brothers, Cord and Bolt, as well as his sister’s husband, Dalton. He lifted his beer to his mouth and took a long swallow. As the chilled liquid scoured an icy path down his throat, he plunked the glass bottle down between his legs. Absently, he gazed at the golden brew while his thoughts gravitated to his wife of ten months. Renny had left four days earlier on a business trip and Colt was ready for her to be back. He missed her. He wished she could have been there that afternoon to see his grand slam that had clinched the game.

  Letting a sigh hiss slowly through his teeth, he shook off his somber mood and transferred his gaze to his oldest brother. Bolt had come up from Santa Fe for the weekend to fill in for one of their teammates who’d sprained his ankle. Naturally he’d brought Tavia and the baby along with him. They were bunking with April and Dalton.

  With Bolt’s help, their recreational league baseball team had won the first game of their spring tournament. After their victory, as the rest of their teammates had sauntered off, Bolt, Cord and Dalton had walked their wives across the field to the parking lot. Tavia had been anxious to get Royal out of the sun and the wind. The two-month-old boy had swiftly captured all the female hearts in the family and of course all of the women had wanted to go home with him so they’d packed Cindy and April, along with the baby, in the back seat of Tavia’s Hummer. With Tavia driving, the girls had headed off across town. But not before Bolt had retrieved a cooler full of beer from the back of the Hummer.

  Swinging the big red cooler in one hand, he’d carried it back to the dugout where they’d discussed their victory in considerable detail. Afterward they’d drawn up the roster for Sunday’s game, deciding that Dalton would play short again and Bolt would replace Colt as catcher while Colt took his place on the mound. Of course, Cord would be on first base as usual, wearing his cowboy hat instead of his baseball cap, if he could get away with it two days in a row.

  Colt rubbed a hand over his thigh and brushed away some of the dirt he’d picked up on his last slide into home. Lifting his head, he checked out his brothers’ gray uniforms which didn’t look any better. After his face-first slide into second, Cord even had some of the red ballpark dirt darkening his hair.

  Dirt couldn’t do much to darken Colt’s collar-length hair which was as black as the crack of hell. At least that’s how Bolt described it. Both of his older brothers had thick brown hair bleached blond by the sun while his sister April’s hair was a long sheet of orange fire. And though both Cord and April had green eyes like his, their irises didn’t have the heavy flecks of gold that Colt had inherited from his mother.

  As Colt lifted the bottle to his lips again, Cord sent him a quick wink from where he leaned against the dugout fence. Without any further warning, he slid his gaze toward Bolt, who was seated at the far end of the bench, his long legs stretched partially out the doorway. “How does it feel to be number two in Tavia’s life?” Cord asked.

  “What are you talking about?” Bolt drawled as though disgusted anyone would suggest such a thing. “I’m not number two.”

  “No?” Cord challenged him.

  “Are you kidding?” he snorted, jabbing a thumb at his pinstriped chest. “I’m the guy responsible for making number one. Tavia couldn’t be happier. Or more grateful. And, when it comes to handing out the ‘thank yous’, that woman of mine holds nothing back.”

  “Yeah?” Cord taunted him while sending Colt another sly look. “So, if Royal is Tavia’s number one, then what does that make you?”

  “One and a half,” Bolt said, his square chin lifting resolutely while Cord laughed. “A very firm one and a half. But I’m hoping to worm my way back into first place when the kid gets older.”

  “Older?” Cord asked, reaching up to resettle his straw cowboy hat on his head.

  “I’m thinking eighteen,” Bolt confessed without rancor.

  “He sure is a tiny thing,” Dalton pointed out after the men had a good chuckle at Bolt’s expense.

  “He’ll grow,” Bolt grunted certainly as he slanted a look at April’s husband, sitting beside him. “He’s got big genes.”

  “Well, in the meantime, aren’t you scared to death of dropping him?” Dalton asked, his teeth flashing white in the shady dugout.

  Bolt rolled his doublewide shoulders and grinned. “Nah. I just pretend I’m carrying a football. I’ve never dropped a football.”

  “You don’t do too badly with baseballs, either,” Cord said, his smile revealing the warm glow of pride he felt for his sibling. “That was a hell of a snag you made on that line drive.”

  Bolt squinted at his brother, whose thick brush of sun-streaked hair was so much like his own. “Which one?”

  Cord lifted his bottle toward the mound in the middle of the baseball diamond. “Third inning.”

  “You didn’t do too bad, yourself,” Bolt grunted absently, his gaze drifting down the first-base line, “tagging the base before the runner could make it back.”

  Cord gave his hand a shake and grimaced. “You about put that ball right through my mitt.”

  But Bolt’s attention had wandered. His gaze was fixed on a slim figure making her way across the outfield toward them. “Isn’t that your Renny?” he murmured without looking at Colt.

  Colt narrowed his eyes on Renny, her tangled mass of light brown hair lifting in the breeze and tumbling over her shoulders. She was a sight for sore eyes and his cock responded with a lusty surge that was pretty damn inconvenient, considering he was wearing an athletic cup. Suddenly the rigid cup felt two sizes too small.

  Shifting his lanky frame into a loose-limbed saunter, Cord stepped outside the dugout and braced his shoulder against the other side of the fence. He squinted against the setting afternoon sun and peered at Renny as she swept toward them. “She looks pissed,” he said as though suggesting it might rain.

  Colt gave Cord a worried look then retu
rned his gaze to Renny. She did look angry. And Colt had been hoping to avoid angry. Maybe it had been a mistake to suggest she take a taxi home from the airport.

  Bolt whistled as he stared at her slender legs swinging beneath a short jacket that didn’t quite reach the hem of a skirt…which was a long way from reaching her knees. In fact, it barely covered her white lace thigh-highs. She’d taken to wearing those skimpy skirts now that she was the fashion icon for Campus Miss and their Miss September clothing line. Colt liked the little plaid skirts well enough. He liked the view. He just didn’t much care for sharing the view with everyone else. He threw a leg over the bench and got to his feet, his cleats digging into the sandy soil as he paced alongside the bench toward the opening in the dugout. “Quit ogling my woman,” he grunted as he passed Bolt.

  “I see you took my advice,” Bolt snickered, his gaze snagging on the four-inch heels Renny was wearing, “and got her some shoes with ankle straps.”

  “They look good on her,” Cord offered in a speculative drawl.

  “How do women walk in those heels?” Dalton queried, shaking his head then lifting a hand to sweep his brown hair from his brow.

  “I don’t know how they do it but I sure as hell love it,” Bolt murmured.

  As the men watched, Renny marched right up to Colt. When he snaked an arm toward her waist, meaning to draw her into his side, she caught his outstretched hand and slapped her gold wedding band into his palm. Then she pivoted on her four-inch heels and stalked back toward the parking lot.

  For several seconds, Colt stared at her back, his emotions a jumble of panic and dread. He’d been afraid of this. Half expecting it even. But now that it was here, he hardly knew what to do about it.

  “You just gonna let her walk away?” Bolt rumbled, his gold eyes glinting, his timely question shaking Colt out of his daze.

  “Hell no,” Colt growled. Hell no, he wasn’t going let that woman just walk out of his life. He slanted his gaze at Dalton and barked, “You got a clean pair of socks in your sports bag?”

  Dalton hesitated, his blue-green eyes widening as though Colt’s question had startled him. Swiftly gathering his wits, he reached for his navy blue bag. “I think so.”

  “Bolt,” Colt commanded, flicking his gaze at his brother. “Stop her.”

  With a low, lion-like snarl of glee, Bolt rolled up onto his feet, slipped out through the open doorway and jogged down the first-base line in pursuit of Colt’s wife. When he caught up with her, he hefted a squealing Renny over his shoulder. As she struggled in his hold, Colt caught a brief, mouthwatering glimpse of her black panties. As soon as she was able to free her arms, she reached back with both hands and frantically pulled her tiny skirt tight against her bottom.

  With a huge shit-eating grin on his face, Bolt carried her back toward the dugout. As Bolt gently set her on her feet in the doorway, Colt was waiting for her. In his hand were two long, white socks. He slapped them against his thigh.

  “You need a hand with her?” Bolt rumbled as a disheveled Renny scurried behind the bench and backed away. With her spine pressed against the fence at the rear of the dugout and her tumble of light brown hair spilling across her face, she sent a resentful look between the brothers.

  “If you don’t mind,” Colt answered, keeping his gaze on his wife’s mouth, where several strands of her hair had caught on her soft, pink lips.

  As Colt watched, Bolt carefully caged one of her delicate wrists in his big mitt and pinned it above her head. Cord took care of the other one. Together, the two men held her firmly against the wire fencing while Colt stepped in front of her.

  “Bolt!” she cried. “Why are you helping him?”

  Bolt made a rude sound in the back of his throat. “I’m not helping him! I’m helping you, darlin’. You and Colt need to talk this thing out between yourselves. When you’re done talkin’, come on back to Dalton’s. I’ll make sure that you get an even playing field when it’s payback time.”

  “Payback time?” Colt muttered while arching an eyebrow at his brother. “What the hell are you talking about?”

  “She sure is a skinny thing,” Cord grunted before Bolt could provide an answer to Colt’s question. “Renny, you need to put some meat on these bones.”

  “I like her just the way she is,” Colt growled as he went to work on his wife and completely wrapped Renny’s wrist in the soft sock, making sure her skin was protected before he tied her to the fence.

  Dalton chuckled as he watched. “You guys really play hardball with your women.”

  Bolt was on his knees at her feet. One large hand held her foot immobile while the other fumbled with the thin leather strap that circled her ankle. “You want both her legs strapped down?”

  “Bolt,” she squealed from behind the light veil of hair that fell across her face. “Don’t you dare!”

  Ignoring her, he snaked the shiny leather ankle strap through the fence and buckled her in. After testing the shoe to make sure she couldn’t get loose, he grinned up at her.

  “Bolt,” she shrilled as he reached for her other foot. “At least leave me one leg to kick him with.”

  Bolt squinted up at Cord. “What do you think, Cord?”

  “That sounds fair enough,” Cord drawled, his green eyes sparkling with humor.

  As Colt secured her other wrist, his brothers stepped away from her. “We’ll see you at Dalton’s place,” Bolt said as the men collected their gear and sauntered through the dugout door.

  Finally alone with his wife, Colt stood before her and raked his gaze down her slender body while he slowly, deliberately, unbuttoned his baseball pants. Reaching inside, he popped the snaps at the top of his jock strap and worked the cup out of the pocket. He groaned as his cock unwound and stretched inside the elastic pocket, testing the limits of the stretchy white fabric. With one hand, he rearranged his length then pushed the top of the jock strap down, allowing his dark cock head to poke out the top. Reaching inside, he stroked himself while he waited for Renny to lash out.

  His little pixie was so cute. When she kicked, she aimed for his shins. She didn’t really want to hurt him and she certainly knew better than to damage his goods. He caught her by the ankle, folded her leg and settled her knee high between his thighs. With a careful jerk, he nudged her knee up beneath his sex. “If you want to stop a man,” he advised her, “you don’t aim for his shins.”

  “This isn’t fair!” she exclaimed, her bottom lip puffing out into a sulky pout. “You know I don’t want to hurt you.”

  “No?” he murmured, reaching up with his free hand and jamming her wedding band down her finger. He tugged away the strands of hair that were caught on her moist lips then gently rubbed his thumb against the corner of her mouth. “I’m guessing you don’t really want to stop me either,” he growled softly. He lifted her knee with a short jerk and rubbed it into his sac. The sensation of that slim, dangerously hard knee tucked against his balls sent a surge of excitement through his groin, thickening his blood with a delicious thrill of urgency that felt too damn good for words.

  Her annoyed glare narrowed first on her ring finger then on him. “As if you care!” she spat.

  “Oh, I care,” he rasped as he angled her leg upward and pressed the folded limb tight against her body.

  “Colt!” she squeaked as his hand scraped inside the leg of her panties and over her ass, straight to the soft, damp stuff between her legs. “That’s playing dirty!”

  The feel of her dainty, ruffled sex made him feel tight, right from his heart down to his balls. “Oh baby, you have no idea exactly how dirty this is going to get.”

  “You’re not going to…” she wailed without finishing the sentence. “Not here, where anyone can see.”

  He flicked his gaze over his shoulder. “The road is three hundred feet away. Nobody’s gonna see any of the details. If they happen to look this way, they’ll just get a general idea of what’s going on.”

  “And what are they going to see?” she q
uavered, her beautiful blue eyes round with panic.

  “A man who is deeply, irrationally, hopelessly in love…fucking his wife,” he rumbled in answer, his fingers trailing through the delicate folds between her legs.

  “Yeah?” she cried, trying vainly to squirm away from the intrusive drag of his fingers in her pussy. “Well, if you love me so much, why couldn’t you be bothered to come down to the airport and pick me up after your baseball game instead of leaving Layla and me to take a taxi?”

  He didn’t tell her why. He didn’t tell her how badly he wanted to be with her every minute of the day. Instead, he covered her mouth with his. The kiss—a violent slash of eating lips and grazing teeth—silenced her pretty damn effectively as deep, bear-like sounds rolled up from his chest. With his mouth dominating hers, he worked on the buttons of her lightweight coat then attacked her starched cotton blouse. Only when he had her chest bared did he desert her lips to bury his face between the petite tits he’d come to adore.

  They were so exquisitely sensitive. His wife might have small breasts, but they were the sluttiest damn things he’d ever seen, her nipples shooting up like bullets at the slightest provocation. More than anything in the world, he loved to suck on her tits until she begged for his cock in her pussy.

  “This isn’t the first time you’ve acted as if you couldn’t care less about being with me,” she complained breathlessly.

  He didn’t answer. Her comment just made him feel more irritated and edgy. He stripped the cup of her lacey bra down below the small weight of her breast and sucked one of those nail-hard nipples into his mouth.

  “You couldn’t be bothered with the bikini photo shoot in California,” she panted petulantly.

  He clenched his teeth. The bikini photo shoot. If she only knew how hard it had been for him to give up a photo shoot featuring his wife outfitted in a tiny bikini! “I had to work,” he growled as he worked his mouth over her puffy, rose-colored nipple.