Playing Hardball Read online

  “He told her to fuck off,” Bolt offered bluntly. “But when he didn’t rat her out to you, she obviously took it as encouragement. She won’t leave him alone.”

  “And that’s why you’ve refused to go to any of the company functions or anywhere…that Layla was scheduled to be?” she stated faintly, her lowered gaze fixed on the charcoal gray carpet at her feet.

  “Oh, honey,” Colt explained, his heart lodged in his throat so hard that it hurt, “I’m sorry. I thought that I could just avoid her for a few months until she got the message. Until she got a chance to get to know you the way I do. And maybe that way…maybe that way…”

  “Maybe that way, I wouldn’t have to know about it?” she suggested as she lifted her gaze back to his eyes. “Maybe that way I wouldn’t get hurt?”

  “Let me go!” he roared as Renny’s face crumpled and she started to cry. When Bolt freed him, Colt scooped her up in his arms and pulled her into a chair with him, his lips moving against her cheek as he tried to console her. “Don’t cry, baby. I’m sorry.”

  “It’s not your fault,” she croaked. “It’s not your fault, Colt.”

  “You’re right,” he growled, sending a glare in Bolt’s direction. “This is all your fault, Bolt. You should have kept your big mouth shut!”

  Renny shook her head, clearly unable to speak for several seconds. Finally she sobbed, “I’m not crying because I’m sad, you big silly hunk!”

  “You aren’t?” he breathed, his hand on her nape, pulling her forehead against his.

  “No,” she cried. “I’m happy! I thought that you were getting tired of me. Instead, I find out that you were just trying to protect me. Oh, Colt!” She dissolved into tears, burying her head against his shoulder as she sobbed her heart out. “I don’t want to be Miss September anymore. I just want to be with you!”

  “Well,” he murmured gruffly, his eyes burning with tears he refused to shed in front of his brother. “I’ve sure as hell missed your help with the advertising agency.”

  After that, the situation evolved into a litany of whispered promises fitted between tender kisses. Colt was only vaguely aware of Bolt padding silently from the room. At that point, Colt had other things on his mind. Like what he was going to do with the outrageous hard-on that was growing beneath Renny’s bottom in hot, insistent surges. He was just about to suggest to her that they snag one of Dalton’s back bedrooms when a flicker of movement drew his eye to the dining room archway.

  Colt’s lips were buried behind her ear when Renny felt his frame stiffen slightly. Opening her eyes, a languorous smile of arousal no doubt on her lips, she looked at the two tall men who stood in the arch.

  Cord’s green eyes glittered with mischief and Bolt’s lips turned upward into a hard smile as he announced in an ominous rumble, “It’s payback time.”

  It took a substantial amount of wrestling and swearing and laughing, and the two brothers had to enlist Dalton to drive the getaway car, but when they were done Colt was firmly attached to the back wall at the baseball dugout across town, his arms spread wide at his sides, the laces on his cleats securing his feet to the bottom of the fence. His head hung forward, his black hair spilling over his jungle green eyes as he glared at his brothers. Though he was trying hard to look angry, the effect was ruined somewhat by the grin on his face.

  Night was closing in but Bolt had thoughtfully brought a flashlight along. He set it down on the bench then rested his heavy hand on Renny’s shoulder. “There ya go, Renny. I promised you an even playing field. Make him pay.”

  They left her on her knees on the sandy ground in front of Colt. As they strode away across the ball field toward the parking lot, Renny worked on Colt’s pants. She took her time and slowly plucked open each button while letting her fingers trail over the thick mound behind his fly. The last two buttons, she worked open with her teeth and tongue, ignoring his ragged groans as she directed her breath in a hot spill across his groin. When she finally had all the buttons undone, she opened his pants and licked her lips as she eyed the thick flesh that bulked inside his jock strap. Her husband sure did a fine job of filling the stretchy white pocket.

  “Renny,” he demanded while a strained panting sound heaved from his chest. “What are you going to do?”

  “Don’t you know?” she purred. Lifting one finger, she hooked it in the top of his jock strap and pulled down, slowly revealing the long, delicious length of his cock. Leaning forward, she pressed her lips against a wide vein. Beneath the burning heat of his skin, it pulsed thickly as it pumped blood to his erection. “I’m going to suck you off, Colt.”

  “Baby,” he rasped, his cock jerking in response to her suggestion, “you don’t want to do that.”

  She smiled to herself as she licked a wet line from his root right up to the slit in his cushioned cock head. Clearly, her husband didn’t know what she wanted. Though she’d had his cock in her mouth often enough before, he’d always pulled back before he climaxed. She’d never felt the full power of his release rushing down her throat. She’d never tasted more than a small sample of his cum. “You know what your problem is, Colt?” she murmured then continued before he could offer a guess. “You’re too much of a gentleman.”

  “Me?” he barked. His glorious green eyes widened in surprise as he muttered, “Nobody ever accused me of that before.”

  “Well, it’s true,” she answered. “You worry too much about what’s good for me. You should have told me about Layla.”

  “I’m sorry, Renny. I just didn’t want to hurt you.”

  “Your silence hurt,” she explained in a gentle whisper as she worked her lips over the fever-hot skin that stretched tightly around his rigid shaft. “Maybe not as sharply as the truth but thinking that you didn’t want to be with me was steadily dragging me down. You should know by now that what’s good for you is good for me.”

  She lifted her head and sent him a coquettish look before she said, “And you should have come in my mouth long before now.” Then she covered his cock head with her lips and took his straining erection as deeply as she could.

  Bolt could hear his brother shouting as he and Cord rejoined Dalton in the parking lot. Together the three men climbed into Tavia’s Hummer.

  “Sounds like Renny knows how to play hardball,” Dalton chuckled, turning the key in the ignition.

  “I just love a happy ending,” Bolt said, his chest expanding on a big, heartfelt sigh as he lifted his arms and threaded his fingers together behind his head. “Don’t you?”

  Cord grinned at his brother as he pulled his seatbelt across his chest. “He does sound happy doesn’t he?”

  Dalton cocked his ear toward the dugout. “Actually, he sounds like he’s coming.”

  “Same thing,” the two brothers said together.

  Cord arched one tawny eyebrow and slanted a look at first Dalton then Bolt. “Cindy ought to be home by now. Can you give me a lift over there? And when we get there, maybe you could tie me down before you leave?”

  “What are brothers for?” Bolt drawled as Dalton pulled the Hummer out of the parking lot and headed for Cord’s place.

  About the Author

  I slung the heavy battery pack around my hips and cinched it tight—or tried to.

  “Damn.” Brian grabbed an awl. Leaning over me, he forged a new hole in the loose belt looped around my waist.

  “Any advice?” I asked him as I pulled the belt tight.

  “Yeah. Don’t reach for the ore cart until it starts moving, then jump on the back and immediately duck your head. The voltage in the overhead cable won’t just kill you. It’ll blow you apart.”

  That was my first day on my first job. Employed as an engineer, I’ve worked in an underground mine that went up—inside a mountain. I’ve swung over the Ohio River in a tiny cage suspended from a crane in the middle of an electrical storm. I’ve hung 30 feet in the air over the Hudson River at midnight in an aluminum boat—suspended from a floating barge at the height of a blizzar
d, while snowplows on the bridge overhead rained slush and salt down on my shoulders. You can’t do this sort of work without developing a sense of humor, and a sense of adventure.

  New to publishing, both my reading and writing habits are subject to mood and I usually have several stories going at once. When I need a really good idea for a story, I clean toilets. Now there’s an activity that engenders escapism.

  I was surveying when I met my husband. He was my ‘rod man’. While I was trying to get my crosshairs on his stadia rod, he dropped his pants and mooned me. Next thing I know, I’ve got the backside of paradise in my viewfinder. So I grabbed the walkie-talkie. “That’s real nice,” I told him, “but would you please turn around? I’d rather see the other side.”

  …it was love at first sight.

  Madison welcomes comments from readers. You can find her website and email address on her author bio page at www.ellorascave.com.

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  Enter the Dragon anthology

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  Gryffin Strain: His Mistress

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  Made For Two Men

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  Discover for yourself why readers can’t get enough of the multiple award-winning publisher Ellora’s Cave. Whether you prefer e-books or paperbacks, be sure to visit EC on the web at www.ellorascave.com for an erotic reading experience that will leave you breathless.

  www.ellorascave.com