Page 83 of Caught Looking

“Exactly.” His fingers came to my hair, tunneling through the strands as he pulled my face up to his for a kiss.

I let myself get a little drunk on his kiss, on the idea of building a future together. But that pull in my heart reminded me that there were still things to talk about. “Seth…”

“Yeah babe?”

I licked my lips, about to ask him what I wanted him to give me freely, when our phones both started vibrating.

My eyes shot to his. “That can’t be good.”

Then a fist banged on our door. “Shit,” Seth closed his eyes and pressed one quick kiss to my lips instead of the makeout session we were headed for. “I’ll get it. You’re not dressed for company.”

Neither was he, but he had a pair of basketball shorts draped over the couch. While he yanked them on I ran upstairs for leggings and a t-shirt.

When I came back down Jackson and Janet were waiting in our living room with grim faces. But Seth was another story. He was furious.

“What happened?” I yanked my hair back into a ponytail.

Seth threw a chair at the wall.

Jackson grimaced. “Owen Montgomery has gone missing.”

* * *

Owen’s disappearancehad thrown cold water all over our relationship. Gone was the uninhibited sex. Instead we made gentle love to each other. We got that sleep we’d been missing. Seth watched me like a hawk and our security team doubled in size. I went to practice with an entourage. The team had also doubled the security presence at our practice facility. It unnerved the entire team.

Seth asked me not to come to his game but I came anyway, sitting right behind home plate, practically daring Owen to show his face.

Seth came to the netting, resting his forehead against it. I stood and did the same, breathing him in along with the scent of clay and the bubblegum he always chewed when he was at bat. “Please go home.”

“No. I want to be here. I won’t let him take this from me.”

Seth sighed and leaned back, his eyes finding mine. He pressed his hand to the netting and I met it with my own. “I’m scared. I don’t like feeling scared.”

“I’m not. And you should be focused on the game, not what Owen may or may not be doing. We hired people for that.” I was strangely calm about the whole thing.

“If anything happens to you…”

My heart didn’t skip a beat. It twisted, did a somersault, and flew. “This is real,” I whispered.

“Yes it is.” He nodded once, gripped his bat and gave it a swing as he stepped up the plate. I watched as he took a deep breath and let it out. His shoulders dropped away from his ears. His hands gripped the bat. Two pitches later he hit a two-run home run.

Seth Butler wasn’t just a good ballplayer. He was great.

And my chest soared with pride that he was mine. I was so damn proud of him, of his ability to pull greatness out of the most difficult circumstances.

But I loved even more that after his feet hit home plate, after his teammates high-fived him, he came straight to me. He didn’t say anything as we stared at each other, touching but not touching through the net. But I saw his thoughts in his eyes.

Seth Butler was in love with me.

And I was in love with him.

He gave me a soft smile then jogged off for the dugout where the home run celebration was carried out with jewels and the treasure chest and The Captain, Isaac Anson, laughing through it all.

“You two are so sweet it makes my teeth hurt,” Jeri grumbled from the seat beside me.

I finally sat down. “I love him.”

“Duh.” She shook her head like I’d just said the most obvious thing in the world. “You two have been it since day one.