Page 24

His mouth is almost violent against mine, one hand at my hip, puling me into him, the other at my neck, his thumb pressing into my pulse point, his large palm moving me just so to get the angle right as his mouth seals over mine, an all-consuming kiss, flashes of light dancing behind my closed eyes as my arms wrap around his shoulders, desperate for some leverage to give as good as I’m getting.

It’s a wild frenzied connection, hot opened-mouthed kisses and hands everywhere, bodies colliding as his teeth nip at my bottom lip before diving down over my jaw to my neck as he spins us around and backs us up, one stumbling step and then another until my hip collides with the countertop.

His hands slide around to my ass, pulling me against him, holding my hips to his as he presses forward, a mockery of what my body is truly craving, but the friction of his jeans and my cotton shorts is enough to have me pulling away gasping.

He takes that as his cue to lift me up onto the countertop and step between my legs, immediately going straight back to work at my neck, his hands running up and down my thighs before settling his hands around them, his thumbs working gently inward as they caress my skin.

I can’t believe I’m doing this. Or, actually, I can.

What I can’t believe is that I held out this long.

Which is kind of pathetic because this long isn’t that long at all.

Though right now I’m pretty pissed at myself that two years ago I didn’t grab him by the shirt, push him into the back seat of my car and ride him until dawn in the shadow of Dodger Stadium.

But there’s no going back and I’m here now with his mouth nipping at my throat, his fingertips inching ever closer to exactly where I want him to go, but then, instead, he pulls away, staring down at me for a moment and then another, our ragged breath the only sound in the sad, nondescript condo.

He lifts one hand to my breast, his thumb coaxing the peak into an aching pebble, desperate for more, for his tongue and his lips and maybe just a little bit of his teeth.

“Fuck me,” I choke out when those teeth graze a sensitive spot just below my ear and his responding grunt answers while his mouth latches on, marking my skin with the force of his kiss.

“That’s the idea,” he mumbles against my neck.

I yank away from him and nearly whimper at the loss of contact, but I need more than this, I need to feel him on my skin. Pulling his borrowed t-shirt up over my head, I toss it behind me and sit back, watching him watch me.

“Fuck,” he breathes out, and I almost want to roll my eyes because I’m wearing a pretty normal bra, just some white satin and a bit of lace around the back.

“It’s nothing special,” I insist, running a thumb under the strap over one shoulder. It’s cold in the apartment, the AC working overtime, and a shiver runs through me, goosebumps appearing over my skin.

He looks down at me, a lock of his brown hair falling down over his forehead. “You think I give a shit about the bra? Just fucking look at you, Sullivan.”

“Back to Sullivan, huh?”

“When you’re being obtuse about how fucking sexy you are, damn right.”

Lifting a leg, I settle my heel into the small of his back, drawing him closer to me, pulling his body flush with mine. “Charlie?”

“Yeah?” he chokes out, his hands falling to my hips, one finger dipping briefly beneath the waistband, making me shiver against more than just the cold, before he grips it tightly, keeping our bodies pressed together.

“Touch me.”

I don’t have to ask twice. He ducks his head, his nose tracing the edge of my bra before diving between my breasts, inhaling deeply before pressing a warm, lingering kiss in the valley between them.

Then he looks up, his eyes holding mine for a second and then another.

“So soft,” he whispers against my skin, and then he closes his eyes, as his mouth slides up and over the steep rise.

One hand slips up over my ribcage, his thumb tracing the underside of my other breast before he weighs it in his palm.

Gasping, I don’t know what I want more, his hands or his mouth, but he doesn’t make me choose.

With a sharp yank, he pulls the fabric down, the cold air only hitting me for a split second before his hand covers one tightening nipple and his mouth falls to the other.

I tighten my legs around him, pulling myself up as close as I can, desperate to create as much sweet friction as possible between us, my hips moving in time with the absolute filthy sounds he’s making as his mouth explores one breast and then the other.

Burying a hand in his hair, the other holding his shoulder for dear life, I can’t help but fall back onto the counter, taking him with me as his lips start a trail down over the planes of my stomach, stopping for an agonizing detour at my belly button, circling it gently with his tongue before resting his cheek against the jut of my hip bone.

His fingers play with the fabric strings tied into a neat bow at the waist of my shorts. “Can I?” he asks.

“Yes,” I say, wondering idly if later on I’ll be embarrassed at how quickly I agreed for him to completely expose me when he’s still fully clothed, but right now I don’t care at all. I need more of him, more of his mouth, more of his fingers.

“So fucking pretty,” he mutters, when he pulls the cotton free of my feet, taking my socks along with them. “And so fucking ready.”

His thumb presses against the silken fabric of my panties.

“You look pretty ready too,” I shoot back, my gaze flickering to the substantial bulge against the zipper of his jeans.

He reaches down to adjust himself. “That’s for later,” he promises. “Right now, all I want is to do is . . .” he hesitates for a second, like maybe he’s not sure I want to hear it.

“Tell me,” I beg.

“I want to suck on your clit until your thighs are shaking around my ears and your voice goes hoarse from screaming my name.”

“Oh my God,” I manage to mumble, when he leans over me again, pressing a kiss to my lips, gentle and sweet, the exact opposite of the words he just uttered.

“Can I?” he asks, his fingertips smoothly running up my thighs before gripping them firmly while he takes a quick nip at my breast.

The answer is yes. Obviously. I open my mouth to tell him, but across the room, on top of my luggage, my phone dings once, twice, three and, no, four, five times in a row.

There’s only a handful of numbers that are set to break through my do not disturb features.

I push up to my elbows and, in the process, brush against the front of his jeans, eliciting a choked groan.

“I need to . . .” I trail off, just as the phone starts to ring.

Yeah, I definitely need to get that.

“I got it,” he says, stepping away, running a hand through his hair, and the view is almost as good from the back as he goes to grab my phone.

I slide off the countertop, adjusting my bra so I’m covered at least a little and grab my shorts, pulling them on with shaking hands, trying and failing to tie the string again.

“It’s Stew,” Charlie says, as he walks back to me with my phone held out for me.

Stew? Why the hell is he calling right now? Or at all. He’s supposed to be on leave.

“Hello?” I gasp into the phone, knowing I sound like I just finished a dozen wind sprints. I try to take a deep, even breath, but it’s not easy.

“Frankie?” Stew’s voice is on the other end of the line, clear as a bell.

“What’s . . . what’s up? What time is it there? Aren’t you still in the hospital?”

Charlie steps into my line of sight, holding my shirt out for me and I try to grin at him as I take it, as there’s no way to put it on with the phone to my ear.

“They discharged me this morning. Good behavior.”

“Is that a thing?”

“No, Frankie, it means I could walk around the room a couple of laps and I took a shit to the doctor’s satisfaction.”

“Lovely.”

“You asked.”

I didn’t, actually, but I move on. “What’s up?”

“You and Avery, I need you back in New York ASAP .”

“Stew, you can’t go back to work yet.”

“I’m not, but just because I’m on leave doesn’t mean I can’t take a couple of phone calls and, if my source is right, Ethan Quicke just used whatever the fuck he agreed to in Montana as leverage to sign with the Dodgers.”

“We look like we don’t know what we’re doing.”

“We really do,” Stew agrees. “I gotta go. Rita thinks I’m getting a glass of water and she’s gonna come in here soon and start yelling, but get your ass back here. You gotta fix this shit before . . .”

“Before?”

“Before my source publishes.”

Damn it.

A reporter and one Stew clearly has a relationship with, giving him a heads up instead of just leaking it.

“But that’s not the worst part.”

“It gets worse?”

“Hannah Vinch knows too.”

Fuck. Hannah is one of the ownership group’s chief representatives from the board. She generally stays out of our business and lets Stew run the day-to-day operations, but when she does make her presence known, it’s either really good or really, really bad.

This definitely qualifies as really bad.

“Yeah, and they’re pissed . She’s holding them off for a bit because I promised her that we have a plan, with or without Quicke, but she wants to hear it from you, since I’m technically on leave.”

“You’re not technically on leave, Stew. You need to be resting. Go back to bed. I got this. I’ll grab the next flight I can and I’ll stop by to see you tomorrow morning before I go into the office.”

“Good, and Frankie?”

“Yeah?”

“How’d the kids look?”

“How did you know we’re in Arizona?”

“I have eyes everywhere, kiddo. So, how’d they look?”

“They look great and it seems like they’ve already imprinted on Charlie, so it should make for an interesting spring training.”

“He’s Charlie now?”

“That’s his name, isn’t it?”

“Sure is,” he agrees, “just not used to you calling him that.” Then he’s laughing, and the laugh turns into a cough and then a muffled curse. “Okay, I gotta go. Rita’s found me, and if you could see her face right now, you’d be running for the hills.”

“Go, get some rest,” I insist, and with a quick goodbye, the line goes dead. As soon as I hang up, I pull the shirt back over my head. Only to immediately realize it’s on backwards and I have to pull my arms in and twist it around.

When I brush my hair out of my face, Charlie is already on his phone. “There’s a flight back at nine tomorrow morning. Or I could call up my charter company and get you out of here tonight . . .” he trails off.

And leaves it up to me.

Take the flight tomorrow morning and we can pick up right where we left off, finally give in to this thing between us.

Or I could call an Uber right now, be on a plane back to New York, grab a shower and a fresh outfit, and be back in the office tomorrow morning to deal with the crap headed our way.

It’s not even a hard decision. I wish it was, though.

“I’m gonna call an Uber,” I say, and to his credit, his expression doesn’t change at all. In fact, other than the ungodly mess that I made of his hair, you’d never know that he just had me laid out on his kitchen counter top practically begging him to fuck me.

All he does is start dialing a number and lifts the phone to his ear when it connects.