Pitch Perfect: Boys of Summer, Book 1 (24 page)

They sat quietly during the ride, Tucker trying not to think too hard about what he anticipated was coming, but he couldn’t help noticing the way Emmy looked at him, angling her head so she could see him without facing him.

All the flirting at the park had been fun, but it was also a safe place—their version of an office—and they wouldn’t act on their attraction there. Tucker had a hard time imagining sharing so much as a kiss with Emmy at the park. There was so much risk of being seen, and he still didn’t know what was going on with them.

And if they did become a real couple? Even then it wasn’t a good idea to act out at the park. They were both too professional for that. But thinking about the way her body had responded when he’d whispered in her ear, recalling their shared dirty secret when Ramon had come up, those things made him wonder if he might not get carried away one day.

A ballpark was full of all sorts of dark and wonderful corners. Spaces unseen, some unexplored by most of the staff of the park, where he could pull her in and have his way with her before anyone knew they were missing.

“You’re smirking,” Emmy said.

“Am I?” He rubbed his lower jaw, trying to wipe away the guilt of his own natural reaction.

“Thinking about anything in particular?”

They were stopped at a red light, and when he faced her, she wasn’t trying to hide her stare anymore. If he’d been smirking, she was outright grinning and not being shy about it.

“You sure look like
you
are.”

“I believe you were in the midst of making a suggestion earlier before we were interrupted.” The light changed, and she turned towards the waterfront, taking the exit before the Bay Bridge and pulling in front of his condo. He pointed out the guest lot to her, and while they parked, she left her thought unfinished.

Once they’d gotten into the elevator in the parking garage, he came up beside her, bracing both arms on the wall so she was trapped between them. Her grin never faltered. When he pressed against her, she arched her hips to meet him.

“Remind me what I was suggesting,” he said, lowering his mouth to her ear, then planting a kiss where her polo shirt collar parted from her neck.

Emmy placed her palms on his chest. “I wish you’d kept the uniform on,” she replied dreamily, as if her words were spoken without thinking.

Tucker laughed. “You want to sleep with me while I’m in uniform?”

She seemed to become aware of what she’d said, and the familiar blush he loved so much fanned over her cheeks. “Did I say that out loud?”

“You did. Can’t take it back now.”

“Damn.”

“Do you?” He trailed kisses slowly up from her neck, over her now warm cheeks, pausing before he met her lips.

“I guess technically I want to sleep with you
out
of the uniform.”

He moved his hand so he could give her ponytail a tug. “Don’t play coy.” The numbers on the elevator beeped at each new floor, taking them quickly upwards.

“I might get off on the uniform a little.”

“Oh yeah?”

“It’s the pants.” She gave his chin a kiss. “You wear some very tight pants. And you have a mighty fine ass.”

The elevator pinged, announcing their arrival on the top floor. Emmy ducked under his arm and looped her fingers into his belt as she walked off the elevator, dragging him along with her almost literally by his cock.

She kept her fingers tucked in the front band of his jeans while he fumbled with his keys. Once he’d managed to get the door unlocked, she jerked him inside. He’d barely gotten the door shut when she undid his belt, tossing it aside.

“Remind me,” he said again, his voice throaty, almost a growl.

She stripped off her shirt. “You said you wanted to hear me say your name.” She threw the shirt at him when he lunged at her, bolting out of his reach and running towards the bedroom.

The shirt smelled like her, sweet and feminine but not overly so. She was the kind of woman who could fit into his world like a perfectly shaped puzzle piece. He chased her down the hall. Though she gave good resistance by skirting the bed and clambering over the mattress, he had six inches on her and easily grabbed her around the waist when she tried to jump out of his reach.

“Cheater,” she said, barely able to get the word out because she was giggling so hard.

“What else did I say?”

“You didn’t get to finish your thought.”

He sat on the bed and pulled her close, undoing her pants while she threaded her fingers through his hair. “How did it start?”

“You said something about the way I squirm.”

Tucker lowered her pants, leaving her in only her panties—skimpy black lace, like she’d been expecting someone to see them—and a matching bra. He cupped her over her underwear, stroking the damp lace with focused caresses until her breaths got short and her fingernails scraped against his scalp.

“Like that?” he asked.

“Yes.”

“What did you say?”

“
Yes
.”

He teased her, skirting a finger under the elastic near her inner thigh and caressing the wet seam of her sex. She bent her knees, lowering herself onto his exploring finger, guiding him inside her. The way she sighed when he crooked his finger was almost too much to bear. He wanted to have her on top of him, riding him to a fast, powerful finish, but that wasn’t the game they were playing, and it wasn’t the promise he’d made her.

Tucker withdrew his hand, and Emmy made a sad noise, dropping her hands to his shoulders. He licked her nipple through the lace of her bra, drawing the pink bud into a hard peak. She moved closer so she was straddling his lap, and he cupped her bottom, squeezing her every time she ground against him. He’d learned how she liked to be touched, and now he was using that knowledge to play her like an instrument.

In all things, practice made perfect, and he wanted to perfect the art of making her come.

“Tucker…”

“You were supposed to be sitting on my face when you said my name,” he answered, and the way she laughed made his pulse skip.

“Then maybe you should lie back.”

He let her push him back but wanted to protest when she got off his lap. With his belt already out of the picture, she had no difficulty pulling his pants and underwear off, throwing them on top of hers. When she stood before him again, she put her balled hands on her hips and gave him a stern look.

“I thought I told you to lie back.”

He shuffled backwards on the bed, and she slipped off her underwear before she followed him, coming to straddle his chest as he’d done with her just that morning. He guided her to turn around, leaving him with a view of her smooth, golden skin. Tucker trailed his hands from her shoulders down her back, reveling in the warmth of her body.

Emmy leaned forward so she was on all fours, and suddenly the view of her back wasn’t nearly as interesting. God, every part of her was so lovely it made his chest hurt, and he wanted to explore every available inch of her body.

He spread her thighs for a better look at her, rubbing her wetness with two fingers and parting her lips. He groaned, hardening even more every time he touched her. Her scent drove him almost as crazy as the sight of her did.

Emmy, apparently as interested in his hardness as he was fascinated by her wetness, had lowered her mouth, taking his cock in, lavishing his head with hungry attention.

He held her hips firmly and mirrored the gestures of her tongue back onto her, lapping at her clit with the same cruel and wonderful strokes. He was intent on bringing her to climax before her clever mouth distracted him too thoroughly.

The scenario he’d begun spelling out at the park unfolded with perfect abandon as she wriggled against him, and every new twist and draw of his tongue made her lose focus on him. Soon she was panting against his inner thigh, barely able to gasp his name. She dug her nails into the flesh of his calves, and the syllables of his name gave way to moans that would haunt his dreams in the best way possible.

He read the quivering in her taut muscles and held her body firm against his mouth as he brought her to the cusp and then pushed her right over the edge into a body-melting orgasm. She bucked, biting the sensitive skin of his thigh. When she stopped shuddering, she lay still, limp on his body, dragging in ragged breaths.

“You good?” he asked, smoothing his hand over the rise of her ass.

She brushed her hair back off her face, honeyed strands sticking to her brow from the sheen of sweat.

“I didn’t finish you,” she replied, her tone apologetic.

He placed a kiss on her bottom and gave her a playful smack. She rolled off him and pivoted so she could nestle in against his chest, bringing them face-to-face.

“We’ve got all night.”

“Is that a promise?”

Tucker could have easily offered to let her stay for the rest of her life. But if a night was where forever started, he’d take it. “Yes.”

“Good.” Her breathing softened, drifting towards sleep. “I’m starting to like your promises.”

Chapter Thirty

Emmy couldn’t remember the last time she’d been so wildly, head over heels, stupidly distracted by a man the way she was enamored with Tucker. She found herself staring off into space and shivering with recall over the way he touched her.

Now that they were on the road, things were in a cool-down phase. They were going to be away from San Francisco for thirteen games, taking them from Cleveland to New York, west to Seattle and back to California for a four-game stint in Anaheim.

It had only been a week since she’d started sleeping with Tucker, but in that time she’d barely seen her own bed. With the road games, though, there was a wrench thrown in their newly established honeymoon-phase sex life. It would be almost impossible for her to get into his room, or him into hers, without the risk of bumping into other players or staff from the team.

Road games were like high school field trips, boisterous boys trapped in a hotel that was never big enough for all the ego. Some of the men had their wives along, but most of the players were single and took being on the road as an excuse to act out.

Which meant they’d be coming and going at all hours, even though she’d requested everyone get a solid eight hours of sleep before the games. But she wasn’t sure she could deal with running headlong into Chet or Ramon while leaving Tucker’s room with her hair rumpled from a roll in the sheets.

Tucker seemed to be quite the expert at making her hair tangle into a rat’s nest of epic proportions, to the point she joked it had been
tuckered
. Emmy suspected it wasn’t so much that he aimed to muss her hair, but rather that no man had made her thrash around nearly as much. She’d had orgasms—at least she’d once believed she had—but nothing like what Tucker did to her. If orgasms were poetry, Tucker was the Walt Whitman to Simon’s teen-angst couplets.

She might have expected from his tapered pitcher’s fingers that he’d be good with his hands, but nothing could have prepared her for Tucker. Not sexually, not emotionally.

“That’s a ten-yard stare if I ever saw one.” Miles pulled up the chair beside her at a table in the hotel dining room. Her fork clattered against the plate, sending a fluffy yellow ball of egg flying onto the tablecloth.

“I think the phrase is
hundred-yard stare
,” Emmy corrected, picking the egg up and putting it on her side plate.

It was early, but a few other players had gotten up and were helping themselves to a five-star continental breakfast.

“Oh yeah. I never remember those sayings right.” He pushed a sausage link around on his plate, leaving a trail of amber grease on the white dish. The table was too clean, too white. Everything in the dining room was begging to get dirty. “What’s got you thinking so hard?”

“Tuck—” Emmy stopped herself abruptly. “Luck.”

“You got any superstitions?”

“I don’t play.”

Miles snorted and stuck the sausage into his mouth with his bare fingers, bypassing the flatware altogether. He continued speaking with his mouth full. “Doesn’t matter. Everyone has superstitions in baseball. Did you know Emilio—the janitor at home—has Felons socks he bought in 1965? He wears them every single home game.”

“Are you serious?”

“Yeah. He says his wife has had to patch them like…forty times or something, but he keeps wearing them.”

“Crazy.” She speared a piece of pineapple with her fork, wondering how fresh fruit in Cleveland would compare to that in California.

“So what are your superstitions?” he asked again.

“I don’t think I put much thought into it before. Philz coffee before home games? But that’s more of a life essential than a superstition.”

“What do you do when you’re at away games?”

“Suffer, usually.”

Miles laughed, and she was struck again by how young he was. Emmy barely remembered her early twenties, but she knew she’d been an idiot. Here was Miles, on a near seven-figure annual salary, and he was
famous
. How the hell could a kid deal with that kind of pressure? She admired how he was able to hold it together.