Strike Zone (12 page)

“I shouldn’t have pried,” Sloan finally said as he pushed off the vanity and moved toward the door. “Later, Taylor.”

Stryke stepped aside to let him pass.

Which now left him alone with Taylor and her tweezers.

“Addie asked that I check on you,” he told her.

She blew him off. “A few more splinters and I’m ready to Bunny Hop.”

Bunny Hop, his ass. The stubborn woman couldn’t even stand.

She sat, her spine curved, her concentration back on her foot and off him. Wisps of blond hair curved against her cheekbones, her face in profile, slightly drawn, her lips tight. Her breathing was shallow. He could barely detect the rise and fall of her chest.

She hadn’t looked at him since he’d entered the powder room. She was waiting for him to take the initiative and leave.

He wasn’t going anywhere.

He took a step toward her. “Need help with your foot?”

“
No
,” she said so abruptly, and with so much force his own heart kicked.

A growl rose low in his throat. To hell with what she wanted. He held the advantage. Taylor had a hurt foot and a bad knee. She couldn’t run either fast or far from him. He was staying—whether she liked it or not.

He dropped down beside her.

She jerked back.

“Don’t touch me.” Her words were edged with the same unhealed pain he felt when he was near her.

Despite her resistance, he secured the tweezers and her ankle. He pressed her heel to his thigh, then wrapped one hand about her calf to hold her still.

She quieted.

Her nearness scented the air with Amber Nude. The fragrance reminded him of restless nights and heated sex.

So much sex—both rough-and-tumble and slow and languid—as well as long moments of doing nothing more than holding each other.

“You need my help,” he insisted. “I’ve doctored you more times than I can count. Give me five minutes, and if I haven’t removed the glass, I’ll leave.”

She looked at him then, a woman torn between dealing with his doctoring and dealing with him as a man. “You need to be with Hilary, not here in the powder room with me.”

“Hilary doesn’t have glass in her foot.”

He poured a capful of peroxide between her toes, then took up the task of removing the tiniest shards of glass.

He’d always liked her feet, narrow with sexy toes. He knew they were ticklish. Yet now wasn’t the time to make her giggle. Those days had long passed.

“Four minutes,” Taylor counted down the time on the vanity wall clock, the tick loud in the ensuing silence.

Stryke moved to the ball of her foot. He’d removed the last piece of glass by the time Taylor said, “Thirty-five seconds.”

He ran his fingers along her toes and across the bottom of her foot, making sure he’d gotten it all. Without conscious thought, he stroked her ankle. His thumb drew a soft circle over the bone before she pulled her foot back.

“Thanks, but I can take it from here,” she told him.

She stretched then, reaching over his shoulder for the Neosporin and Band-Aids on the vanity. His shoulder flexed as her breast unexpectedly brushed his upper arm, and her sleek side came in contact with his chest.

The sensation was as intense as it was irreversible, a commingling of heat, a compression of flesh.

He could tell she was debating whether to pull back or to collect the items. In the end, she sucked it up and grabbed what she needed, then dropped back on the stool.

Pushing to his feet, Stryke looked down on her fair head, the slender column of her neck, the firm set of her shoulders. He had something to say, and needed to get it off his chest. “I apologize for showing up at Addie’s party.”

Taylor cautiously met his gaze. “It wasn’t purposeful?”

He tucked his hands into the front pockets of his dress slacks and shook his head. “Despite our history, I’d never go out of my way to embarrass or humiliate you. There was no reason for you to meet my fiancée. I thought we were headed to dinner. I had no idea until I was in the limo that the mayor planned to stop here for a photo op. If I could have avoided Addie’s birthday, I would have.”

She nodded. “I appreciate your honesty.”

“I’ve always been honest with you.”

“I’m the one who never came clean.” Her expression turned thoughtful as she spread the Neosporin and strategically placed the Band-Aids between her toes. “I owe you—”

“Nothing, Taylor.” He refused to touch on their past. “Now’s not the time.”

Her lips compressed. “Will there ever be a time?”

“Afraid not.”

She looked a little sad as she absently rubbed her knee—a gesture not lost on Stryke. He knew her knee hurt her more than she’d ever let on. “Tell me you’re not desert hiking on Monday.” The words escaped him, spoken with more concern than he would have liked.

“I thought you wanted me gone.”

“I do, but not if you’re hurt.”

She eased to her feet and stood before him, her weight on her good leg. Her smooth forehead reached his chin, a forehead he’d so often bent and kissed, just for the pleasure of it. Not today. Not ever again.

She angled her head to meet his gaze. “I have an appointment with an orthopedist on Monday. My trek across the Sahara is postponed for a week.”

“Another week in Richmond, huh?”

“The Rogues are on the road,” she reminded him. “You play a three-game series against Kansas City, then four games in Detroit, followed by a weekend doubleheader in Louisville. Our paths won’t cross.”

Might never cross again.
A hollowness gripped him, one he might never fill. It frustrated him that this woman who’d once ditched him still complicated his life and touched his soul.

He forced her from his heart, closing his mind to thoughts of what might have been. He could never go back. What they’d had was dead.

“Brek, we’re about to leave.” Hilary Talbott had come for him. She stood small in the doorway, hesitant, but clearly hopeful he was ready to join her.

Stuart Tate was at her back. Always at her back. Sometimes he stood so close, Stryke didn’t know where Hilary left off and Stuart began. He’d questioned Hilary about Tate’s need to shadow her. Hilary had explained that her father had asked Stuart to keep tabs on her during the campaign. The mayor hadn’t wanted her lost in the crowd or uneasy at any function.

That still didn’t explain Stuart’s liberties. Stryke had noticed the campaign manager’s hands on Hilary: a touch to her arm, a palm on her back. He needed to have a man-to-man with Stu when the time was right.

Maybe tonight. Maybe tomorrow. Maybe next week.

Whenever the opportunity presented itself.

“I’m with you,” he told Hilary. He then cast one final look at Taylor—and wished he hadn’t. Sadness flickered deep in her sea green eyes, as if she had regrets she’d never voiced. There was no need to hear them now. They were on two different life paths, and his led to dinner with Hilary Talbott. “What restaurant did you decide on?” he asked his fiancée.

“Stuart and I persuaded Daddy to dine at Chesapeake Landing.” Her, “Work for you?” came almost as an afterthought.

Stryke liked seafood, although tonight he’d have preferred the Prime Club. The chef grilled a mean filet. He’d caught Risk Kincaid’s eye out by the barbecue. Stryke would have liked nothing more than to pull up a lawn chair and enjoy a meal with Risk and Jacy.

Instead he moved toward Hilary. And Stuart.

Glancing back at Taylor, he cast over his shoulder, “Take care of your knee.”

“I’m a fast healer. I’ll be gone soon.”

The sooner the better.

Her life course was set.

And so was his.

Then why did he already miss her?

“Brek Stryker’s in love with Taylor Hannah.”

Hilary Talbott ignored Stuart Tate. She sucked his words into her mouth, then stabbed him with her tongue. Hot, needy, and demanding, she bit his lip, securing his silence.

She hated a man who talked during sex. Stu had gone on nonstop since sneaking through the back door of her condo. He’d drawn a ragged breath when she’d stripped off his clothes and shoved him down on the horseshoe-shaped sectional. He’d then gone off on another tangent, even when she’d taken him in her mouth and given him a blow job that should have shut him up for the entire night.

Now in bed, he rambled on and on. “You’d better hope Taylor leaves town soon. She’s about to screw up your father’s campaign.”

Stuart was going to talk her to death.

She reached for a condom on the nightstand and tore it open. He grunted as she roughly rolled it on. The latex tip hung longer than his rod. Why he bought Magnums for his millimeter peter was beyond Hilary. The man had penis envy.

She stuffed him inside her, then bucked wildly to get him fully hard.

“
Grind.”
Hilary wanted satisfaction, and Stuart was slow in getting her off.

He’d perfected a hip twist that always did the trick. Yet tonight he was all pump, and each time he pulled back he lost penetration, which frustrated her enough to growl, “
Stick it
, Stu.”

She dug her nails into his hips.

Stuart yelped.

Then she directed his drive, spanking his ass when he slowed.

Tate grunted in her ear. The sweat from his upper lip slicked her cheek. His breath beat against her neck, hot and wet as he licked the base of her throat.

He ground so hard, she swore he’d bruise her hip bones. The pleasure-pain made her light-headed. She was almost there. . . .

Stuart withdrew. “Take off Stryker’s ring and put mine on,” he demanded.

Hilary lost her mind. “Change rings,
now
?” Her shriek hurt her own ears.

He teased her opening with the tip of his penis.

Sensitive, wet, and on the verge of orgasm, she swore a blue streak as she tore off Brek’s ring and threw it across the room. She rolled onto her side, tore open the top drawer of her white-lacquered nightstand, and retrieved the ring Stu had bought for her with one of Brek Stryker’s donations to her father’s campaign fund.

Showcased on her finger, the pink diamond shone large, brilliant, and outrageously expensive. Hilary felt she deserved every carat. She’d catered to her father’s political ambitions long enough. She didn’t care if he was elected mayor for a second term. She did, however, plan to skim enough money from his campaign fund to move from Richmond.

“
Happy?”
She lunged at him, bit him on the shoulder. Marked him with her uppers.

He penetrated her once again, went with the hip twist, and she climaxed within seconds. Her orgasm would have been stronger had he not insisted she change her ring, but she’d demand seconds as soon as Stuart caught his breath.

She pushed him off her and settled against her pillows—imported feather pillows with creamy satin cases.

Stuart removed his condom, tossed it in the trash, then rolled onto his side to face her. “Within a month, Brek will be breaking off your engagement. The man wants Taylor.”

“He has too much pride to go back to her.”

“It’s passion, not pride, that’s making him hard.”

“You think I can’t hold him?”

“Not even with sex.”

Stuart’s words hurt, yet Hilary knew them to be true.

The photo op between her father and the senior constituency had backfired. She’d planned an in-your-face with Taylor Hannah, yet Hilary had been the one to get an eyeful. She’d witnessed Brek’s stunned and unguarded expression when he’d first caught sight of Taylor behind the bar at her grandmother’s birthday party. It had been open, honest, and animal hungry. The spark between the two was as incendiary as it was painful to her.

Brek had masked his emotions, but it had been evident that his feelings for Taylor weren’t as dead as he claimed.

Hilary knew she couldn’t change how Stryke felt about the thrill seeker. She had no reason to try. Brek was a means to an end, nothing more. She believed him an honorable man. He wouldn’t dump her overnight.

“One final donation and we’re set for life.”

“You’re pressing your luck,” Stuart worried.

“It’s luck to press. I have nothing to lose.” Hilary punched her pillow. “My life sucks. I hate working for my uncle. There’s no advancement in his firm. Uncle Matt has two sons. They’re a shoo-in for the next vice presidents. I will remain an administrative assistant until I turn gray.”

Her scowl deepened. “I also hate being the token sweetheart in this campaign. Daddy sees me as a lightweight. He pats me on the head like the family dog. I’m tired of smiling, shaking hands, and being nice to voters.”

Stuart ran a finger down her bare arm. “Hang in there. We’ll be in Costa Rica by the end of June. We close on the oceanfront villa next week.”

His words calmed her. Stuart might not be much to look at, but they both dreamed the same dream. He was as conniving and greedy as Hilary. They made a solid couple.

From the onset of the campaign, they’d played with the notion of what it would be like to be rich—filthy, stinking rich. They’d fantasized about Costa Rica, the lush beaches, warm weather, and low cost of living.

Their fantasy had become a reality when Brek Stryker walked into campaign headquarters and made his first donation. They’d realized then that skimming funds could set them up for life.

They’d done more than skimmed. They’d dipped deeply.

Hilary had found that managing both Stuart and the money came easily. Their offshore account was setting fat.

“Playing nice with Brek Stryker is getting old,” she confessed. “He’s become inattentive—”

“And harder to handle.”

That, too, Hilary had to agree.

Brek . . . The very thought of the man made her shiver. She found him intimidating. His size and larger-than-life persona overwhelmed her. He filled a room, commanded attention. No one should be that good-looking, wealthy, and physically skilled.

“Brek’s as high-profile off the field as he is at the park,” Hilary complained. “Throughout the campaign, he’s gotten more media attention than my father. Crowds rush him, wanting his autograph and an interview. Few listen to Daddy’s speeches. Speeches
you
write.”

“My speeches blow hot air,” Stu stated. “Brek Stryker’s a celebrity. He’s drawn more attention to your father’s campaign than a million dollars’ worth of advertising ever could. He’ll back Wayne as long as your old man supports the Boys and Girls Clubs of Richmond.”