The Next Move (6 page)

Eight

         
The warmth of someone lying beside her sent a cold shudder down Kat’s spine as she awoke.
Oh joy. Another morning of 'here’s your coffee, there’s the door
'. This was probably her least favorite part of a one night stand.

         
In fragments, memories from the night before trickled into her mind, and with a smile she remembered that it was Chris beside her. This was the second time they’d spent the entire night together, and she suddenly realized one of the unsung benefits of
friends with benefits
. The morning after, they were still friends, not strangers trying to exit gracefully without outwardly saying that the odds of seeing each other again were marginally better than a snowball’s chance in hell.

         
She rolled onto her side and watched him sleep. He was on his stomach, his face turned away from her, the comforter draped just above his waist. Some faint red lines crisscrossed his back, and a row of four crescent moons on each shoulder made her breath catch at the memory of the earth-shattering climax that had driven her nails into his skin. Fortunately, she noted, she hadn’t broken the skin, but the marks would be there for a few hours.

         
Oops
, she thought, suppressing a giggle.

         
She ran her hand up his back, smiling as he stirred slightly. When she got to his neck, she gently pressed her nails against his skin and trailed them back down his spine. With a startled gasp, he shivered awake.

         
He shifted, turning his head so he could see her, but stayed on his stomach. "Morning," he murmured, his eyes barely open.

"Morning," she said, letting her nails drifted up and

down his back.

         
"Mmm, that feels nice."

         
"So you don’t want me to stop?"

         
"Not unless you feel the need to occupy your hands some other way."

         
"Like making coffee?"

         
"Coffee can wait. I like what you’re doing."

         
"You know, with all those lines I left last night, we could play chess on your back."

         
He lifted his head, glaring at her playfully. "What did you do? Leave a roadmap on me?"

         
She shrugged, batting her eyes innocently. "I didn’t mean to." Letting her fingers trace over the fading crescent moons on his shoulder, she said, "Didn’t mean to leave those, either."

         
"What?" He reached over his shoulder and laughed as he ran his fingers over the grooves. "Jesus, woman, I’m surprised you didn’t draw blood."

         
"I guess I got carried away."

         
He scooted closer to her, rolling onto his side and draping his arm over her. "Trust me, feeling you come like that was well worth having a chunk or two carved out of my shoulder."

         
"I thought so too."

         
"I’m sure you did," he said. "You, my dear, were the one having the orgasm and you weren’t the one getting clawed."

         
"You just said it was worth it, though." She ran her fingertips up his side, laughing when he tensed.

         
He took her hand away from his side and pulled it up to his lips. He kissed the backs of her fingers. "It
was
worth it. So just don’t be surprised if I sink my nails or teeth in sometime while
I’m
coming."

         
"Christian!" she scoffed in mock horror. "You wouldn’t inflict such a wanton act of cruelty on me during lovemaking, would you?"

         
"Absolutely not," he said. Without warning, he nipped her finger, just hard enough to smart but not enough to leave a mark. When she yelped and tried to pull her hand away, he held it tighter. "I would, however, not hesitate to do something that might leave a mark while I’m fucking the

hell out of you."

         
"Beast."

         
"You’re damn right," he growled, kissing her neck and nudging her onto her back. "Besides, something tells me you have a higher pain tolerance than I do."

         
"Oh? What makes you say that?"

         
He shifted onto one arm and trailed his fingers down her abdomen, then onto her hip. "Just a hunch," he said, tracing the outline of her tattoo.

         
She sucked in a breath. His feather light touch was almost more intense than the tattoo needle had been.

         
He moved back and sat up, furrowing his brow as he looked at the tattoo. "How long have you had that, anyway? I didn’t even know you had a tattoo until the other night."

         
She glanced down. "I got it in college."

         
"It’s beautiful," he said, still exploring the raised edges of the Pegasus that extended from her hip partway down her thigh.

         
"I’m rather fond of it," she said. "Which is good, since I’m stuck with it."

         
"You have more, don’t you?" His gaze moved over her the way his fingers moved over the tattoo. "I could have sworn I saw another one."

         
"There’s one all the way around each ankle."

         
He ran his hand from the tattoo down to her knee, then gently bent her knee and continued down to her ankle. "I like that one too," he said, letting his fingertips run over the anklet of roses. "Now let’s have a look at the other one." He let her ankle go and brought the other up in a similar fashion. Eyebrows lifting, he laughed and said, "Barbed wire? Now that’s sexy. I can’t believe I never noticed those before."

         
"You would have had to check out my legs, wouldn’t you?"

         
He winked. "You don’t think I have?" He paused. "Come to think of it, I think I did see them, but I always thought you were wearing ankle bracelets."

         
"I still have one more," she said.

         
"You do? Where?"

She said nothing. Instead, she rolled onto her

stomach, propping herself up on her elbows and pulling her hair over her shoulder to show him the Celtic knotwork between her shoulders.

         
"Wow," he said. "That is…" He moved closer. "That is gorgeous." She expected his fingers to touch it just as they had her others, but instead, his hands come down on the bed beside her and she sensed him moving over her. When his lips touched the center of her spine, she gasped and arched her back.

         
"Like that?" he whispered before kissing her back again.

         
"What do you think?" she said.

         
"Hmm, not sure." He moved up this time, kissing his way up to the base of her neck. "I think you do, but I can’t be sure."

         
Every inch of her skin prickled with goosebumps from his touch, which was as soft as it was intense. When he kissed behind her ear, she whimpered and pushed herself up against him, just needing to feel his body against hers.

         
Pushing back, he took away her ability to form a coherent thought as his hard cock pressed against her. Nibbling her ear gently, he whispered, "I didn’t wear your pussy out last night, did I?"

         
"God, no."

         
"So you wouldn’t object…" He kissed the side of her neck. "…if I put another condom on, pulled you up on your knees, and fucked the living hell out of you?"

         
She couldn’t speak.

         
She couldn’t think.

         
She did the one thing she could do.

         
Reached for the nightstand drawer.

Nine

         
"Hey, Kat."

         
Kat looked over her computer screen at Jackie, one of her customer service reps, who leaned in through the office door. She barely suppressed a frustrated groan at Jackie’s knitted brow, which signaled more bullshit than Kat felt like dealing with today. She forced a smile. "What’s up?"

         
The knitted brow tightened. "We’ve got a pissed off customer on line four that wants free shipping on seven hundred pounds of cargo going to India."

         
Kat blinked. "Have you asked him what he’s smoking?"

         
Jackie laughed, but it was a nervous sound. She was still fairly new to the call center, and hadn’t quite learned to roll with the punches.

         
Sighing, Kat said, "Transfer it to me. I’ll take care of it." Jackie’s shoulders dropped as she released a relieved breath. It was the signature look of 'Thank God, I’m off the hook' that all of the representatives got when she took over with problem calls. A second later, she was gone.

         
Kat leaned back in her chair and glared at the empty doorway.
Next time, you’re on your own, Jackie
. She really didn’t have time for this, not with the hundred or so unanswered e-mails, dozen voice mails, and countless reports and shit she had to address before five today, but it would be less time-consuming to handle it herself this time rather than try to walk Jackie through it.

         
The call rang through, and Kat managed to maintain a professional attitude in spite of her desire to reach through the phone and strangle the idiot on the other end. Twenty minutes later, she hung up, muttering a string of curses before taking a deep breath, exhaling, and returning to the stack of reports on her desk.

         
She had just found where she left off when her phone rang again. Before she was even through with that call, Stan, the accounting manager, appeared in her doorway. She gritted her teeth and focused on her call, trying to ignore both his impatient stare and the way his nose whistled every time he took a breath.

         
Hanging up, she smiled at him. "What do you need?"
What can I do for you that you could probably do yourself if you limited yourself to nine smoke breaks before lunch
?

         
"Can I borrow a couple of your reps this afternoon? Accounting needs to—"

         
She put her hands up. "Stan, I’m already short-staffed and we’re slammed today."

         
He scowled. "It’ll just be for an hour or so."

         
"Sorry." She shook her head. "If I had a full crew and we weren’t so busy, you know I would."

         
His expression hardened and he muttered something that hinted at conceding, but she was willing to bet money his next stop would be her boss’s office to ask the very same question.
You were the sibling that always went and asked Dad when Mom said no, weren’t you, Stan
?

She put her elbows on the desk and rested her face in her hands, closing her eyes and taking a few long breaths.

         
"Good morning, Katrina."

         
The VP’s voice made her teeth grind.

         
She looked up. "Morning, Bill." He was funny that way; insisted on calling everyone else by their full first name, but went by Bill.

         
"Listen, I’ve got some complaints coming in about the wait time on the phones in the call center."

         
"I know," Kat said. "I’ve got three new people that are still in training, and I’m missing two of my more experienced reps until Tracy’s back off maternity leave and Jillian is over the flu."

         
He nodded, pursing his lips. "Well, the fact is, I’ve got customers that need problems addressed and orders processed." He gestured over his shoulder at the call center on the other side of the wall. "They can’t be taking extra time on calls."

         
"Bill, I’m sorry, I know. We’re just very short-staffed at the moment. Once the new girls are up to speed in a week or so, we’ll be better off, but it’s going to be rough for a bit. We’re doing the best we can."
Which you would know if you ever spent a day in the trenches with them
.

"Send a memo to all of them," he said. "And copy me on it. Remind them that calls need to be taken quickly and efficiently."

Did you not hear a word I just said
? She opened her mouth, but thought better of it.
Don’t argue with him. Not worth it
. "Okay," she said. "I’ll send an e-mail around."

         
"Good." He smiled. "Thanks, Katrina."

         
Kat glared at the vacant doorway, daring it to become occupied again.

         
The phone rang.

         
"Son of a bitch," she muttered. As she took the call, she opened the desk drawer where she kept her purse and dug out her cell phone. Half-listening to the caller on the other end—one of the company’s field representatives that seemed more interested in bitching to her than asking for a solution—she texted Chris.

         
Feel like hitting something tonight
?

         
A few minutes later, as the field rep continued whining in her ear, her phone lit up with a new message.

         
Another five minutes of this shit
, his message said.
And I’ll be hitting the bottle
.

         
She laughed.
I was thinking along the lines of a few baseballs
.

         
There was no immediate reply, but she didn’t worry. Knowing Chris, he was running between meetings. The day was still young, he’d reply when he had time.

         
The day was still young indeed, with plenty of time for more bullshit. After two hours of customers, calls, and catastrophes, she’d forgotten all about their brief conversation. It was only when another conversation with the accounting manager had her ready to punch something that she remembered.

         
She flipped her phone open. His message read:
I have to put in some overtime tonight, but I can meet you at the cages around seven
.

She quickly sent back,
I’ll be there
, hitting 'send' just

before Bill came in with yet another crisis that demanded her immediate attention.

~ * ~

         
"I’m meeting someone here," Chris told the kid behind the counter at the batting cages. "She should be—"

         
"Cage four."

         
"Thanks."

         
On his way past the other cages, he could tell what kind of day Kat had had. Judging by the violent
crack
of her bat making contact with the ball and the way the chain link fence bowed each time a ball hit, it must have been brutal.

         
"Bad day?" he said.

         
"One of the best," she said through clenched teeth. She swung and hit another ball.

         
"That bad, huh?"

         
"That bad."

         
He stepped into the shielded box at one end of the cage, dropping his bat and helmet on the bench. Above him, another ball collided with the fence so hard that it made Chris instinctively duck in spite of the horizontal chain link over his head.

As he pulled on his batting gloves, he watched her. How many times they’d come to this place as platonic friends, he couldn’t count, but it was surreal to look at her here, now, knowing what he did about her.

The way her loose T-shirt hinted at her breasts. The way her hips twisted with each swing. The hint of sweat and the flush of exertion that sent his mind to places that had nothing to do with baseball.

When the machine had emptied, she came to the box and dropped her bat on the bench. "All yours," she said, panting slightly. He glanced up just as she took her helmet off, her stringy, disheveled hair tumbling onto her shoulders.

Clearing his throat, he quickly looked away. "So what happened today? Just the usual bullshit?"

"Par for the course in this job."

He nodded, smirking as he reached for his bat and helmet. "I know the feeling. Though I’m surprised you didn’t want to go the range if it was that bad."

Unscrewing the cap on her water bottle, she said, "I did, but they have that concealed carry class tonight." She

took a swig of water. "Too fucking crowded."

         
"Good point." He loaded the machine and headed out into the cage with his bat over his shoulder. It was probably just as well that she’d chosen to come to the cages instead of the range; he’d always thought a woman with a high-powered weapon was sexy, especially Kat. And now that he knew what she was—

         
"Ready?" she called to him.

         
He blinked a few times to erase the images that were keeping him from focusing on the present. Adjusting his grip on his bat, he nodded to her, and she flipped the switch on the machine.

         
He hit the first two and sent them soaring across the cage. Just before the machine released the third, Kat leaned over to get something out of her purse, and Chris completely forgot where he was.

         
Until, that is, a baseball whistled past him, slamming into the backstop and reminding him to keep his eye on the ball.

         
After an hour or so, taking turns at the plate, they both paused for a drink. The knots and tension in his neck and shoulders had faded, replaced by the satisfying ache of post-workout fatigue.

 
        
Capping his water bottle, he said, "Up for some more?"

         
She glanced at the clock on the wall and scowled. "I should go. I have to feed my brother’s critters."

         
Chris eyed her. "Dare I ask where he is?"

         
"Guess."

         
He rolled his eyes. "Jesus. I didn’t think you could snowboard in a cast."

         
"You can’t. He just got it off last week."

         
"That idiot," Chris muttered. "I’m half-tempted to break his leg myself to keep him off the slopes."

         
"Tell me about it." She sighed, putting her bat into its bag and pulling off her gloves. "If he’d just learn to be more careful…" She shook her head.

         
"He’ll grow out of it," Chris said with a shrug.

         
"I hope so." She zipped her bag. "I’d better go."
   

         
They both paused, looking at each other, an unusually awkward silence hanging between them.

         
He smirked, trying to mask his uncertainty. "So, where does stuff like this fall into our ‘deal’?"

         
She cleared her throat. "Well, I assume they would frown on us fucking in one of the batting cages."

         
"Damn, there goes that idea." He laughed, then said, "I mean, since this is more of a platonic friends setting for us…" He paused. "Am I supposed to just hug you goodbye like a friend, or do I get to kiss you and grab your ass like a friend with benefits?"

         
"Hmm, I hadn’t thought this far ahead." She shifted her weight.

         
"Maybe we should just keep it to platonic friends when we’re out like this, then?"

         
She nodded. "Probably a good idea."

         
"I can live with that."

         
"Good, now give me a hug so I can get to Dylan’s before his cats starve."

         
"Those fat things?" Chris laughed. "They could go months without eating and survive." He hugged her, jumping when her hand squeezed his ass. He pulled back, laughing when she gave him an innocent look.

         
"What?" She batted her eyes.

         
He said nothing. Instead, he put his hand on the back of her neck and pulled her into a kiss.

         
"That’s," she paused, licking her lips but barely pulling away from him. "Isn’t that against the rules?"

         
He shrugged and put his other hand on her neck. "You started it." And he kissed her again, gently parting her lips with his tongue.