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For now the agency would consist of him. If and when he started getting more clients, he’d take another step he’d been considering for a while. One that involved picking up the phone and calling a person he’d thought he would never speak to voluntarily again.
He wasn’t going there yet.
First he had to convince Summer she needed help. If she disagreed, she’d get herself a shadow with her permission or not. Sparring with Summer would ensure his mind stayed off other crap he didn’t want to dwell on.
Like his possibly terminated real career and looming elbow surgery, followed by months and months of rehabilitation with no certainty of a cure for his condition. And his father, about to be let out of rehab and set loose on the world. And the fact that he could really fucking use a drink or, barring that, to lose himself in some sexy female who wouldn’t care if he didn’t call after. Because he wouldn’t, and pretending otherwise was a waste of both their time.
To quiet his mind, he did the one thing sure to distract him—he grabbed his dick. His own cool, wet fingers stretching around the swollen girth made him hiss out a curse. It had been too long since he’d even given himself this much. He’d been on some prolonged denial shit, trying to get himself clean and sober and away from anything that could derail his focus. Tonight he needed some relief, and anything was better than availing himself of the pretty young thing in the living room. If she even could be availed, which he had no intention of finding out.
He ran his hand down his length and up again, moving in short, swift strokes. All he wanted was release, and hopefully the exhaustion that would follow. Touching himself harder than a woman would, he slipped his other hand between his legs to palm his warm, sensitive sac. Pleasure came wrapped in barbs of pain, and he welcomed both.
His breath wheezed out the faster he worked his cock, and he squeezed his eyes tight to block out the gauzy pink light of dawn that filtered through his window. He still saw more than he intended.
Big blue eyes. A fringe of brown lashes, as soft as butterfly wings. He’d never noticed a woman’s eyelashes before, but then he’d never seen them starred with snow before tonight either. He’d also never had a woman flash him, giving him a brief, illicit glimpse of glistening black fabric cupping perfect breasts he had no business even thinking about. She was a kid, one who used to sing in the church choir if memory served. Sweet. Pure.
Unattainable.
And that, more than anything else, shoved him closer to the edge. He couldn’t have her, even if he was dumb enough to make a play. She was the kind of girl who asked you for forever with her eyes even while her mouth spoke of tonight. He didn’t have forever to give.
He dragged his palm up and down, panting through the storm of sensations that warned of his impending orgasm. Squeezing his flesh, releasing it. Tugging on the hot globes of flesh underneath his shaft without mercy. Everything in him building. Swelling. Throbbing.
The cry from the living room shot him straight up in bed. He swore under his breath and swung his legs over the side of the mattress, only remembering at the last second that he didn’t have anything on. He whipped his towel around his hips before he yanked open his door and barreled down the hall.
Scanning the room in the low light, he noted the pile of clothes on the coffee table. The bare leg dangling over the edge of the couch, the spill of dark hair over the white pillow.
The firm breasts and dusky nipples visible above the shoved-down comforter.
He f
orced his gaze upward, his breath stuttering at her face. Tears glimmered on her cheeks, silvery from the early morning glow pouring through the window. Bad dream? Hell, nightmare. He’d had enough himself to recognize the signs.
Cursing softly, he walked over and shut off the light. He checked the alarm reflexively and then came over to sit on the coffee table beside her clothes. All her clothes, obviously. Little exhibitionist. He kept his attention on her feet as he yanked the cover up near her neck, trying to be gentle enough that she didn’t wake. She was still whimpering occasionally, her curvy body shivering and jerking while she fought off whatever attacker had chased her into sleep.
He didn’t know which was worse—not being able to sleep at all or meeting his demons in the dark.
Once she’d stilled, he brushed a hand over her hair and swallowed hard when she turned her cheek into his palm. Seeking comfort even in sleep. Then his gaze landed on the silver flask he’d somehow missed on the coffee table and he let out another string of curses.
This time she woke, eyes wide and so blue that he stared into them for a full minute, lost in their depths. Blurry with sleep, edged with need. For comfort or more, he couldn’t tell.
“Chase?”
That was his name, right? She called him Chase, always had, even when everyone else referred to him by the nickname that had followed him into baseball. He drew back the hand that had mysteriously chosen to cleave to her petal-soft skin and cleared his throat. “Yes. It’s me.” He sounded gruff again, something he regretted until her pupils sharpened with that cat-killing inquisitiveness that both amused and annoyed the hell out of him. “You were having a bad dream. That’s why I’m sitting here.” In a gaping towel.
She appeared to notice that fact at the same time he did. “You’re…wet.”
And still hard, he noted in disgust, dragging the bath sheet farther down his legs. He bought them in mammoth size, but with the pole he was currently sporting, he’d practically turned the terrycloth into a damn deck umbrella. “I took a shower.”
“I didn’t wake you?”
He shook his head, realizing she hadn’t doubted the validity of his bad dream statement. Either she remembered what she’d been dreaming or it happened often enough for her to believe it without question. “I couldn’t sleep.”
Her gaze dropped to his lap. So much for him thinking she’d be too preoccupied to notice. “No wonder.”
Again he cleared his throat. “What were you dreaming about? Do you remember?”
Two flags of color appeared high on her wax-pale cheeks. “I’d really rather talk about your erection, if it’s all the same to you.”
He laughed before he knew he was going to. “Vetoed there, slugger.”
