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Jasper rolled his eyes so only Emmy could see, then hopped off the massage table and guided Ramon to the other side of the room. Tucker took Jasper’s place beside Emmy, sitting like she had in his kitchen that morning, with his knees touching her thighs.
A warm swell of memory washed over her at his touch, reminding her of all the things he’d done less than two hours earlier with his hands, his mouth, his…
“Want me to start with some basic stretches?” Tucker asked, reeling her back in to the present task.
“Please. I’m going to go get a resistance band. Do you want a bottle of water?”
“Sure.” He’d already begun doing some overhead stretches, and her gaze was drawn upward to the way his fingers crooked and fanned. The smile he gave when she looked back down told her it was no accident he’d been moving his hands like that. It was the closest he could come to flirting with her while two other men were present. Her legs trembled as she walked out of the room, well aware he’d be watching her go.
When she came back, they spent the next half hour staring intently at each other while she held the resistance band and he did his damnedest to pull her over. Ramon left and Chet replaced him, having finished with Tannis. Jasper went through his warm-up routine with the shortstop, but Emmy barely noticed either of them was there.
Tucker, who wasn’t pitching that day, finished his session with her when Alex arrived. Alex was—as Emmy predicted—late, but not by the lengths she’d anticipated. Tucker and Alex swapped spots on the table, and a knowing glance passed between the three of them.
Of course Alex would know she’d gone home with Tucker. He’d been responsible for getting the pitcher to show up at the bar in the first place. She wasn’t sure if she wanted to hug him for being a brilliant wingman, or smack him for being presumptuous.
At least he hadn’t taken advantage of her himself. There might be something noble about Alex after all.
“How you feeling this fine morning?” he asked, keeping his voice almost level, but a hint of teasing snuck in.
“Just fine.”
“Just fine?”
Tucker, still only five feet away, sipped his water and watched the two of them with passive interest. He didn’t seem like he intended to come to her rescue with Alex, leaving her to her own devices, which had served her fine thus far in her life.
“I don’t think I’ll be signing up to be your drinking buddy any time soon, but I’ll survive.”
“Smart girl.”
“Hola, Lloyd.” Ramon snapped his fingers at Tucker from the doorway. “I said do you want to run some drills with me? I need a good arm.”
“Sure,” Tucker said, only hesitating slightly. It wasn’t as if he could spend all morning in the training suite with Emmy. He might not be playing, but she still had a job to do, and it would look highly suspect if he was in there with her for hours on end, regardless of the fact they wouldn’t be alone.
Ramon and Tucker left for the changing room, the first baseman nattering about something in Spanglish, which Tucker either understood or had learned to play along with because it didn’t slow their conversation down in the slightest.
Emmy returned her attention to Alex, getting him to lie back on the table while she extended each leg and guided him through a series of stretches.
“You’re a good person, right?” he asked out of the blue. They’d spent a solid ten minutes in complete silence apart from her brusque commands.
“I think so,” she answered uncertainly.
“You’re not going to hurt him, are you?”
Emmy stopped what she was doing, still holding Alex’s knee and half lying on him as she stretched out his thighs. It was an awkward position to be in when a man started asking questions about her intentions.
“I don’t plan to.”
“Good. Because I want you to know he’s not like the other guys here. He’s not the kind of guy who has let money and fame and all that shit go to his head. He tried dating a model once.”
Emmy felt a pang, now concerned there was no way she could match up physically to whatever Victoria Secret pinup Tucker had dated previously. Those girls were perfection. She was only Emmy.
“Oh.”
“And she was plum fucking nuts. She was greedy, and stupid and just awful. She was a terrible person, and she did such a wringer on him. Convinced him to buy her stuff, take her places, and in the end she fucked off and left him heartbroken.”
Suddenly Emmy wasn’t worried about looking like a model anymore. She was too busy wondering how anyone in their right mind could want to do something to destroy Tucker. She didn’t need Alex to tell her Tucker was a good man. He was one of the kindest, most genuinely nice people she’d ever met.
Any woman who could walk all over a man like that in order to get money and a vacation? A woman like that deserved to have a five-inch stiletto planted directly up her bony ass.
