Winning With Him by Lauren Blakely

Declan

I rehearsed.

Practiced in front of the mirror and all.

Given my speckled history with public speaking, I didn’t want to leave a word to chance.

I recited all the words.

And I also recited the nine short lines of Robert Frost’s Fire and Ice over and over today.

I did it this morning.

I did it this afternoon.

I did it when the doorman buzzed to tell me that my visitor was on his way up . . .

Some say the world will end in fire,

Some say in ice.

But as soon as the door closes, everything I planned to say falls from my mind. So do the other seven lines of that poem I’ve known by heart since I was a freshman.

Who could blame me?

Grant Blackwood is in my home. My heart lunges at him. My brain is like mushy peas.

“Come in,” I say, even though he’s already here.

Hey words, nice time to vacate my head.

After he sets his suit jacket on a chair near the door, he takes off his shoes. Mine are off too. Then, the sexy catcher strides across the hardwood floors, looking around as he tugs at his teal blue tie, the perfect color for those eyes. “Nice pad,” he says as he loosens the neckwear a bit.

“Yeah, it’s got a good view.”

Not of hyacinths.

His gaze drifts to the floor-to-ceiling windows, and he points at the view of the New York night. “Is that . . . the East River?”

I smile and nod. “Yes, it is. How many times have you been in New York?”

With that grin that drove me wild in March, he holds up two fingers. “Second time here.”

“That so? The series the other month was your first?”

He wiggles a brow. “I was a New York virgin in September.”

“And now you’re not,” I say as he makes his way to the windows, stopping in front of them.

“Now I’m not,” he says a little heavily as he stares out the window. “But when I was younger, New York was on the list of places I always wanted to go.”

“The list you and Reese made?” I ask, thinking of the night he told me the story behind the mountain tattoo on his pecs.

Grant’s eyes snap to mine. “Yes. That list.” He seems impressed I remember, but I remember nearly everything about him.

“And what do you think now that you’ve seen it?”

“New York is grittier than San Francisco, and we have better burritos on the West Coast.” The corner of his lips curve in a grin. “Also, our baseball team’s better.”

I narrow my eyes. “Yes, the Dragons are better than the New York Minotaurs,” I say, naming the other teams in each of our cities. “Funny story—I had to convince my own mother to start rooting for the Comets. Not sure I convinced her or my stepdad. They tried to wear Cougars gear when they came to a few games.”

“I like them even more now,” he teases. “My sister’s the same. Sierra always rooted for the Dragons when we were growing up. I had to beg her to switch allegiances when I signed.”

“Did it work?”

He grabs his phone from his pocket, clicks on the screen, then taps through his camera roll. “You tell me,” he says, brandishing the phone.

I move closer, standing inches from him now, catching a whiff of his arousing scent. My favorite smell in the world.

Him.

But I do my best to focus on the image he’s showing me.

It’s Grant in his Cougars uniform on Opening Day. He’s on the field, flanked by two blonde women, an arm around each. “That’s Reese,” he says, pointing to the more fair-haired one. She’s tall too, maybe just under six feet. “And that’s Sierra,” he says, pointing to the other woman, her hair closer to Grant’s in color, but with a long purple streak down the side.

She’s decked out in Cougars gear.

I furrow my brow, trying to find the Where’s Waldo? hint he’s dropping.

“Look closer, Deck,” he encourages, and that nickname unknots some of the tension in me. He zooms in on the picture, and I crack up when I spot the issue. “Ah, I see she’s wearing Dragons earrings.”

“She is, indeed. She’s a rebel. And she loves to give me a hard time,” he says, then lifts a brow. “You don’t have siblings, do you?”

I shake my head. “No. It’s just me.”

He nods like he’s absorbing that intel, then sets his phone on the nearby coffee table. I swear I can hear what he’s not saying—only child. That makes perfect sense.

“But I have a stepbrother,” I volunteer quickly, even though Aaron hardly changes my only child status, or behavior. “He’s older, so I never lived with him.”

“Yeah? How much older?”

“Nearly ten years. My mom married Tyler when I was seventeen, so I didn’t know Aaron much. Honestly, I don’t know Aaron that well now, either. He lives in Tokyo with his wife, who’s from Japan. They’re both doctors. He met her while working at a hospital there.”

“Tokyo is hella far,” he says. “Probably hard to get together for Christmas.”

I let out a light laugh. “It is. But I could try.”

“You should go,” Grant says earnestly. “It’s good to see family. And thanks for telling me.”

He’s not sarcastic, but I get the subtext. I never told him much about my family before. Maybe this is a small start. “Maybe I’ll offer myself up for a Christmas visit.”

“Do that.” He takes a breath, peers out the window again, then back at me. “And how’s New York treating you?” he asks, his smile disappearing, a note of concern in his voice. Pretty sure I know what he’s getting at. He wants to know what I’m up to at night. I want to know the same about him.

“Better now,” I say, keeping my eyes on him, making my meaning clear. “It’s really good to see you, Grant.”

He lets out a shuddery breath, drags his hand through his hair, looks out the window. Fiddles with his tie once more, tightening the knot rather than loosening it.

But he says nothing.

In his silence, I can read his emotions like a book. He’s wildly conflicted. About everything. About me. About tonight.

“You want that drink? Or a not-drink?”

“Yeah. I’m parched.”

I beckon him into the kitchen, where I grab the bottle of champagne I bought for him. “For the rookie of the year,” I say, lifting the bottle. “Let me pour you a glass.”

I’m about to pop it open when he shakes his head, reaches for the neck, and wraps his hand around it. “No.”

“Why not?”

Grant stares at me like he can’t believe I asked. “Because you don’t drink.”

“But I got it for you. To celebrate,” I say, then stare at our hands wrapped around the bottle. Close to each other’s. So close we could touch.

He tugs a little harder. “Like I said before, I’m not going to drink with you.”

“Why?” I ask. I truly don’t get it. I never asked Nathan not to have a glass of wine. I never told Kyle not to drink a beer. I don’t expect the guys I’m with to live the same way I do.

“This is a choice that matters to you, and I don’t need alcohol to have a good time. I don’t need it to talk to you. But thank you for the offer. I’ll have something else, though.”

“Fair enough,” I say, and I’m honestly gobsmacked.

I don’t know what to make of his reaction—except I don’t have to guess because he keeps talking. “If it matters to you not to drink, it matters to me to make that choice when I’m with you,” Grant adds, more softly this time.

I do get it now.

He’s showing respect. He’s honoring my choices.

“Thank you,” I say, then I grab a can of soda from the fridge, add ice to two tumblers, and pour us both a drink. I lift my glass and we clink in a toast.

“Congratulations, rookie,” I say, lingering on that nickname for him.

The last time I said it, he asked me not to use it.

This time, he nibbles on the corner of his lips for the briefest of seconds. “Thanks,” Grant says, then knocks some of his drink back, and all I can think is I want his Diet Coke kiss so badly.

But I have to earn it.

So, when he sets down the glass, I do the same, then I go for broke, laying my cards on the table. “I messed up when I cut you off. I regret it every day. I haven’t been with anyone else since you, and I want to tell you what happened,” I say, and it’s not my finest moment, it’s not a great speech, but I hope it’ll get the ball rolling.

Grant’s quiet at first, his fingers straying to his tie, unknotting it more, but like he’s not quite sure how it works. “I haven’t been with anyone either.”

I breathe a sigh of relief. “That’s not a game-changer for me, though. I want you to know that. Even if you’d been with someone, I’d still want you again.”

“But I haven’t,” he adds.

“Good,” I say, my lips crooking up in a grin as his fingers toy with the knot once more.

“I want to tell you what went down, but first . . .” I take a step closer, reach for the blue silk. “Let me help.”

I’m a thief, and I’ll steal this chance to move a little bit closer and reach up to undo his tie.

“I know how to untie a tie,” he says, a little annoyed, but it’s a feeble protest. When my fingers reach for the silky fabric, he doesn’t stop me.

“I don’t doubt you do,” I say, my breath coming fast and hard, the air charged, the sparks crackling in the space between us. “I just want to help.”

He moves his palms behind him, setting them on the counter as I undo the tie the rest of the way, my hands so close to him as I go, my fingers brushing against his chest, my body lighting up from the close contact.

Once the knot is undone, I tug off the silk, leave it on the counter.

I’m about to ask if he wants to sit down and talk, since I know that’s what we need to do.

But Grant is faster.

He moves like a cheetah.

In less than a second, his hand ropes through my hair, and he brings his lips so close to mine.

Stopping when he’s a millimeter away.

His breath ghosts across my face. His fingers curl tighter around my skull, and my body hums with need.

Buzzes with desire.

Kiss me, I want to say.

But I need him to be the one to do it.

Need him to finish what he’s starting.

This test.

It sure as hell feels like a test. Like he’s dipping a toe in the waters of his own desire, checking the temperature.

Come on in, rookie. The water’s nice.

He says nothing, but the noises he makes tell all. The low, velvety rumble from his throat sounds like coming home.

“Mmm. Want to kiss you so fucking badly,” he murmurs, and if death by desire is possible, it just happened to me.

Yes, some do say the world will end in fire, and that’s fine by me.

I am officially dead.

And I’ve gone to dirty heaven when Grant drops his lips to mine.

He kisses the breath out of me.

My God, it’s better than before. My memories didn’t lie. Time didn’t erase us. We are still fire.

That’s how he kisses me—like the world is burning down around us, and this is how he wants to go—up in flames, stoked by this passion.

His lips are greedy. His mouth explores mine like kissing me is the missing piece. Like this is what we’re falling back into.

This heat. This connection. All this possibility.

It’s like a whole new first kiss as his mouth takes over, owning my lips. A heavy warmth spreads in my body, along my thighs, down to my dick, where it sets up camp.

I’m aching with arousal. Hungry to get reacquainted with this man.

But I’ll take whatever he’s willing to give—and give he does. He kisses deep and hard, his tongue skating over mine, his lips feasting like we’ve never done this before and it’s all we ever want to do.

He groans as he kisses me, and his noises ignite flares of pleasure. Here, there, a spark, a flame, a fire. They make me moan too, and our mingling sounds are like jet fuel. This kiss is rocketing to the stratosphere, powered by harsh breaths and hot growls, and now . . . hands.

His hands cover me. Those big, strong hands that I’ve missed.

With one palm, he holds my head while his other snakes around my waist to my back, then covers my ass.

Curling over me. Squeezing possessively.

My entire head turns hazy.

Neon lights flash everywhere in my mind as my body becomes like Vegas lit up at night, blinking, broadcasting its wishes across billboards, blasting its desires on sound systems across the whole city.

He is all my desires.

And maybe, just maybe, I’m still his, I think as he yanks me against him, letting me feel what I do to him. The same damn thing he does to me.

Everything.

That’s when I take over.

With his back against the counter, I slam my body to his. I press and grind against him, grabbing his face, holding him tight, devouring those lips I’ve missed. Kissing him all night long sounds like exactly what I want to do. Rubbing my beard against his clean-shaven jaw draws out a wild groan from him. From me.

We kiss feverishly, in a hot frenzy of need, of want, of coming back together.

But soon, he slides a hand down my chest, gently pressing me away.

Breaking the world’s sexiest kiss.

And I want to whimper.

He runs his thumb along my beard. “I like this,” he says, all hot and needy. “A lot.”

“Good.” I let out a staggered breath as he strokes my jaw, and my gaze drifts to his hand on me. “I like that.A lot.”

A smile curves his lips for a split second, then his expression turns serious as his eyes meet mine. “I needed to know.”

My brow knits. “Know what?”

“If it still felt the same,” he says, lust coloring his tone, but a hint of sadness too. “Kissing you.”

“The verdict?” I ask, hoping his answer rocks my world.

“It’s better,” he says heavily. “That’s the problem.” He slides away from me, tips his forehead to the living room. “Let’s talk.”

Kissing was never the hard part, but talking has always been tough.

But it’s time to start.