Winning With Him by Lauren Blakely

Grant

It’s like I’ve been walking through a house with the lamps off, feeling my way in the dark. Now, room by room, the lights are slowly turning on, illuminating nearly everything.

I can see Declan clearly now, understand him better. He makes so much more sense.

I always knew he doled out bits of himself on teaspoons, offering a morsel here or there. Now, he’s offering a whole meal.

And I want it.

Truly, I do.

I want him, flaws and all. Because I’m pretty sure I still feel the same as I did last spring.

But feelings aren’t everything.

They aren’t even the most important thing.

But tell that to my stupid heart. It’s about to explode in my ribs. It’s thundering, trying to beat its way out and curl up with this man.

Pinching the bridge of my nose, I sigh and slide a hand down my face.

Do I tell him I feel the same? That everything he just said snapped me right back into stupid, crazy love?

Do I blurt out the pathetic truth of my heart too?

But that’s what I did most of the time we were together in the spring.

I have to tread carefully this time around. Whatever this is.

I keep my hands to myself, clenching and unclenching my fists so I won’t touch him again. “What exactly are you asking me for, Declan?”

Those dark eyes don’t stray from me. They laser in on mine, never letting go. “I’m asking you for another chance.”

He hardly sounds like the Declan I knew. I’ve known him witty, tender, sexy, dirty, funny, gentle, powerful, intense, and surprisingly vulnerable in bed.

But never stripped bare like this.

Never raw.

Part of me wants everything he has to give. Somewhere in the back of my mind I’m sure he’s everything I never knew I wanted. He’s my missing piece.

A man with flaws.

A man with guts.

A man who’s been through more than his fair share of shit and knows nothing worth having comes easily.

Someone who gets me and my passions and has many of the same ones.

But that’s part of the problem.

“And what would that look like?” I ask, eager to know. “Us sneaking around again? Or us going to Miami as boyfriends and letting the world see that two guys in the majors fell in love?”

The intensity fades from Declan’s expression. In its place comes a slow and easy smile—one that hooks into my heart.

“Fell in love, did you?” he asks, all cocky and impossibly sexy.

I roll my eyes. “Yeah. I did. There you go,” I say, holding my hands out wide, admitting for the first time that he’s the L-word for me. “I fell in love with you. Like you didn’t fucking know that.”

“I didn’t.” He reaches for me, hands cupping my face, making everything inside me go whoosh. “I just hoped. I hoped you felt the same.”

I lean into one hand because it feels so good, so right. “I told you I was falling. I told you I was crazy for you. Where else do you fall but in love?”

He hums, and it sounds like he’s happy. Like I’m giving him his greatest wish.

Am I, though?

I don’t know if I can.

“I’ve never been in love before,” Declan says softly, pressing his forehead to mine, lighting up my whole damn soul.

I want so badly to come together.

To kiss him desperately.

To yank him down on me so I can feel his full glorious weight stretched on top of me.

So I can let him in.

“Me neither. I’ve never been in love either,” I say, and then, because I’m dying to let him in, I kiss him.

It’s hot and wild.

And all kinds of dangerous.

Sparks ignite the sky as I scramble to get under him, to pull him on top of me. To feel him.

Declan’s on me in a heartbeat, knocking my legs open, giving himself room, covering me.

“Oh fuck . . .” I moan. It’s too much, too good, too everything.

I need to stop this.

I have to stop this.

But he feels too right.

Then we are grinding together, pressing, pushing. His hands clasp my head. Mine grab his firm ass. I jerk him closer, and we don’t stop.

We moan and grind and rub, and it’s like the first time we combusted in the back of his car and, at the same time, it’s so much more. Because it feels like he could be the big love of my life.

All I want is to get as close to him as possible, so I kiss him that way. Frenzied, frantic, putting all my emotions into a white-hot kiss as we devour each other’s lips.

As we slam our bodies together.

As our hard cocks line up, seeking each other.

Nothing in my life has ever felt this true. This real.

Except . . . baseball.

And something else too, which I learned tonight at the award ceremony.

Making a difference.

As I kiss Declan like it’s a prelude to fucking, I’m acutely aware of what I only suspected when I walked into his apartment.

I can’t have it all. I’m not strong enough. I can’t withstand the consuming intensity of how I feel for him. It’s going to destroy me—chew me up and spit me out. And I half want to let it, even though I won’t survive it.

That’s the problem.

Somehow, I wrench my mouth from his. “We have to stop.”

His breath shudders in a harsh pant, but he listens without hesitation.

Pulling away.

Sitting up.

Smoothing his wrinkled shirt then offering me a hand.

I take it, sitting up too.

Then, I say the words I might regret for the rest of my life. “I want to be with you, but I can’t.”