Winning With Him by Lauren Blakely

Grant

Yes, I want to be alone with my guy.

But I want something more right now. I want to make him happy—as happy as he makes me. The great thing about Declan 2.0 is he tells me what he wants. He lets on. He gave me the keys to his wishes the day I got my real World Series ring. That night, he shared his dreams.

I have this fantasy of seeing you in the stands. Locking eyes. Of calling my shot and hitting a homer for you.

I can give that to him, so I turn to his mom and Tyler, like I’ve got an ace up my sleeve. “Would you like to go to Declan’s game tomorrow? All of us together?”

His mom’s eyes sparkle like Fourth of July fireworks. “I would love that.”

“Let’s make it a party. I’ll invite some of my Cougar buds and my best friend, Reese.” I drop my voice to a stage whisper. “Her boyfriend is a Dragon too.” I shudder, all over the top. “She and I are kinda in the same boat. In love with the enemy.”

Declan slides his arm tighter around my waist, laughing. “You’re never gonna stop.”

I drop a kiss onto his cheek. “Nope.” Then I turn back to his mom. “I’ll get tickets. Don’t worry—since I’m a Cougar, I can get awesome ones. We’ll get a whole crew, and we’ll root for this guy,” I say, looking at Declan again. He rolls his eyes, but he’s happy. I’ve made him happy by making plans to go to his first game.

“I think that sounds like a perfect night,” his mom says.

“We’d love to go. We never turn down a baseball game,” Tyler adds, then winks at Declan. “Even a Dragons one.”

“Awesome,” I say, then hold up a finger. “I have a gift for you, Cyndi—Wait. Can I call you Cyndi, or do you prefer Mrs. Martin?”

She laughs, shaking her head. “Cyndi is great.”

I unlock the front door, rush inside, grab a little something from the drawer in the entryway table, then return to the porch. Outside, under the San Francisco sky, I show Declan’s mom the baseball.

“Since you’re such a Cougars fan, I thought maybe you’d like a signed one,” I say, squaring my shoulders.

Declan scoffs. “You are really hard to take,” he harrumphs.

“Ignore him,” I tell his mom and Tyler.

“We will,” Tyler says.

I inscribe the baseball just for her, sign it, and hand it to the mom of the guy I love. When she reads it, her breath catches. Holding the ball like it’s a precious jewel, she throws her arms around me, hugging me so tight she nearly knocks me off-balance.

It’s a foreign feeling, this motherly hug. The only woman who hugs me like this is my grandma. She’s awesome, and I love her madly, but I also like this—this maternal thing I’ve never truly had.

When she lets go, she shows the ball to Declan.

He smiles like the inscription lights up his soul.

Well, it should.

It says:

Dear Cyndi,Thank you for helping your son find his way back to me. He’s everything to me. I love him so much.

With her eyes glossy, she wraps her son in one more embrace, and then she tips her forehead to the street. “And now we really are going to leave you alone.”

“Wait. Give me your number so we can make plans for the game tomorrow,” I say.

His mom and I exchange texts, and something about that simple task—such an everyday, ordinary moment between my boyfriend’s mom and me—feels so damn right.

As Tyler and Cyndi head down the steps, Declan grabs his bag and we go inside my house. When the door shuts and it’s only us, he sets down his duffel, shoots me a lopsided grin, and pulls me against him, his arms looping around my waist.

“Is the great hug-fest about to continue?” I ask. “Seemed like we were all trying to set a record out there.”

With a small laugh, Declan shakes his head. His laughter fades. His eyes darken. Passion declares itself in his eyes. “No. I want your kisses. All your kisses. All night long.”

“Take them,” I say, grabbing his hips, yanking him even closer, and bringing my face inches from his.

For a heartbeat, maybe two, we gaze at each other like we still can’t believe our luck.

Is it luck?

Is he here in my house, in my town, in my life because of luck?

Tonight feels like so much luck.

But maybe it was always meant to be this way. Maybe we were always going to find our way back to each other and land in the same place at the same time.

Most of all . . . at the right time.

I tilt my head. He follows. We are caught in the tease of each other, lost in that heady moment before a kiss.

I flash back to our first kiss ever, in a car in Arizona on the side of the road, hot and desperate. I picture our kiss in New York in his apartment when I had to know if I felt the same wild need and found I ached for him even more.

Then, a few months ago we kissed again, right here in my house, and it felt like coming home. It felt like the start of us once more.

This is another moment. How will this kiss be different?

“Kiss me, shortstop,” I whisper, eager to know the answer.

“I will, catcher.”

My once-upon-a-time rookie affair brushes his lips to mine and kisses me like he doesn’t want to ever let me go.

I hum happily. This is how this kiss is different.

This kiss tastes like our future.

It’s like opening the door on a summer morning, the sun shining brightly, warming your skin. Declan Steele is no longer my secret crush. He’s not my nighttime tryst. And he’s not my we’re-not-making-a-plan guy. He is all my plans, all my crushes. He’s the man I’m going to love for the rest of my life.

I can’t wait to tell this city that he’s mine. I can’t wait to write my love for him across the sky. Knowing that, feeling it deep in my heart, means our soft and tender kiss doesn’t stay gentle for long.

We don’t come together softly.

We come together like two men who play hard.

Who love hard.

I thread my fingers through his hair, jerking his face back, breaking our kiss. I huff out a harsh breath as I drag my hands down the front of his polo, grappling with it. “Want you so much.” My palm travels south of the border, hellbent on reaching its favorite destination. Covering Declan’s rock-hard dick, I squeeze his erection. “Want you coming down my throat,” I growl.

Shuddering, he grabs the waistband of my pants, slams his cock against mine, grinds us together. “What do you know? I want the same damn thing.”

As I press against him, a velvety rumble falls from my throat—I might have just purred from rubbing up against my man’s hard-on. “Sidenote: my dick is so happy to see you again.”

Declan laughs. “To see me or my cock?”

I tilt my head and give him a deadpan stare. “I love you. My cock loves your cock. That’s how it works, man.”

He snakes a hand between us, rubs my dick, murmurs his appreciation. “Let’s get them reacquainted. How about on that sex couch of yours?”

I wiggle my brows. “It’s stocked up and ready to go.”

“I do admire your commitment to sex and sex plans.”

I wink at him.

Quickly, we toe off our shoes, leaving them by the door. On the way to the world’s biggest couch—maybe I subconsciously bought it hoping to bang him on it someday, or maybe because it’s perfect, too, for cuddling—I fiddle with the top button of my shirt.

He grabs my ass, stops me in my tracks. “Turn around,” he commands.

I do as he asks. I like his orders, always have.

Declan’s eyes blaze with heat, glimmer with dirty desire. “Let me undress you,” he says, low and smoky, as he covers my hands with his and gently moves mine away so he can slide his fingers along the top button on my shirt. His touch makes me shiver. The fire in his eyes makes me harder. Makes me ache.

Declan undoes one button, then another, then presses a kiss to my chest. A groan that sounds like a whimper escapes my lips. He undoes the next one. Another kiss. I’m all kinds of dizzy as Declan takes the reins, as he pushes open my shirt, kissing his way down my body, flicking his tongue over my pecs, my piercing, my ink.

When he bites my nipple then tugs on the barbell, a tremor slams into me, and I moan with a mix of frustration and desire. “Need you naked,” I say, this close to begging.

“You’ll have me.” When he’s opened all the buttons, he spreads his hands across my chest, pushing the shirt off my shoulders so it falls to the floor. I’m only in pants, my hard-on tenting the front of them.

I seize my chance, shoving my hands under his polo, tugging it over his head. My temperature skyrockets. I’m the surface of Mercury as we stare at each other, the air charged, atoms and ions buzzing and crackling like a wire about to fry.

Then we’re off to the races. I unbutton, unzip, push my pants to the floor—my socks too. He’s down to nothing in seconds flat. Nostrils flare. Breath comes fast. Our bodies crush together.

A gasp staggers past my lips. This is it. Skin to skin, flesh to flesh with my man. Our cocks rub against each other, and I groan from the promise of ecstasy, from the sheer intensity of how incredible it feels to touch him, to be touched. From how good it is to connect like this—with our love language.

No matter how hard we fuck, how dirty we get, how rough we are, this is love.

We love and we fuck and we want.

I break our hold, lean over the couch, and adjust a blanket so it’ll be right beneath us. Then I turn to him, and like I’m making a snow angel, I fall backward onto my sex-and-cuddle couch, pulling him on top of me.

I want to do so much with him. To do everything with him. Starting right now.