This seems like going from zero to sixty on the find-a-date highway, but if there was ever a time to go for it, it’s now.
I felt the chemistry, the connection.
I fill out the form, consider what I’d be willing to spend, and enter the numbers.
Then I add another zero.
There. Done. I turn my phone off, drop it in my purse, and ignore it until Hamilton dies.
As I make my way out of the theater, I turn on my phone, and a message blares at me from the auction organizers.
A burst of excitement flares inside my chest.
I hold my breath as I click open the text, hoping it’s good news.
* * *
You’ve won a date with Adrian Martinez.
* * *
It’s the best of news.
And I can’t wait.
Martinez
* * *
A few days later
* * *
The door to the bullpen swings open, and I jog across the field, wiggling my hand in my well-worn glove then adjusting the bill of my cap, as is my custom.
When I reach the pitcher’s mound, the music crests, the crowd roars, and I nod to Jose Carnale, who’s waiting there, his mask pushed back from his face.
We go over the pitches for the guy at the plate—Baltimore’s slugger has been belting homers all season, not to mention plenty of doubles that send runners home. With a man on second, another on first, and only one run keeping us ahead, there is no room for error.
No room to let the runners move around the bases.
“Get ’em with the cutter,” he says, then claps me on the back and trots to home plate.
I inhale deeply and visualize my ninety-eight-miles-per-hour cut fastball whizzing across the plate, teasing the batter and making him think it’ll be straight down the middle.
But it’ll veer to the outside corner, breaking at just the last second.
As I go into the windup, then throw the first pitch, it breaks beautifully, tricking the batter in a futile swing.
And that’s how it goes for all three batters.
The first one strikes out looking, the next swinging, and the third pops up a lazy fly ball to first.
I record my thirtieth save of the season, we wrap up the home stand, and I eventually shower and make my way out of the stadium, finding my driver easily and heading away from the Bronx. But I don’t go to my home off of Park Avenue.
Instead, I stop at a quiet restaurant in the East Nineties, a ramen joint that’s up a flight of stairs and around a corner. The type of place with so many dark nooks it might as well invest in them.
Once I’m there, the hostess shows me to a quiet corner table, and my pulse spikes when I see the brunette with the blue glasses.
Spikes so much higher and faster than when I’m on the mound.
Tempest rises, smiles, and says, “Nice save, Tree.”
“Nice job watching my game,” I say, then slide a hand around her waist, my fingers skimming over her lower back.
She murmurs, slinking closer to me. “Who said I watched it? Maybe I just looked up the stats online to impress you.”
I grin, yanking her closer, her firm, lush body pressed against mine. “I’m impressed, then. So very impressed, mi querida.”
She trembles as I call her my darling. “Fine, maybe I did watch. Also, I love when you talk to me in other languages.”
I tuck a finger under her chin, lifting her face so our eyes meet. “Then I’ll keep doing it. But first did you enjoy what you saw when you watched me?”
“A little. I think maybe I enjoy the feel of you a little more.”
I shake my head in admiration. This woman. Her appetite. It matches mine perfectly.
That I discovered earlier this week when we met for lunch after she won me. The meal was good. The dessert of her was even better.
I experienced it again the next day when we met in the park and walked for an hour, talking about pizza and cats and New York and growing up mostly in Spain, a bit in Italy, and now and then in France, as well as her family and her fascinating careers , then decided being horizontal would be more fun than being upright.
And it was. Oh hell, yes, it was.
Now I have the distinct feeling she wants that again.
“Tempest, are you trying to distract me from eating?”
Her lips curve into a naughty grin. “Oh, no. I don’t want to distract you from eating at all.”
“So deliciously dirty,” I tell her, then, in the middle of the tiny hole-in-the-wall restaurant, I haul her in for a kiss. I gather her close, bend my knees, since she’s a little shorter, and brush my lips against hers.
It starts chastely, as far as kisses go with women you already adore.
But it doesn’t stay chaste for long.
She loops her arms around my neck. I wrap mine tighter around her waist, and I draw her snug against me, all while kissing her more deeply, more passionately, with more tongue and teeth and fire.
