Chapter 6

Brooks

I feellike a dick while I lead Ainsley to my room. She's nice, but I have to keep mentally correcting myself from calling her Ashley.

And I have a meatball in my conscience.

Is she THE ONE? Are you sure? Are you really sure?

I shake off the mental commentary and point to the picture of Duggan Field that someone hung in the hallway. "You ever been?"

"No, but I'd love to someday." She smiles at me, and I realize her eye makeup is uneven.

Yep. I'm judging if I want to sleep with a woman on how even her eye makeup is.

I'm the dick. I am definitely the dick.

I'd kick a guy's ass if he ever told me my sister wasn't good enough because her eye makeup was uneven. And given who my sister is, odds are good she's got way worse miscoordination going on any given day than mismatched eyelid paint.

Damn good thing her husband adores her for all of her quirks.

Clue number seventy-five that I shouldn't bang Ashley—Ainsley, dammit—is that I'm thinking about my sister.

Concentrate, Elliott. Would she be sleeping with you if you weren't a pro baseball player? You're getting laid and she's getting something out of it too.

My balls perk up and give a big ol' Hell, yeah! at my internal justification, and I slip my arm around Ainsley's waist as I lead her into my bedroom.

As soon as we're inside the white-walled room hung with seascape paintings, she eyeballs the two double beds, then turns and slips her arms around my neck. "You have a roommate?"

I don't—I haven't had a roommate since my rookie year, but I got last pick of rooms when I got here.

But if the idea of getting caught turns her on, I can run with that. "He's pre-occupied with a poker game."

"Strip poker?" She wiggles her brows, which makes me squint at that space where I can tell her eye shadow is uneven. Is one side a different color brown than the other?

Dammit. I have issues.

She presses her lower body to mine, and hallelujah, my dick doesn't care what's wrong with her makeup.

I wiggle my brows back at her. "We could skip the poker part and go straight to the stripping."

"I like that plan."

Her fingers thread through my hair. One of her rings catches and she rips out a few strands, and I swallow a yelp of pain as she leans in to kiss me with cold, wet lips.

"Mm," I groan.

She pulls back. "Oh my god, did I hurt you?"

"I—no. That was—that was nice. That was my I like it noise."

My I like it noise?

Fuck.

I reach over and kill the lights, which plunges us into total darkness instead of giving us mood lighting.

"Ah, sorry." I flip the lights back on.

Her brows crease like she knows this isn't normal, and what the fuck is wrong with me?

Screw it.

I strip out of my shirt.

Ashley's—Ainsley's eyes go to my chest. She licks her lips and rubs a rough hand over my pecs.

What does she do? Is she a dishwasher or something? Or a doctor? Or does she need to see a doctor for whatever's wrong with her hands?

Shut up, Elliott, and fuck the woman.

"You have a lot of muscles."

"Wanna see the biggest one?"

"Oh, hell, yeah."

I reach for my belt buckle.

And then the humming starts.

I meet Ainsley's eyes.

She blinks.

A lot.

Dude, that's what's going on. She only put mascara on one eye.

"Is that you?"

I shake my head. Abruptly, it stops.

But now I have "Take Me Out To The Ball Game" stuck in my head.

She laughs awkwardly, and I think about my sister. Again. While I'm supposed to be making out with this hot chick who wants to stroke my chest and help me with my belt.

"Is it true what they say about the size of a baseball player's bat?" Her fingers are making nimble work of the button on my jeans now, reminding me that while I've never gone all the way with a woman, she obviously has.

With a man, I mean.

Not with a—I'm going to quit thinking now.

Her hand is slipping into my boxers and my dick gives a startled squeak as her cold, rough fingers squeeze him. "Oh, it is true."

The humming starts again, this time, the national anthem.

I jerk away from Ashley—Ainsley, dammit—and drop to the floor, checking under the beds with my semi-hard junk half-out of my boxers.

Nothing except my luggage.

But the closet?—

The closet holds a blond-haired, wild-eyed, hot-as-fuck chick who's not supposed to be in the bedrooms. "Hide-and-seek!" she gasps while I make quick work of zipping my pants.

"What?"

"I'm playing hide-and-seek with Cooper Rock!"

She's flushed from the edge of that pink dress over those gorgeous breasts, up her slender neck, all the way to the tips of her ears and her hairline, and she's panting in a way that's making my dick harder than it was while Ashley had her hands on it.

Her.

Mackenzie.

I want to bang her.

I angle closer. "Is this a private game of hide-and-seek?"

"Yes! No!"

She's an adorable ball of sexy, and I can't help smiling at her. It's pure instinct. So is the ugly flash of jealousy at the idea that Cooper's using my bedroom for sex games with Mackenzie.

Who could barely talk to him half an hour ago.

Jesus.

Does the asshole have no honor at all?

"Do you want him to find you?"

She half nods, half shakes her head, which means her face basically moves in a circle, and there I go, smiling at her again.

I touch her arm, because I can't help myself, and my cock strains behind my zipper. "You don't have to play hide-and-seek with anyone you don't want to, okay?"

She fans her face and nods.

That wide-eyed thing—she's not here because she wants to be. Ah, hell.

What has Rock talked her into?

"You want to go find your friends?"

More rapid nodding. Faster fanning.

"Hot flash," she squeaks.

"Yeah, let's go find your friends."

"If you're leaving, do you care if I go talk to Darren Greene?" Ashley asks.

Fuck.

Fuck.

I'm here with a date.

I fling a glance back at the woman I was about to have sex with before I completely forgot she was here. Ainsley. Her name's Ainsley. And she's giving me dagger-eyes.

Pretty sure I deserve that. Probably a lot worse.

You're better than this, idiot.

I pinch my eyes shut. "Greene's married and his wife is pregnant. I'll be right back." I pause. Realize I'm leaving a woman in my bedroom with all of my valuables. Wonder what my two brothers who were once in the military would say about that. Then wonder what every baseball player I've ever known would say about me being dumb enough to leave a woman in my room. "Actually, here. You want to meet Luca Rossi?"

She looks longingly at my bed, then follows us out.

"I secretly love you," Mackenzie whispers.

Ainsley gives her the same you're such a weirdo eyeball that I've seen assholes give my sister one too many times. "You have issues."

And suddenly I'm seeing red.

And not because I've gotten cock-blocked two nights in a row.

Clearly, we all have issues.

And mine is apparently more than the fact that I'm baseball's oldest virgin. Possibly only virgin.

The damn meatball was right.

I have zero taste in women.

And even if I did, I don't currently deserve any of them.