From Enemies to Expecting(23)

As a whole, the team’s manager had point on the fine details, but he had to work with the talent Logan gave him. It was the general manager’s job to get the right guys onto the field for the best price. Bang for the buck was key when it came to the financials of a ball team. Managing money should come easily considering his DNA, but it didn’t. He had to work at it.

So instead of crunching numbers and looking at possible trade angles, Logan leaned against the bar nursing a light beer that wasn’t fit for unclogging a drain. The view was nice, though. Trinity perched on a bar stool, clutching a highball, one jeans-clad leg entwined with his. She’d done that a while back in a seriously sexy back off, ladies move that had raised his eyebrows, but he kind of loved it.

They couldn’t exactly talk due to the music, yet the contact created a sense of intimacy he’d never have expected. As a result, he’d been sporting a semi in his pants since the moment her leg had snaked possessively around his.

All right, the fact that she was wearing jeans and a T-shirt that he’d personally put on her body might have a little more to do with the hard-on. When he’d said he wanted to see the real her, he hadn’t expected to like it so much, or to discover a burning desire to uncover more. He’d barely scratched the surface of what lay beneath Trinity’s outrageous exterior. And that thirst for knowledge was at least 50 percent of the reason he was still here.

The bump in ticket sales was the other fifty. Myra couldn’t control her glee earlier when she’d phoned him in the dugout to say that today’s game had hit an all-time high for attendance. Which unfortunately wasn’t saying much, but it was saying something.

There was definitely room to get some more press, though.

And he needed to do it before his skull split in two.

A photographer had been circulating near the front of the club, and he bided his time until he saw her headed toward the bar. From the corner of his eye, he tracked her progress until she was close enough to guarantee she wouldn’t miss it if he tossed her a great shot.

Logan plucked the highball from Trinity’s grasp. Before she could squawk, he swiveled her stool and cupped her face in both hands, bringing it up to his. Their lips connected.

It should have been a token kiss, just show. But this was Trinity, and she didn’t hesitate to open her mouth. That steel piercing slid hard across his tongue, sensitizing him all the way to the bottoms of his feet. Her arms raced down his back. She flattened her palms against it and shoved, grinding his erection straight into her center, hard enough to put stars across his vision.

God, yes, more of that. Aching, fiery need exploded between them, and he wrapped a hand around her thigh dangerously close to the ivy tattoo under her jeans, hauling her leg higher on his hip. The angle opened her wider and the stool was just the right height to make everything feel unbelievably good.

Deepening the kiss shouldn’t have been so effortless, but she was as into it as he was, her moans vibrating her chest against his, or maybe that was the thump of the bass jarring them both. Whatever it was, this was the hottest kiss he’d ever participated in.

The music wasn’t loud enough to cover the hoots of the surrounding partygoers, though, and somehow it filtered through his head that he’d more than accomplished his goal of laying a photo-worthy kiss on his date. And publicity was the only reason to be doing it. The only logical reason, anyway, and the only one he’d admit to.

With far more reluctance than he’d like, he ended the kiss and pulled away, but Trinity was having none of that. She threaded her fingers through his hair, pressed against his neck and nuzzled his nose with hers, brushing their lips together, and suddenly they were kissing again.

But this time, it was a slow slide into an intense web of awareness. Everything faded and time stopped as he tasted heaven. The floodgates of his body opened, welcoming her in. This was connection, the kind he’d said he wanted. It was so much more than a kiss, and he craved it like he craved blood to his heart.

This was what it was like to kiss the woman behind the curtain. No barriers. He’d been looking for the essence of Trinity and he’d found it. More importantly, she’d given it to him. It spread through him, warm, thick, sweet, and it was so right that it became a part of him instantly, as if she had always been there.

One of her hot hands slipped under the hem of his shirt, scrabbling at his waist as if she’d slide off the stool if she didn’t hold on. He totally understood that. Because he was careening down a slippery slope as well, hitting a hundred miles an hour with no brakes.

And that’s what finally snapped him out of it.