THE LAST INNING
1
TO NIGHT, RICK WARREN wasn’t going to be leaving the locker room. Delaney Blair would make sure of it.
She stood just inside the empty administrative offices of the Atlanta Rebels’ clubhouse, a mere few yards from where Rick sat in the nearly vacant locker room. Her fingers shook a little as she tightened the tie on her sarong and then fluffed the silken tails of the knot to fall between her breasts. She’d dressed carefully—or rather, undressed—for this night when she could find him alone.
Rick was frequently the last to leave the locker room anyhow. A fact she knew because she’d been paying close attention to the Rebels’ first basemen since he’d joined the team her father owned. Delaney had never been all that interested in her father’s organization while she’d been growing up, her overriding idea of baseball players being that they were overpaid and thought highly of themselves. But since Rick had come to town, Delaney had to revise that opinion.
She peeked out through the blinds in the front office to watch Rick as he joked around with the cleaning crew. Six foot two with golden-brown eyes and longish dark hair that made him easy to pick out even in his ball cap, Rick was the quiet sort around his team. A loner. But he always had time to ask the woman who gathered the dirty uniforms about her two sons in college or razz the guy who ran the floor washer about being a die-hard New York Scrapers fan.
One of many things that made Rick Warren worthy of the risk she planned to take tonight.
Carefully closing the gap in the blinds before anyone noticed her spying, Delaney waited for the cleaners to vacate the locker room. Rick liked to avoid the press at all costs, so he always took his time leaving the clubhouse after a home game. The press had started paying more attention to him this season, speculating about what he’d do now that his two-year contract would be expiring with the Rebels.
That damn contract had forced her to brash action tonight. Well, that and a recent bit of news that had inspired her to take life by the horns.
She’d wanted to catch Rick’s eye for months. His habit of keeping his head down and his MP3 player cranked up around the clubhouse made that difficult, however. Add to that her own natural shyness and she figured the two of them would never move past the occasional lingering glances across a crowd.
That would change tonight. As she peered out once more between the gap in the blinds, she noticed the big bins of dirty uniforms were gone and Rick was alone. He sat on a bench between his locker and Dwight Wrigley’s, his baseball cap on backward as he clicked the controls on the MP3 player.
Luckily, it didn’t matter how loud he had the tunes cranked in his ears. Taking a deep breath, Delaney checked the knot on her bright green silk sarong and slipped into her fuchsia high-heel mules. The vivid colors made her feel a little more strong and confident when she was scared inside. She’d never done anything drastic to make a man notice her. Never put herself on the line so completely.
But a cancer scare could light a fire under anyone. And after waiting for tests on a lump that had turned out benign, Delaney didn’t plan to wait anymore. Starting tonight, she was going after what she wanted.
Drawing open the door of the administrative offices that led into the locker room, Delaney eyed the man who’d captured her attention with his head-down, plow-through-anything work ethic.
“Rick?”
She said his name even though she knew he wouldn’t hear her with the ear buds in. Still, he must have sensed someone else in the room because he looked up.
Their eyes met. Locked. And reaching for the knot of silk just above her breasts, she loosened the tie.
Her sarong fluttered to the floor like a drowsy butterfly as Delaney bared the new, bolder woman who wouldn’t take no for an answer.
THERE WERE SOME THINGS in life a man couldn’t tune out.
The roar of thirty-thousand fans during the playoffs. The flash of police lights in the rearview mirror. And a nearly naked woman prancing purposely into his line of vision.
Somewhere in Rick Warren’s head, a voice told him to run and get a towel for her to cover up with. To throw his team jacket around her shoulders. But since he’d seen her untie her little scarf dress with his own eyes, clearly she’d intended for this show to happen. A show involving no clothes except for sheer lace and satin panties that matched her strapless bra.
“Ms. Blair.”
He might have stammered when he said it. God knew, his thoughts were stammered. Stumbling.
Could a player be released prematurely from his contract for seeing the owner’s daughter naked? Maybe he’d be sent to the minors. Hell, an ultraconservative owner like Daniel Blair III would set up a Single A team in Siberia just to punish Rick for an offense like this.
That kind of penalty had crossed his mind in the past any time Rick had thought about acting on his attraction to the quiet beauty he’d had his eye on ever since setting foot in Atlanta.
Her lips moved, but Rick couldn’t hear what she was saying, calling to mind the ear buds he still wore. He tugged them out with one hand and chucked the electronic device into his open locker behind him, his eyes never leaving the golden skin of the goddess strutting his way.
A fantasy come true.
“Call me Delaney.” She smiled at him with a Mona Lisa lift of her full lips.
He’d heard Delaney Blair was adopted, her features Eurasian exotic. The long sheet of straight, dark hair gleamed with good health. Her eyes tilted up at the corners, but her generous height and bronze skin suggested a wide range of ethnic forbears. No matter her origins, she was a sight to behold even with her clothes on.
And now… He sucked in a long breath in an effort to drag in enough oxygen to clear his head. No dice.
“Ms.—ah—Delaney. I shouldn’t have stayed so late.” He thought about standing and realized his veins might not have enough blood flow available to fuel his legs for that kind of movement.
The wholly unexpected striptease had had immediate physical consequences.
“I’ve been trying to capture your attention all season.” The smoldering temptress paused in front of him, hooking her thumb in the waist band of her barely there underwear. “Every other time I’ve attempted to get to know you better, you’ve found an excuse to bail.”
His gaze went to her thumb as it tracked the band of white ribbon threading through the panties.
Through the erotic fog that enveloped his brain, he recalled Delaney looking his way a few times at a meet and greet early last season. At the time, he’d been too new to the club to know the lay of the land and he hadn’t wanted to start off his tenure with the Rebels as the guy who tried to schmooze the owner’s daughter.
And then, the longer he’d been with the club, the more convinced he became that dating one of the Rebels’ most prominent team attorneys was a bad idea. She worked for the organization he played for. Hell, she was the one who’d signed his damn contract. Rick had always walked the straight and narrow and he didn’t think now was the time to start veering from the path, especially when he’d finally landed on a team that could reward his years of loyal service with a championship.
“I’m no good at small talk,” he hedged, a little shell-shocked that this woman would be in here with him alone right now, peeling off her clothes.
As Daniel Blair’s daughter, Delaney was strictly off-limits. Cool and aloof, she was always at the fringes of every team gathering with the top brass. Which, perhaps, accounted for why he’d crossed her path at the occasional party. He tended to hang out on the sidelines a good deal himself.