Game On(37)

I leaned back in my wobbly plastic arcade chair, trying not to feel so depressed.

Even when I tried to ask questions that weren’t even about personal details, just preferences, he still managed to dodge them. I was starting to get really, really annoyed. Like he had sprayed me in the face with water again, if that had been an accident.

“Favorite dessert?” I thought that maybe if I tried working through a few innocuous questions, I could wiggle a few more personal ones past him, but he just raised his eyebrow at me, as if he could tell exactly what I was trying to do.

“Well, off the record,” he began, and I bit back a frustrated groan. There was a possibility I would dump my soda on him if he kept this up. “I love ice cream. The more chocolate, the better. And I usually don’t share.” He winked at me. “Unless someone asks very nicely.”

“Favorite holiday?”

“Off the record, it’s Thanksgiving. It’s cheesy, but I really enjoy spending time with my family. And stuffing. I really like stuffing.”

“It certainly doesn’t show,” I muttered. Nothing about his body said that this was a guy who enjoyed eating as much as he claimed to.

“Baseball is good exercise,” he said. “It’s all about control and strength. There’s nothing like being able to take a baseball and with the aid of a piece of wood, knock it up into the sky with everyone around you cheering. It’s kind of an amazing feeling.”

I was totally enthralled. This was the kind of Nathan people wanted to see. Someone intense, eloquent, and totally enamored with his sport. He loved baseball, that was clear, and at the end of his little speech, I loved it as well. But he seemed to realize he had exposed himself a little more than he intended because he then shot me a wicked grin. “And I have been known to enjoy working off those calories in other, more creative ways.”

Immediately my mind went to work imagining those various different ways. I swallowed hard, as several different images of how we could burn calories together popped into my head.

“So you have other interests outside of baseball?” I quickly tried to take back control of the interview.

“Of course,” he told me, his gaze now intense. “In fact, I bet I share quite a few of those interests with you.”

Goddamn it, he was good, I thought, my pulse thrumming in my throat. Get it together, Hall, you won skee-ball, you can win this interview. I shot him a smile and leaned forward slightly, hoping he’d catch a glimpse of my cleavage, which had previously been respectfully restrained. I wasn’t going to let him distract me. If anything, I was going to do the distracting. Maybe he’d forget all about his stupid “off-the-record” rule.

“Well, why don’t you tell which interests you’d like to share with me,” I offered, lowering my voice to a purr.

“Hmm.” He reached across the table where my hand lay and gently smoothed his fingers across the inside of my wrist. I shivered, despite myself. “Like I said, the right person could persuade me to share anything, whether it’s my favorite ice cream or,” he glanced down at my open blouse, “or my favorite shirt.” His eyes caught mine again. “I can be very, very generous when it comes to those kind of things.”

I found that I was speechless, my entire body humming with desire. Until he spoke again.

“But, of course, that’s all off the record.”

Fuck.

I yanked my hand away.

“Seriously?” I asked, feeling frustrated, in more ways than one. I needed an ice bath. “You’re not going to give me anything?”

“Told you,” he shrugged, at least having the decency to look a little sheepish. “I’m not newsworthy.”

“No, you’re an incredible pain in my ass,” I shot back bluntly. “And that’s on the record.”

“And off the record?” he wanted to know.

“I’m not at liberty to say,” I told him with a glare.

He looked down at the table now covered with paper plates that had practically been licked clean. I would have been embarrassed, but Nathan had gone at the cheap, greasy food with the same enthusiasm. Both our plastic cups were empty as well. He picked them up.

“Let’s refuel before we start on the next question.” Without waiting for a response, he took our drinks to the counter, leaving me alone at the table. It would have been a perfect time to think up a new line of questioning, but I found myself distracted by the perfectly delicious sight of Nathan in his well-worn jeans. I bit back a sigh as he leaned forward to grab the now-refilled drinks, giving me and the rest of the room a great look at his great ass. Too bad I couldn’t write my article on the perfection of his body, going into agonizing detail of the way the soft denim cupped his rear and clung to his muscular thighs.

I felt the heat rise again in my face as he turned, arms full of drinks, and caught me openly staring at him. His own smile grew, from the charming one he had shared at the table, to something slightly wicked.

He headed back to the table, and if I didn’t know any better, I would have sworn he was putting a little more a lazy, languid roll to his hips with each step. Either way, I knew that it was going to take a whole lot of self-control to keep on topic once he returned to the table.

But I was nothing if not resilient. I was also just undersexed, I told myself. I was still upset about the break-up and looking for attention and attraction in all the wrong places. He was a baseball player, for god’s sakes, I told myself. He could have his pick of literally any woman. He was flirting so he wouldn’t have to answer questions. Because there had definitely been a few that he had quickly rejected.