Swing (Landry Family #2)(3)
“I won’t,” I sigh dreamily. My eyes flutter closed as the broadness of his shoulders fill my memory, the way his chest tapered down on the sides to one trim, hard waist. My fingers sing as I imagine running my hands down what I’m sure is an etched V. “He swaggered in here like a rock star. He wore sweatpants like most men wear a tailored suit, Mace. Like . . . he must really be good if he’s that confident.”
“Oh, I bet he’s good. Check out that arm porn in his pictures. And those hands—dear Lord! Think of what they could do to you.” A camera shutter sounds through the phone. “Here, I’m texting you a screenshot of this one.”
“That’s precisely what I’m trying not to think about,” I laugh. “I have to work for the next five hours!”
Macie sighs right along with me. “On that note, I need to get back to work too. No hot baseball players here, but one can hope, right?”
“Two words: Will Gentry.”
“I need to call you later and tell you about last night. I’m being invaded by families right now, so I can’t get into details. I’ll just say that boy had me panting for hours, Danielle. Hours.”
“Call me later,” I laugh.
“Cheerio!”
I replace the handset and settle back into my seat. A shiver tears through my body, an aftershock from being in the center of the Landry storm. I consider locking the door and getting myself off. I need the release. My body needs to return to normal working order, having been thrusted up the—
Thrusted? I’m never going to get through this day. The worst part is that the good-looking asshole knew exactly what he was doing to me.
They always do.
Which is why they’re in my no-fly zone.
Lincoln
IT’S FUNNY WHAT YOU LEARN at two in the morning when you’re bored, sober, and a little uneasy. It’s a trifecta I’m just getting acquainted with. I might be sober a lot during the season, but boredom and anxiety aren’t familiar. Or fun.
Around.
Around.
Around.
I’ve tried to watch one blade of the ceiling fan, focusing on it and trying to block out the other four as they whiz above me. Over the last thirty minutes, I’ve learned it’s impossible to count the number of rotations in a minute when it’s set at medium speed. I’ve also learned that Skittles make violent projectiles when launched into the blades of the fan, regardless of the setting.
I already knew that though. That was a painful lesson learned at a party a few years back.
Rubbing my shoulder, I see the slight purple indent of the candy against the white paint of my bedroom. It will be gone tomorrow. Rita, the housekeeper, is thorough like that.
I snatch the remote off the bedside table and flip the fan off. It slows, shuddering just a bit before the spinning comes to a halt. Immediately, I remember why I turned it on in the first place: it’s the silence that kills me. It’s the quiet that allows all of the worries to wage a sneak attack against me. It slams into me from every direction since my meeting with the Arrows’ General Manager after my therapy appointment today.
“It’s still too early to know anything, Lincoln. All I can tell you is that we want you back in an Arrows uniform next season,” Billy Marshall, the GM, says.
“I want that too. This is my city,” I gulp, purposefully not looking at the report on the table between us.
“Let’s work through the rehab and see how it goes. You know it’s not up to me. It’s up to the owners. I’ll have a say, and you know I’m pulling for you. Hell, we all are. You’re a franchise player, Landry. But you know, at the end of the day, this is business.”
“Ugh.” I lift myself off the bed. My back muscles strain from the stress of the day, little sleep, and more than a little pain. Glancing in the mirror, my voice cackles across the room at my reflection. “You’re a mess, Linc. But your abs look awesome.”
Inch by inch, a smile slides across my face as I envision other awesome-looking things. Namely, Danielle Ashley in her pale pink dress.
“Fuck me,” I mutter, thinking back to the sweet bow of her hip. It’s amazing that I have it memorized without touching her. Just like that, I’m hard. Again.
I can’t with this girl. She’s gorgeous with her olive skin and dark, exotic eyes. Full lips that nearly reach her high cheekbones when she kills me with that smile. Her black hair was piled on top of her head with curls falling out of the haphazard mass. Sexy. As. Fuck.
Then she goes and banters with me . . . and doesn’t offer her number. I mean, she wants me. Of course she does. She saw me and she knows who I am—let’s be real. It’s nagged at me all day that she didn’t slip me her business card or offer the availability of when she’ll be in the office so I can “accidentally” stop by again. All I can figure is that the call coming in was important. Super important. Earth-shatteringly important.
Scratching my head, my own hair sticking up in every direction, I try to remember if this has ever happened to me. I go through the list of women I’ve encountered recently: the redhead that gave me the coffee in the drive-thru, the chick that keeps sending me naked selfies that I met in a bar on South Padre Island the week after our season ended, and Blondie today. I could’ve had her number. Hell, I could’ve had her in the fucking elevator. So why not Dani?