Stealing Home(5)

He exhaled through his nose. “Plus I don’t want to live in some big house by myself. My sisters still live in our family home north of San Diego, and I don’t want to come ‘home’ to no one. Until I have someone waiting for me, my apartment works just great.”

His pace picked back up again, and this time it seemed like he wanted to put some distance between us. I could have told him I felt the same. I could have told him that that was the reason I was living in my own apartment back in San Diego. I could have told him, but something about the way Luke Archer looked at me made me wonder if keeping the private parts of our lives to ourselves was better.

I couldn’t get involved with another player. Definitely not one on the very same team I worked for. People already talked shit about how I’d gotten here. If it got out that I was sleeping with the star of the team, no one would ever take me seriously again. My credibility as a damn good athletic trainer would be stamped out by the assumption that I did my best work on my back.

No. I couldn’t get involved with a player.

One like Luke Archer especially.





THIS WASN’T THE type of photo shoot I was imagining. This was the hot baseball player equivalent of the Sports Anonymous swimsuit edition.

Thanks to my line of work, I’d seen more than my fair share of half to mostly to fully naked men. I didn’t even blink when the full monty processional rolled out of the showers after a game. But for some reason, seeing Archer shirtless from a good twenty feet away was threatening to put me into cardiac arrest.

I’d never worked with him before, since Shepherd oversaw him, but when Archer had emerged from the dressing room a few minutes after being sent in there, I was relieved I hadn’t. Holding onto my removed professionalism would have been impossible while working with Archer.

There were plenty of good bodies in this sport. Plenty of good bodies I’d had my hands all over. A good body didn’t turn my head anymore. They’d become commonplace and everyday.

But Luke Archer . . . his body went beyond good and fell somewhere in the realm of unreal.

Muscles bulged from his shoulders down to his forearms, veins drawing jagged patterns down his arms. His chest was wide, narrowing into a stomach that was so cut, I found myself wondering how many women had fantasized about running their tongues down the canyons tapering into his pants.

The baseball pants they’d stuffed him in were at least two sizes too small, showcasing the ideal ballplayer’s round ass, along with something just as prominent around front.

Shit. Checking out Luke Archer’s package was not okay.

Other than the too-small pants, they’d provided him with a royal blue belt to match his stirrups, a flashy pair of Nike cleats, and they’d kept his team cap settled on his head, hooding his eyes just enough. I wished they’d turned it around because Archer’s eyes held in the same theme as his body—unreal.

He had a baseball bat braced behind his neck, his arms curved around the back of it, while the photographer snapped photo after photo. How many variants of the exact same pose did they need?

“How am I looking over there, Doc?” Archer kept his eyes on the camera, managing to move his lips just enough to speak. From the number of billboards, magazines, and articles I’d seen him in, he probably had lots of experience honing the skill.

Taming my stare, I swallowed and shrugged. “Like you’re the pretty boy of baseball for a reason.”

His careful expression fell, his eyes cutting to the back of the room where I was hovering against the wall, pretending not to eye-molest him like the rest of the women in the room were. And some of the men.

“Ouch, Doc. You got anything in that magic bag of yours to fix a bruised ego?”

“An ego your size?” I fired back. “Not likely.”

“Double ouch.” He spun the bat over his head, watching me.

“But I do have a tin of eye black.” I shoved off the wall, unzipping my bag. I dug around inside for it. “That should be up to the task of dirtying up a pretty face.”

No one stopped me as I moved in front of the cameras toward him. The photographer quit firing photos like he’d poured milk over his speed pills for breakfast to see what I was up to.

“My face is not pretty.” Archer juggled the bat from hand to hand, almost smirking at me as I moved closer. “It’s rugged.”

After unscrewing the tin, I dragged my fingers in the eye black and paused before lifting them to his face. When I got a “go ahead” hand twirl from the photographer and a couple others from Sports Anonymous, I drew a streak down the side of his face. He didn’t blink as he watched me draw another line down the other cheek. Dipping my fingers in again, I swirled even more on before painting a thick streak down the side of his neck.

I kept my attention on what I was doing instead of who I was doing it to. I focused on moving my fingers instead of what my fingers were moving against. The heat from his skin was transferring into the pads of my fingers, cresting over my body from his chest.

What am I doing? I was an athletic trainer, not a body paint expert.

Then I spun his cap around so his eyes could be seen better. Eyes like those should not be shadowed by anything.

“There,” I said, almost a whisper. “Now you’re rugged.” For the first time since I touched him, I glanced up to find him studying me.