Slow Heat

“Which part?”

“The month part. Not necessarily the play nice part.”

Sam had been looking at the water but that brought her attention back to him while in his ear Pace laughed softly. “Don’t let her kill you before the wedding tomorrow,” his bemused friend said. “Holly, Gage, and I will be there at noon. We want to see the show.”

“You mean the wedding.”

“That, too,” Pace said with an obvious smirk.

“I’m sorry, exactly how is this so funny?”

“Well, you’ve never met a woman you couldn’t conquer, and she’s sure as hell never met a guy whose balls she couldn’t crush. So who’s going to survive? That’s the million-dollar question.”

Okay, so things were admittedly awkward between him and Sam, but whatever she wanted to believe, they were still attracted to each other. Wade had always been perfectly willing to follow through on their attraction, but she held back, leaving him unsure of what exactly her feelings were when it came to him. If he’d thought he had a snowball’s chance in hell of winning her over, he’d have tried by now. “I didn’t laugh at you when you had that sexy little reporter dogging your heels,” he said to Pace. “The one you asked to marry you.”

“Hell yeah, you did. You laughed your ass off. And what are you saying, that you’re going to get engaged to Sam the way I did with Holly?”

Wade opened his mouth, then closed it andhis phone.

“So,” Sam murmured. “They think this is amusing.”

“Yeah.” He let out a breath. Not a lot got past his chill facade these days, but the reality of what they needed to pull off did. After a physically intense spring training, all he’d wanted was this weekend off before the crazy started again, a weekend of relaxation. Samantha McNead was nice on the eyes, very nice, but not much for relaxing. Letting out a low laugh, he rubbed his eyes with the heels of his hands. “So I get why I’m in this, but why you?”

“Gage.”

The name was reason enough. Gage Pasquel was the youngest, toughest, most badass team manager in the MLB. He did whatever he felt necessary to run the Heat with winning efficiency, but in the end, he answered to the GM and the owners, one of which was her father. “You could have said no.”

Sam slid him a long look. “And you could have behaved.”

“I always behave.”

She made a sound that said she thought he was full of shit. And she might be right. He did have a little authority problem, always had. “You have to admit,” he said. “The press has been unfairly relentless.”

“Yes, well, the probability of someone watching you at any given moment is directly proportional to the level of stupidity of whatever it is you’re doing.”

“Are you suggesting I act stupidly?”

“No,” she said. “That would be rude.”

He laughed and shook his head.

She relaxed with a small smile. “As if you care what I think about you anyway.”

He’d forgotten how pretty she was when she smiled, and seeing her good humor brought his own to the surface. Maybe there was hope for that stick-up-her-ass after all. “Admit it, Sam. You’re already having fun.”

“I’ll have fun when this is over. And you’re right, the press is relentless, especially with us, and you know why. We’re a new team, a talented team, but we’re young and we make young mistakes. We had those accusations of drug use last season, and-”

“I know.” As a result of those accusations, they’d lost a promising pitcher and one of their coaches had retired early. Pace had briefly come under fire as well. Even Sam had inadvertently been dragged under when her brother Jeremy had confessed to leaking false stories to the press in order to make the Heat look bad.

Then to add insult to injury, Wade had attracted a bunch of press in the past few weeks when Tia Rodriquez, claiming to be pregnant with Wade’s baby, had produced pictures of the two of them. As Tia wasn’t exactly a credible source-after all, she’d stalked Pace just last year-management hadn’t been overly concerned at first. But then she’d managed to get several national newspapers and blogs to take her seriously.

Baseball did love a scandal.

When the Heat’s corporate sponsors had begun to make noise, management stepped in, getting a restraining order against Tia and slapping Wade’s wrist at the same time.

He wasn’t sure how he felt about pretending to be in a relationship to please some CEO he’d never even met. On one hand, it would be nice to have someone to share this weekend event with. On the other hand, it was Sam, who gave him a hard time about everything. Sam who’d argue with him about the sky being blue. Sam with whom he’d once spent those wild few hours in an Atlanta hotel elevator. Sam who’d rocked his world after he’d gotten his ass kicked two games in a row by the Braves.

The Braves.

He could still remember striking out and then missing a pop fly at home, letting in two runs. Gage had chewed his ass out. Hell, he’d chewed his own ass out. And then the coup de grace. He’d gone back to the hotel, gotten onto an elevator, and realized he was alone with Sam.

He’d expected it to be more hell, but it’d turned out to be the best two hours in his entire damn life. He’d never forget the sound she’d made as she’d come for him, as if she hadn’t come in forever, as if he’d given her something no one else had.

And yet now… now she preferred to ignore him.

As if her thoughts were just as disturbing, Sam sighed and leaned her head back, exposing her neck as she closed her eyes.

“Well, one thing’s for sure,” he murmured, eyes on the spot where her pulse beat, a spot he’d once ravished and suddenly wanted to ravish again. “It’s going to be an interesting month.”

“Hmm.”

Something about the doubt loaded into that single syllable made him want to push her buttons. “I’ll be sure to carry around a flask in case you feel the need for another quickie.”

Eyes still closed, her mouth tightened. “You can carry an entire bar with you, I’m not interested in anything happening between us ever again.”

“Ever?”

Opening her eyes, she leveled him with one single withering stare. “Ever.”

“Yeah.” He slid his sunglasses on and eased back. “Me either.”

“Good,” she said.

Better than good, he thought. Except for two small points. She was lying.

And so was he.

It took exactly two hours to make the drive from Santa Barbara to Laguna Beach. At the exclusive Laguna Rey Resort, there were already paparazzi in the lobby, looking to get shots of the famous wedding guests as they arrived for their weekend.

Until recently, Wade had always had a sort of live-and-let-live relationship with the press. He’d always understood that the more uptight he got about smiling for the cameras, the more houndlike the people behind the cameras got.

So he smiled as he reached back to offer Sam a hand out of the limo, carefully blocking the money shot with his body so that the paparazzi couldn’t snap the view up her skirt.

And it was a glorious view.

Once she straightened, she sent him a thanks with her eyes, and for an odd second, he got snagged by the sky-blue depths. She seemed to do the same, then the beat was gone and she tried to step back, away from him.

He merely tightened his grip and reeled her in, dipping down to put his mouth to the sweet spot beneath her ear as the flashes went off all around them. “Mine,” he whispered. “Remember?”

She shot him a look that made his whole afternoon. Someday he’d have to visit why the hell he loved to piss her off, but for now he’d just enjoy the effects. “Oh, and hey,” he murmured. “My girlfriend would definitely be all