My son deserved better. I should want better than to be a stop on the road, but I wasn’t sure how Michael fit in my life. He’d said he’d be everywhere and we would live here. He wasn’t offering more than moment-to-moment when we fit in his schedule. I’d not be peaceful that way. I reached for his hands and tugged for him to release me when I said, “Then, we shouldn’t.”
He let go but was still so close that my heart beat in tune with his as he said, “You and Jeremy could be in Tulsa for some of the season.”
Flights weren’t easy and our lives were built here. I lowered my lashes and hoped I’d sound calmer. “He has school.”
He swallowed and his Adam’s apple caught my attention as I remembered how he'd ravaged my body once as he said, “It’s late September. This craziness in my life ends, at most, mid-November. Then, we have some time.”
I traced the collar of my shirt and asked, “Some time for what?”
He leaned closer and our eyes were in each other’s faces as he made my huge kitchen into such a small space as he said, “For you to realize marrying me solves our issues.”
Marriage? My ears burned. Sure, I’d had late-night fantasies where Michael found me and Jeremy and we were a family. But he practically shoved peace out the window when I was near him. If we did marry, then I was more than a stopover in his life.
But I wasn’t ready to live only for a man and never state my opinion.
I wasn’t my mother. I froze as I said, “Wait. What?”
He widened his stance, stepped back and crossed his arms. The huge white kitchen of mine somehow grew back to its normal size as he said, “I can ask for more money in my contracts if there's a stable home life.”
“How?”
“My lack of family and the rumors have caused corporate heads to believe I’m volatile. Marriage proves I’m more trusted for the team.”
“I see.”
“You want health insurance. And Jeremy gets my parents in his life. But it will mean you’ll probably have to move from here.”
Just pick up my life and follow a ballplayer? This was a leap of faith, but he was my son’s father and the only man I wanted. I turned toward the sink as I said, “I can’t do this.”
He placed his hand on my shoulder and pulses rushed through me as he asked, “Why not?”
I flipped around and his arms caught me as I ignored how my heart now raced. “Because I told you. I refused to get old and die from a broken heart and hurt Jeremy.”
His gaze narrowed but he didn’t touch me. It was good because I was a total disaster and tears threatened to come. “Then don’t. I don’t want that.”
“What?”
His words stilled me.
Then he touched my sides again like he wanted to reassure me, but my nipples grew hard as he said, “We have good sex and our lives blend. All you have to do is bend, not that I know the end location of where we’ll live yet. And I don’t want anything to happen to you if something happens to me. Besides, you have to watch Jeremy.”
My mother hadn’t cared that she had six girls or twenty of my cousins who’d once considered her their second mother. My son was my everything, but I couldn’t deny Michael was the only man I’d ever met who made my body turn into a temple of unending desire. At the moment, his blue eyes were clear and it was all just me being crazy as I straightened out my white pants to loosen any wrinkles and asked, “And, all you want is for me to move with you?”
“I’m a free agent.” He took my hand and held it between us as he said, “I don’t know where I’ll be in the spring. If you marry me, then you’re part of the conversation with my agent.”
“But you don’t want love?” I asked and sucked in my lips. It was a bad habit of mine, like I needed approval when I didn’t, but I couldn’t stop myself right now. This was another reason a rational deal to satisfy my wants made more sense than some unrealistic belief that love fixes everything.
He blew out that sexy mouth of his and he said clear as daylight, “Fuck, no. I just want you, in my bed again, and to get more money. Stable players who don’t court trouble get higher offers. And, I want you to outlive me.”
A few fish kisses on blind dates that only confirmed I hadn’t needed them.
I needed Michael’s touch. No one else had ever come close to making me feel…this sexy. I reached out and ran my fingers over his stubble and said, “Let’s see how this winter works, and then we’ll talk about it more.”
A grin showed on his face as he started to take my sweater off. “That’s a start. Now let’s get this outfit off you. We won’t wrinkle it.”
My fingers traced against the fuzz on his face. My skin radiated as I let his face go and curled my arms around his short hair. “We won’t?”
“No.” He tugged it off me and then placed it on a chair behind him as he said, “You’ll want to look like a good mom in this outfit when we pick our boy up.”
This morning was crazy. I held my hands up as he lifted my shirt off my body and laid it with my sweater. “If you make it out of school. I’m sure Jeremy told everyone about your practice, and you didn’t get to meet Olivia.”
He then returned to my side and unzipped my pants as he
