Hard and Fast

Hard and Fast

Lisa Renee Jones

www.millsandboon.co.uk

MILLS & BOON

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My thanks to:

Razor Shines for the interview

Matt & Ronald for the baseball insight!

Diego for believing when I didn’t

My mom for supporting my dream

Contents

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Epilogue

1

AMANDA WRIGHT was living a dream.

New shoes. Expensive outfit—also new. Press pass around her neck allowing entry into a professional baseball players’ locker room—a room certain to display hot male bodies in various stages of undress.

It was the perfect female fantasy come to life.

Or it should have been.

But right now, Amanda felt as if she were about to walk into the lions’ den and those lions—aka ballplayers—were going to eat her alive.

Her high heels clicked on the concrete floor of the tunnel leading to the Los Angeles Rays’ locker room, her toes pinched and her mind raced. Her journalistic instincts buzzed with the thought of the after-game activity on the other side of the door. Still, she hung back, wishing like hell she could tap her heels together and transport herself back to Dallas, Texas.

Dallas, the place where she’d had a position reporting high school sports for one of the daily newspapers. It didn’t matter that her work had lacked any semblance of challenge and leaned dangerously close to boring. She’d had job security. And her parents and her sister. She’d had her comfortable little downtown apartment overlooking White Rock Lake—she really loved that view.

Nerves flooded her system, and she stopped. For a moment, Amanda stood, watching people pass. What would she do if she went into that locker room and made a fool of herself? What would happen if she didn’t impress her editor with her first column? Or didn’t attract readers?

What had she been thinking? She must have been insane to leave her comfortable life behind. And for what? A sports column with her name attached? Didn’t seem like such a sweet deal at this moment.

She took a deep breath. A dream column, she reminded herself. On game days she got space in the paper no matter what, just as she had back home. But now she’d hit the big time. Twice a week she had her very own feature in the sports section. And this wasn’t high school baseball. This was the majors. An opportunity she’d fantasized about for years.

But, of course, the job had come with extreme pressure. There was one tiny condition she hadn’t shared with her family because they’d only worry more than they already were. Her new boss, Kevin Jones, had given her a short time frame in which to build a readership or she’d be gone. Seemed her predecessor had left and taken many of his fans with him. When she’d asked Kevin how short, he’d simply said, “Short.”

The ringing of her cell phone offered a welcomed excuse to continue to stall. She shoved a wayward strand of long, auburn hair behind her ear and reached inside her purse, a petite Louis Vuitton bag her sister, Kelli, had given her to celebrate the new job.

The minute Amanda hit the Answer button, her sister’s voice snapped through the line, a lightning rod of reprimand. “I knew it.”

“Knew what?”

Kelli ignored the question. “Why are you answering your phone?”

Amanda rolled her eyes. “Why are you calling if you don’t want me to answer?”

“Because I knew you would,” Kelli retorted. “I didn’t want to be right, but I knew I would be. Shouldn’t you be in a locker room full of hot bodies, drooling enough for the both of us?”

“How do you know I’m not?”

“Like you’d answer if you were”. A pause followed and in her mind’s eye, Amanda could see Kelli shaking her head. “You’ve worked yourself into a state of self-doubt, haven’t you? Why do you always do this to yourself?”

“I’m not doing anything,” Amanda said, lying. Kelli was right. Amanda tended to let big events work her into a ball of nerves, so much so that she often would get sick. Every year, the first day of school had been greeted with a horrible cold and a red nose. Before a swim meet, she’d have abdominal cramps from the knots in her stomach. It was a miracle she’d managed to perform so well, time after time.

“Right,” Kelli said. “I wasn’t born yesterday. You’re standing on the wrong side of that door talking yourself out of this dream.”

“Okay, so I am or I was or—”

“Stop trying to think of excuses. You’ve wanted your own column for years. It’s the only thing you’ve talked about with excitement since you left competitive swimming. You can do this. You’ve been doing it for years.”

Amanda hadn’t left swimming. Her knee injury had stolen her aspirations. Shoving away the thought, she reminded herself that period in her life was history and should be buried. The here and now counted and she had new mountains to climb. Or, rather, locker rooms to conquer.

“I covered high school events,” she reminded her optimistic sister, stepping out of the path of passersby and leaning against the wall. “These are professional ballplayers.”

“You’ve dealt with plenty of professional athletes.”

Following her NFL team doctor dad while she was a teen did not count. “Years ago!”

“Well then, you better come home,” Kelli said. “Absolutely, you are in over your head. You could get your old job back. You know you could.”

Amanda absorbed the sarcastic comments as a much-needed reality check. She’d spent years trying to get away from the high school grind. Her ex-husband had been rooted in Dallas and had refused to move, determined to work himself into her father’s good graces and the better opportunities—a higher-end clientele along with the status and money that accompanied it—to which he had access. Her ex had cared about those things more than her. After being sideswiped by his affairs, she’d welcomed the divorce, but had needed the security of having family nearby.

Now, she’d found the courage to land her dream job, to relocate, and she couldn’t blow it. Not now. She had to do this. She pushed off the wall and straightened.

“I don’t know if I should curse you for your snarky attitude or thank you,” Amanda said.

“You’re welcome. Now go get ’em, girl. With all that sass and your hot new image, you’re gonna kick butt. Which outfit are you wearing?”

Amanda smiled, thinking of shopping with her sister a month before. That had been the day Amanda had decided to make herself over with a new, sexier appearance and take on the world with a new attitude.

“The black Jones New York skirt,” she informed Kelli. She loved her new look. Why she’d hidden in long skirts and flat sandals for so long, she didn’t know.

Actually, she did know. She’d been so completely absorbed in competitive swimming that nothing else had seemed important. When her knee injury had burst that dream, her ex-husband’s career had easily taken center stage. It had been as if she’d lost herself, her very identity stripped. She’d been Amanda the swimmer who’d become Amanda the wife. Nowhere in there was space for Amanda the woman or Amanda the reporter.

Her makeover changed more than her outside. It gave her confidence and transitioned her into a new state of mind that was dedicated to finding herself and her dreams again. That change of perspective had helped her shine in her job interview.

“Very nice,” Kelli said, approval in her tone. “The skirt is one of my favorite picks. Did you go with the Bandolino sandals with those cute ankle straps?”

“Ah, yeah, though I regret letting you talk me into them. They’re killing my feet.”

“Smile through it, sis. They look sexy and that’s what counts. Now kisses and kick butt.” The line went dead.

Amanda smiled and slid her phone into her purse. She hitched the strap over her shoulder, prepared to take charge of the locker room and, if she got lucky, a few good men along the way.

With that in mind, she charged forward, no longer caring about the pinch of her toes. No longer letting nerves get in her way. She had a hot new image and a hot new job. No way was she going to stop moving forward now.

In fact, she decided arriving a little late might be good. The guys wouldn’t be expecting her. Their guards would be down and she’d get her story.

But it wasn’t their guards that fell as she entered that locker room. It was hers.

Surrounded by half-naked, gorgeous men, Amanda’s eyes went wide. Everywhere she looked she found rippling muscle and rock-hard backsides exposed by gaping towels. For a girl who hadn’t had sex in so long it was embarrassing, the sight was downright shocking. Okay, arousing.

She should have been prepared for this. After all, she’d been in plenty of locker rooms with her father. Clearly, years of working the high school circuit had made her forget just how delicious grown men could be.

And these grown men—correction, half-naked, hot grown men—were all staring at her as the noise had dissolved into silence.

Suddenly, Amanda’s bravado of moments before slipped into hiding. Her slim-cut skirt—the one that seemed so perfect only moments before—now felt revealing.

“Hi,” she said, waving nervously, while promising herself she would not look below the waist to the display of muscled thighs and teeny-weensy towels. “I’m the new reporter for the Tribune.” She reached for the badge hanging from a chain around her neck and held it up.

She was met with a few smiles and murmured hellos. Some turned away, curiosity satisfied. Many continued to stare. Without conscious effort, she did exactly what she’d vowed not to do. Her gaze dropped and took in several sets of rather enticing male torsos, complete with defined abdominals. Worse, before she realized what she was doing, she swiped a strand of hair off her forehead, trying to get a better view.

Afraid she would be caught peeking, Amanda snapped her attention to eye level. She’d come here for a story, and not just any story—one for her very own sports column. Her reaction proved, however, that she needed to address her state of sexual deprivation. Otherwise, being in the company of these men would pose a real distraction.

“Great game, guys,” Amanda said, smiling. “Who wants to be the headliner for my first story?”

“You’ve got to be kidding.” The voice came from Amanda’s left. A thirty-something man, wearing a sports coat and jeans, stepped into view. His piercing black eyes gave her a rude sweep from head to toe. “Has Kevin lost his mind?”

“Kevin?” Amanda asked, her eyebrows dipping, thinking. She’d come into town only the day before and met the staff at the paper in a whirlwind that morning. But there was only one Kevin she remembered. “As in my boss, Kevin?”

He crossed his arms in front of his plaid-covered chest before she could locate a press badge. “I’m surprised he didn’t go for blond and big-breasted.”

Who was this jerk? Amanda didn’t know nor did she care. Everything that happened here and now set a tone for the future. She wasn’t about to be made a fool of her first day on the job.

Amanda gave the jerk a bored look. “And who might you be?”

“Jack Krass,” he said, a slight gloat to his tone that said she should know the name.

And she did, as did the rest of the city. Jack Krass’s face was plastered on billboards—lots of them—advertising his column with a competing paper. She should have recognized him. Amanda had replaced him at the Tribune, meaning he’d once worn the shoes she now had to prove she could walk in. Worse, they were shoes two other reporters before her had failed to fill. Even though his confidence could be justified, in Amanda’s mind there was no call for him to be snide and nasty.

“Your name sounds vaguely familiar,” she said, a finger to her chin in mock concentration. “Wait!” She pointed in the air. “I know how I know you. A bunch of the guys at the paper were playing pin the tail on the Jack Krass this morning.” Her eyes went wide. “Wow. That must mean they really don’t like you. Why is that?”

A roar of laughter drew Amanda’s attention to the handsome face of Brad Rogers, who shared her hometown in Texas. The blond, blue-eyed pitcher had a lightning-speed arm and a reputation as a bad boy.

He was also her father’s favorite player, so Amanda knew him well, as did most women. The man was a walking sex god. Amanda didn’t have to look too closely to decide he was even more of a hottie in person than on television.

Leaning all six feet of his rippling muscles against a locker, he fixed Amanda in a come-get-me stare. When he winked, she felt it all the way to her toes. The sizzle was instant. He made her burn. If she could pick any man to end her sexless existence, Brad would be the one. Too bad their jobs put him out of reach.

“Jack Ass fits him well most of the time,” Brad drawled. “But we let him hang out, anyway.”

“You can be a real ass yourself, Cowboy,” Jack said in a biting tone and then shrugged. “And you let me hang around because I get you damn good press.”

“Actually, it’s all that free beer you buy us.”

Jack’s brow furrowed. “Say what you will, but we all know I deliver the readers.” He looked at Amanda. “Unlike others.”

“Since Jack got his face on the side of a bunch of buses and signs, he thinks he’s important,” Brad offered. “We know better.”

Jack tuned Brad out, focusing on Amanda. “Do you know anything about baseball?”

Officially, Amanda was irritated. Jack had pushed far enough. Time to strike back. She laced her words with sticky sweet sarcasm. “You mean I need to understand baseball to do this job? Nobody told me that. Maybe you better start explaining it to me.”

Laughter echoed against the tiled floors, boosting her confidence.

Numerous offers to school her on the art of baseball filled the air. Jack’s expression soured until he looked as if he’d been sucking lemons. “Sweetheart, looking good will get you laid, but it ain’t gonna get you a story.”

She laughed, but inwardly the words stung, nestling amongst her insecurities that the only reason she had this job was because she looked good. She eyed Jack’s slightly protruding belly and her response held more bite.

“Right. I most definitely do not want to look good. That makes me a very, very bad reporter. I should drink more beer and get me a body like yours. Then I’ll get lots of stories.” Amanda reached for her pad of paper and pen inside her purse. “I should take notes. What else do you think I need to know?”

More laughter filled the air. Jack’s face reddened. “Funny. Real funny. We’ll see who is laughing when your readership comes up a big zero.”

She eyed her fingernails as if bored and then waved at Jack. “Bye-bye. Run along. I’m sure you have some major ego stroking to do.” She turned her attention to Brad, offering Jack her back. “Great pitching today, by the way.”

He grinned. “Thank you, ma’am.”

“You’ve had two shutouts in a row, but there’s speculation your old teammate, Mike Ackers, could rattle you next week. In fact, he promises a home run. What’s your take on that?”

Brad eyed Jack with amusement evident in his expression, then motioned Amanda toward his open locker. “Well, darlin’, why don’t you step right over to my little home away from home, and let’s talk about it.”

She didn’t have to look at Jack to know he was glaring. Amanda felt his stare like a dart landing in her back. Ah, but she liked it, relishing a little high from her successful verbal banter.

But the high shifted as she stepped close to Brad and his towel. Though she maintained a calm exterior, her heartbeat kicked into double time, pounding like a drum against her chest. The spicy scent of freshly showered male invaded her senses, and his gaze, direct and attentive, warmed her skin.

Amanda had met her share of professional athletes over the years, and none had affected her this way.

“So, ah, about those shutouts…” Amanda lost her words as he reached down and made a slight adjustment to his towel. She followed the action with avid interest. She swallowed and forced her attention upward. “Maybe I should let you get dressed.”

The corners of his full mouth lifted, mischief once again in his expression. “I trust you to shut your eyes if it falls off.”

That made her laugh. She couldn’t help it. No way in hell was she shutting her eyes if Brad Rogers lost his towel. He was lucky she didn’t yank it off.

His eyebrow inched upward. “What’s so funny?”

She shook her head, aware he was working her. “You’re being very bad and you know it. You should cut the new girl a little slack.”

“What fun is that?”

“Hey, reporter lady!”

Brad and Amanda both looked over to find Tony Rossi demanding her notice. An Italian with dark good looks and the best bat on the team, Tony had a reputation for playing the field with the ladies as much as he did the game.

“Her name is Amanda,” Brad said.

Tony ignored him. “Why’s he getting the first interview?”

She smiled, instantly taking a liking to Tony, possibly because of his directness. “I see you’re competitive on and off the field,” she teased. “I’ll make sure you’re next.”

“Maybe I don’t want to be next,” he said, giving her the puppy dog eyes that only a player could deliver so effectively. “I get tired of being second to Brad.”

Brad reached into his locker, pulled out a balled-up sock and threw it at Tony. “Shut up, man. What are you now? Twelve years old? Poor baby lost his place in line.”

Amanda decided to toss a weapon of her own at Tony. “I hear that new pitcher, Rodriquez, has your number.”

Tony’s expression grew stormy, and he mumbled something in Italian that sounded fairly nasty. He poked at the air the way he did when he was yelling at the umpire, which tended to be far too often, and ended with a clear statement of, “That’s bull.”

One of the trainers called Tony’s name, ordering him to the back room. Tony eyed Brad, ignoring the summons. “Tell her, man. Tell her it’s crap.” His gaze returned to Amanda. “I’m going to rip the seams off that asshole’s ball. Print that. It’s a quote.”

“You can tell her when she’s done with me,” Brad said.

As Tony headed over to the trainer, Brad focused on Amanda. He rested one arm on top of the locker, framing her with his deliciously muscular body. “I need a favor,” he said softly.

She stared at him and tried to figure out why he affected her so. Maybe it was his mouth. He had a full bottom lip, sensual and enticing. She could imagine how his mouth would feel pressed against her skin. Amanda blinked and resisted the urge to shake her head to rid it of the ridiculous thoughts.

“Favor?” she asked, a bit hoarsely. Delicately, she cleared her throat. “What would that be?”

“Before we go on…” He paused, leaning closer, his proximity wrapping her in sultry sensuality. A dart of electricity raced up her arm as his hand left the locker and settled on her elbow. Her entire body reacted, sending shivers along her nerve endings.

He tilted his head toward hers, his breath warm on her neck as he whispered in her ear, “Promise you’ll quote Tony.” He eased backward to make eye contact. “He’s very sensitive.”

He might as well have asked her to get naked with him, because the impact of those words, the touch of his fingers against her bare skin and the heat of his body so near were nothing shy of sizzling.

“Tony is sensitive?” She found that hard to believe. “Mr. Macho?”

“The tough ones always are,” he said. “Didn’t you know that?”

Amanda laughed. Again. Suddenly, she realized how easily Brad amused her. And had her forgetting her work. Damn. She stiffened, reality taking hold. Brad could star in her nighttime fantasies, but that was it. Already the Jack Ass competition was questioning her talent and alluding to her being hired to seduce stories out of the players. The last thing she needed was to give those nasty speculations any basis in truth.

Raising her notepad, Amanda showed Brad what she had written. “Will rip the seams off the asshole’s ball,” she recited Tony’s quote. “I might need to leave off the nasty names he used, though.”

They shared a smile, the mutual attraction dancing in the air between them, but Amanda forced herself to be sober. She needed to get her interview with him, then move on before the other players slipped away.

She noticed the necklace around Brad’s neck and a story idea formed. “A lucky charm?” she asked, knowing baseball players were the most superstitious of athletes, though she’d known a few football players who’d give them a run for their money.

His brow furrowed. “Lucky charm?”

“The necklace.” She leaned closer, trying to see it again but pulled back to avoid another trip down lust lane. “Is that a Longhorn? As in, the University of Texas mascot?”

His hand went to the charm. “Yeah,” he said. “My mom gave it to me on the day of my first college game.” His serious expression was replaced by the cocky one he had been wearing. “I did a fine job of warming the bench to celebrate. My butt was downright smoking by the time I finally got a chance to prove myself.”

What about his father? He hadn’t said his parents had given him the necklace. Interesting…He had such a playboy image, hearing him talk about his mother surprised Amanda. Intrigued—from a strictly journalistic standpoint, of course—she wanted to know more. Fans gobbled up personal info about the players.

“You’ve done more than prove yourself since.” She didn’t mean her words as a compliment. They were simply a fact. During his twelve years in the majors, he’d become a near legend. Amanda didn’t give him time to respond, her mind racing ahead with her story idea. “Have you worn the necklace all this time?”

He reached up and touched the charm again. “Every single day.”

“So is it lucky?” Amanda asked. “Kind of like Michael Jordan’s college shorts he wore beneath his game shorts?”

He shook his head and shut the locker, leaning against it as he crossed his arms in front of his nice, broad chest. “Oh, no,” he said. “Don’t go making me superstitious. You want superstitious, you want our center fielder.”

Her mind scanned the roster she’d studied so intently before her job interview. “You mean Riley Walker?”

“Very impressive,” Brad said. “I like a girl who does her homework.”

She gave him a warning look, refusing to get pulled back into his flirtation. “Tell me about Riley.”

He ran a hand over his stubble-darkened jaw. “He rubs some kind of oil on his glove before every game. One night he couldn’t find it, and he had the entire team emptying their lockers searching for the damn stuff. It was pure craziness.”

“What kind of oil? Like a leather lubricant?”

Brad shook his head. “Honestly, I don’t know what the hell it is. Some peppermint-scented stuff. A Gypsy chick he dated in college fed him some junk about it creating a shield against bad omens. He really thinks he can’t play without it.”

Amanda could imagine the frayed tempers that must have been flying around the night of the missing magic oil. “Aren’t you afraid I’ll print this and make Riley mad?”

“I’m hoping you will.” Brad grinned. “Bastard owes me two hundred bucks.”

“I see,” Amanda said, leaning against the closed locker beside his, wondering if the outstanding debt meant Riley had a gambling problem. “Surely, he has the money.”

“Oh, he has the money,” he said. “He just doesn’t want to pay up.”

Amanda accepted that answer…for now. Still, she scribbled a note about Riley. Couldn’t hurt to see what his history looked like. She then needled Brad for a quote on the next week’s game.

“Can you pitch a third shutout in a row?” she asked. “That would be your first.”

“Only game day will answer that question, but I feel good. My arm is healthy. The team is strong.” He lowered his voice. “Have drinks with me after the game, and I’ll give you an exclusive.”

Drinks. An exclusive. A hot kiss. Sounded good to her.

What didn’t sound good, however, was risking her reputation. As good as he no doubt was, Brad Rogers was not worth compromising a career that had scarcely begun. Besides, there was his comment on his arm being healthy. It wasn’t. She’d recognized the little signs of injury while he was on the field. The way he flexed his fingers. The way he discreetly rotated his shoulder. He had a weakness and he was hiding it. Why?

Sticking the pencil behind her ear, she managed to smile. “A tempting offer, but no.” With true regret, she added, “I can’t, and you know it.”

His eyes narrowed on her face, his expression guarded but intense. “Too bad. Would have been fun.”

“Yeah,” she said, “but some things just can’t be.”

She paused, debating what to say to him, even as she told herself to walk away. But the truth was, his secret injury bothered her because she’d done the same thing. She’d pretended her knee was okay to pursue a shot at swimming in the Olympics. That choice had cost her her career.

Amanda waited until one of the players passed, then made sure her voice was low. “Ice that arm.”

His eyes flashed with surprise. Surprise that told her she was right. When he said nothing, Amanda didn’t know what to do. She started to leave, not sure she should have said anything.

His hand snaked out and shackled her wrist. She rotated to face him. “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he said through gritted teeth.

She shrugged, not wanting to make him any tenser than he already was. “My father is an NFL team doctor and my sister is—”

“My arm is fine,” he insisted, an edge to his tone this time.

“Okay,” she said, but added in a whisper, “Ice it, Brad.” She thought of all the things she’d heard her father say to players. The sooner he got his muscles nice and cold, the better. “Don’t wait.” Realizing where his thoughts must be going, she said, “This isn’t about a story. I won’t report it. You have my word.”

He stared at her a moment, those blue eyes probing, looking for the truth, for proof he could trust her. Without another word, he let go of her and gave her a nod.

She left him then, but she felt his eyes on her. And, lord help her, it took every ounce of willpower to keep her attention from drifting to him. He’d earned a spot in her column for being so hot on the field.

He’d earned a spot in her fantasies for getting her so hot in the locker room.