Double Play
Harlequin Blaze
August 2010
The rules of this game are about to change-- tonight!
Strike 1...
Play-it-safe book reviewer Amber Nichols is so ready to let loose. Her wild one-night-stand target? Hottie baseball player Heath Donovan. Problem? He's not exactly who she thinks he is.
Strike 2...
Team coach Heath Donovan takes one look at Amber and wants to make her melt under his touch. Groupies aren't usually his style, but this sexily distracting woman is different. She should be... because she's not exactly a groupie.
Strike 3?
It's a hot, fast fling with incredible sex! Only it's soon coming to an end. Because temporary sex, even the earth-shaking variety, never leads to a home run. Unless these two players can let their guards down in time to let them both win this game...
Read the Excerpt
Prologue
If ever there was an ideal man for a fling, it would be the hot baseball player next door.
Amber Nichols recalled her best friend’s words, blaring in her ear like an iPod on full blast, as the man in question emerged from the surface of Nantucket Sound like a modern day Poseidon. Amber watched him from the deck of Rochelle’s home on Great Point overlooking the water. Amber’s former college roommate had generously offered her a week at the beach house more than once during their decade-long friendship, an offer Amber had only accepted now that her personal life was imploding.
In the course of two months, she’d weathered a wretched break-up and major cutbacks in her department at the newspaper where she worked as a book reviewer. While the break up had torn at her heart, the cutbacks left her overworked and fearing for her own job, leading to stress, exhaustion and shaken confidence all the way around.
Here, she would recoup and relax. Open a new chapter in her life that didn’t involve playing it safe and over-thinking every decision.
Of course, Rochelle had given Amber plenty of dating advice along with the keys to the place, convinced a wild affair would cure what ailed her. Rochelle had never understood Amber’s penchant for practical, methodical men who approached life with the same sense of realism that Amber did. But then, Rochelle had never met Amber’s perpetually heartbroken, impulsive mom who had taught Amber the wisdom of thinking before acting. Amber simply hadn’t been born a wild romantic and she made dating choices that reflected that.
Dating choices which seemed to backfire just as surely as her mother’s had, although for entirely different reasons. Obviously, something wasn’t working with Amber’s approach.
Still, Amber wasn’t sure she was ready to take Rochelle’s advice during her beach house week of transformation and rest. Rochelle had been effusive in her description of the studly third basemen for the Boston Aces staying next door. Apparently the club’s manager owned the house and frequently let various team members stay there as an occasional perk.
The sleekly muscled male who had the privilege this week lived up to Rochelle’s hype. The setting sun caught the rivulets streaming along his skin, making his bronzed body glisten. No slow motion movie sequence had ever been more flattering to the masculine physique. His square, powerful shoulders turned even more mouth watering as he lifted his arms to slick his hair off his face. Even from the front of him, she could see the muscles that would form the V of his back.
Her gaze followed that enticing stretch of sinew as she straightened, moving closer to the wooden railing of the raised deck as if drawn by a magnet. Taut abs flexed as he walked, each slab clearly delineated and sprinkled in the center with a trail of dark hair disappearing into the waistband of low slung cut-offs.
Wow.
Yes, Amber could see why Rochelle would think the Aces slugger would make the ideal fling—not only did he exude animal sex appeal, he would also probably be on a plane in less than twenty-four hours, safely gone from her life without doing any major damage. But the man was pure fantasy material and way out of Amber’s league. She needed someone a bit more obtainable to help her regain her mojo.
Still, she’d come to Nantucket this weekend hellbent and determined to stop over-thinking her every move in life. She needed to put to rest her ex-boyfriend’s damning accusation that she had Freon running through her veins when they were in bed together. She’d almost believed him, knowing she’d always made safe and practical choices in her love life.
No more. She’d recalled an interesting book she reviewed about understanding sexual attraction and had promptly ordered a copy for her personal handbook this week. As a longtime booklover, she remained convinced the answers to all the world’s problems could be found in books if one had the patience to research. Armed with The Mating Season, Amber would make her first foray into living more passionately. Thanks to the mouth-watering man toweling off fifty yards away on their shared stretch of beach, Amber didn’t have to worry about any ice in her veins. Sure she had as much chance of snagging a guy like that as she had of roping the moon, but her two minute mental fantasy reel of the baseball phenom had done her a big favor. For the first time this week, she felt sexy. Sexually interested.
And as she headed back inside the house with a secret smile on her face and a new swing in her hips, she thought she just might have the guts to leave the safety of the beach house for a night on the town.