Game Face (Small Town Bachelor Romance Book 3) Read online

  “You have on makeup and your hair is not in a ponytail nor in a messy bun. You’re wearing your good bra—“

  “Hey!” Remy crossed her arms over her chest. This kind of talk in public—from her ex-husband no less—felt like a violation.

  “You look hot. You have a date. Admit it.”

  She grunted and gave up. “Yeah, well, I did have a date, but I’m calling it off.”

  Remy looked over at the field where the opposing coaches and the dusty kids were shaking hands with each other as the sun dipped lower in the late afternoon sky.

  Coach Troy was nodding and chatting with the other coach. The two of them were laughing about something. Probably laughing about the “psycho baseball moms.” Maybe they should go out for beers and Troy could leave her alone.

  “Hello? Are you still with me, Remy?”

  “What? What are you asking me?”

  Ryan laughed. “Holy shit, you have a date with the coach!”

  She shrugged. “Not anymore. He just benched our kid, in case you didn’t notice.”

  She studied Ryan’s face, which was looking at her with both confusion and amusement. She remembered why she used to love him, or think she did. But today she could honestly say she felt absolutely no attraction to him.

  Which was why when he said what he said next, she was able to take it as advice from a friend, and think of it as such, rather than from her goofy ex-husband.

  “What has one got to do with the other?”

  “Elliot is my whole entire life. I think you ought to relate to that, Ryan.”

  “Think of it this way: you both want what’s right for Elliot. You see that he’s pushing himself to his limits. Coach Troy benched him because he is genuinely worried about his arm and his shoulder. He is saving him for later. He is protecting him from injury and also protecting the league from a potential lawsuit.”

  “As if I’d sue the league,” she snorted. “Ridiculous.”

  “No, you wouldn’t. Because despite this Tiger Mom facade, you’re a decent person who knows how to do the right thing. And so does he. Troy’s a conscientious dude. You should go on the date. Don’t let this one practice game bruise your ego.”

  Just then, Elliot hopped up and hugged his dad. “Weird Al Time!” he shouted.

  “Honey,” she said, “do you want to shower first? You don’t want to stink your dad out in the car ride.”

  “Nah, we gotta go,” Ryan said. “Besides, he didn’t even break a sweat today! And also, we can handle each other’s odors. We’re men!”

  The boys both roared and bumped chests as Remy rolled her eyes. “At least stop by your house and change into something not covered with dirt.”

  “Whatever. See you all tonight.”

  18

  Troy

  “Remy, what is going on with you?”

  “What? Nothing. Why?”

  They had spread their picnic blanket along the picturesque little stretch of Caleb Creek that ran through the center of downtown Middleburg. Nearby, a jogging path, benches and a gazebo accented this popular picnic spot. Arranged in front of them on the blanket was a basket with wine, crackers, goat cheese, pepper jelly, grapes and baby carrots.

  “I’m trying to feed you grapes and get into your panties, but you seem like you have something on your mind. And as much as I don’t care about anything other than making time with that ass of yours, and as much as I would rather you be quiet sometimes, I can’t rightly pursue sexy time if you don’t talk to me first. It’s my moral compass, what can I say?”

  “Charming.”

  “Sarcasm. All right. If you don’t want to talk, we can just go home.”

  She said, “It’s just that I didn’t think you would actually bench my son.”

  “Relax, it was a practice game. And I do what I say. Now please. I had to go all the way to Mount Pleasant to get all these groceries for us, so here’s a grape.”

  “I know it was a practice game. I guess I just…I don’t know.”

  Troy looked at her. She looked pensive and distracted. Well, shit. He was just going to have to work extra hard. Maybe he could get her riled up.

  “Oh, did you think you were going to get special treatment because you let me stick my tongue down your throat?” he cajoled.

  Nice. Not exactly fixing this situation, Troy.

  “Troy, come on,” she replied. “We kissed and we had phone sex. That’s hardly grounds for expecting special treatment. I just thought we had come to an understanding. I’m trying to negotiate fewer lessons with Rodney and keep him from totally dropping us. We’ve been over this. Wait a minute…why did you have to go all the way across the county to get groceries?”

  “It’s funny you should bring up Rodney. He is kind of the reason I can’t go to Hy-Vee anymore. I sort of knocked his block off.”

  “You what?”

  “He’s a prick, Remy. He was asking for it.”

  Remy was pinching the bridge of her nose and closing her eyes. He did not understand the problem.

  Finally, she sighed and let loose. “Do you know why I spend so much time and money on Elliot’s baseball? It’s because he loves it. I never had a parent push me. Or anyone who was interested at all in anything I did. I had to make my own way and nobody helped me. But now I feel like you’re holding him back. And you’re making me feel guilty about wanting him to succeed.”

  Troy felt like such an ass.

  He reached out and moved a stray lock of hair out of her eyes. “Baby, he will succeed no matter what he does. You made a great kid. He is amazing because he is naturally a great kid…and, he’s at least one half…you.”

  She looked off toward the woods. She was getting close to crying again. Shit, Troy, how often you gonna make this woman cry?

  “That boy is my heart walking around outside of my body,” she said.

  Troy had never heard that before, but it just about blew his mind. He had never felt that kind of love for anybody. Not a woman, nor a pet, not even his own parents. But now he really wished things were different.

  He proceeded carefully. “And don’t you want this amazing kid to have a fun and carefree childhood?”

  She shook her head. “He has enough fun with Ryan. Ryan is the fun one.”

  “You’re fun,” he said, trying to nudge Remy out of her funk and handing her a cheese cracker.

  “No I’m not. I’m just a mom.” She took the cracker and nibbled it half-heartedly.

  Troy held up his hand. “OK, stop. What did you do for fun before you had Elliot?”

  “Elliot is fun. I’m happy when he’s around.”

  “Of course, but you’ve lost yourself.”

  “I resent that.”

  “Then tell me something you used to do.”

  “OK. I swam,” she said with a shrug, popping the rest of the cheese cracker into her mouth.

  There was something. “On a team?”

  “Yeah, I was a good swimmer in high school. I even had a scholarship to swim in college the next year, but Elliot happened and everything changed. I don’t regret it. But I would just like to swim once in a while. I just like being in that water.”

  He poured her a glass of wine and handed it to her. “You can do that, you know. Water is still a thing.”

  “Yes, but when?” She thanked him and sipped the wine. She was starting to loosen up.

  “Right now.”

  “Troy, I am not going to your high school to swim in the pool.”

  “We’re not going to the pool. Get in the truck.”

  She laughed. “That sounds ominous. Where are you taking me?”

  “Do you trust me?”

  “No.” She smirked at him as she continued to sip her wine.

  “Can’t say I blame you.”

  “Anyway, I don’t have my swimsuit.”

  Troy lowered his voice and waggled his eyebrows. “You ain’t gonna need it, sweet cheeks.”

  19

  Remy

  Minutes
later they had left the downtown park, packed up their picnic and were leaving behind the darkening leafy streets of Middleburg.

  Troy drove the pickup past the ball fields, the playgrounds, Middleburg High School, the VFW. About a mile farther down the highway, the pavement veered right and gave way to a dirt path, and eventually the dirt path turned into a bumpy, off-road mudding trail.

  “What are we doing at the spring?” she asked when he parked by a chain-link fence.

  “Come on, girl.”

  He nodded up at the fence and started climbing. In seconds, he was over it and hopping down on the ground on the other side.

  “Well?”

  “I’m not hopping a fence. This is private property!”

  “Chicken?”

  “That’s not going to work on me. I’m not nine years old. And this spring is part of Morning Glory Farms, if I’m not mistaken.”

  “YOLO, baby.”

  “Ew. OK. I’ll do this if you promise to never say that again. How do you even know about this place?”

  “High school kids like to brag. Now, get that ass over the fence. I’ll help you down.”

  Troy watched her as she took to the fence with surprising agility. He did not need to help her down, but he did anyway.

  She hopped down and wiped her hands on her pants. “Copping a feel, eh?”

  He took her hand without a word and led her to the rocks at the edge of the water. He removed his sneakers. She tossed her sandals onto the grass. The smooth rocks were cool and damp under her feet. In the moonlight he stripped off his shirt. His arms briefly above his head for a second made her head spin. What was she doing with this gorgeous creature? How was it she was on a date with him?

  Then he slipped out of his Levi’s, and he was down to his white boxer briefs.

  Nice. She felt herself blush deeply, felt it all the way down to her toes. He caught her looking and returned her gaze with intense, deep, dark desire.

  “I’ll get in first, and I promise I won’t turn around until you’re under the water,” he said.

  She breathed. Just offering to be chivalrous was enough to get her ready for some action. She may as well wear her panties into the spring because they were already wet for him.

  Troy turned around and slipped off his undies and waded into the water. His toned backside had muscles that rippled and glowed in the moonlight. It was the ass of a Greek god.

  Remy bit her lip and went for it. She slipped out of her clothes and stood on the water’s edge. She decided to trick him.

  “OK. You can turn around.”

  20

  Troy

  When he turned around, Remy was standing there completely nude in front of him. For him. Alone, on the rocks, under the full moon.

  The sight of her was more than he expected or could have hoped for. The fact that she was purposely exposing herself out in the open for him moved him in ways that felt like way more than just blood to his manhood.

  He was feeling other things. Excitement to be around her. To discover she had a spontaneous streak after all. And aside from all of that, she was the most seductively curvy female he had seen in a long time. Make that ever.

  “Remy, get in the water now before I come up there and drag you in.”

  Moments later the two of them were face to face, hands everywhere, lips everywhere, their legs connecting and bending around each other under the warm spring water.

  Troy could not fathom the level of arousal this woman was causing. He caressed her backside and massaged her voluptuous cheeks.

  Her leg rose to hook around him on one side and he gripped her thigh to hold her in place as she lifted the other leg. Now she was straddling him in the water, her legs wrapped around his waist and her feet hooking together at the small of his back.

  Troy was about to lose it. His hands worked over her ass as she closed her eyes and sighed.

  And then he tried something. Just a little something. As he massaged, he inched one hand close to the middle of her ass, feeling her deep area where her cheeks spread open as she straddled him. And then he massaged her there and found her anus. He stroked the tender skin around it, and Remy sucked in her breath. His finger teased lightly over the opening. “Is this OK?”

  “Yes.” Her voice was faint.

  “You sure?”

  “Yes. It’s new, but I like it. I love all the ways you touch me.”

  “You have an amazing body. Even when you are yelling at me, all I can think about is putting my hands on you.”

  She laughed. “You’ll do anything to shut me up.”

  In response, Troy inched his free hand over her backside, past his other hand and found her center between her thighs. She sharply inhaled at the surprise combination of him stimulating her in two places at once. He then sank his fingertip in just a tiny bit deeper into her backside. “Listen to me. I don’t need a reason to want you. I don’t have any other motivation other than you are ridiculously gorgeous and looking at you makes me lose my mind. Getting close to you, kissing you, touching you is not a sacrifice for getting you to shut up. I just want you very, very badly, every minute of every day. Do you understand that?”

  She simply sighed, likely unable to respond through the fog of him pleasing her body.

  He removed his hands from her core and gripped her into him as closely as he could. “I said do you understand?”

  “Yes.”

  “Say it.”

  “I understand.”

  “Good.”

  He then continued to explore her luscious curves, reaching around to massage both her clit and her anus, sinking the tips of two fingers in this time.

  “Oh, that feels freaking amazing.” She nuzzled his neck and nestled her breasts into him. Her fingernails raked along the length of his spine and down to his backside, giving him gooseflesh and making him shiver. His cock was pressed between them, eager to plunge into her soon.

  Their lips found each other in the darkness. She tasted so good, like cherries, only sweeter. He never wanted to stop kissing her. Her lips opened to him and he teased her mouth with his tongue as his hands continued to explore all of her magical curves, peaks and valleys, made all the more sensual in the warm spring water.

  Her hands found his shaft and Troy closed his eyes with the intensity of it.

  “Yes, Jackson!” It was not Remy’s voice, of course, cutting across the darkness. Someone else was at the spring.

  And with that, Troy’s boner said goodbye.

  21

  Remy

  Sitting at Jackson and Maggie Clay’s kitchen table was not how Remy had pictured this date ending.

  But, in hindsight, if one goes skinny-dipping on someone else’s property, one is likely to get caught. She should have known this would happen.

  And apparently if one gets caught by Jackson Clay, one ends up in the kitchen having coffee and homemade cookies.

  “Thanks for everything, the towels, the hospitality,” Troy was saying, “and we’re so sorry for trespassing. And I guess, thanks for not shooting us.”

  Jackson Clay shrugged and said, “It’s fine, we catch teenagers out there all the time. Doesn’t really bother me all that much, but I don’t want to encourage it in case somebody gets hurt. But it’s not every day we catch grownups fooling around out there.”

  Remy blushed deeply and focused on taking a long drink of her coffee. It was good, and so were the homemade cookies.

  Maggie, who looked to be beyond nine months pregnant, sat at the table next to her. Remy had seen her around town but had never actually spoken to her. This gave Remy an easy way to change the subject.

  “Maggie, you look amazing. When is the baby due?”

  Maggie looked shocked. “Wait a minute…I’m pregnant? Is that what this is?” She gestured to her stomach. “Oh my god, I thought I was really bloated from all this junk food I can’t stop eating. This explains so much now! The midnight muscle cramps, the Pop-Tart addiction alternating with bouts of nausea,
the hemorrhoids…”

  They all squirmed and eventually laughed as the petite woman continued her comic descriptions of her pregnancy woes.

  Thank god they were done talking about being caught trespassing while naked and wet.

  Then Jackson was beaming like he suddenly remembered how happy he was. “We were due yesterday, but the baby just wanted to keep us waiting a little bit longer, I guess.”

  Maggie looked at Jackson, and the love Remy saw in their eyes as they gazed at each other was almost too much to witness. Maggie said, “Yep, it’s been a struggle to get this far, but we’re so excited to meet this little girl.”

  “It’s a girl?” Remy asked. “That’s wonderful, I’m so happy for you! This is your first, right?”

  “Yes, I hope so, seeing as I’m nearly 25.” She winked at Remy.

  Before Remy could stop herself, she blurted out, “Yeah, I know it seems young, but I had Elliot when I was 17.”

  Maggie looked mortified. Remy felt like shit. “No, don’t worry, it’s fine! It’s a fact. I was too young, everyone knew about it. I’m surprised you didn’t know, actually. Was it a mistake? Yes, but I wouldn’t change a thing.”

  Maggie smiled at Remy and asked if she’d like to see the nursery.

  Remy jumped at the chance to get away from scarfing down any more delicious cookies, and helped Maggie up out of her chair.

  The nursery was yellow and teal, and totally not what Remy expected. The walls were decorated with large posters based on classic children’s book covers, from The Wonderful Wizard of Oz to Harry Potter to Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland to Where the Sidewalk Ends. Maggie opened a drawer in the dresser and pulled out a pair of tiny pink socks, hat and sweater. “Can you handle how tiny and cute this is? My biological mom learned to knit in rehab. She hand-knitted a whole layette set. She’s over in Storm Lake in a retirement community now. Jackson has been amazing about taking care of her after everything that happened. I don’t know if you know, but I was raised here on this farm as a foster child.”