She looks at me and I know she’s still upset about earlier.

“Please don’t worry about that.”

“I can’t help it, Caden. I worry about a lot of things.”

“Such as?”

She shrugs. “You getting hit by a ball. You getting mauled by a fan. You getting, um … traded.”

“Traded?” I say, incredulously. “Not going to happen, Murphy Brown. Not unless I royally screw up. Which I won’t.”

I have a hard time not smiling at the fact that she’s thinking so far into the future. If I could only convince her I do the same.

“Still. I worry about you getting injured.” Her finger comes up to run along her scar.

I lean against the back of her couch and pull her into my arms. “Ball players don’t usually get stalked by fans like movie stars do, so go ahead and put that out of your head. And you’ve seen what I wear behind the plate—my catcher’s gear is top of the line. It’s going to protect me, Murph. And when I’m at bat, my eyes are laser focused on the ball. I hardly ever take a hit to my body. Catchers rarely do because we’re trained to watch the ball all the way across the plate. Taking our eyes off the ball, even for a second, could mean a stolen base, or a run. That helps us when we’re at bat.”

She leans into me, putting her head on my chest. “I’ll always worry.”

I chuckle. “Well, I’ll always worry, too. About you, Murph. It goes both ways.”

A loud noise comes from the other room. I step around her to investigate. I open the door to one of the bedrooms and look around. It happens again and I realize it came from the window. I step up to it and look outside to see some teenagers playing on the fire escape. I check to make sure the lock on the window is secure.

I realize I don’t even know whose room I’m in. I never got past the main living area the other times I’ve been here. I turn around and smile when I see what’s on the dresser. I walk over and appraise the six Nighthawks hats sitting in a row. I pick one up and turn it over to see writing on the inside. It’s a date.

I look up to see Murphy watching me from her doorway. And she’s blushing. “You weren’t supposed to see that.” She walks over and takes the hat from me, putting it back down where it was.

I pick up another and she tries to take it from me. I hold it above her head where she has no chance to get it. I look inside this one. Another date. She tries to keep me from looking inside all the others. We both laugh when she chases me around the room.

She finally gives up and falls onto her bed, with her arms covering her face. “I’m a silly sentimental girl, Caden. What can I say?”

“Where’s the sharpie?” I ask, looking around her room.

“Why?” She eyes me skeptically.

“Just give me the sharpie, Murph.”

She rolls her eyes and opens the drawer of her nightstand. Then she tosses me the black marker. I take my hat off and remove the cap of the sharpie with my mouth before I write today’s date inside my hat. Then I put all the hats back on her dresser, in chronological order with the new one at the end.

She still looks embarrassed which I find incredibly sexy. “I get it,” I tell her. “Some chicks save receipts and movie tickets. You save hats.” I crawl on top of her on the bed. “But you’d better get a bigger apartment. Because you’re going to have a shitload of hats.”

Her face lights up with a smile right before I lean down to kiss her.

This kiss is better than any of the others. It’s better because I can feel her entire body underneath me. I can feel her chest rise and fall with each heavy breath she takes. I can feel her writhe and squirm under my weight. I can feel her arch her back and press herself to me in all the right places.

We make out like teenagers in a basement. We kiss until our lips become raw. And when I’m about to die if I don’t touch her, I ask if I can.

“Murphy … God, I want you so much. I know we’re waiting. And that’s okay. I’ll wait as long as you want. But, sweetheart, can I see you? Can I touch you?”

She stares up at me, her hair tousled and sexy. She nods. “Only if I can do the same to you.”

Holy shit. If my dick weren’t already standing at full mast, that would have done it. I get off her and sit up, grabbing my shirt and pulling it over my head. I’m turned away slightly, so she is getting her first view of my back.

She reaches up to touch my #27 tattoo on my right shoulder blade. “This is why you reach around and grab your shoulder before you go to bat, isn’t it?”

I crane my neck around and study her. “You noticed that?” It’s the one thing I’ve always done when I go up to bat. But no other woman has ever caught on. Maybe they weren’t paying enough attention.

“At first, I thought you had a sore shoulder or something. But then the more I saw you do it, the more I knew it had to be some kind of ritual.”

“I got it when I was eighteen.”

She traces the number with her fingertip, sending shivers down my spine. “And you’ll never change it, not even though you are number eight now. Because being number twenty-seven got you where you are today.”

Jesus. This woman.

I turn around and pin her to the bed. “Do you have any tattoos I should know about?”

“I guess you’ll have to look to find out.”

I eye her top and then her jeans. Then I look into her eyes again. She nods. “It’s okay. Go ahead.”

I straddle her as I unbutton her blouse, being careful to keep my weight on the bed. The opening of each button reveals more flesh I can’t wait to explore. When I’m finished with the last one, I move the blouse aside and admire her beautiful chest.

Her black lacy bra is almost transparent and I can see her stiff nipples and the outline of her areola. My hands come up her body, brushing against the sides of her ribs before I cup her breasts. She arches her back, pushing her chest further into my hands as she moans under my touch.

I run my hand lower across her stomach and play with the button on her jeans. “I won’t …” I say, my eyes pleading with her. “I just want to see you.”

“It’s fine,” she says, with a shaky breath. She nods to my pants. “Yours too.”

I release her button and move my hands to mine, figuring I should go first. But she brushes my hand away, undoing my pants herself. She looks up at me as she lowers them as far as they will go without me getting up.

I shift off her and remove them the rest of the way. My erection is straining against my boxer briefs and Murphy’s eyes widen as she takes me in. Her jaw goes slack and she stares unabashedly. It’s fucking erotic. It makes me want to stand here all day just so she can look at me.

But I want to see her more than I want her to stare at me, so I kneel next to her and remove her shoes before I peel the jeans off her body to reveal her matching lace panties.

I want so badly to know if this is what she normally wears or if she wore them in anticipation of me seeing them. And in this moment, I’m not sure which would please me more.

“My God, Murphy. You’re beautiful. I’m never calling you ‘old man’ again.”

I can’t stop looking at each soft curve, each tantalizing inch of her creamy skin. She’s pure perfection.

“You’re beautiful, too,” she says.

I chuckle. “Nobody has ever called me that.”

“Then they weren’t looking hard enough,” she says, smiling.

I climb over her and lean down to capture her smile with my mouth. Our bodies mash together, flesh on flesh, separated only by thin scraps of fabric. She moans again when I press my erection into her. I know she can feel how much I want her. Her rising hips reveal how much she wants me.

My lips blaze a trail down her neck, and I lick and suck and kiss my way to her breasts. I pull one of the cups of her bra down and my breath catches at the beauty of her. I taste her creamy white skin and then take her stiff peak into my mouth, sucking on it while she undulates and moans beneath me.

The friction between our lower halves is almost unbearable. I grind into her and she meets me with every thrust. We mimic the act that we’ve only consummated in my dreams.

I return my lips to hers and kiss her with such fierceness, such emotion, that I almost have to stop. Because this is more intense than anything I’ve ever felt. I want to make love to her. Of course I do. But if this right here is all she ever gave me, in some strange way, it feels like it would be enough.

“Caden …”

Her head whips around on the bed beneath her. I realize what this friction is doing to her and I reach out and grab one of her breasts, pinching and tugging on a nipple to help push her over the edge.

“Oh, God!” she shouts as I make sure to keep rubbing myself on the exact same spot over and over while I watch her face in complete awe as she experiences wave after wave of pleasure.

Her head falls back against the bed, her body languid and sated as she catches her breath. Me—I’m still reeling over witnessing one of the world’s greatest wonders.

She finally looks up at me in surprise. In embarrassment. “Sorry,” she says.

“Sorry?” I say. “That was one of the best moments of my life, Murphy Brown. I might just take back my hat, because this sure as hell is a day I never want to forget.”

She laughs. “Not a chance, Kessler. The hat is mine.”

I laugh with her. But what I really want to do is tell her how I feel. Because the woman lying under me owns more than just my hat. She owns every goddamn piece of me.

But I don’t tell her. Because this is our third date. And I have to be sure.

I have to be sure that when I wake up tomorrow, she’s still the owner of my heart, not just a short-term renter.

Chapter Thirty-six

Murphy

I finish giving Mom the tour of the gym and we head back to the office to get her suitcase. She flew in this afternoon and is staying for Thanksgiving. I tried my best to ignore Corey on the treadmill, but my mom saw him staring and mentioned what a nice young man he looked like and asked if I was dating anyone.