The Screw Ball (Indianapolis Lightning Book 3) by Samantha Lind (the lemonade war series .TXT) 📕

“Well, maybe she’ll talk to you about it later. I could see how she might be a little shy to talk to you about anything personal when she’s got a stranger in her house.”

“Tiffany, shy?” I snort. “If there is one thing my sister isn’t, it is shy,” I inform Carmen.

“You never know,” she sing-songs as Milo hands her another toy.

I sit in amazement as I watch her playing with Milo, and how quickly he’s opened up to her. I knew he would quickly fall for her once he got past being shy, but she made it easy for him to do so. Seeing her with him makes me think of how good of a mother she’ll one day be. We’ve briefly glazed over our desire for families of our own. It is obviously way too early in our relationship for us to even be thinking like that, but it’s something I could see down the line. While Carmen is still under the impression, we’re just giving this whole relationship thing a trial run, I’m in this for real. I’ve developed real feelings for her. I hate it when we’re apart for more than a few hours and want to spend all my free time with her. I hate the nights and following mornings that we aren’t together in the same bed.

Eventually, we’ll have to take our relationship public. We’ve kept it pretty low-key at work, not that the guys haven’t known that something was going on since that first night in Toronto. Thankfully, they weren’t dicks about it when we were still playing. Now that we’re in the off season, we don’t see each other all that often. Most of the guys leave town and head back to their hometowns. Even though I’m not from Indianapolis, I’d stay here so that I could be around Milo and Tiffany, even if Carmen wasn’t in the picture.

“Hey,” Tiffany says, joining us again.

“Hey, feeling better?” I ask quietly.

“I think so, I’m going to try eating something small and see how that goes. How have things been out here?” she asks.

“We played lots of cars, and with about every other toy he’s got in here, before I turned on a movie about thirty minutes ago. I think he only passed out within the last couple of minutes,” I tell her as I sit on the couch, my nephew passed out between Carmen and me. She’s rolled right along with everything so far today, and I couldn’t love her more for it if I tried. Seeing how she so easily slides into my family makes me believe that this could be our new normal.

“Sounds like a fun time. Did he ever mention being hungry?” she asks.

“Nope, I think he was too distracted by playing and then the movie,” I tell her.

“Okay, let me go find something to settle my stomach and I’ll be back.”

“Would you like any help or company?” Carmen asks Tiffany.

“Sure.” My sister perks up slightly at the offer. I just roll my eyes at her, knowing she’s been waiting for a day like today to dish all my embarrassing stories from when we were kids with someone I’m dating. Little does she know, I don’t care what stories she can dig up, I want Carmen to know everything there is to know about me. I want her to see that we can make this work between us and that at the end of the day baseball might be my job and livelihood, but it is still only a portion of me.

Carmen slips off the couch without waking Milo up. I snag her wrist before she gets away, pulling her in for a quick kiss. “Only believe half of what she tries to tell you about me.” I smirk before she pulls away.

“Only half?” Carmen quips back. “I hope she’s got some naked baby pictures somewhere.” She chuckles quietly.

“I can show you naked later.” I wink at her and she just shakes her head at me.

I watch as she disappears into the kitchen. Unfortunately for me, they are far enough away that I can’t listen to what they’re saying, so I just have to believe that they’re talking all sorts of crap about me, but that’s okay, I’ve been expecting it.

Sixteen

Carmen

“How much do you trust me?” Lucas asks me as we’re making dinner together.

I turn to look at him, a little perplexed by his question. “Why…?” I ask, drawing the word out.

“Because I’m curious,” he says, sliding a hand along my waist and pulling me into him. “I want to take you somewhere, but I need to know that you trust me before I’ll even consider stepping foot into the place.”

“I’m so confused, where do you want to take me?” I question, my brows furrowed as I try and think of where it is he might want to go.

“I can’t tell you yet. I want it to be a complete surprise. But as I said, it requires you to fully trust me,” he says yet again.

“Okay, I trust you,” I say warily, still confused about where it is that he’s thinking about.

“Good, after dinner, we’re going out. Wear something skimpy,” he says, running the pads of two fingers along my collarbone and down my cleavage.

“Wait, I’m not going to a strip club with you,” I deadpan.

“Don’t worry, I wouldn’t take you to a strip club unless you asked me to. That’s too public of a place, anyway. The place I’m taking you is a private place.” Now, I’m even more confused. Trust. Private place. Yet he wants me in a “skimpy” outfit. I rack my brain trying to figure it out while we continue to make dinner together, well, until everything is cooking and he picks me up, placing me on the counter and steps between my legs. I instantly wrap them around his hips, pulling him flush against me. His lips find mine in a bruising kiss.

His fingers dig in to my hips, I’m