Chapter Twenty-four

As soon as Ryan boarded the Hawks' team plane, he was pulled into a strategy session with the pitching coach and catcher to study the lineup of the opposite team and go over the strong and weak points of every hitter. He already had a good sense of who was hot, who chased the fastballs, and which batters he could fool with his changeup. Good enough that his brain kept spinning back to Smith's concerned phone call and the way Vicki's face had fallen when he'd told her about the interview with her ex.

Smith had gotten back in touch to ask if there was anything Ryan wanted his PR team to do. Clearly, his brother was perfectly happy to use his connections to take down Vicki's ex, especially within a community of ultra-rich movie people who had probably thrown plenty of money the sculptor's way over the years.

It was really tempting to let Smith do that, just as he'd been all for his brother taking James apart. But Ryan couldn't forget what Vicki had said that first night at the cocktail lounge. "If I win the fellowship, I want to know that it was because of the quality of my work."

Smith and Marcus and the rest of the well-connected Sullivan clan could easily pull every trick and favor in the book for Vicki. But doing that would strip away her victories just as badly as her ex-husband had stripped them from her during their marriage.

Of course, Ryan still wanted to fly to Italy to rip the dickhead's heart from his chest for hurting her.

The second the plane touched down, he called her. "I hope you have clay all over your hands," he told her voice mail. "I miss you already. And I love you. Call me when you get home."

By the time the Hawks got into Busch Stadium for a light workout, Ryan was more than ready to blow off some steam. He worked out so hard, in fact, that Bobby, the pitching coach, had to pull him aside.

"Looking good out there, Ryan. We're getting ready to head out for dinner. You ready to go?"

Ryan put down the weights he'd been lifting, knowing it was time to quit ripping his body apart today. As the Hawks' ace on the staff, he was pitching the first playoff game. He knew better than to blow out his muscles the day before a game, especially a huge game like this. But he'd never been slave to such frustration before. Not since that day when he'd watched Vicki ride her bike away from his house after she'd told him she was moving again. He'd ended up running after her, running long after she was out of sight, running until his legs had finally given out.

He hadn't made it to the game at the high school that night. It was the only one he'd ever bailed on.

Just thinking about what he'd seen in Vicki's eyes that morning - knowing she'd been thinking of leaving him again after what her ex had said - had all of those emotions rounding back on him. Only they were bigger, stronger now than they'd been when he was just a kid with a massive crush on his best friend.

"I've got a few things to take care of," he said as they headed toward the locker room. "I'll get something to eat later tonight."

The gray-haired man he'd worked with for the past decade leveled a stare at him. "You need to talk anything over, give me a call. Doesn't matter how late, I'll be around."

Ryan appreciated the gesture, but there was only one person he needed to talk to right now. He grabbed his bag without hitting the showers and headed for the hotel. His phone rang just as he was closing the hotel room door behind him.

"Hi, gorgeous."

"Ryan." Vicki sounded a little flustered and shy. "Hi."

They'd talked on the phone a handful of times over the years they'd been apart, but this was the first time since they'd made love.

Damn, he loved the sound of her voice.

Even just the sound of her breathing.

"Hi," he said again, grinning into the phone as he heard her putting her keys down on the kitchen counter.

"Are you in the middle of something?" she asked.

"Nope. The night's all mine." And he planned to spend it with her. "What about you?"

"I just got home."

He'd never had anyone waiting for him before, and the thought of coming home to her kisses in a few days sent warmth moving through him. He loved picturing her in his house.

At long last, the frustration that had been riding him all day started to dissipate.

Of course he wanted to hear about the progress she'd made on her sculpture, and he needed to make sure she hadn't let her idiot of an ex-husband derail her. But first he needed to make sure she understood that all the miles currently between them didn't mean a damn thing...and wouldn't stop him from loving her just as thoroughly as he would have if they were standing in the same room.

"Remember what you were about to offer me right before I left today?" He couldn't wait for her reply before saying, "Your first na**d night is tonight." He grinned even wider at her stunned silence. "I sure hope you aren't saying anything because you're too busy taking off your clothes."

Finally, she gave a little laugh into the phone. "Actually, I'm standing here wondering if you've been watching the X-rated channels in your hotel room."

"I don't need p**n when I've got plenty of triple-X pictures in my head of you in the shower, in your studio, and in my bed." He let the images of what the two of them had done in all those places run through her mind for a few seconds. "Put the phone on speaker, place it on the kitchen counter, and take off your tank top."

"You're serious?"

"You have ten seconds to take it off, Vicki."

"Or what?" Her voice was breathy now, and obviously aroused. "You're all the way in St. Louis."

God, he loved her. How playful, how strong, how loving she was. All the years they'd spent apart, he'd been searching for a woman like Vicki. If only he'd realized long before this week that he'd never find a replacement for her - that she was the only woman he'd ever love - then maybe they wouldn't have wasted so many years apart.

They couldn't get those years back.

But they could make the most of every single one they had left.

And they damn well would.

"You're right," he agreed in a deceptively easy voice that he intended for her to see right through. "But I'll be back home in five days." He let her register the sensual threat - and promise - in his words. "Your time is up. Where's your tank top?"

He heard her swallow before answering. "In my hands."

"Drop it on the floor."

The sound of the fabric dropping to his kitchen floor got him so hard he had to adjust himself again in his shorts as he sank down on the hotel room couch.

"I want you to take your leggings off next. Tell me when they're gone."

He let himself picture Vicki balancing first on one leg and then the other to slide the fabric off.

"They're gone."

"What else do you have on?"

She paused just long enough for him to know it was going to be good. "Pink lace."

"Your br**sts look incredible in that bra." He could barely get his brain to function well enough to ask, "Are you wearing the matching thong?"

"I pulled that off along with my leggings. Wait a second and I'll get the bra off, too." He heard the click of the front clasp of her bra opening. "Okay, that's everything."

"Jesus, Vicki." He slid his shorts off and reached for himself. "You're killing me here."

She laughed softly into the phone before saying, "Now that you've got me na**d for the rest of the night, what are you going to do with me?"

"I'm going to love you, sweetheart." He couldn't have hidden the emotion in his voice from her even if he wanted to.

He didn't want to hide his feelings for her ever again.

"Ryan." His name was a whisper on her lips, one that reverberated way down into his soul.

"Cup your br**sts for me. Do it the way I would if I were there."

He loved the little moan that escaped her right before she said, "I wish you were here. Tell me what to do, Ryan. Tell me how you want me."

Oh hell, he almost lost it right then and there. "Lick your thumbs then brush them over yourself like they're my tongue." He could imagine the taste of her so well it was almost as if he was in California with her sensitive flesh taut and so damn sweet against his tongue. "God, you taste good."

"I love your mouth on me. The scratch of your stubble against me, the way you start to suck and bite at my skin when you lose control."

"I'm losing control now." He couldn't see her smile, but he knew her well enough to be absolutely certain that her gorgeous lips were curving up at the edges. "I need to touch more of you."

"Where, Ryan? Tell me where."

"Leave your left hand on your perfect br**sts and start moving the right one down over your stomach and keep going. I'll tell you when to stop."

A few moments later, her swift intake of breath told him that her hand had reached the sweet, slick flesh between her legs.

"You've stopped already, haven't you?"

"I - " She panted. "I need - "

"I know what you need, sweetheart." Because he needed it, too. Not just tonight. Not just for a few months.

Forever.

"First I want you to tell me how you taste." He'd planned to make her beg, but he was the one saying, "Please."

He swore he could hear the slow slick of her tongue over her damp fingers. "A little salty." She paused. "And a little sweet."

"You're so beautiful. So perfect." His breath was coming as fast as it did when he ran sprints. "Walk over to the couch and lie down on it. Pretend I'm there with you. Over you. Sliding into you."

"Oh God, Ryan. Yes."

"Are you touching yourself?"

"Yes, and I'm so close."

"I am, too." He'd never been so turned on in all his life, but instead of telling her that, the words that came were, "I love you. So damn much."

She gave a low cry of pleasure before her breath whooshed into his ear. "I love you, too."

With the crystal clear picture in his head of her gorgeous na**d curves bucking up into her hands, he gave up his own control and let his release follow hers.

* * *

Vicki couldn't believe she'd just had phone sex with Ryan.

And it had been amazing.

She wanted to clasp the knowledge to her chest and hold it there, along with all their other firsts. Wanting him as close as she could get him, she shifted on the couch to pick up the cell phone from the counter.

"You're not putting your clothes back on, are you?"

Even though he wasn't there to see her, she still flushed at her na**dness...and the shockingly sweet fact that he'd asked her to strip down less than a minute after picking up her call.

She put the phone to her ear and said, "I promised you a full day, didn't I?"

His laughing response was layered with unquenched desire. She knew exactly how he felt. Her orgasm had been fantastic. But it wasn't nearly enough to quench her need for him.

"I hope you made good on your other promise to me."

She wrapped the blanket from his couch around her and sat down. The message he'd left for her had been full of love. And worry. She didn't want to add to it. But she also wanted - and needed - to be completely honest with him from here on out. She was tired of the lies.

And she refused ever to tell another one to the man she loved.

"I had a great day at the studio, even though everyone had already read the interview by the time I got there."

Ryan cursed. "I take it James came by?"

"Everyone but him, actually. I know we're all supposed to be competing for the fellowship, but everyone was really great about it, especially when they learned that Anthony has been added to the board." She'd been more than a little surprised by the support from her fellow artists, and not just the ones she thought of as friends.

"No one wants to be sold out like that."

Vicki wasn't surprised that Ryan had cut right to the heart of it. Whoever said jocks were dumb or clueless had never met her ballplayer.

"And they know you, how hard you work, how passionate you are about everything you do."

"Thank you for always believing in me. And for loving me."

And yet, even as she felt his support all the way down in her core, she had to pull the blanket tighter around her shoulders to try to combat the chill that was trying to take her over as she worked out how to tell him about Italy.

"Something else happened today, didn't it?" he asked.

When would she stop being surprised that he knew her better than anyone? And that he could read her silences better than anyone had ever understood her actual words?

"I got a phone call. From Italy. It wasn't Anthony," she said quickly, before Ryan got the wrong idea. "A major museum of contemporary sculpture wants to put together an exhibition of my work."

"That's amazing, Vicki. Why didn't you tell me the good news as soon as we got on the phone?"

"Because - " She could feel every single mile between them and knew how much farther away she'd be if she went to Italy. " - they don't just want my sculptures. They want me, too. As an artist-in-residence. For at least a year."

"Italy is a big deal, isn't it? Bigger than San Francisco."

She couldn't lie to him. "Yes, it's a big deal."

Ryan was silent for several brutally long moments. "You know my mother was born in Italy, don't you?"

"I do." When Vicki had complimented Mary on her spaghetti sauce, his mother had told her about learning it from her Italian grandmother.

"And did you also know there's an Italian national baseball team that isn't half bad?"

Quickly putting it all together, she said, "You're not going to play baseball in Italy, Ryan."

"It would be fun."

"Don't be crazy," she said when she realized he was serious. "You can't give up your career for me and a year in Italy that might not mean anything at all in the long run."

"I know you've never come first before, not with your family or your ex-husband, but I meant it when I said I would do anything for you. Anything."

"But your career - "

"Has been great. And you know what? I would trade every single win to have spent those years with you."

"No, you wouldn't." Her eyes felt wet with the tears she was trying to hold back. "But I love you for even thinking it."

"Yes, I would," he countered. "And I love you, too, amore mio."

When he called her "my love" in Italian, more tears fell.

"The museum gave me a little while to decide, so don't quit the team just yet," she told him in as light a voice as she could, as though the whole idea of him quitting the Hawks was utterly preposterous.

Which it was. Vicki would never in a million years force him to choose between her and baseball. Yes, she'd heard what he said. And she believed he meant it.

But how could she ever forgive herself if she took him up on it?

When she had married Anthony, she hadn't realized all the things she'd be giving up. If she turned down a year in Italy, at least she'd be doing it with her eyes wide open.

Knowing they weren't going to make any more headway tonight, she said, "Now that we've covered my day, it's your turn to tell me all about yours. Especially the part where you got sweaty and your muscles bulged."

"Well," he teased her back, "I got this phone call tonight..."

For the next hour they shared the little details of their day that no one else would have cared about, but that meant the world to each of them. And after Ryan convinced her to take the phone into the master bathroom and get into the bathtub, and she was calling out his name as she followed his wickedly sensual instructions to the letter, she momentarily forgot that she'd ever had a worry in her life.