Page 133 of The Strike Zone

I’d learned my lesson the first week home.

I’d been in hospital for three days. After the second, I’d been allowed to walk, allowed to use the bathroom, and two of the five tubes attached to me were removed. I was sent home bandaged up like an Egyptian mummy, with a list of rules, including no sex and no strenuous exercise, but I wasn’t complaining.

It felt logical to me that whileImight not be able to have sex, that didn’t mean Scout had to miss out. I was only human, and I wanted to make it up to my girl and there was no harm in getting creative. I could still make her come, right?Wrong. It hadn’t occurred to me I’d still get hard the moment I laid eyes on Scout’s naked body and slipped my fingers inside her silky, dripping pussy, but I had.

And what had started out as a day full of promise, had ended back in the emergency room with a scolding. Thankfully Dierdre wasn’t on duty.

After that, we enforced a sex sabbatical for both of us, which turned into the most prolonged case of edging on record. It no longer felt like my balls were on fire every time I caught her scent or brushed my lips to hers. Even when I deepened our kiss to taste her, explore around her mouth, I could cope, but the fire in my balls was now happening for an entirely different reason.

So, yeah, I wanted to get to the doctor as early as possible, and based on the way Scout’s breathing had shallowed, I’d say she did too.

“Think about how good it’s going to feel, Davison. It’s been sevenlongweeks. My dick will be so hard for you, so fuckinghard…”

The second my fingers inched underneath her towel, she jumped from my lap and ran into the bathroom. “Okay, you win. Let’s go. We’ll get you bumped up.”

“See,” I grinned at myself, “that’s the enthusiasm I was after.”

“Can we get coffee on the way?”

“You bet,” I called to her. “In fact, I’ll go and make you one right now to take with us.”

I wondered if a hop, skip, and jump counted as strenuous exercise as I wandered out into the living room to find Ace and Lux in the kitchen.

“Big day today, bud.” Ace grinned, peering up from his cereal as I flicked on the coffee machine.

“It sure is.”

“Do we need to warn the downstairs neighbors that all the banging they’ll hear tonight isn’t a construction project?” Lux chuckled.

Ace held his fist out to pump. “Nice.”

I showed the pair of them exactly what I thought of their joking by flipping them off. Seven long weeks of jokes hadn’t just worn thin. It was see-through. “Where’s Tanner.”

Lux shrugged. “In his room, maybe. Haven’t seen him yet.”

“He’s not come in for breakfast?”

The pair of them shook their heads.

“Weird.” I pulled the milk from the fridge. “I figured he’d be up, he’s been so excited for today.”

“Your sign-off?”

“No, idiot, the dogs thing.” I frowned. “He’s not stopped talking about it.”

“Only because he’s front page of the charity calendar,” replied Ace, pouring another bowl of Cap’n Crunch out and focusing back on reading the magazine laid out in front of him. “He’s probably doing his hair, making sure he looks his best for all the puppies. It’s your turn to wake him up anyway.”

I glanced at the clock. He really should be out by now. We had a rule on game days—if he wasn’t with us, last one out of the door had to check Tanner was awake. He had a bad habit of oversleeping, and the last time it happened, Coach reamed usallout.

“Okay, I’m going to check.”

Tanner’s door was closed when I reached his room. “Tan, you up, buddy? I’m making coffee?”

No answer. Knocking didn’t result in anything different either. I pressed my ear to the door,carefully. I’d been caught out before listening at Tanner’s door when we thought he’d overslept, and was subjected to hearing things I could never unhear, but this time it was silent.

It was no use walking away either. Like the wellness checks they implemented in Vegas, we needed proof Tanner wasn’t in his room. He could sleep through an earthquake.

Bright sunshine sliced through the gap in the door as I opened it. Pushing it wide, I found his bed unmade, which meant he was either in his bathroom or he’d already left the apartment—something he’d never do.

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