His Illegitimate Heir by Sarah M. Anderson Page B

forearms kept touching, their knees bumping—was Casey.
    It mattered. He mattered. No conditions, no exceptions. He mattered just the way he was.
    Had anyone ever said as much to him? Even his own mother? No. What had mattered was what he wasn’t. He wasn’t a Beaumont. He wasn’t legitimate. He wasn’t white.
    Something in his chest unclenched, something he’d never known he was holding tightly. Something that felt like...
    ...peace.
    He dimly heard a loud crack and then Casey jolted and shouted, “Look out!”
    Zeb moved without thinking. He was in a weird space—everything happened as if it were in slow motion. His head turned like he was stuck in molasses, like the baseball was coming directly for him at a snail’s pace. He reached out slowly and caught the fly ball a few inches from Casey’s shoulder.
    The pain of the ball smacking into his palm snapped him out of it. “Damn,” he hissed, shaking his hand as a smattering of applause broke out from the crowd. “That hurt.”
    Casey turned her face toward him, her eyes wide. There was an unfamiliar feeling trying to make its way to the forefront of Zeb’s mind as he stared into her beautiful light brown eyes, one he couldn’t name. He wasn’t sure he wanted to.
    â€œYou caught the ball bare-handed,” she said, her voice breathy. Then, before Zeb could do anything, she looked down to where he was still holding the foul ball. She moved slowly when she pulled the ball out of his palm and stared at his reddening skin. Lightly, so lightly it almost hurt, she traced her fingertip over the palm of his hand. “Did it hurt?”
    That unnamed, unfamiliar feeling was immediately buried under something that was much easier to identify—lust. “Not much,” he said, and he didn’t miss the way his voice dropped. He had a vague sense that he wasn’t being entirely honest—it hurt enough to snap him out of his reverie. But with her stroking his skin...
    ...everything felt just fine.
    And it got a whole lot better when she lifted his hand and pressed a kiss against his palm. “Do we need to go and get some ice or...?”
    Or ? Or sounded good. Or sounded great. “Only if you want to,” he told her, shifting so that he was cupping her cheek in his hand. “Your call.”
    Because he wasn’t talking about ice. Or beer. Or baseball.
    He dragged his thumb over the top of her cheek as she leaned into his touch. She lifted her gaze to his face and for a second, he thought he’d taken it too far. He’d misread the signals and she would storm out of the stadium just like she’d stormed out of his office that first day. She would quit and he would deserve it.
    Except she didn’t. “I live a block away,” she said, and he heard the slightest shiver in her voice, felt a matching shiver in her body. “If that’s what you need.”
    What did he need? It should’ve been a simple question with a simple answer—her. Right now he needed her.
    But there was nothing simple about Casey Johnson and everything got much more complicated when she pressed his hand closer to her cheek.
    For the first time in a very long time, Zeb was at a loss for words. It wasn’t like him. When it came to women, he’d always known what to say, when to say it. Growing up in a hair salon had given him plenty of opportunity to learn what women wanted, what they needed and where those two things met and when they didn’t. Smooth , more than one of his paramours had called him. And he was. Smooth and cool and...cold. Distant. Reserved.
    He didn’t feel any of those things right now. All he could feel was the heat that flowed between her skin and his.
    â€œI need to cool down,” he told her, only dimly aware that that was not the smoothest line he had ever uttered. But he didn’t have anything else right now. His hand was throbbing and his