Winning With Him Read online

  Winning With Him

  Book Two in The Men of Summer Series

  Lauren Blakely

  Lauren Blakely Books

  Contents

  Also by Lauren Blakely

  About

  Winning With Him

  Prologue

  Prologue

  1. Declan

  2. Declan

  3. Declan

  4. Grant

  5. Grant

  6. Grant

  7. Grant

  The Night Before Opening Day

  8. Declan

  9. Grant

  September

  10. Declan

  11. Grant

  12. Grant

  13. Declan

  End of October

  14. Declan

  15. Grant

  16. Declan

  17. Declan

  18. Grant

  19. Grant

  The Next Few Days and Over the Next Several Years

  20. Grant

  21. Declan

  Present Day

  22. Grant

  23. Declan

  24. Declan

  25. Grant

  26. Declan

  27. Grant

  28. Declan

  29. Grant

  30. Declan

  31. Declan

  32. Grant

  33. Grant

  34. Declan

  May

  35. Grant

  36. Declan

  37. Grant

  38. Declan

  39. Grant

  40. Grant

  41. Declan

  42. Grant

  43. Grant

  44. Grant

  Epilogue

  Epilogue

  Author’s Note

  Also by Lauren Blakely

  Contact

  Copyright © 2021 by Lauren Blakely

  Cover Design by Helen Williams.

  All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book. This contemporary romance is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, brands, media, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. The author acknowledges the trademarked status and trademark owners of various products referenced in this work of fiction, which have been used without permission. The publication/use of these trademarks is not authorized, associated with, or sponsored by the trademark owners. This book is licensed for your personal use only. This book may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person you share it with, especially if you enjoy sexy romance novels with alpha males. If you are reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then you should return it and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the author’s work.

  Also by Lauren Blakely

  Big Rock Series

  Big Rock

  Mister O

  Well Hung

  Full Package

  Joy Ride

  Hard Wood

  * * *

  Rules of Love Series

  The Rules of Friends with Benefits (A Prequel Novella)

  The Virgin Rule Book

  The Virgin Game Plan

  The Virgin Replay

  The Virgin Scorecard

  * * *

  Men of Summer Series

  Scoring With Him

  Winning With Him

  All In With Him

  * * *

  The Guys Who Got Away Series

  Dear Sexy Ex-Boyfriend

  The What If Guy

  Thanks for Last Night

  The Dream Guy Next Door

  * * *

  The Gift Series

  The Engagement Gift

  The Virgin Gift

  The Decadent Gift

  * * *

  The Extravagant Series

  One Night Only

  One Exquisite Touch

  My One-Week Husband

  * * *

  MM Standalone Novels

  A Guy Walks Into My Bar

  One Time Only

  * * *

  The Heartbreakers Series

  Once Upon a Real Good Time

  Once Upon a Sure Thing

  Once Upon a Wild Fling

  * * *

  Boyfriend Material

  Asking For a Friend

  Sex and Other Shiny Objects

  One Night Stand-In

  * * *

  Lucky In Love Series

  Best Laid Plans

  The Feel Good Factor

  Nobody Does It Better

  Unzipped

  * * *

  Always Satisfied Series

  Satisfaction Guaranteed

  Instant Gratification

  Overnight Service

  Never Have I Ever

  PS It’s Always Been You

  Special Delivery

  * * *

  The Sexy Suit Series

  Lucky Suit

  Birthday Suit

  * * *

  From Paris With Love

  Wanderlust

  Part-Time Lover

  * * *

  One Love Series

  The Sexy One

  The Only One

  The Hot One

  The Knocked Up Plan

  Come As You Are

  * * *

  Sports Romance

  Most Valuable Playboy

  Most Likely to Score

  * * *

  Standalones

  Stud Finder

  The V Card

  The Real Deal

  Unbreak My Heart

  The Break-Up Album

  * * *

  The Caught Up in Love Series

  The Pretending Plot (previously called Pretending He’s Mine)

  The Dating Proposal

  The Second Chance Plan (previously called Caught Up In Us)

  The Private Rehearsal (previously called Playing With Her Heart)

  * * *

  Seductive Nights Series

  Night After Night

  After This Night

  One More Night

  A Wildly Seductive Night

  About

  Resisting the shortstop has never been my strong suit. I failed at it during my first spring training. It sure as hell looks like I’m about to fail at it again.

  * * *

  The sport I love playing with my very soul hangs in the balance. But everything my heart craves lies with the guy I’ve got to resist.

  * * *

  A guy who’s asking me to make the toughest choice ever.

  * * *

  But how do I become the man I want to be…with him or without him?

  * * *

  Trouble is, I can’t seem to get Declan out of my head, even if I stand to lose everything I’ve worked for my entire life…

  Winning With Him

  By Lauren Blakely

  * * *

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  Prologue

  Grant

  * * *

  So, this is happiness. This is falling in love. I get it now. I understand why I waited.

  For him.

  For the possibility that sex could become so much more than a hot tangle under the sheets.

  Yes, that’s what I wanted. More than a quick lay.

  Someone who makes my h
eart thunder.

  Declan Steele.

  Even though I won’t see him for ages, I feel like my luck is changing when I leave him that morning before he takes off for Florida.

  Leave him with a kiss and a promise that we’ll see each other again in November.

  As I walk out of the hotel in Phoenix, I can picture a sandy beach in Miami, the ocean lapping the shore. I can feel the tropical sun warming my skin, the book in my hands. Declan will stride over to my lounge chair and . . . Screw the hero in the story, I’ll set that paperback down in an instant and kiss the hell out of the guy I love in real life.

  We have a plan—a plan, a date, and a real chance.

  For the first time in days, I feel like everything will go my way.

  The Lyft drops me off at the team hotel in the dark of the night, before the sun dares peek over the horizon.

  With a disgustingly happy smile, I go in via a side entrance. The halls are blissfully empty. The stairwell is quiet as I walk up the steps, slow and silent as a cat.

  No one wanders along the sixth floor. No one opens a door. I slip back into my room unseen.

  Safe.

  My king-size bed calls to me, and I answer it, stripping out of my clothes, flopping onto the mattress, and sinking into the pillows.

  I’m briefly tempted to send Declan a goodbye text before he gets on the plane to Florida. To tell him last night was epic and I can’t wait to do it again and again in November.

  My fingers itch to send a sweet nothing. Hell, I’d love to get one from him.

  But my better judgement wins out.

  I could exercise some restraint. Get my baseball mojo back. Adjust the levers to crank up sports and dial down romance.

  I’ve been dining on Declan Steele morning, noon, and night for the last week, and a short breather won’t hurt.

  Maybe I’ll text him tonight.

  Yeah, tonight feels better.

  I set down my phone and close my eyes, replaying our dirty deeds as I drift off.

  Yes, everything is going my way today. I just know it.

  Three hours later, I’m on the field for the morning workout, kicking ass. Feeling as if anything is possible. The rest of the day unfolds like that—beautiful blue skies, a muscle-burning workout with Sullivan and Miguel, then a game at night.

  At the plate, I key in on Declan’s words of advice. One of the last things he said to me when I left his room this morning. “In the last couple games, your weight was too far back on your knees. Shift forward maybe a millimeter. Like you usually do.”

  With that adjustment, I make it to first on a line drive up the middle.

  The next three batters go down, so that’s as far as I get, but I’ll take my single, thank you very much. First time in days I don’t go hitless.

  When I’m suiting up to get behind the plate, I make a mental note to text Declan tonight and tell him it worked.

  Yes, that’s exactly what I’ll say next time I talk to him.

  For now, I feel like maybe, just maybe, I can get back in the game.

  Prologue

  Declan

  * * *

  Life has a way of sneaking up on you.

  It’s happened to me a few times over the years—at the end of a championship game when I was younger, then again when I was seventeen. A little later in the minors too.

  Before I even lock eyes with my unexpected visitor, I know this time is going to make those other surprises look like kittens.

  This is a lion’s attack of ambushes.

  I’ve been a New York Comet for one short hour. I’m heading to the field in Tampa, wearing my number eighteen uniform, my name already sewn onto it, when the hair on the back of my neck stands on end.

  When my skin prickles with uneasy awareness.

  I see that familiar set of shoulders, that thick head of hair, I hear that big, boisterous laugh, and my stomach twists.

  My throat goes desert dry.

  My legs turn into cinder blocks.

  But I have a game to play.

  A bat to swing.

  A glove to pick up.

  As I walk onto the field, I try to recall stanzas and verses—words and rhymes from the poets who helped me through the aftermath of days of upheaval when I was younger.

  T.S. Eliot, Robert Frost, Yeats.

  But they don’t come.

  My mind is a blank slate.

  There are no rhymes, no words to grab onto.

  “Declan! How the hell are you, son?” my father calls out.

  Once I hear the Jose Cuervo in his voice, my pulse spikes. My hands go clammy.

  He opens his mouth again. “And do you already miss your boyfriend?”

  That’s when my world swings upside down.

  1

  Declan

  He’s not supposed to be here.

  He’s not supposed to come near my field.

  I’ve asked him not to.

  Begged him not to.

  We had a deal.

  No surprises.

  That was the one thing I asked for, the one thing he promised.

  So much for that. I’m twenty, ten, five feet away from the man who’s about to drop my private life, and Grant’s too, dead center in my professional one with his question about whether I miss my boyfriend.

  A question he asked in front of a group of my new teammates. The first baseman and the designated hitter.

  That’s a motherfucking problem.

  “Dad,” I say thickly, hunting for the next words. Words like Stop, be quiet, and why the hell are you here?

  But I’m lost.

  Utterly lost.

  My head swims in foreign languages, swirls with words I don’t know, a tongue I can’t access because this man blindsided me today. He’s the last person I expected to see at a game.

  Kyle appearing out of thin air would have shocked me less.

  Hell, I wish Kyle were here. I’d gladly take a pop-up from any ex-lover over a surprise visit from my father. The man teetering on the edge of a blunder that could upend my guy’s entire fucking future.

  “But you’ll see him again soon,” he adds.

  Fear crashes over me in waves. He hasn’t used a name yet.

  But he might.

  He absolutely might.

  Especially since tequila has loosened his tongue. I swear I can see the fumes from the liquor curling off him.

  And I have to shut him up.

  “Good to see you, Dad.” I yank him into a big bear hug, pretending I’ve missed him so damn much. Then I whisper near his ear, just for him, “No boyfriend talk now. Please.”

  I’m desperate and not above begging.

  I’ll do anything to shut him up, whatever it takes.

  “Of course,” he says softly, then when we pull apart, he lifts his finger to his lips like we’re in cahoots.

  I want to crawl away and turn off all the lights until he’s gone.

  Instead, I plaster on a well-practiced sham of a smile. “How are you?” I manage to ask the man who raised me, who left us, who flitted back in whenever he felt like it.

  He lifts a ball between us. “I got some autographs! Check this out. It’s a ball from Tucker Reyes. Comet’s home-run king,” he booms. My new teammate is nearby, and my dad turns to clap a hand on the first baseman’s shoulder. “And a helluva player.”

  “Aww, thanks, Mister Steele.” Tucker beams, his toothy grin full of pride. I’ve seen the same from countless other ballplayers who feel blessed by my father’s praise. It’s so ironic, that adoration. My dad, former minor league star, legendary hitting champ in Triple-A, and outgoing, likable, friendly guy.

  How could anyone have any issue with him? How could his son possibly have a single bone to pick?

  Tucker shifts his focus to me, still smiling. “Welcome to the best team in baseball, Declan. Stoked to have you and your killer bat in New York, where you belong, man,” Tucker says, giving me a good to see you again handshake. “Also, your dad should be our
hitting coach. He’s been giving me tips, and I am going to destroy the Barn Owls’ pitchers today thanks to him.”

  “Yeah? Hitting tips?” I choke out the words. If my dad is dispensing hitting tips, that means he’s trying to ingratiate himself. That means he might try to stick around.

  No way can I let that happen.

  My dad nods proudly, scrubbing a hand over his beard then through his thick head of faintly wavy dark hair. He looks like me but weathered by the years and by the bottle.