Night Games (The Storm Inside #6) Read online

  NIGHT GAMES

  STORM INSIDE SERIES BOOK 6

  ALEXIS ANNE

  CONTENTS

  Praise for The Storm Inside

  —The Storm Inside Series—

  Foreword

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Thank You

  Excerpt from When Lightning Strikes

  More from Alexis Anne

  Welcome To The World Of Tease

  Excerpt From TEASE

  Excerpt From TEMPT

  -Be A Frisky Friend-

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  PRAISE FOR THE STORM INSIDE

  “It was one of the best love stories I have read to date. The writing at times was so descriptive you could feel the love, pain, confusion and desperation between the characters.”

  -Books Unhinged

  “This book starts off with a BANG! Literally!! Their scenes together were so intense and the sex scenes were so hot, my whole body felt on fire.”

  -Lustful Literature

  “The sex was HOT! Jake melted me with his words.”

  -Miscellaneous Thoughts of a Bookaholic

  “I loved the writer’s portrayal of what life can throw at young love.”

  -Brenda’s Book Beat

  PRAISE FOR TEMPT

  “Very erotic.”

  -Cosmopolitan.com

  “This has truly been an awesome book and an amazing series.”

  -Books of Past, Present, and Future

  —THE STORM INSIDE SERIES—

  Welcome to the big little city of Tampa, nestled into the heart of Florida along the salty Gulf of Mexico. This is where sun and second chances find love and sexy times. The Daniels family has baseball in their blood. The daughter of “Papa Joe” Daniels, Eve has taken up the family tradition along with her sisters Cassandra and June and gone to work for Major League Baseball. . . . using her career as a shield for her broken heart.

  Jake Spencer is from the other side of the tracks. Broken and abused his entire life, he’s risen to become one of the most prominent businessmen in town along with his best friend Greg Hamilton. Driven to succeed by their failures, these brothers-in-life don’t believe they deserve love . . . Until the sexy, powerful women of Tampa teach them otherwise.

  The Books of The Storm Inside Series:

  The Storm Inside

  Jake and Eve

  10 years spent trying to forget each other…

  Reflected in the Rain

  Jake and Eve

  Happily ever after begins with I do…

  Never Let Go

  Jake and Eve

  In sickness and in health. Love conquers all…

  When Lightning Strikes

  Greg and Maire

  Single mom, grumpy workaholic…fireworks were inevitable

  Summer Heat

  June and Roman

  He was forbidden. Taboo. Off limits. She couldn’t resist the temptation…

  Night Games

  Wes and Carrie

  Baseball’s biggest player is about the get played…

  NIGHT GAMES

  By Alexis Anne

  http://alexisannebooks.com/

  Copyright 2017 Alexis Sykes

  All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever.

  Cover design by Romanced By The Cover

  Get my new releases in your inbox!

  Created with Vellum

  FOREWORD

  Dear readers,

  If you’ve been a long time supporter of The Storm Inside series you’ll notice a big change in this book. I decided to rename the baseball team in the series as the St. Pete Mantas. When I first published The Storm Inside I wasn’t aware of how team names might affect the series going forward. Heck, I didn’t even know if anyone would ever read my books! Well, you have! And I’ve learned so much in these last four years. So going forward the team name will be different. All the earlier books in the series are also being updated to reflect this change.

  Thanks so much! xoxo

  -Alexis

  Nate,

  Your personality is what lights up my life in all the best ways.

  1

  It was going to be a beautiful day. I always woke up in Vegas feeling like a new person. A night out, no inhibitions, just fun . . . it cleared my head and reset my body, which normally seemed to hum with tension no matter what I did.

  Or who I did.

  I only felt a tiny twinge of guilt as I glanced at the delicious specimen of man sprawled naked beside me. The white sheet just barely covered his bare ass. Everything else was on full display in the morning light.

  Messy blond hair, the powerful shoulders of a Major League Baseball catcher, the sculpted perfection of his back. Even his feet were sexy in a masculine-I-wear-size-fifteens kind of way.

  Last night had been a mistake. We never, ever should have picked up where we left off. “We’re over” doesn’t have the same power when you keep having one-night-stands.

  But this was the last time. For real this time.

  I slipped out of bed and padded across his hotel suite at The Paris to the bathroom. I wasn’t flying home until the evening so I planned on spending most of the day by the pool.

  Alone.

  And when it came to Wes Allen, alone meant sneaking out of his hotel room before he woke up. Otherwise he’d keep me distracted all day.

  Not that it would be the worst thing ever . . .

  Except yes, actually. It would be. All day in his bed would somehow lead to spending more accidental nights together back home in Florida. And we absolutely could not do that. I broke up with him for a reason.

  Reasons?

  I should probably make a list of all the ways Wes was a bad idea—because there were many—but the only one that mattered was that I forgot to think when I was around him.

  I very quietly shut the bathroom door and took care of business, then went to the sink to splash water on my puffy face.

  That was when I saw it.

  My heart stopped.

  What the hell is on my hand?

  There was a ring on my left hand. On my ring finger. It was large and expensive and . . .

  Oh hell no.

  I stumbled backward and ran into the door, which of course clunked noisily against the wall a split second before I fell into it.

  Did I marry Wes?

  I slumped to the ground because there was a very good chance I was about to pass out.

  “Carrie?” His sleep-heavy voice sounded rough in a sexy way, but even sexier was the worry with which he said it.

  I really wish he’d stop caring about me so I could stop caring about him.

  Although, as I stared at the rock on my hand, I had to wonder if we’d just complicated that entire situation.

  The events of the night before were fuzzy at best. I remembered attending my best friend’s wedding as one of two maids of honor, along with Wes, who was the best man. I remembered the luncheon. I remembered dropping Zoe off at our room because she had a killer headache from the last minute fl
ight and day of champagne—I really couldn’t blame her for that. Not everyone was a career drinker like me—and then I remembered letting Wes talk me into going dancing.

  There were foggy memories of making out and groping on the dance floor and then . . .

  Nothing.

  “Are you okay?” Wes appeared in the doorway, rubbing his eyes and stretching his ridiculous, naked frame. My heart skipped a beat as his entire expression softened at the sight of me on the floor. “Babe?” He dropped to his knees.

  I jerked away. “No. Do not come near me.” Not with those puppy dog eyes, his soft hands, or his sweet, caring words. I knew what he did when he thought I was hurt or sick and there was no way I could handle that kind of feeling with a fucking ring on my finger.

  “Doc . . . you’re scaring me.” He didn’t come closer, but he hovered. He could hover with the best of them when he was uncertain. These were all things I shouldn’t know about anyone, yet somehow I knew it about Wes. It was a mistake to fuck him in the first place, but to still be sleeping with him months later? I’d lost my damn mind.

  And now there was ring on my finger!

  I held up my hand. “What did we do last night?”

  Wes’s blue eyes zeroed in on my ring, taking a moment to focus. I knew the moment it registered in his post-partying brain because his eyes widened and he dropped onto his bare ass. “Is that?”

  “A fucking wedding ring? I think so.”

  He held up his hands and, fuckity-fuck-fuck, there was a gold band on his ring finger. “Why don’t I remember this?” he croaked.

  “We never should have done Three Wise Men.” The cocktail always led to bad decisions.

  Bad, bad, bad decisions.

  “But . . . I always remember.” His mouth was still hanging open. “I mean, sure I have some spotty nights and fuzzy memories but never . . . nothing.”

  Well there was a first time for everything. “We have to figure this out. Now.” I must have sounded terrifying, or more likely, terrified, because Wes was on his feet and out of the bathroom in a flash. He never moved that fast unless there was a pop fly at home plate or I was scaring him.

  I slowly got back on my feet, running through scenarios. What could have possibly happened after the dance floor? We managed to get back to Wes’s room and into bed. Yes, we were naked, but we were in the bed safely. We couldn’t have possibly been so drunk that neither of us remembered the night before.

  We just couldn’t. It didn’t make sense.

  “Shit!” Wes whispered.

  When I stepped back into the room I found him leaning over the desk. There was a piece of paper next to a pretty blue folder. “What is it?”

  Every muscle in his shoulders stiffened. He didn’t look at me, but I noticed that his hands had a pretty firm grip on the edges of the desk. Considering Wes caught balls flying at high speeds for a living, I was pretty sure that desk was about five seconds from snapping in half.

  Not that he didn’t know how to control his strength.

  He was incredibly tender when he was with me.

  And I really needed to stop thinking of Wes’s positive attributes.

  “Wes?”

  He turned, holding up the piece of paper. “It’s our marriage license. Apparently issued yesterday at four in the afternoon.”

  I stumbled to the bed. For some reason my knees weren’t working properly.

  “Doc?” His voice wavered as he approached me slowly. “It’s okay. It’s just a Vegas wedding.”

  “Just a Vegas wedding?” I hissed. A wedding was a wedding. Period. I partied hard with my downtime but some things were sacred. Marriage was sacred.

  And not something I had any interest in failing at.

  “We’ll get it annulled or we’ll get a divorce.” He shrugged his strong shoulders, all those beautiful muscles flexing and contracting as they moved. “The lawyers will take care of it if you don’t want to be married to me.”

  Don’t want to be married to me. Whoa. That was a very frightening choice of words. He made it sound like he was perfectly happy to married.

  The man who loved women. All women. He was the exact opposite definition of “marriage material.”

  “Have you lost your mind?”

  He stepped toward me so I shot to my feet and backed away.

  He froze. “No.” Only his eyes followed me as I freaked out all over the hotel room.

  “You basically just insinuated you were cool with being married.” I stopped so I could look him in the eye. I really needed to see his reaction to this. “Married to me.”

  “You say that like it’s a bad thing.”

  My heart and my head exploded at the same time and in very different ways. My heart was throwing a ticker-tape parade of joy. Wes cared about me—more than he should. Even an emotionally stunted person like me could see that—cared enough to potentially want to be married.

  That was stunningly exciting.

  But my head? Yeah, it was having a five stage nuclear meltdown. “Marriage is forever Wes. You were there yesterday when June and Roman said their vows. It’s taking care of each other when we’re sick and not hating each other when shit gets real. It’s fucking one person for the rest of your life.”

  He still didn’t move. “I take care of you—”

  My mind went white with fury. “No one takes care of me!” I yelled, then stepped right into him and stuck my finger in his chest. “I take care of me.”

  He took my hand, stopping me from stabbing him a second time. “That’s not what I meant.”

  I jerked my hand away. “Don’t touch me. Don’t take care of me. For fuck’s sake leave me alone.”

  He released my hand and stepped back, hands in the air. “Calm down, Carrie. You’re twisting everything around and I don’t understand why.” There was a definite hint of anger there now, not that I had the capacity to process that.

  “I just . . . I need time to comprehend this.” In my condo back home. Alone. Far, far away from the pleading look of hope on his face. I softened, hoping the change would get through to him. “You and I could never be a couple, Wes. We’re too alike. We’d be a disaster.”

  A couple needed at least one mature member, right? Someone who could manage the responsibilities and feelings? Wes could never, ever manage a responsibility without Roman holding his hand, and me? The last thing I wanted to get in touch with was my feelings.

  “All right,” he said slowly. “I’ll call my lawyer. We’ll get this sorted.”

  My heart took off again. Divorce. I couldn’t.

  “Carrie?” He approached me carefully, holding his hands out at a safe distance until he was close. I guess he felt I was giving him permission to touch me when I didn’t run away.

  I don’t know. Maybe I was.

  I wanted his arms around me so I could bury my nose in his chest. Everything always felt better when I was in Wes’s arms.

  His hands gently wrapped around my biceps. “You have this look on your face.”

  “What look?”

  “Like you’re about five seconds from crying. I’m sorry.” The way he was holding me . . . it was gentle.

  “Why are you sorry?” I got the distinct impression it wasn’t because we were married.

  He searched my eyes and when he spoke his voice was so soft. “I’m sorry because I’ve hurt you. I don’t know what I was thinking last night but I can guarantee you it wasn’t that I wanted to cause you any pain.”

  “Too late,” I whispered.

  His face fell. “Please, see this from my perspective. Just for a minute.”

  That was pretty much the very last thing I wanted to do. I didn’t want to be understanding or calm or reasonable. All I really wanted was to turn back time to yesterday afternoon and get unmarried.

  What were we thinking?

  “I care about you,” he whispered. “I don’t know why you always run from me but I’d like to think this marriage is fate giving me a chance to keep you around long e
nough to find out.”

  Run. Running was the one thing I knew how to do well. I’d run from home the minute I had my high school diploma in hand and never turned back. I’d run from every great guy I’d ever dated and nearly every friendship until I met June. She’d been working some strange voodoo on me ever since we met. Our connection was immediate and I’d slowly come to realize that despite not wanting to rely on anyone, I valued our friendship too much to throw it away.

  I blamed her for Wes.

  My cycle was well known by everyone. Meet a hot guy, fuck him, date him for a week or two at most, then move on. It was fun, fulfilling, and best of all, required no feelings whatsoever.

  And usually the guys were more than happy to move along. I’m a lot to handle—I know this. And let’s face it, I wasn’t exactly picking the kinds of men who were looking for anything more than a few turns in the sack. It was a mutually beneficial situation for everyone. I didn’t like feelings and didn’t have time for them either. There was no room in my life for any of this shit.

  And yet . . . here I was, in Vegas at my best friend’s wedding, married to a man I couldn’t seem to walk away from for longer than a night or two. I was clearly malfunctioning. A bug entered my code when I let June and Wes into my life.

  This had to stop. Now.

  “No.”

  His hands tightened on my arms. “No?”

  He couldn’t want this. He was sweet and caring but he was also wild and irresponsible. He was acting on instinct instead of logic. That was the only explanation. “You can’t be a husband.”

  “Says who?”

  “Me! Your wife.”

  He let me go and stepped back, running a hand through his hair and tugging when he reached the ends. “Give me one good reason,” he held up his finger, “a real reason.”

  Why were we even discussing this? Naked. He should be appalled that he was married.

  Shouldn’t he?

  God, I was so clueless when it came to anything outside of medicine.

  “Because . . . ”

  “You don’t know! You know why you don’t know? Because there isn’t a good reason.” He stepped back and took my face in his hands. “I suck at being an adult but I could be really good at loving you, if you’d let me.”