All Wound Up by Jaci Burton
About the Book
In the tenth sexy novel in the Play-By-Play series from New York Times bestselling author Jaci Burton, a sexy baseball player is done striking out . . .
Baseball player Tucker Cassidy is experiencing a slump in his professional – and personal – game. After a painful altercation involving his ex-girlfriend’s knee, he’s convinced things couldn’t get worse . . . until a gorgeous doctor comes to the rescue at his most embarrassing moment.
Dr Aubry Ross’s father owns a baseball team and she’s been around players all her life. She’s not about to fall for Tucker, however funny and sexy he may be. She’s pleasantly surprised, though, to find he respects her job and, when he keeps appearing at her hospital, Aubry starts to think he’s getting injured just to see her. But with her father disapproving of their relationship, will they realise this game-changing love is worth the fight?
Want more sexy sporting romance? Don’t miss the rest of this steamy series which began with The Perfect Play. And check out Jaci’s gorgeously romantic Hope series beginning with Hope Flames.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
There are so many people who make a book shine and who help me behind the scenes so I have the time to write. So to Telisa and Kati, thank you for your pinpoint proofing and beta reading. You make my books better, and I’m so grateful. To Lillie, I couldn’t survive without you wrangling my incredibly unwieldy series bible and advising me when my timeline is off. And to Fatin, without you managing the day to day, I’d never finish a book.
I could not do this job without all your help. Thank you all so much.
IT WAS COOL, DARK AND—MOST IMPORTANTLY—private in Clyde Ross’s wine cellar, which was why Tucker Cassidy had brought Laura, his girlfriend, down here.
She’d had a lot to drink today, and when she drank, she got loud and obnoxious.
She was also pissed at him at the moment.
Laura angry, drunk and loud? Not a good combination, especially not while they were at the house of the owner of the St. Louis Rivers. Clyde Ross was Tucker’s boss, and the last thing he needed was his girlfriend making a scene. He had enough of a bad boy image without Laura making things worse by screaming at him in the middle of Clyde’s very nice, very fancy party.
“I don’t think there’s anything more to discuss, Tucker, about why you keep dragging your feet about the two of us moving in together.”
Yeah that so wasn’t happening. “We can talk about this when I take you home tonight, Laura.”
He’d brought her to the wine cellar in the hopes of cooling her down. Plus, they were alone here and no one could hear them. Okay, mainly no one could hear Laura, since she was the one who was doing all the talking. Loud talking. She was like a dog with a favorite bone once she got on a topic.
“We’ve been dating two whole months, Tucker. Don’t you think it’s time we make it official?”
It had been the most awful two whole months of his entire life. Okay, maybe not at the beginning. Laura was a knockout. Tall, with long dark hair, curves that just didn’t quit and the best ass he’d ever seen. She was a cocktail waitress and they’d met one night when he’d been having drinks in the bar where she worked. They hit it off right away and had gone out, had a night of hot sex and had started dating. She’d been fun, adventurous, great in the sack and they had a lot in common.
Plus, she liked baseball, and he played for the Rivers. Not that it was a deal breaker if a woman he dated wasn’t a baseball fan, but it didn’t hurt if she was. She’d come to watch him play and she actually knew the game, as opposed to other women he’d dated who claimed to but in fact didn’t know balls from strikes or a curve from a fastball. In his mind, that was a goddamned crime.
But as the weeks progressed, he’d noticed she didn’t hold her liquor well, and when she drank, she was not a fun drunk. She was loud, obnoxious and she insulted his friends. Whenever she allowed him to be around his friends. Which lately wasn’t often because she’d also grown more demanding of his time. Whenever they weren’t together, she wanted to know where he was and how soon he was coming over. In other words, when he wasn’t playing ball, she wanted him with her. Only with her. And she wanted him to account for every minute of his time.
He didn’t need a mother—he had a pretty great one already.
And now the past few times they’d been together she’d thrown down hints about the two of them moving in together. He was so not ready for that.
So now he had to redirect her and calm her down before things got out of hand.
“How about we check out Clyde’s awesome wine collection?”