You Can't Score Off Me Unless I Want You To ( #Excerpt #Baseball #LoveOfTheGame #Feminism #Threesome )

By Annabeth Leong

Guys, it’s always been hard for me to stand up for myself. And I’m not sure what to say about that right now--it’s been a long couple of weeks. So I’m going to cop out a little and share an excerpt from my story, “Fast Pitcher,” in which my main character, Margie Underwood, does know how to stand up for herself. I wrote this during a time when I was listening to baseball on the radio just about daily, and I really loved playing around with how dirty baseball language sounds. :)

If you want to read the whole thing, “Fast Pitcher” appeared in Harley Easton’s Love of the Game anthology.

I’ll try to have more to say next time!


***

Phillips had stayed late too, eschewing the team's afterparty in order to participate in Margie's tête-à-tête with Pete Muñoz. She knew she needed a catcher, but part of her wished it could have been just the two of them.

She braced herself for more nonsense from Phillips as she stepped onto the field, but her pitch earlier that evening seemed to have made him a convert.

"I've got two bills down that you strike Muñoz out. He's lucky this isn't official, or you'd be messing up his precious over-.300 batting average," he said.

"Nah, man. Margie's good, but she's about to give it up to me. I think she's going to let me take her deep." Muñoz spat in the dirt at his feet, then squinted out at the empty park.

Margie squared her shoulders. She recognized Muñoz's trash talk for what it was — challenging, not sexist. He was chirping at her the way he would have with any hot pitcher. Telling her that she wouldn't be able to keep him from hitting long and hard, far out into the outfield or maybe even over the fences. When he hefted his bat, however, he glanced at her with meaning in his eyes. Margie's mouth went dry. It wasn't just the language that seemed sexual. Muñoz obviously planned to take her deep off the field even if he didn't manage the feat on the diamond.

She glanced from one man to the other, and heat gathered between her legs. The night was cool and clean, and she was drunk off the feeling of standing on a pro diamond and hanging out with men who played ball for a living as if she were one of them. Margie adjusted her baseball cap and raised an eyebrow at Muñoz.

"You boys can bet all you want, but neither of you is going to score off me unless I want you to."

Phillips let out a whistle. "You want to put your money where your mouth is, Underwood?"

Every line of his body was arrogant, but there was something appealing about him, too. His brand of cockiness looked like it could be a lot of fun. He was a big, strong man, thicker than Muñoz but no less cut.

She tossed her head. Her heart pounded so hard she could feel it in her throat.

"I'll do you one better," Margie said.

"How's that?" Both men spoke at once, their faces sharpening.

"If either of you can score off me? Well, then you can score off me."

"Not that it's going to matter, but what's in it for you? What do you get if we can't hit?" Phillips grinned.

"Then you can tell everyone else on the team tomorrow that you struck out trying to get me to give it up."

She couldn't suppress a little surge of hope that the pitching coach would overhear, and one thing would lead to another.

"Fair enough." Muñoz laughed. "How many tries do we get?"

Margie tossed the ball into the air and caught it barehanded, pondering how lucky she felt tonight. She had that sense of fate and magic she'd become acquainted with in baseball, a sensation that sometimes came to her as she stepped onto the mound. It was a sort of full-body knowledge that resided outside of her head or heart or gut. It might have been written in the red stitches snaking over the surface of the ball, or perhaps it resided in her joints. Tonight, she was in control. She knew down to the tips of her toenails that tonight she could put the ball anywhere she damn well pleased.

"Three," she said. "You'll each have an inning to yourselves."

Phillips raised an eyebrow. "You sure about that? You haven't got any fielders to help you work around the hits."

"I'm not going to need them," Margie said, and even with the premonition she was having she had to work to summon confidence to her voice. "Neither of you is going to be able to touch me."

She knew what she was risking, but it didn't matter just then. She was good enough that she could make a serious contest out of this, even if they wound up besting her. She wanted to win for the glory, but the more she stared at Phillips and Muñoz, the more she thought she might enjoy losing for the pleasure.

Phillips started out catching, and Margie took her position on the mound and breathed a few times to steady herself. She was pitching to Pete Muñoz, listed by multiple sites as one of AAA's top prospects for the majors.

She struck him out swinging, and then she struck Phillips out looking.

"What's the record for a woman throwing fastballs?" Phillips muttered as the ball smacked into Muñoz's glove again and again. "I swear to God this has to be some sort of record."

"No one bothers to measure most of the time," Margie told him. "Ila Borders used to throw just over 80, but she's one of the only women who actually got a chance to play."

The conversation must have distracted her, and Muñoz hit a couple of fouls off of her before she managed to set her anger aside and return to that pure place of connection she’d had before. A screwball retired him a second time, and Phillips looked at two more pitches.

"You've got to try," she told him. "It's no fun if it's too easy."

Phillips scowled, but her admonition made him marshal something. He stayed alive off fouls for a while, and then she threw a few outside, tying them up at a full count. He made her work for it, but she made him struggle just as hard, and the push-and-pull between them charged the air around him.

He brought his body closer to the plate than she would have liked, and Margie remembered that she needed to work him over a bit. She placed a couple pitches high and tight, forcing him to continue hitting fouls. When he backed away, she sent a beauty to the outer edge of the plate, just inside the strike zone but out of Phillips' reach.

Muñoz returned to the batter's box, new respect glittering in his eyes and his mouth curved upward with a smile.

"You said we wouldn't score off you unless you want us to. I guess the question is, do you?"

"Do I what?"

"Do you want us to?"

Margie ignored the question, winding up, knowing her speed alone could stop him. Muñoz swung on the heels of the pitch, but still a fraction of a second too slow. She glanced at Phillips and saw the lust in his eyes, but this night had become about more than an individual's desire. There was raw hunger between the three of them. Together, they could have eaten the world. Margie thought about what it would be like to step deeper into that mood, to tear into the two men with all her need.

Phillips tossed the ball back to her. Instead of winding up again, she let her glove fall off her hand and onto the mound. The ball fell beside it.

"Yeah," she said. "I want you to."

Muñoz waved his bat. "Then pitch to me. Let me take you deep."

Margie grinned and shook her head. "Nah. You can't touch the ball. I'm not giving you that satisfaction." She reached up for her hat and swept it off her head. "Satisfying myself, though... That's another story."

***

And if I'm going to self-promote, I'll go all in. Here's that link to the book again.

Pen Envy

This week's topic, coveting another author's creation for  your own, has been an interesting one to wrap my mind around. My imaginitive side has been around since before I can remember, but it's only been the past 9 months I've actually been writing. Honest!

I was reading chapter books in preschool, was the teacher's pet in every reading or english class I ever took, and could be found lost in a book more often than not all through my formative years. I subsequently quashed all that inclination when I was counselled to forego a liberal arts degree by every adult I respected. I waded through Pre-Med until I finally figured out that I couldn't skate through org chemistry without studying, then for lack of anything better to do, switched over the business school into health administration. Thus began a my career as a paper jockey. Ironically, I'm good enough at organization and numbers to have been competent in management, but it wasn't my true calling.

Passing my 39th birthday, with 40 breathing down my neck, I was at home with the kids trying to remember when my last adult conversation was, running an internet business, and moping about when I discovered the instant gratification of e-books. I was suddenly reading everything I could get my hands on.

With a scattergun approach to reading and trying publishers, I saw the best and the worst out there. Whole 'nother topic, but it was "the worst" that inspired me to open a manuscript and write my first story this past spring...the old "I can do better than that!" But today we're going to talk about "the best."

I wouldn't have dared imagine wishing to have written anything I'd read to that point in my life, all print books that were either literary classics or through the major NY publishing houses. They seemed so far out of reach, so far above little mortal me.

E-books? Opened my mind so many ways. Finally it seemed as though there was a realistic and accessible venue for non-traditional genres, non-traditional lengths, and non-traditional authors. I loved reading the gritty realism and blunt sexuality, paranormal not all shined up for a sanitized box-store display. I was fascinated by the appeal of 'everyday' BDSM, and that of gay romance.

The first book which popped into my head when I read this week's topic was Simply Sinful by Kate Pearce. Peter is a young man made jaded before his time by his childhood capture at sea and subsequent service in a middle eastern brothel. When he is approached by Lord James Beecham to help him save his marriage, the request intrigues him and sets the three into an intimate dance.

Under the radar of the main storyline of Peter's interaction and eventual relationship with Abigail, come the raw and deeply felt needs of James. He had been initiated into manlove by a sexual dominant and sadist, and now craves domination, by a man, to a point where he cannot perform in his marriage bed. Abigail means the world to him and her request for him to father a child on her forces him to try to overcome his natural inclinations with Peter's help.

The first meeting between Peter and James is one of the most powerful scenes I've ever read. Well before the reader is made aware of his masochistic need to submit, you can feel the undercurrents as James tries to alternately force and tempt Peter into helping him, eventually using the ruse of calling in a gambling win and Peter's own strong sense of honor against him.

It was my first ever exposure to m/m sexual interaction, and that blowjob literally blew my mind. Reading on, I had no idea how it was all going to come to a happy ending, especially when Peter's affinity for a married woman, and his inability to give James the domination he craves became clear. The eventual resolution was inventive and emotional, and I was hooked. All the subtexts and angles to the story, including Peter's complex relationship with his best friend and fellow prisoner in the brothel, Valentin, flat wrung me out.

I read that story twice that first night, let it set for a day and read it again. Then I opened a manuscript and wrote my first novella with m/m interaction, a m/m/f menage. I was inspired, not necessarily to write the sequel (which Kate has since done), or even the equal, to that story. But write in that genre, that I could do. All my published work to date is m/m and I have Simply Sinful to thank for birthing my muse.

Nine months ago, I wished I had written that...and became an author to cure my pen envy. Tasty antidote!

Arms, legs, fingers and tongues... Oh my!

by Jude Mason

Sam reached around and gripped his lover's ass, squeezing it while he kissed the warm soft lips he'd hungered for. Arms slid around his waist, a hard body pressed against the back of his, an erection slipped between his thighs. His own, jerks upward, dancing along the smooth expanse of skin of his lover's belly.

Okay, if I don't watch it, Sam's going to wind up getting overwhelmed with arms, legs and whatever else can be pushed at him, in him or passed by his mouth. When you're writing menage, or more, it's often a real challenge to get the limbs all in order. I've wound up with too many. I've had characters in impossibly positions, doing impossible things with body parts they don't have. Thank Gawd for editors and proof readers!

I've also seen a few covers with extra limbs. LOL I do adore both reading and writing menage. The possibilities of what and why are endless and the mechanics, while troublesome, are fun to play with. Here's a snippet of what my three lovers in Scorpio Tattoo experienced after a mystery was solved.

Jessica chose that instant to pull her mouth off him. The sudden chill air on his cock took his breath. He shuddered in frustration, but a moment later, sensed her teeth scrape his glans. Looking down, he saw she'd moved. Knelt and eager-faced, she nipped at the tip of Nathanial's cock.

Both men groaned.

Jonathan was enthralled. To experience the pleasure of another man was something he'd never dreamed was possible. Her mouth and lips, teasing and tantalizing, were on him, but not. He felt each nip of her pursed lips and each scrape of her teeth as she nibbled on the other man's cock. He gripped the shaft of his own cock and squeezed, desperately trying to hold off the climax that threatened.

Nathanial lunged ahead—his cock sinking into the soft wetness of her mouth. Jonathan sobbed with the sensation of her sucking. Side by side, yet much more, the two men reveled in the woman's teasing wiles.

Again, she withdrew, moved over, and took Jonathan's cock into her mouth. She sucked him deeply, thoroughly, but only for a moment, before returning to her other lover. She went from one to the other, sucking for a moment, then nibbling on the other, each twitching and groaning for more. Jonathan felt it all. And from the way Nathanial sobbed and groaned beside him, so did the apparition.

It was Nathanial who first put his arm around Jonathan. A warm presence that felt so natural and caring, he didn't at first realize what it was. When he did, Jonathan slid his arm around the slender waist of the surprisingly solid specter.

Jessica stopped her teasing and sat back on her heels to look at them both. Her smile was radiant, her lips shiny with saliva. The flush of sexual excitement bathed her cheeks and down her neck, covering her chest and the tops of each plump breast. Her nipples were tight little buds of need. And, as if his counterpart had read his mind, they both reached for one at the same time. Pinched and pulled, they sent shockwaves of pleasure through her, and Jonathan felt it all.

Sigh, to me, two guys into each other along with a woman is pretty much the hottest mix there is. If you add changeling to that mix, I'll be drooling. But, you have to get the limbs and attributes right. When it works, it's amazing! Here's a taste of Feral Heat the first book in the Untamed Hearts series and the first collaboration between Jamie Hill and myself.

“Answer him,” snarled Aric. He lifted her bodily, denying her the pleasure of Kai’s thigh, but not his mouth. “Please,” she moaned, twisting her body, trying, it seemed, to connect with Kai again.

“Just answer.” Kai’s mouth was still full of her teat. One last flick of his tongue and he let it go. Her torment wasn’t over. He dropped to his knees between her feet. The muscles in her belly tensed as his lips touched her. He lavished her with soft kisses and licks from just below her large round breasts to her navel. For a moment he twirled his tongue into the indentation before moving down and nipping the soft flesh of her lower belly.

The woman-scent of her thrilled him, drew him lower.

“Oh please,” she begged, thrusting herself firmly against Kai’s face.

Backing away, he demanded, “Talk or I stop.”

“It’s all Dagen’s fault. He sent me. He told me to say he was going to lead the tribe. He said it was his right to rule. That he was stronger, a better leader than you.”

“He did, did he?” Aric’s voice was low and filled with anger.

Sobbing, Sable replied, “Yes, he’s crazy.” She pushed her pelvis forward as if seeking Kai’s mouth. “Please, don’t stop.”

“You haven’t told it all.” He backed away, hopefully enough for her to see him reach down and stroke his shaft. Watching her, he smiled when her eyes travelled down his body. His cock pulsed, and he tightened his grip around the base.

From behind the struggling woman, Aric said, “Bastard. You’re killing me.” Kai looked past Sable, chuckling at the expression on Aric’s face. His lover was horny, and so was he. One way or another, they’d fuck soon.

Phew, all the arms and legs worked...and it's getting warm in here. I do love menage. Has anyone ever written or read a book where the number of limbs was in question? Or the position the characters got into just wouldn't work?