Read Online Green Monster by Rick Shefchik - Free Book Online Page A

force?”
    â€œIt’s in my blood, but not in my makeup. I need to call my own shots.”
    He changed the subject and asked Heather about herself. She was from Connecticut, and had grown up in a household with divided loyalties, including baseball. Her father was a Red Sox die-hard and a Yaz fan, while her mother loved Mickey Mantle and the Yankees. They’d divorced for other reasons, but Heather always thought the Yankees-Red Sox split played at least a small part. While the marriage was coming apart, Heather was attending a prep school in Massachusetts, and then Harvard. She came to side with her father after her first few games at Fenway.
    â€œI learned to hate the Yankees,” she said. “Paul O’Neill, Don Mattingly, Tino Martinez—and I really hated Wade Boggs when he went over to the dark side. And A-Rod—I bought one of those T-shirts from a street vendor, the one that said A-ROD DRINKS WINE COOLERS.”
    â€œHow about Derek Jeter?”
    â€œHe’s not so bad. I’m not blind.”
    She’d graduated with honors and then enrolled in Harvard Business School. The next summer she applied for an internship with the Red Sox, and got the position after a personal interview with Louis Kenwood himself. He asked her to apply for a fulltime job with his company when she graduated. She did, and within three years she’d become his executive assistant.
    Sam’s expression must have implied his suspicions.
    â€œLou’s devoted to his wife,” Heather said. “She has emphysema. Probably won’t live to see spring training. I feel sorry for him. First his wife, and now this.”
    â€œLooks like he’s dealing with his troubles pretty well.”
    â€œHe’s an amazing man—a very vital guy.”
    Sam still looked at Heather with skepticism. She wiped the corners of her mouth with her white cloth napkin and placed it on the table.
    â€œI need more than a seventy-eight-year-old man—no matter how vital he is.”
    She stood up and began unbuttoning her silk blouse from the top. Sam had sensed a change in Heather’s attitude toward him, sometime between the end of the DVD and the beginning of the Woodford, but he wasn’t expecting this. He quickly thought of Caroline as Heather got to the fourth button and drew open her blouse, revealing a not very business-like black bra that barely covered the bottom halves of her breasts. Caroline had not committed to him yet; he was technically a free agent. It still felt wrong, but that was part of what made it so irresistible.
    Heather walked around to Sam’s side of the table, and the room suddenly got a lot warmer. Sam glanced at the glowing logs in the fireplace; no, that wasn’t it.
    â€œIf this is some kind of test to see if I can keep my mind on the job…” Sam said.
    â€œIt isn’t.”
    She sat on his lap and moved her lips close to his. He reached up and put his left hand in her hair, running his fingers through the soft, smooth cascade and gently drawing her face the rest of the way to his. They kissed, Sam with a hunger for this beautiful woman he’d been looking at all evening, and Heather with the undisguised lust of someone who had not been sexually satisfied recently.
    Sam helped Heather pull off her shirt as they continued to kiss, and he drew the cups of her bra downward, allowing her warm, round breasts to emerge. He ran the backs of his fingers gently upward against her nipples, and she shuddered. She began unbuttoning his shirt, and when she was finished he picked her up and carried her into the bedroom. They undressed quickly, and Sam pulled the duvet onto the floor. They could hear popping noises from the fire in the living room, and the rain began to drum harder on the window as Sam drew a sheet up to their waists.
    â€œAre you using something?” Sam asked her. “I didn’t pack anything. Didn’t think I’d