Excerpt: 'Back in the Game' by Lori Wilde

Lori Wilde, whose Back in the Game, her latest Stardust, Texas novel, is out this week, shares a favorite scene from her new release.

Lori: Sportswriter Breeanne is a survivor. Born with a congenital heart defect, she's been handled with kid gloves all her life and she's tired of it. But now she's been given a clean bill of health and she can't wait to start living … and catching up on everything she's missed out on.

When her agent calls and tells her local sports legend, injured lefty MBL pitcher Rowdy Blanton is interviewing ghostwriters for his autobiography, Breeanne jumps at the chance. She shows up at his house, only to find out he's holding the interviews while working out in his home gym. And he's surrounded by a bevy of beautiful applicants, all vying for his attention.

Feeling like a lone pork chop in a roomful of feral pit bulls, Rowdy is relieved to see Breeanne walk through the door. He rescued her the day before from an embarrassing situation and now it's her turn to rescue him. To ward off the predatory females, he pretends Breeanne is his girlfriend.

Stunned by his pretense, and hoping to get that job, Breeanne decides to play along …

EXCERPT

He bewitched her with a smile as smooth and creamy as Lindt's milk chocolate truffles. His thick brown hair gleamed with virility. Dark eyebrows framed those stunning blue eyes fringed with long, midnight black lashes. She'd been close to him before, but it had been in the softer light of dawn. In the glass gym, sunlight glinting off his body, she could make out every pore, every whisker, line, and angle.

And nothing, absolutely nothing about him was soft.

Involuntarily, she licked her lips.

Closer and closer he strolled, as leisurely as walking a dog, but with more purpose. His stare was so sexual, so primal, that it crashed into her womb as intrusively as a battering ram.

With each step she took, her body grew tighter, and the room grew warmer, and her head grew lighter.

His gaze never relinquished hers.

She clung to it. Cherishing this moment so she could pull out the memory again and again when she was alone in her bed. Nothing existed but him. This moment. Exhilarating. Thrilling ...

... and downright terrifying.

He was close enough to sniff so she did, inhaling and holding a long, deep breath.

He smelled like a predator. She smelled like prey.

"Hi, honey buns," he said in an overly loud voice. "Did you enjoy your outing?"

Huh? She would have glanced over her shoulder again, on the lookout for Gisele, but his eyes wouldn't let her go.

He was speaking to her.

But what did he mean?

"I missed you." His tone was a caress and she was a sucker for it. "I hate it when we're apart."

Everything clicked. Now she got it. This had to be a dream. One of her crazy sexual fantasies run amok. Or maybe it was a being-naked-in-public anxiety dream. Or it could be a worse-case-scenario preparatory dream, as her subconscious dialed up a how-bad-could-it-get-begging-for-a-job-you-aren't-qualified-for bit of role playing for her to work through.

That had to be it.

A dream.

She was sound asleep in her bed. No dipped cone chocolate on her blouse. No devastatingly handsome, bare-chested baseball star striding straight for her.

This moment existed only in her imagination.

Relax.

Since this was a dream, she might as well play along. If he needed a fake girlfriend she was game. She would certainly not have the guts to do it in real life, but in a dream? Hell to the yeah.

"Hey there, slugger." She cooed and fluttered her eyelashes.

One side of his mouth crooked higher, dissolving for the first time into an authentic grin. He was within touching distance, and boy howdy did her fingers itch to do just that.

Go ahead. Why not?

Breeanne gulped, spread her fingers, reached out, and ironed her hand against the sleek ridges of his chest. A complex web of nerve receptors in her palm caught fire, sending tactile messages blazing up to her brain in a crazed Braille of details. Smooth. Warm. Hard. Solid. Flawless perfection.

Holy mother of all nut bunnies!

She dropped her burning hand, unable to bear another exquisite moment. This was the most realistic dream she'd ever had.

A mischievous light flamed in his blue eyes. He dipped his head and pursed his lips and ...

Stole her personal space. His animal magnetism crowding in on her. She couldn't understand how he could leave her both shivering and sweaty as if she had a hundred-and-ten-degree fever in an ice storm.

His mouth hovered, tempting and maddeningly just out of reach.

Where was that defibrillator? Slap the paddles on her chest. Charge to three hundred joules. Yell, Clear! And zap away.

He was not going to kiss her. Of course he wasn't. He wouldn't do that. Gorgeous, successful men who could have any woman they wished did not kiss plain girls like her. Facts of Life 101.

But this was her dream, right? Her fantasy. Why couldn't he kiss her?

His head inched lower, and he murmured, "I am going to kiss you now. Don't ask questions. Just go with it."

What the frig? She blinked in confusion, staring at the sweaty male chest in front of her, and then peeping into those smoldering blue eyes. His intense scent tore through her like a freshly fired bullet. Her senses stumbled, reeled.

This absolutely had to be a dream. Soon enough Callie would jump on the covers, wake her up, and she'd be back in her bed like Dorothy home from Oz.

Gently, he lifted her glasses off her face, his fingers brushing against her temples. The world blurred, went fuzzy.

Helplessly overtaken, she parted her lips, let down her drawbridge, ceding to the marauding intruder.

Find out more about Lori and her books at loriwilde.com.