Mateo Ruiz takes baseball seriously. He has to. It's the game that got him out of a small, dead-end town and into professional baseball. Now, entering his second season in the minor leagues, he's closer than ever to earning a permanent place on the team.

Then Chase Whitaker arrives at Spring Training.

Top prospects aren't expected to stay in the minors for long. They're expected to leapfrog everyone in front of them. And since both men play shortstop, Mateo knows exactly what Chase represents: competition. Mateo wants to hate him. He really does. But Chase is talented, charming, maddeningly confident, and impossible to ignore.

As their rivalry gives way to a secret romance, Mateo finds himself risking the future he's spent years building. With roster decisions looming and feelings growing harder to deny, both men must decide whether the life they've always wanted is worth losing each other.

Set beneath Arizona's endless skies, HARD BALL is a steamy sports romance about ambition, desire, and what happens when the person standing between you and your dream becomes the one person you can't walk away from.