Playing By Her Rules (Sydney Smoke Rugby Series) (4 page)

It was familiar and yet not. Shadows fell in the hollows beneath cheekbones more prominent than he remembered. She’d always been petite—he’d felt like a giant beside her—but cheeks that had once been fuller were now spare. Her chin was pointier, her mouth more noticeable.

A very
distracting
thought.

Almost as distracting as her dress. The shoestring straps, perfect for a sultry Sydney night, showed off her delicate collarbones and shoulders, and the shortness of her hair exposed her throat and the bareness of her nape. It wasn’t one of those dresses that hugged every inch of a woman’s body. It skimmed rather than clung, and left a lot to the imagination.

Tanner liked that. He had a very good imagination. And an even better memory. It sure as hell beat the pantsuit from last week.

It was her dress that had done it. He’d come here tonight determined to cooperate. To set her at ease and by doing so, draw her out, make her laugh a little. But then he’d laid eyes on her in that dress and it had taken him one second to realise he wanted her back.

Yes, he’d screwed up. Big time. Yes, he had a lot of making up to do. But he hadn’t realised how much he’d missed her. Until now.

And he was determined to win her back.

So he’d started flirting with her. The results so far had been encouraging. She didn’t seem so sure of herself anymore.

“Okay, let’s begin, shall we?” she said as the maître d’ departed, her serious journo voice back in play, and she pushed the record button on the Dictaphone.

He hated that voice already.

“You want to start at the very beginning? It’s a very good place to start.”

She was the only woman he’d ever met that had seen
The Sound Of Music
at least fifty times, and he wasn’t above using intimate knowledge of her to try and earn his way back into her favour.

The reference had to be worth a grudging smile, right?

“No.”

No?
Tough audience.
But then she wouldn’t need him to start there, would she? Because she knew the beginning part. Intimately.

“Let’s start after—” She faltered for a second, her gaze dropping to the starched linen tablecloth before rising again, glittering with determination. “After I went to Stanford.”

They chatted all through dinner. Tanner resolved to be on his best behaviour and didn’t even push a third glass of champagne on her when she refused. He wasn’t keen on talking about himself, but it was a means to an end. Once the questions were out of the way, he could flirt some more. The more he stuffed around during, the longer it would take to get to the good bit.

By the time the maître d’ had cleared the table of their dessert plates—and earned himself some prime tickets to a Smoke game Tanner just happened to have in his jacket pocket, for fitting them in at such short notice—he’d related his rugby journey from small regional feeder teams to his sojourn in France. Mainly, she’d let him talk, only interjecting a question every now and then for clarity or further information.

“I think that’ll do for now,” she said, checking her watch before leaning across to turn off the recording.

Tanner relaxed. Now the fun could begin. “Good. Now for my questions.”

She quirked an eyebrow at him. “Your questions?”

“Sure. You’ve had an hour and a half. Don’t I get a turn?”

“No.”

“You like saying no, don’t you?” he teased.

“To you? Yes.”

Tanner laughed. “You’re bad for my ego.”

She shoved the Dictaphone in her clutch. “I think your ego can stand it.”

“Okay, fine. How about just one? Then I’ll drop it.”

“That’s not how this works.”

“Humour me.”

She shot him a deadpan look. “Don’t you have a guy for that, too?”

Tanner grinned. “You know I can harp on about this for the rest of the night, right?”

Her expression told him she absolutely knew. “Fine,” she huffed. “One.
Nothing
to do with us.”

He sucked in a whistle. “Tough girl, huh? I like.”

“You should. It’s your handiwork.”

There was no particular accusation in her voice, but her barb hit its mark. “Tilly…”

“Goddamn it, Tanner, it’s Matilda,” she snapped. “Now ask your damn question.”

Tanner hated how far up her walls were and was just pissed off enough—at himself as well as her—to be reckless.

“Are you wearing some of those crotchless panties I’ve been reading about in your column?”

If she was outraged or disgusted at his deliberately provocative question, she hid it well. Only the slight widening of those big, blue-green, opal-like eyes betrayed her reaction.

“Why?” she asked, her voice steady. “You have some kind of women’s underwear fetish you want to talk about?”

Tanner chuckled as she fished around in her purse. If he were going to wear underwear for any woman, it’d be for her. She pulled out the Dictaphone and hit record again, pointing it in his direction.

She plastered a faux delighted smile on her face. “I’m sure the guys in the locker room would
love
to know.”

“Thanks,” he laughed again. “I like to keep my fetishes private.”

Her smile slipped as she withdrew her hand and slid the device back in her bag. The clasp shut with an audible click, and she glanced at him. “You read my column?”

Tanner nodded. “I’ve
always
read your column.”

Her chin dipped down as pink crept across her cheekbones. The fingers of her left hand fidgeted with her discarded napkin. “It’s not exactly where I thought I’d end up while I was studying at Stanford.”

She was apologising? His gut squeezed at the display of vulnerability.
This
was the real Tilly. He slid his hand across the table and over the top of hers. Surprisingly, she didn’t withdraw. “I like it.”

She smiled then. Grudgingly. But it was her first genuine smile of the night, and his lungs suddenly felt too big for his chest.

“Get all your style tips from me, do you?”

“Absolutely.” He grinned. “I love your practical, no-bullshit, irreverent style of writing. Is that how you’re going to write about me?”

“Oh, no,” she said, withdrawing her hand from his. “Feature writing is
serious
”—she made some air quotes—“journalism.”

“So there’ll be no bullshit?”

She shook her head. “Absolutely not. It will be the complete and utter ungarnished truth.”

That’s what Tanner was afraid of.

Chapter Four

“This is me,” Matilda said as the Uber pulled up in front of her apartment building in the
un
-gentrified end of Potts Point, her pulse all aflutter from Tanner’s thigh being pressed up against the length of hers for the duration. He’d insisted on escorting her, then insisted on sitting in the back, even though the car that had shown up he could probably pick up and shove in his pocket.

Thank God she hadn’t had far to go.

She practically sprang out of the vehicle to get away from him. His cologne had been wrapping her up in sticky tentacles, and it had been an exercise in self-control not to turn her face into his neck and inhale how good he still smelled.

She wasn’t sure what he was wearing these days, but she was pretty sure it was the French word for “melts women into puddles.”

Unfortunately, Tanner followed her out of the Uber.

“What are you doing?” she demanded as the car drove off.

“I’m seeing you to your door.”

“I’m fine,” she dismissed.

He sighed patiently. “If you don’t mind me saying,” he said, looking up at the facade of her ten-story building, with the faded and peeling white paint, and the splashes of graffiti, “this isn’t exactly the most salubrious area. I’d feel better knowing you got inside safe and sound. In case there are any…undesirable elements hanging around, lurking in the hallways.”

“You think Bonner Hayden’s going to jump out from around a corner and wiggle his wang at me?”

He laughed. “I’m pretty sure he’s wiggled his last wang.”

Matilda doubted it. He’d only copped a fine, not even one lousy match suspension. “Look. It’s okay. Really. The neighbourhood might seem a little dodgy, but I’ve been here for five years, and it’s mainly older residents who have been here for fifty. It’s perfectly safe. Go home.”

He folded his arms. “I’m going to have to ask you to humour me a little more.”

He sounded like a policeman—polite but unshiftable. All he needed was the “ma’am.”

She knew from experience that Tanner couldn’t be physically moved—he was too damn big. And she so did not want to be having this conversation on the footpath.

“Suit yourself.” She shrugged, turning on her heel and walking up the pathway to the glass entry doors, through the shadows of an overarching avenue of Jacaranda trees.

“They need to put better lighting out here,” Tanner griped as he followed. “Anybody could be lying in wait.”

Matilda ignored him as she headed for the entrance, grateful when she was able to push them open and step inside. There was no doorman—it wasn’t that kind of place—just rows and rows of mailboxes and an ancient lift.

“Satisfied now?” she asked, turning to face him as she pushed the lift button. She could tell from the light above it was on the ground floor, but she knew from experience it took the doors a while to crank open. “Safely inside.”

He shook his head. “I said I’ll see you to your
door
.”

Irritation prickled under her skin. She’d been coming in and out of her apartment without an escort for a long time—day and night. If he’d been flirting with her all evening in the hope of ending up in her bed, he was sorely mistaken.

“If this is some ploy to get into my apartment and then into my pants, you’re completely delusional.”

“I was thinking more along the lines of checking for hidden ninjas.”

The lift door cracked open on a groan.

She folded her arms and tapped her foot. She wasn’t in the mood for his jokes. He held his hands up in mock surrender, a slight smile playing on his lips. “I promise I won’t even try to”—his gaze dropped to her mouth—“kiss you.”

Matilda’s mouth tingled under his intense scrutiny, and all she could think about as the lift opened, inch by noisy inch,
was
Tanner kissing her.

She’d been kissed by other men. Some had been most excellent kisses, even if none of them had worked out. But this was Tanner, her first love—the gold standard of kissing. And her body was melting down at the memories.

She escaped into the lift as soon as the gap was wide enough to allow it. “I’m not sure you’ll fit in here,” she said and really hoped it was true. “It’s possibly the world’s smallest lift.”

“I’ll manage.” He strode in undeterred, dominating the space, sucking away all her air.

Matilda punched the floor ten more times than necessary, keeping her eyes trained to the front, hyperaware of Tanner, sprawled casually against the opposite wall, his hands-in-pockets stance exposing a splash of white shirt pulled taut across his abdomen. She crowded forward, closer to the control panel, desperately trying to keep as much distance between them as possible as his cologne swirled around her.

He smelled like orchids and…ouzo.

The door slowly ground shut, protesting all the way, and Matilda willed it to—just this once and she’d never ask again—deliver her speedily to her floor. As was its custom, the lift stood still for long moments before finally grumbling to life.

She stared straight ahead as it slowly ascended, desperately trying to think about anything other than him kissing her. And failing. How could she not, when she was excruciatingly conscious of him standing all big and solid and silent in her peripheral vision, staring at her, his gaze heavy on the patch of skin where her neck joined her shoulder as if that might be the place he’d like to start.

It was warm and getting warmer in the lift, but still her nipples beaded as if they were standing in a fridge. And for all the room in here, they might as well have been.

She hated that her body had so easily gotten over his Judas kiss. That she was a slave to her hormones. Or maybe it was her memory.

The emergency telephone panel was right in front of her, and she concentrated on that instead of his relentless gaze. She wondered if she picked it up and ordered some amnesia stat whether that would be considered misuse of public property.

“You could get up to a lot in a lift that moves this slow.”

His words rumbled out into the small space, and Matilda swore she could feel each one of them glide over her skin. Her pulse fluttered madly as an image of them going for it against the wall—his trousers open, her skirt rucked up—filled her head. She spoke quickly, unthinkingly, to dispel it.

“It’s faster going down.”

He chuckled, causing goose bumps
everywhere
. “Clearly it has its priorities
all
wrong.”

Matilda swallowed. Damn it. It seemed Tanner could turn anything into sexual innuendo. He’d never been this suggestive as a teenager. Not in front of her, anyway.

She decided ignoring him was best. As much as she could while stuck in the world’s smallest
and slowest
lift.

Finally, after a silence that stretched to breaking point, the lift settled on the top floor with its usual exaggerated shudder. Of course, they had to wait for the grindingly slow mechanism of the door to open, but once it had, Matilda was out of there.

He was behind her, she could sense it, but at least now she could breathe again, her lungs expanding rapidly, dragging in much needed air.

Her apartment was almost at the end of the poorly lit hallway. Every second bulb was blown and the carpet was threadbare. She covered the distance between the lift and her front door as quickly as she could without breaking into a run. Her key was in the lock and her hand was on the knob by the time Tanner, moving at a more leisurely pace, finally ambled closer.

She was almost home free, without licking his neck or doing him against the wall of the lift. All that was left was to turn the key and push the door open. She opened her mouth to thank him and send him on his way, but there was something about the intensity of his gaze that seemed to hold her in his thrall. She could
feel
it on her nape as if he was touching her there.

Her brain was telling her mouth to say good night and her legs to move inside her apartment, but the rest of her body wanted to turn toward him, reach for him.

To hell with their past.

He halted behind her, and the fine hairs on her nape stood to attention as the weight of his gaze zeroed in on that same spot it had during those long moments in the lift.

“You look good, Till,” he said, his voice rough and low, dropping into that intimate register she recognised even after all these years.

The words went straight to her belly, melting and tightening it all at once.

She looked over her shoulder at him as if the hands of time had given her a tap. The retort,
don’t call me Till
, died on her tongue as her hormones completely hijacked her senses.

She was a woman again, instead of the ex he’d done wrong.

She turned slightly, leaning a shoulder into her door and cocking her eyebrow. “Even without the ponytail?”

Matilda injected a lightness into her voice. She didn’t want him to know that his crack about not liking her hair had rankled. And then it had pissed her off that it had rankled.

She shouldn’t give a rat’s arse what he thought of her hair.

But somewhere deep in her X chromosomes, she did.

He moved closer and her breath hitched. He rested his big shoulder against the doorframe. For any normal person the distance would have been respectable. But he was a big guy, which narrowed the gap significantly. There wasn’t much between respectable and
reckless
at the moment.

He lifted a hand to her wispy fringe, brushing it with his fingertips, following the curve of her face. Goose bumps fanned down her neck and across her shoulders.

“I changed my mind,” he murmured, tucking a short strand behind her ear. “I approve.”

Matilda’s eyes fluttered closed briefly as his fingers drifted to her cheekbone. For a light caress it was packing an almighty punch. “I don’t need your approval,” she whispered, the sensible urge to pull away battling with the
in
sensible urge to turn her cheek into his palm.

The pad of his thumb feathered along her jaw. “I know.”

“You don’t have any say over what I do with my hair,” she asserted. She had to assert
something
because her body was not remotely holding the high ground.

In fact, it was dissolving beneath his touch, her breath thick in her throat, her pulse one long, slow thud after another.

“I know.” His thumb brushed toward her chin. Had he moved closer? Or had she?

Matilda swallowed. “You
never
did.”

“I know.” His thumb traced her bottom lip, his gaze wholly intent on the process, staring at her mouth like it was more fascinating than Saturday night’s game play.

Her body flamed beneath the erotic stroke. She could feel it rasping against her nipples and tingling between her legs. His other hand slid up to her face, his other thumb joining in the bottom lip torture.

Just as Matilda thought she couldn’t take another second, he lowered his head toward her. Slowly. Slowly. His scent invaded every cell, muddling her senses. How could she want him to kiss her after Jessica freaking Duffy?

But, she did. God help her, she did.

His mouth was a whisper from hers when she panicked. Since when did she let her body dictate to her?

“I thought you weren’t going to try and kiss me?” she murmured.

He halted, stayed very still, his hands still cradling her face, his mouth almost touching hers. There was beer on his breath and a heady sweetness in the liquorice of his aftershave.

“I’m not,” he murmured, his hands sliding from her face as he pulled away, straightening his back and shoving his hands in his pocket.

Matilda was glad for the solidness of the door after his abrupt withdrawal. Her entire body sagged from the break in tension, and without it, she may well have slid to the floor. In fact, it was still a real possibility.

She sucked in some choppy breaths to shunt some oxygen to muscles badly in need of it, as lust and desire churned and mixed like a kaleidoscope in her gut.

She glanced at him to find him wearing a stupid smile on his stupid face,
obviously
very aware of the effect he’d had on her.

Obviously very pleased with himself.

This was not the way she pictured this night would end. A polite handshake maybe. But in less than three hours in his company she’d been a whisper away from pashing his face off in the corridor outside her apartment.

And God knew where it would have ended up, seeing as how she’d obviously lost her mind where Tanner was concerned.

“Sweet dreams, Matilda.” He grinned as he pushed off the doorway. “I look forward to the article on Friday.”

She frowned at his retreating back. The easy grace of his big frame and the cockiness of his swagger were irritating as hell when she could barely coordinate her fingers to turn the key in the lock.

Tanner Stone was way too sure of himself. Too many women had been letting him have it all his own way.

If he thought he was going to walk out of here all cat-that-got-the-cream, he was dead wrong. “The answer is no,” she called out.

He stopped. Turned. Smiled. “No?”

“The crotchless undies? Not wearing them.” She pushed her door open. “I’m not wearing anything at all.”

Matilda was grateful, as the door clicked shut behind her, that there were only a half dozen paces to her couch. She collapsed onto it, her legs shaking.

If there
was
a hidden ninja in her apartment, she was totally screwed.

…

The next morning, Tanner woke to major traffic on his Twitter stream. That wasn’t unusual. But it was for a Wednesday morning. One of his followers—@rugbybunny1—had tweeted a picture of him and Tilly sitting at their table last night. They appeared to be holding hands. It was slightly grainy, but even in profile it was undeniably them.

Spied this cute couple out and about last night. Who is the mystery woman
@slickstone
?
#sydneysmoke
 #holysmoke
#mightbelove

His largely female following had gone crazy speculating and retweeting. It had taken them all of about an hour to track the mystery woman down.