Playing It Close (26 page)

He wrapped his free hand around the base of his penis and rubbed the tip against her nipple. She gasped, the erotic sight and feel of him almost too much. A bead of fluid came out of his tip, and he painted her nipple with it. She bit her lip and tried to keep from moaning as he moved to her other breast, stroking the sensitive underside with his entire length.

“Oh, God,” he groaned. “You feel so good. So smooth and soft.”

Her breasts had never been the subject of this kind of attention before. Men tended to pay them lip-service, so to speak, before moving on to other parts. Liam seemed to draw genuine pleasure from playing with them, and his sensuous, erotic movements ratcheted up her desire.

When his hand fell away from her face, she knew what he wanted and was eager to oblige. She surged forward and drew the tip of his cock between her lips, sucking gently and pulling back until he slid out with an audible pop. His breathing grew ragged above her, and she didn’t make him wait long before she took him back into her mouth, this time sucking him down as far as she could go. He held the back of her head gently, not forcing or demanding or even guiding her actions. It seemed like he just needed something to help him balance. She tugged at him, swept her tongue around him, sucked harder as he grew in her mouth.

She could stay here all day, but he gently pulled her away and stood up. His arm swept around her back, lifting her to her feet so he could yank her shirt off completely. Arms free, she hooked them around his neck, opening her mouth as he kissed her and worked at removing her trousers. When she was finally naked, he clasped her bum cheeks and dropped her back onto the bed, his hard penis sliding right over her swollen clit. She let out a shuddering, laughing groan as he tilted his hips and did it again.

“God, Tess, you’re so hot. I need you. I need you now.”

Even though he hadn’t asked anything, she knew from his tone that he sought permission to finish things quickly. She was so ready. She flung her arm to the side, hitting her nightstand and fumbling until she could yank open the drawer and pull out a box of condoms. She dumped whatever remained of the box onto the bed next to them. He ripped one open with his teeth, rolled it on and spread her legs. Hunched over so they could both watch their bodies join, he nudged her clit with the tip of his penis.

Her head dropped to the pillow, back arching as she sought him with her hips. She needed him badly, needed the fullness and completion he offered, and she wasn’t too proud to beg for it. “Please, Liam. Now.”

He didn’t make them wait any longer. Surging his hips forward once, twice, again, he planted himself fully inside her. His body stroked hers from the inside out. His thumb found her clit, putting just the right amount of pressure on the skin above it to drive her crazy. Lowering himself so he could keep up the pressure, he rubbed his whole body against hers, capturing her moans with his mouth as he pumped over and over and over.

She wrapped her legs around his waist, pulling her knees up as high as they could go so he thrust deeper with each stroke. He murmured unintelligible encouragement against her lips between kisses. God, she’d missed him, hadn’t realized how much until he’d shown up tonight and let her know he wanted to explore whatever they could be. Their separation had left her feeling empty, yearning, and the knowledge that he wanted her so badly cranked up the desperation she felt to let him fill her. To forget everything and everyone who’d gone before, to shuck every fear of what could happen tomorrow and live in this moment. She clung to him, pumping her own hips in time with his, squeezing her inner muscles to his groaning delight, needing to stroke and stoke his desire as he did the same to her until they both exploded into oblivion.

He collapsed on top of her, breathing hard in her ear as her jellified legs slid away from his hips and flopped against the mattress. A thin sheen of sweat slicked their bodies, enhancing every movement as aftershocks rippled through them. His heart pounded against her breast. When she could move again, she nudged his jaw with her nose, feeling as cuddly and sinuous as a puppy.

Neither of them spoke for several minutes, both trying to hang on to every second of pleasure. Liam softly stroked her, sending shivers along her arms, her ribs, her hips, her thighs. She tightened around him and he shuddered, teasing her with tiny circular motions of his hips.

“Liam?”

“Hmm?”

“I’m glad I talked myself out of waiting.”

He made a breathy sound of amusement, tickling her ear. Sliding one big hand beneath her bum, he rolled so she sprawled on top of him. She crossed her arms on his chest and rested her chin on the backs of her hands while he lazily stroked her anywhere he could reach.

A satisfied smile firmly planted on his face, he said, “It’s like I tell my team. You have to get the basics right before you can do anything else, and to get the basics right you have to practice them over and over again. You and me, Tess—we do the basics very right.”

Chapter Fifteen

England went rugby mad. Normally, rugby fans were keenly aware that they supported a minority sport, with rugby matches rarely making the news unless they were a cup final or something freakish happened.

But with England hosting the World Cup for the first time in decades, the country threw their support behind their team and, as captain of the host nation, Liam was a wanted man by every reporter for thousands of miles.

It made keeping their relationship a secret very difficult, particularly since, with the Tarrington inquiry wrapping up soon, Tess found herself called to give interviews at all hours.

But Tess and Liam were determined not to let their relationship go public. They both had too much to lose. Liam couldn’t let anything distract him during the most important weeks of his career. England were starting out in what most sports journalists were already calling the pool of death and would have to beat some of the world’s best teams just to make it out of the group stages. Liam refused to be the host captain whose team crashed out before the tournament really got going. And any relationship with Tess was likely to spark a scandal, considering her love life had been put under a microscope during the worst parts of the inquiry.

Despite the fact that he wouldn’t have a day off until the group stages were over, they still managed to communicate. Liam sent her a text every night before bed, some sweet—
Don’t worry about the inquiry.
It’ll all be over soon
—some blowing off steam—
Jenkins is the biggest twat in the world.
Who did he have to fuck to get a referee’s whistle?
—and some flirty—
What’re you wearing under that suit today
,
nymph?

Ten days after they’d first agreed to explore whatever was between them, Liam had a rare evening off, a night he could spend in his own home, so he invited her over. She changed out of her suit and into a blue sundress she’d bought for Venezuela. She wouldn’t be able to wear it much longer, since autumn had arrived in London, but she wanted to hold on to as much of her summertime memory as she could. She shivered under her cardie as she jogged up a few stairs and buzzed his flat.

His deep voice over the intercom filled her with anticipation. “Come up.”

She took the lift to the top floor and waited for him to open his door. When he did, the violent bruise under his eye made her gasp. “What happened?”

“Brutal training session today. Don’t want to talk about it.” He clasped her elbow and drew her into the flat. As soon as he closed the door, he pushed her gently against it and held her there with a full-body press, his hands cradling her jaw as he captured her lips. She dropped her handbag and opened her mouth to his, so eager and seeking. She slid her tongue along his as he clasped her hands and lifted them above her head.

He groaned, tilting his head to get more of her. “I need you, Tess. Ten days is too long.”

She made an incoherent noise but wriggled her body to get her point across. She needed him too. It’d been an age since they’d been in each other’s arms, and she couldn’t stand the separation any longer. She needed relief, relief from the legal battles she’d fought and relief from the fears and guilt she’d faced, blatantly lying to her cousin and risking her job.

Liam shifted to hold both of her hands in one of his, keeping them aloft so she was stretched tall. His free hand wandered down her body, flicking over one of her tight nipples on his way to find the hem of her skirt. He worked his hand under it, sliding up her thigh as need throbbed between her legs. He didn’t tease her long, making straight for the spot where she ached for him. Slipping his fingers under the elastic of her panties, he stroked her swollen lips as he kept up his deep, seductive kiss. She groaned, trapped by him and desperate to move but unable to do more than rock her hips a little.

“I’ve thought about you all day,” he groaned. “About you, right here. About this.” He jammed a knee between her thighs to keep them open and pulled his fingers from her long enough to unzip. “Keep your arms in the air.”

He let go and pulled a condom from his pocket, rolling it down his thick length. Ignoring his order, she wrapped her arms around his neck as he yanked at her underwear. A ripping sound was followed by a feeling of liberty from her bonds. “Are you going to destroy an item of my clothing every time we’re together?” she murmured against his lips.

“Mmm...probably, until you learn to wear things that give me easy access to you.” He lifted her, thrusting hard when her legs wrapped around him. Her head whacked against the door as months of frustrations welled inside her, gathering in one spot low in her belly that Liam hit with each stroke. Her back slapped against the door, but she barely noticed because his thumb was rubbing her just the way she loved, his pelvis keeping up a hard pressure and his cock filling her.

The ball of desperation grew, spinning and burning in her lower belly as his thrusts became more frantic. “Harder,” she panted. She needed him to keep hitting that spot, needed the forcefulness of his body to explode the frustrations that had gathered inside her with no outlet for so long.

He grunted almost-incoherent words right next to her ear. “Tess...fuck...love...”

That did it. Her body splintered into a thousand pieces, throbbing and pulsing around him, trying to draw him deeper than he could ever possibly be. He groaned and thrust one last hard time, his fingers biting into her bum so hard he would leave bruises, but she didn’t care.

She was skewered. Open and vulnerable. Completely spent and yet desperate for more.

He collapsed against her, the weight of his body pinning her against the door as one of his hands fell away from her bum. His head lolled against hers, his body shivering with tiny quakes. Tess squeezed her arms around his neck, half fearful that she would collapse to the floor and half fearful that he would pull away too soon. But as one minute bled into another and he didn’t move, except for his breath evening out into a steady, deep rhythm, she nudged him and whispered. “You haven’t fallen asleep, have you?”

His chuckle warmed the side of her neck. “My stamina’s better than that.”

“Mine’s not,” she confessed, battling a bone-deep lethargy. The imminent wrapping-up of her life’s biggest trial, coupled with the best sex she’d ever had, had left her limp. “I might need a bit of a lie-down before dinner.”

Speaking of dinner...a scent reached her from the kitchen, tickling her nose with an acrid warning. “Uh, Liam? Is something burning?”

He jerked back with a curse, quickly lowering her to her feet before pulling away and shuffling into the open kitchen, his movements impeded by the trousers and pants he’d shoved just below his bum in his desperation to get at her. She bit back her laughter at the sight of his bare arse jogging toward the oven. Her laughter died when he bent to open the oven door and took a cloud of smoke to the face. Coughing, he waved it away, and she rushed to grab a tea towel, waving it up and down like a fan to disperse the smoke.

He grabbed an oven mitt and pulled out a dish filled with charcoal lumps.

“What was it?” she asked.

“Lemon chicken.” He sounded crushed. “I wanted to make something nice for you.”

Her heart gave an unexpected leap. No one—other than her parents and Gwen—had ever cooked for her before. She’d been taken to Michelin-starred restaurants and served the most intricate, delectable foods, but no man had ever invited her to his house and gone to the trouble of cooking for her.

“It looks delicious,” she said, only realizing how ridiculous that sounded when he turned a disbelieving look her way. “Maybe we can salvage some of it?”

“You don’t want to eat burned bits, Tess. They’re carcinogenic.”

She blinked, somehow surprised that a big, tough rugby player who’d quit school at sixteen would know a word like
carcinogenic.
Guilt followed swiftly after. Just because he wasn’t formally educated didn’t mean he wasn’t smart. As captain of the country’s national team, he had to be sharp as knives, and she’d do well not to make any assumptions about him.

He slid the dish into the sink, tidied himself and tugged his trousers up. Scrubbing a hand over his face, he grimaced. “I have some more chicken, but it’s frozen and will take a while to thaw. How hungry are you?”

Closing the distance in a few steps, she ran her hand up his body from his taut belly, up between his pecs to the curls at the base of his neck. Pulling him down toward her, she murmured, “Food can wait. Why don’t you come have a lie-down with me?”

* * *

Liam lay with his arms wrapped around Tess’s naked body, cuddling her from behind on his couch. He’d managed to make love to her, cook more chicken, watch one of the World Cup matches between two teams that weren’t in his group, and make love to her again. She hadn’t complained that their third bout was a rushed affair at halftime. In fact, when the teams had jogged back onto the pitch on his muted TV, she’d grown more frantic as if she was trying to hurry them both to orgasm before the real action started.