Playing it Cool (Sydney Smoke Rugby) (10 page)

Actually, she bought it for Em’s impromptu visits, because that’s what besties did—enabled their friend’s ice cream habit. She’d certainly not planned to feed it to her brother and sister tonight. Anthea would have a pink fit. But desperate times required desperate measures.

There were cries of, “Me, me, me,” and Harper breathed a sigh of relief.

…

Less than ten minutes and four bowls loaded with ice cream later, they were all sitting on the couch watching the opening to
The Phantom Menace
. It wasn’t Dex’s favourite of the franchise, but it was fun watching it through the eyes of those who hadn’t seen it before.

He glanced over the tops of the twins’ heads at Harper. Even with the kids sprawled between them, he was aware of her and that bloody dress on a primal level. It swished when she walked and rustled when she moved, which was frickin’ distracting as all hell.

He hadn’t come over for that.
Sincerely.
Her eleven-year-old siblings were here for crying out loud. He’d come because he plain old liked her.
And
enjoyed her company. Not to mention he liked kids, and Star Wars even more so. It had been a no-brainer for him.

But then she’d answered the door in that dress, with her shiny lips and her wavy hair all loose around her face and shoulders, and he remembered how into her he was, how much her curvy body turned him on. He remembered the feel of her ass in his hands and the way she moaned his name as she came.

And he’d been excruciatingly aware of her ever since.

Compartmentalising Harper and his desire for her was easy when they were apart. He was so programmed to put rugby first that pushing everything else aside was a matter of habit. But rugby,
apparently,
took a backseat inside her townhouse.

Today, every shift, every wriggle, every time she stood to get something, or laughed, or opened her mouth to speak to Jace or Tabby, his desire burned hot and bright and he wished like hell those two cute, funny kids were far the hell away.

Awareness of her prickled from his skull to the base of his spine on a continuous loop.

He wanted her on her back. He wanted her naked. He wanted her legs twined around his waist.

Not
touching her was torture, and every time he forgot and reached for her and had to stop himself, the pressure in his balls cranked up a little bit more.

Still, despite the sexual frustration, being here with her still beat the hell out of the usual way they celebrated a Saturday night victory, hitting the town on a Sunday night with Linc and some of the other single guys from the team. Which meant too much booze, and a parade of rugby bunnies after selfies and a quickie in a toilet stall if one of the guys was so inclined.

Sometimes even a strip club.

Dex shuddered. He hated strip clubs—and the lap dances that Linc loved so much and always tried to buy him. Skinny women in G-strings with pneumatic boobs gyrating around, eyes blank as they pretended it was the best job in the world.

That was normally the part of the night where he bailed and went home.

Mostly he just hated always being
on
. Being Dexter Blake, Sydney Smoke front-rower. Aware that people recognised him, and that made him a target. Fans were usually pretty good. They just wanted an autograph or to impart some friendly
advice,
but there was always someone who wanted to pick a fight.

And for damn sure someone somewhere
always
had a mobile phone, snapping off surreptitious pictures and video, uploading them without permission to social media and watching them go viral.

Linc loved that kind of shit, but Dex had never been into the sideshow that was fame. It was all such a trap, and he’d worked too hard to get where he was to be distracted by any of it.

Not to mention how fake it all was. With so many sycophants hanging around, how were young guys coming up through the ranks supposed to know who was genuine and who wasn’t?

It was getting harder and harder for Dex to tell, and he’d been around for a while now.

Harper
was genuine, though. He rolled his head to the side to watch her. She had her arm around Tabby, her hand absently stroking the top of her little sister’s head.

Harper Nugent was the real deal. 100 percent diamond.

Nothing cubic about her.

And he’d known that from the beginning. From her reluctance to get involved with him in the first place, to her lack of artifice, to how easy it felt sitting here on her couch, Harper had been a breath of fresh air.

It felt good just being around her.

Being with a woman and not feeling any pressure was a revelation. Dex too often felt he was expected to act a certain way. To talk rugby all night, to throw a lot of cash around at a flashy restaurant, to be outrageously blokey.

But not with Harper. She didn’t seem to have any expectations. She certainly hadn’t asked for anything. She’d been happy to keep things low key and hang around with him
outside
the glitz and glamour of rugby. There was no pressure with her to perform, to be something he wasn’t.

And that was way more seductive than a rugby bunny dropping to her knees in a toilet stall.

Chapter Nine

Jace and Tabby groaned and complained when the movie ended, stalling their little hearts out to stay a bit longer.

Dex shamelessly curried their favour by prolonging things with a batch of hot chocolate he’d whipped up on her stove, but eventually Harper called it a night.

“Come on, you two,” she said, gathering their mugs and dumping them in the sink.

“Can’t we stay the night?” Jace pleaded.

“No. It’s school tomorrow,” she said. “You know the rules. Now,
quick sticks
, I promised your mum you wouldn’t be too late. Go get ready and I’ll drive you home.”

“I can take them, if you like,” Dex said. “I’m going anyway, and they’re on my way.” He hadn’t planned on leaving until much later, but if Harper had to drop her siblings home, it made much more sense for the guy who was leaving anyway to do it.

“Oh yes,
pleeeease
,” Tabby said, sitting up in her chair and clapping her hands, then clasping them together as if in prayer as she looked at her sister.

“Please, Harper, please!”

Dex laughed as the twins pleaded in unison, with that strange twin thing they had going on. They may not be identical, but he’d noticed tonight how often they’d finished each other’s sentences.

She blinked. Dex wasn’t sure if it was to do with his offer or how quickly the kids had gone from begging to stay to pleading to go. “Oh…I don’t know.” She glanced at him, a tiny crease mark between her eyebrows. “I don’t want to put you out. You don’t have to do that.”

Dex shrugged. “I know. But it’s no bother.”

“Pleeeease, we’ll be
reeeeally
good,” Tabby added for an extra dollop of emotional blackmail.

“Okay sure.” She smiled at him, and Dex was grateful for the solid weight of the island bench at his hip holding him up as a big hand squeezed hard around his gut. “Thanks. I appreciate it.”

He smiled back, locking his gaze with hers. “My pleasure.”

Which wasn’t entirely true. Being with her tonight had been the most agonising mix of pleasure
and
pain.

Her lips twitched, but she didn’t look away from him as she said, “Okay, you two, you know the drill. PJs, slippers, and teeth. First one back here ready to go with all their stuff gets to sit in the front with Dex.”

The twins took off like a pair of cartoon roadrunners. “I hope you don’t mind,” she apologised. “They respond best to a bit of healthy competition.”

Dex couldn’t have cared less. All he cared about was that they were alone for the first time in hours, and he wasn’t going to waste an entire second. He strode across the kitchen in three paces, crowding Harper back against the sink and kissing her like it was his last hour on Earth.

He half expected her to protest, to push him away in case the twins came back and sprang them making out, but she moaned and clutched his arms, bunching the fabric of his sleeves, murmuring, “Yes,
God
yes,” against his mouth as she kissed him back.

The roughness in her voice and the surge of his cock against the confines of his fly emboldened Dex, and he slid a hand to the back of her thigh, inching up the slippery material of her dress. He groaned when his palm finally hit bare skin and pushed under the fabric, heading north until he was squeezing a handful of her ass.

“God,” he panted, “I’ve been wanting to get under this skirt all bloody afternoon.”

And he kissed her again, sliding his thigh between her legs, pressing the thick wedge of it against the centre of her. She moaned and he pressed harder, the kiss suddenly exploding, careening out of control, their heads twisting and turning, their breathing laboured as each fought to keep up with the other.

Thankfully, a loud thump somewhere in the direction of the bathroom dragged them out of their sexual bubble, and they broke apart, his hand falling from her ass, his thigh unjamming itself from between her legs.

Dex shook his head to clear the thick fog of lust demanding he shove his thigh right back where it was and pick up where they left off.

“What was that?” Harper called out, her mouth still wet from their kiss.

“Just tripped over,” Jace yelled.

She frowned but didn’t have time to ask anything more as both the twins raced into the kitchen, Tabby just ahead of him.

“Yes!” she crowed. “I bags the front.”

Jace looked like he was about to complain, but Dex got in ahead of him. “You can ride in the front next time, buddy.”

Harper glanced at him, startled, her expression clearly saying
Next time?
He grinned and shrugged.
Why not?

“Say thank you and good-bye to your sister,” he said, in his best Darth Vader voice.

Jace and Tabby laughed, but they enthusiastically hugged and kissed Harper. Dex was left in no doubt that not only did they love their big sister as much as she loved them, but they obviously thought she’d been at the head of the line when the awesome sauce was being dished out.

Dex couldn’t have agreed more. Harper was awesome to the power of infinity.

At almost nine on Sunday night it was only a ten-minute drive to the twin’s house, and it was a fun ride. Jace and Tabby kept giving him quotes to say in his Darth Vader voice, and they were all still laughing as the front door swung open.

A petite, immaculately coiffed woman in her early fifties opened the door. “Hey Mum,” Jace and Tabby said in unison, hugging their mother in turn.

“Hello darlings,” she said, eyeing Dex as she accepted hugs and noisy kisses. “And who’s this?”

“Harper’s boyfriend,” Tabby said casually as she and Jace entered the house.

Dex blinked, as the older woman said, “Boyfriend?”

“She said he was just a friend,” Jace added for clarification, “but we saw them kissing in the kitchen.”

Dex blinked again. He thought about how far up Harper’s skirt his hand had been buried and wondered just
how
much the two eleven-year-olds had seen.

“Boyfriend?” Anthea repeated, doubt colouring her voice, clearly having trouble wrapping her head around the concept.

His natural instinct to correct Tabby’s preposterous statement—
he didn’t
do
girlfriends
—warred with the knowledge that the reason he and Harper were
seeing each other
in the first place was for her stepbrother and mother to think they
were
romantically involved.

He put his hand out. “Hi. I’m Dex. You must be Anthea.”

“Dexter Blake?” The male voice drifted from somewhere behind Anthea, and Dex looked over her shoulder just as Chuck Nugent appeared. The twins had already called out their thanks and good-byes as they’d wandered into the house, so he was alone with Harper’s two nemeses. “Hey, Chuck,” he said, dredging up a polite smile.

“Nice to see you.” Chuck stuck out his hand and pumped Dex’s, his smile obsequious. “Come in and have beer,” he said, standing aside.

“Oh, no thanks.” Dex shook his head. “I have to be going.”

Chuck took the rejection on the chin. “So…” he said enthusiastically, “you and Harper, huh?”

It was a good act but Dex was used to spotting fakes, and he could see the slight moue of distaste bending Chuck’s mouth out of shape. Before Dex could reply, Anthea was lining up for a shot, too.

“Are you and Harper actually…
seeing
each other?” Unlike her son, Anthea didn’t make any attempt to hide her incredulity.

Dex’s ire stirred at the utter meanness of the question. He remembered the text from the restaurant, and the same anger he’d felt then boiled in his gut. If anything, it was worse, more acute now he’d witnessed Anthea’s lack of compassion face-to-face.

“That’s right,” he nodded. “For a couple of weeks now.”

“Oh.” Anthea looked quite taken aback by the news. “I wouldn’t have thought she was your…type.”

Dex tightened his jaw, resentful that Harper was still being demeaned by people who were supposed to love her, and that
he’d
been stereotyped, as well. The urge to punch a hole in the nearby door rode him hard, and he stretched out his traps on one side of his neck then the other to dissipate the impulse.

After all, there was more than one way to call someone on their crap.

“Oh yes.” He nodded. “She’s
exactly
my type. I’m completely smitten. But please,” he said, leaning in conspiratorially, encouraging both Chuck and Anthea to lean in, too. “Don’t say anything to her, because I’m pretty sure she’s just using me for sex.”

A soft gasp escaped Anthea’s mouth as the colour drained from her face. Had she been chewing on anything, Dex was pretty sure she’d be choking on it about now.

“Anyway,” he said to the two stunned faces, “I’d best be getting on. Lovely to meet you, Anthea.” About as lovely as a dose of food poisoning, and just as toxic. “See you around, Chuck.”

Dex didn’t linger for a good-bye, or even to see if they would recover from his deliberately provocative statement. He just strode away with only one thing on his mind.

He had to see Harper.

Twelve minutes later, Dex pulled up at her place and was knocking on her door. She was still in that dress, but she could have been wearing a sack as far as he was concerned. He just wanted to hold her.

“Dex?” She frowned at him, clearly not expecting him to have come back, although the slight tremor in her voice did betray her excitement that he had.

“I don’t think I’m going to be invited to any Nugent family BBQ’s in a hurry.”

Harper laughed, folding her arms as she settled against the doorframe. “Oh no. What happened? Did you punch Chuck?”

Dex snorted. “No. But I may have…implied you were using me for sex.”

She blinked. “
Implied
?”

“Well…stated is probably more accurate.”

She laughed harder. “What the hell?”

“What can I say?” He shrugged. “They were pissing me off.”

She fluttered a hand over her heart and gave an exaggerated sigh. “My hero.”

His gaze fell to where her hand nestled against the roundness of her breast.
She was so soft there.
When Dex returned his attention to her face she was watching him closely.

“Thank you for defending my honour.”

He chuckled. “By besmirching it?”

“Meh,” she said dismissively. “Whatever works.”

They grinned at each other for long moments. “Do you need to go home?” she asked.

Dex hesitated. He should. Griff had organised some ex-military guy who specialised in survival training to do some sessions with them. For some unknown reason these started at four in the morning—some crap about mental conditioning—and tomorrow was their first session.

“Not yet. What’d you have in mind?”

She pretended to ponder for a beat or two. “How about more Star Wars?” she mused, her face a picture of innocence.

“Not
quite
the stars I had in mind.”

“Me neither.” She grinned and grabbed him by the front of his shirt, pulling him inside.

…

Harper wasn’t sure how—they certainly never discussed it—Sunday became
their
day. Over the course of the next month, spending the day with Dex and the twins became a regular thing. A couple of times they watched movies and ate pizzas. One time they played PG console games all afternoon, the guys versus the girls. Another time, Dex crammed a baseball hat on his head and donned dark sunglasses and they spent a few anonymous, fun-filled hours at Luna Park, riding the Wild Mouse roller coaster, eating too much fairy floss, and twirling around the Ferris wheel in the magnificent shadow of the Sydney Harbour Bridge.

In an attempt to flaunt their fake relationship—that’s why they were doing it after all—Dex dropped the kids home to Anthea each Sunday night before turning around and driving straight back to Harper’s, where the
adult
content of their day commenced. He never stayed the night, citing training as an excuse as he kissed her goodbye in the wee hours, but that was okay.

He always left Harper with a big smile and a satisfied body. What more could she want?

Em, still in her all-men-are-bastards funk, was the voice of doom. “Why are you letting him use you like this?” she griped, not assuaged even after meeting
and
being charmed by Dex one Sunday afternoon.

Harper, a bit weirded-out by their role reversal, just smiled and said, “We’re using each other.”

“He’s told you he doesn’t want a relationship. This is only ever going to be just sex for him.”

“Fine by me,” Harper smiled. “It’s just sex for me, too.”

“You haven’t even been to his place.”

Harper liked that
her
place had become
his
haven. She understood without him having to tell her that it was a place away from prying eyes for him. A place where he could just be himself. The fact she could give him that was immensely satisfying.

“He likes coming to mine.”

Em would snort and leave it be for another a few days, but it was clear she thought Harper incapable of such casualness. She was wrong, though. Harper was embracing it whole-heartedly. Her previous relationships had been fraught with the expectation of progressing, of moving forward as a couple.

With Dex, she had no expectations.

Who the hell knew that could be so freeing?

…

The fifth week after their first Sunday movie day, he surprised her by inviting her to a home game instead. Occasionally they played on a Sunday or on a Friday night, depending on the comp schedule, and it was the Smoke’s turn for a Sunday game.

“I know a way to really drive Chuck crazy,” he’d said down the phone line.

To say Harper was stunned at his suggestion that she attend a game was an understatement. All she’d been able to reply with was an “Oh.”

“You don’t have to,” he’d said. “Just thought it’d annoy the living crap out of Chuck to have you hanging out with the WAGS in the Sydney Smoke’s corporate box.”

Harper had smiled, acknowledging the truth of it. “I’d love to. Thank you.”

She hadn’t seen him play live. That first night they’d met she’d hadn’t really known who any of the players were, so she hadn’t paid him any particular heed. But she’d watched every one of his games on the television since and been impressed by his skill, his moves.