Playing it Cool (Sydney Smoke Rugby) (12 page)

“Get up, sleepy head,” she said. His eyes fluttered open as she threw the clean but paint-flecked bundle on the bed at his feet. “I need to put this drop sheet down.”

Dex lifted his head, eyeing it. “It’s not plastic is it?”

“Don’t worry.” She grinned. “You’re the only Dexter here tonight. No chainsaws, I promise. Just these.” She held up a handful of small artist’s paintbrushes. “I’m going to ink you. It’ll be
awesome.
”

He laughed, but moved. Between the two of them they covered her bed with the sheet, and within seconds he was lying in the centre while she straddled his knees, the basket with the paintpots sitting on the mattress nearby.

Harper knew exactly what she wanted to create as she dipped her brush into the black paint. “Christ that’s cold,” he said as she made her first stroke mid-thigh, his balls visibly contracting. “What are you painting?”

“It’s a surprise,” she murmured, using broad brushstrokes to bring her vision to life.

He ground his knee against the juncture of her thighs, and Harper sucked in a breath, her eyelids fluttering shut. “God,” he muttered. “You’re still wet.”

She shifted away from the wicked press of his kneecap, forcing her eyes open. “Behave,” she said, “or I’ll paint dicks all over you.”

He laughed. “You expect me to just lay here and do nothing while you lean over me all naked like that?”

She shot him her best prim look. “Yes, I do. The more you mess about, the longer it will take. You want to see the end result or not?”

“Fine,” he sighed, lifting his arms above him, bending his elbows and tucking his hands under his head as he glued his gaze to the ceiling. “I’m all yours.”

A tiny trill fluttered through Harper’s stomach. It felt like he’d been all hers for the past month.

What would it be like to have
that
forever?

She worked quickly, aware of the hour yet still absorbed in her work. His hairless thighs were the perfect canvas for the dark red and ochre flames snaking upward. His cock hardened as the flames licked his groin and his lower abdomen.

She glanced at him, quirking an eyebrow. “Seriously?”

“You’re naked and that damn paintbrush feels like your tongue,” he bitched. But desire crackled in his gaze, as wicked as the flames climbing his legs. Her own desire ignited, heating until it sizzled through her blood.

“Tell me what you’re painting,” he said, raising his head to look down his body.

“Patience,” she murmured.

Harper reached for a finer brush once she got to his abdomen, swirling it over his flesh in lighter strokes, curling plumes of smoke in gray and black over the ridges of his belly, the indent of his ribs and the flat planes of his pecs. The smoke crossed over at his nipples before dispersing into vapour over the broad round planes of his shoulders and the base of his throat.

She was conscious of his eyes on her as she worked, conscious of each infinitesimal reaction of his body to the light stroke of the brush—the quickening of his breath, the slight twitch of muscle, the fine shiver as cold paint kissed warm flesh.

By the time she was done, her breath clogged her throat, thick as fog.

“Watching you paint is turning me on,” Dex murmured as she sat back to admire her handiwork.

Harper smiled. “Now you know how I feel.” She threw her paintbrush down, satisfied. “Done,” she said. He lifted his head to look down his body. She pointed to the door of her wardrobe and said, “Go look in the mirror.”

She lay on her side in the middle of the bed, her elbow bent, her head propped on her flattened palm, and she held her breath as he opened the door and inspected himself in the full-length mirror, twisting and turning to see all the detail. The low light in the room was a perfect complement to the art, casting the red of the flame in sharp relief while shadowing the darker, airier wisps of smoke, giving them a sense of motion.

Had there been time she’d have done his back, too, with more flames bubbling like dragon scales across the broad expanse.

“You’re right.” He looked at her with eyes full of wonder and admiration. “This is
awesome.”

Harper let out her breath, thrilled at his obvious delight. “It helps to have a decent canvas.”

He nodded slowly as he headed toward her, potently sexy with his thighs aflame, his gaze fixed firmly on her breasts. “I couldn’t agree more.”

Harper swallowed as he neared, the arousal she’d felt as she’d brushed paint over his body flushing bright and hot through her system, settling like a nest of prickles between her legs.

“My turn.”

Harper barely heard him over the beating of her heart in her ears. “From memory, you’re not great with paint.”

He crawled onto the bed and she rolled onto her back as he straddled her hips, the broad canvas of his smoke and flame chest dominating her view. Her breath hitched at the pure raw power of him.

“I’ll keep it simple,” he said as he reached for a paintbrush.

Harper shivered as he traced the round fullness of her left breast with cold black paint. He used the brush in the red paint next to repeat the process. He followed it with another circle of black. Then red. Then black. Each circle grew smaller and smaller until he was skimming her areola and her nipple was an achingly hard point.

She waited for the cold paint to touch her nipple, her insides melting in anticipation, her hands screwed tight in the drop sheet. But it never came. Instead, he paused to admire his handiwork.

Harper clenched and unclenched her hands as she looked down at herself. “Are you painting a bullseye?” she asked, incredulous.

He grinned. “I might be.”

Harper laughed and shook her head, but endured as he repeated the process on her right breast, the nipple begging for attention and again left wanting.

“Now what?” she asked huskily.

“The pièce de résistance,” he murmured, choosing the thicker brush that Harper had used for the flames. Dipping it in the black, he painted a long line from her sternum down to her pubic bone. He dipped again, thickening the line until it was about an inch wide, then painted a triangle at the southernmost point.

“Well?” he asked. “What do you think?”

Harper looked at the thick black arrow pointing the way straight between her legs. She smiled momentarily before clearing her throat for a professional critique. Kind of hard when she was painted with two bull’s-eyes and an arrow, her nipples shamelessly betraying her state of arousal.

“It’s kind of abstract…but not terrible.”

“Oh baby.” He grinned. “There ain’t
anything
abstract about it.
That’s
a promise.”

Harper’s blood flowed thick and hot through her pelvis, flooding the ache between her legs. She should tell him to go. That he had to be up for training at six. But she wanted him to follow through on that promise so freaking bad.

And he did, shuffling back quickly, pushing her legs apart with the broad intrusion of his shoulders, settling himself between her legs and fixing his mouth to her.

“I take it back,” she gasped, her back arching as his tongue got busy and his hands found their bull’s-eyes. “You’re
really
freaking good with paint.”

He didn’t answer. She would have killed him if he had.

…

Dex stirred slightly, lightening a little from the heavy layers of sleep some time later. Harper shifted, her body seeking his. Sexual satisfaction weighted him to the bed, and he revelled in it, letting it pull him under a little deeper as her head burrowed into his shoulder and she settled her thigh over the top of his.

“I love you,” she murmured, her lips nuzzling his chest, her breathing slow and deep.

Somewhere in the quagmire of slumber, his chest flooded with pleasure at the knowledge, and his eyes fluttered partially open. For some reason he couldn’t fathom, it was stupidly light in the room. The scarf must have slid off the lamp.

He shut his eyes again, drifting along in that strange twilight zone between consciousness and unconsciousness with Harper warm and soft at his side. He’d never met a woman like her—someone who gave so openly and didn’t want anything in return.

Who he could be
himself
around.

Someone who understood him. Who hadn’t judged him over his roots like so many people in his past had done. Who liked
him
, not just the trappings of his celebrity. Who had no expectations.

He’d told
her
she was awesome a dozen times, but actually
this
was awesome. This…
thing
between them. Them together. Rugby had been everything to him for so long, but now there was something else.

Harper Nugent ticked all his boxes.
And
she loved him.

Something buzzed loud and insistent nearby, bringing him slowly out of slumber again. It took long seconds to register the noise as his phone, but the message finally got through, piercing the bubble and dragging him by the roots of his hair into full consciousness.

He sat bolt upright, the bright morning light stabbing into his eyeballs as he displaced Harper. “Fuck,” he said, his heart racing like a train on a track as his phone jangled through his nerves. He grappled to orientate himself, looking around wildly for the phone or the time, or any sense he could grab hold of.

“What time is it?” he demanded. He’d zeroed in on his phone, discarded on the floor, and groped for it.

“What?” she asked, blinking at him sleepily, her smudged bull’s-eyes and black arrow a startling reminder of last night’s fun and games and the fact that he was at Harper’s.

He’d stayed the night at Harper’s.

And she
loved
him?

Jesus.

He reached his phone and snatched it up. It was Tanner. “Where the fuck are you?” he demanded, ignoring any preliminaries. “Griff is
pissed
off
. Wherever you are, you better be dead because he’s probably going to kill you if you’re not.”

Griff had been one of the best rugby players the world had ever seen. Now he was the best damn rugby coach alive. And Dex knew how lucky he was to be coached by the best. Sure, Griff was a tough taskmaster. He demanded 100 percent from everyone, but he gave 200 percent in return.

Never miss a training session was one of his golden rules.

Jesus.
With his brain coming back online he could see the clock on Harper’s bedside table announcing the time as a quarter to seven. Training started forty-five minutes ago.

Dex had
never
missed a training session. He sure as hell had never been late for a one. He’d seen Griff bench guys for a hell of a lot less.

“I’m coming now,” he said, springing out of bed wondering where the fuck his clothes were.

He caught his reflection in the mirror as he paced around the bed. Christ, he was still covered in paint, dried and cracking, and no time to shower.

“Your clothes are near the couch.”

Harper’s voice was calm and clear as she jogged his memory, which was more than could be said for him as he went into full-blown panic mode. He couldn’t afford this kind of slip up. He might not have lived on the wrong side of the tracks for over a decade, but the lessons from that time in his life were as fresh as yesterday.

This shit was how you got busted from the team. How things went to hell. And a kid from Perry Hill was never arrogant enough to think it couldn’t happen to him.

Holy crap!
His chest was tight and his fingers had started to tingle. He didn’t bother to thank or acknowledge her help, just turned for the door and strode out.

He found his clothes and threw them on, his heart pounding as he sat on the couch to tie his shoes, his brain tossing around potential excuses
and
various routes he could take to get to the stadium as quickly as he could now that Monday morning traffic would be in full bitch.

Christ.
What the fuck was the matter with him?
This
was why he didn’t get involved with anyone.
This
was what being involved did to a man’s concentration. He more than anyone had had to fight for his place on the team, but bring out a bloody paintbrush and he lost his mind.

“Are you okay?”

Dex stiffened. “
No.
” He yanked the lace on his shoe.

“I’m sure Griff’ll—”

He yanked the other one and stood to face her. She was in a T-shirt that stopped high on her thighs, and if he was a betting man he’d place money on her being naked underneath. His body responded to her in a completely Pavlovian way that ratcheted up his anger another notch, disgusted at his lack of control.

“You sure Griff will what?” he demanded. “You don’t know the first bloody thing about Griffin King and what he will and won’t do.”

She raised both her eyebrows and put her hands up in a
whoa there
motion. “Okay. Sorry, you’re right.”

Great. Now he was yelling and taking it out on Harper because
he
was torn.
Jesus
. He’d never been torn before. He’d always known where his priorities lay.

And he hated that she’d muddied the water for him. Hated her. Hated himself.

“So what
will
he do?” she asked.

“At the very least, he’ll bench me for the next game. At worse, he’ll castrate me with his bare hands.”

She gave a hesitant half laugh. “That’s a bit dramatic, isn’t it?”

Any hold he’d had on his temper snapped with a twang that practically rattled his teeth. “I’m late for my goddamn training session. Griff doesn’t accept
late
.” He shoved a hand through his hair. She wouldn’t understand. How could she? She grew up playing video games while he ate packet mac and cheese.

He hadn’t just let his focus slide—he’d let
Griff
down.

The thought made him half crazy.

“
This
is why I said I didn’t do dating and relationships.
This
was why we were just…hanging out and having fun. But then
you
”—he glared at her, wanting to shake her so she would understand—“go and say the
L
word and now I’m late for practise.”