Playing it Cool (Sydney Smoke Rugby) (14 page)

Christ.

It had a predictable effect inside his jeans, and Dex wished he’d worn a less
snug
pair.

“Nine!”

Fuck.
Little less ogling and a lot more conversation, idiot.

Dex took a deep breath to steady the crashing of his heart inside his ribs. “I’m sorry about walking out like I did. I was in full panic mode. I wasn’t…thinking straight.”

“I’ve never asked you to stay the night, Dex. In fact, I’ve never demanded
anything
of you, and I sure as hell didn’t have you tied to my bed.”

“I know,” he said quickly, wishing she’d used a little less sexual imagery but grateful she was at least talking now. Her back was to him and he watched as water sluiced over her nape and the top two notches of her spine. “I was shocked and angry at
myself
more than anything. I guess I’m always a little paranoid that it’s all going to end and I’m going to be back on the bones of my ass in Perry Hill, which is why I’ve
never
been late to training. But that was my fault, and I took it out on you. Which was wrong of me, and I’m sorry.”

“And yet it took you two weeks to figure it out.”

“No.” He shook his head. “I pretty much knew I’d been a dick straight away. But I figured…a clean break was best. Better you hated me anyway, right?” He gave a grim smile she couldn’t see because her back was still turned and she was busy lathering herself up with soap.

Of course. Fuck
.
Kill me now.

He took a pace toward the mirror then turned and settled his ass against the vanity, staring straight ahead at the open doorway instead of the soap bubbles sliding down her neck.

“It just took me two weeks to realise I
can’t
keep away. Nothing’s the same, Harper. My concentration is shot, my focus is blurred, and my football has gone down the crapper.”

“Ah. So this is about
rugby.
”

Dex’s hands tightened into fists as he mentally rejected her bald statement. Yes, he wanted his on-field mojo back, but it was about
more
than rugby.

And if he hadn’t known that before he came, he knew it now.

“It’s about not being able to get you out of my head. About how much I like having you in my life. How much I like
being
with you. How much everything
works
better with you around.”

“Jesus, Dex, you make me sound like a maid. Or a can of bloody WD-40.”

“I’m sorry. I’m not very good at this kind of thing. And—” He stopped himself before he said what he was about to say.

“And?”

“It doesn’t matter,” he dismissed. He was trying to win her favour not piss her off with his ill-conceived, testosterone-driven thoughts.

“For God’s sake, Dex,
you’re
the one who barged in to here to explain yourself, so just say it, will you?”

He sighed. “And thoughts of you all wet and slippery are not helping my articulation.”

She didn’t say anything for long moments. “So it’s about sex, too?”

“No,” he denied, despite his raging hard-on. It
wasn’t
just about sex, either.

“No?” Her voice sounded incredulous. “Not even if I were to tell you I’m touching myself right now?”

The air in Dex’s lungs shunted to an abrupt halt as he glanced at her, startled. Her back was still to him, water still running down her neck where a few wet strands of her updo had come undone. One palm was pressed flat against the tiles above her head. The other… He was damned if he knew where the other one was, or what it was doing.

“Harper.” He hadn’t meant it to come out so growly, but his control, which had been pretty slender since she’d answered the door in her gown and then shrugged out of it right in front of him, stretched a little thinner.

“Haven’t you thought about me like this, Dex?” she asked, her voice husky.

Dex stood slowly, turning to face the shower recess. His balls had pulled unbearably tight. “
Harper
.”

“Do you know women can have wet dreams, too?” she asked, a slight pant to her voice as she ignored the raspy warning in his.

He shut his eyes, paralysed both by the question and an image of her, her breasts pressed against the cold tiles, her hand buried between her legs.

“I didn’t know that till these last couple of weeks, but I’ve actually woken up drenched and almost coming sometimes, confused about what’s happening but then I remember what you were doing to me in my dreams.
God
, Dex,
those dreams
…”

Dex swallowed. He couldn’t see her touching herself, but her fingers curling into the tile above her head, the knuckles whitening, the hitch in her breath, were filling in the blanks.

“Yeah,” he said hoarsely, suddenly finding it difficult to breathe. “I’ve been having them, too.”

“Well?” she demanded, her voice low but plenty pissed off. “Are you going to get in the goddamn shower or do you want a written invitation?”

Dex blinked at the unexpected command. What the fuck? She
wanted
him to join her?

“
Dex!”

He guessed that was a yes.

He should tell her no. Should insist they talk. Should stay the hell out of the shower. But he
couldn’t
. Not even if his life had depended on it.

Responding to the desperation turning her voice to gravel, he stripped out of his clothes in ten seconds flat, quickly sheathing himself with a condom. His hands shook as he opened the glass door and stepped in.

“Dex,” she panted, looking over her shoulder at him, her gaze dropping to the jutting evidence of his arousal. She arced her back slightly, thrusting her ass in his direction. “
God…
I’m so damn close.”

Her feet were evenly spaced apart, separating her legs, and although he couldn’t see where her lower hand was exactly, her bent elbow was obviously not idle. Water hit her nape and ran over her ribs and spine, sluicing over her ass and down the backs of her thighs.

She looked glorious. He wanted to sink to his knees, grab her ass cheeks and bury his face in the heat and wet between her legs.

“
Dex.
”

The raw need in her voice spurred him to action. He didn’t stop to ask her what she wanted—his body knew on a primal level exactly what that was. He slid in behind her in one easy stride, one hand gliding up her belly to claim a breast, the nipple like a bead in the centre of his palm, the other gliding between her legs, displacing her own.

“Yes,” she gasped, pressing back into him, the length of his cock jammed between her buttocks. Her hand slid up high on the tiles, joining the other, the knuckles also turning white as Dex zeroed in on the hard knot of nerves between her legs and rubbed.

He tried to kiss her but she turned her face, his lips landing on her cheek instead. He should have been annoyed or insulted. He should have been worried it was a bad sign, but all he could think about was getting inside her.

His heart thundered against his rib cage, as did the corresponding pound of hers, their bodies perfectly aligned as he guided the head of his cock to the slickness between her legs. Her thighs were trembling, and she moaned at each hard stroke over her clitoris, but still managed to angle herself just right, eager to accommodate him.

Dex grabbed hold of an ass cheek and slid inside. He groaned out loud, but it wasn’t enough to drown out Harper who came
hard
when he entered her. His pulse roared at her complete loss of control, and he thrust, quick and relentless, prolonging her pleasure, building his own rapidly, no thought of holding back or delaying his own release as her desperate, mewing cries catapulted him out of his body and he came lightning fast, burning bright and brilliant, his essence streaming out with a hot, pulsing force for long cataclysmic moments before finally fading away, leaving a delicious simmer humming in his blood.

Hands still high on the walls, Harper sagged against the tiles. Dex followed as he slowly came back to himself, the fronts of his thighs bracketing the backs of hers. He nuzzled her temple as their breathing returned to normal, the drum of the water on the tile floor loud in the silence.

Eventually he moved, easing out of her body as his hands slid to her waist, and he wrapped his arms around her, kissing up and down the slant that joined neck to shoulder.

Dex wanted to stay like this forever.

She had other ideas.

“I thought you said you couldn’t do this anymore?” she said finally.

He shrugged. “I can’t not do it, either.”

There was more silence for a while, then she squirmed against him and said, “I have to go.”

His arm tightened around his waist. “Harper.”

“I really need to get ready,” she said. “Just go, okay?”

He tried to turn her around but she clung to the tiles, refusing to budge. “Harper don’t you think we need to talk about us…about this?”

“Damn it, Dex.” She turned her head and glared at him, amber flashing in the depths of her eyes. “I said go.”

Dex blinked at the vehemence in her voice and the set of her chin.
What the fuck had just happened?
She’d practically ordered him into the shower, where they’d rutted like a pair of animals, not even
kissing,
and now she was kicking him out?

What was going on with her?

But the set to her chin had gotten more noticeable, and he knew now was not the time for psychoanalysis. Now was the time for retreat and reevaluation. To give her some space. To give them
both
space to wrap their heads around wild-animal shower sex.

With the greatest of difficulty, Dex dropped his arms and turned away. He stepped out of the shower, grabbed a towel off the rack and scooped his clothes up off the floor.

He didn’t look back as he strode out of her bathroom. He didn’t
go
back. He didn’t think about who she was meeting. He just towelled off, threw on his clothes, and left.

But it damn near killed him.

Chapter Twelve

Harper crawled into bed in her robe after she got out of the shower. She couldn’t go out now.

Not after…

Em, who had conveniently forgotten how many times she’d curled up in bed and cried for days after her succession of breakups, hadn’t been impressed with Harper cancelling.

“Trust me on this. Staying at home and wallowing is a bad way of getting over a breakup.”

There was nothing worse than a reformed doormat.

“It really is just a headache,” Harper had pleaded. “Besides, you can’t break up with someone you weren’t really together with in the first place, can you?”

But even as she’d said it, Harper had known she was talking crap. Because the truth was, however they’d classified their relationship, she
had
fallen in love with Dexter Blake.

Was
in love with Dexter Blake.

She just hadn’t realised it consciously—obviously her subconscious was more clued in than she was—until he’d walked out two weeks ago with a full head of steam.

But she was 100 percent, whole-enchilada, full-catastrophe, in love with the guy. And not just because he was a hottie of the first order. Harper groaned and stuffed her hands between her legs thinking about what that hottie had just done to her in the shower.

Her attraction to him went much deeper. He’d been kind and sweet and gentle with her. His rescuing her like that at the rugby match, even when she hadn’t needed it, still took her breath away. He’d championed her against Chuck and Anthea and been a massive boost to her ego.

The fact he could never seem to get enough of her, of the bits of her she’d always hated and lamented, had made her see herself in a different light. But it wasn’t just about her boobs and her ass. He’d been interested in her life. In
things
and…stuff. Like her parents and her childhood, the intricacies of her job, and her hopes for the future.

He’d even wheedled out her plans to open a gallery one day, and she hadn’t even fully articulated that to herself yet.

And, good lord almighty, he was good with the twins. Funny and jokey with them both. Kind and complimentary to Tabby, and a little bit blokey with Jace, sensing, as Harper could, his desperation for a good male role model. Chuck, for all his faults, was good with his brother, too, but he wasn’t around much, and Jace really responded to Dex’s innate ability to tease and praise in equal measure. Both of the twins adored him.

Any guy in her life had to pass muster with her brother and sister, and frankly too many of them had failed.

Simply put, he was all that and a bag of chips, and had completely stolen her heart. He’d had her from
Dex the Stud
.

And it sucked.

Because she was pretty sure he didn’t love her back.

She was
damn sure
he liked
being
with her, liked her company, in and out of bed. But that wasn’t the same thing. Did she really want to hang around waiting for the end of his rugby career, waiting for him to have
time
for her?

A hot well of grief rose in her chest, sitting there like a bloody great boulder. She’d been in love a couple of times before—for two sparkly weeks at the age of fourteen, and at art college for a few fun months when she’d been nineteen—but not like this.

They seemed petty and juvenile, practise runs in comparison to this…
thing
sitting on her chest, weighing her down, making it impossible to breathe.

Harper castigated herself for her weakness with him earlier. Having sex with him in the shower hadn’t helped matters. Sure, she hadn’t planned on dropping her gown. She had
really
just wanted him to say his piece and go, but the second they’d stood in her tiny en suite together, her body had
craved
and so had his. She’d seen it in his eyes.

And a part of her had wanted to exploit the hell out of that weakness.

But she’d set them on an inevitable path, and when her soapy hands had headed south, brushing her inner thighs, she hadn’t been able to stop herself. She’d wanted him there with a white-hot heat, and nothing else had mattered. Not the fact that he didn’t love her, or the fact he loved a
ball
more. Her desire and arousal had been too great, her battered heart—
her pride
—no match for her roaring need.

But it hadn’t taken long afterward for shame to set in.

I can’t not do it, either
. A few weeks ago, she had revelled in having that kind of sway over his body. But that was then. When they were just hanging out and having fun. When it was physical only. Or so she’d thought, anyway.

But now her heart was in it.
And his wasn’t.

His body was committed, and she assumed she could avail herself of that whenever she damn well pleased, but how long before she wanted
more?

How long before she
asked
for more?

And what would happen then?

Harper sure as hell didn’t want to find out. Their whole prior relationship seemed to have been predicated on her
not
asking anything of him.

It was best to keep things severed between them—wild-animal shower sex notwithstanding. He’d made it clear where his focus lay and
why
. She only had herself to blame if she blindly ignored that and expected him to change.

Powerful demons rooted deep in childhood were always hard to shake. She had to let him go. Move on. Be strong.

Starting with not losing her head,
or her clothes
, should he knock on her door again.

…

Unfortunately, Harper found out she just wasn’t that strong. Not where the man she loved was concerned.

She opened the door to him the next night, and he’d barely said two words to her before she was dragging him inside and he was going down on her on the couch. It seemed kind of moot to protest when he came by the next night and the next. Not when she’d already invited him into her house and body twice, and her craving for him was growing.

In fact, the sex was so damn good, it completely hijacked Harper’s determination to keep things severed. It was hard to be strong when his kisses were so bloody tempting.

Had his lips been dusted in cocaine, they couldn’t have been more addictive.

By their third time, she was thinking that maybe what they had
would
do. Maybe having the bit of him that was left over after rugby was
better
than having it all. Especially when he gave it to her so unreservedly.

It sure as shit was better than having
nothing
.

She got the fun and the sexy times and not the hard stuff. The mundane and boring stuff like laundry and bills and taking out the garbage. And with him leaving in the middle of the night, she didn’t have to worry about him farting in his sleep, or about morning breath.

Those things that quickly bogged relationships down.

She got to exist with him in a bubble kept afloat by this heady, sexual thrill, the prospect of a relationship that never staled or cooled off. Where the desire always burned bright. Where there was a permanent state of horniness.

And her love was big enough for both of them.

But that all came crashing down the following week as they lay in bed in the afterglow, lazily touching in the soft red light blanketing the room. Harper tried not to read too much into how often he was coming over. Prior to their breakup, they’d been a Sunday-only thing. But he’d been over five nights out of seven.

Did that mean something?

“Are you going to this fundraiser thingy on Friday night? For the City Central kid’s hospital?” she asked.

“Mmm,” he said.

Harper’s lips curved. She didn’t have to look at him to know his eyes would be closed. She knew that sleepy
mmm.
He sounded like that just before he fell asleep, his voice low and rumbly as he drifted in a semi-conscious state.

She rolled onto her side and he shifted, lifting his arm to accommodate her as she snuggled her head in the crook of his shoulder and closed her eyes. She shivered as his fingers trailed sensuously up and down her arms.

“I’m going as well,” she murmured. “Why don’t you swing by here, and we can go together.”

His fingers stopped abruptly, and her eyes opened, aware of the sudden firming of his pectoral beneath her cheek. “You’re going?”

His voice was sharper, less rumbly, and Harper could tell he was wide-awake now. She blinked into the warm red glow around her as a wave of goose bumps crawled up her nape. “Yes. They’re doing a segment on my murals.”

“Oh.” His whole body seemed to grow tense beneath her. Had he not been toasty warm he could have given marble a run for its money. “You never said.”

Well, no…she hadn’t said. But she hadn’t been deliberately withholding it from him, either. They just didn’t really…talk about things. They kissed and fucked and slept, then he left and they started all over again. When they did talk, it was about the mural she was working on or the last game he’d played or the game he was about to play. Sometimes the twins.

Then they kissed and fucked and slept…

“It slipped my mind.”

Silence enveloped them. And not the drowsy, postcoital, heavy with bone-deep satisfaction one of a minute ago. No. This was chock full of tension. She could almost hear his brain cranking over.

Harper frowned, not sure what his problem was. He may not want to hear the
L
word, or commit to a forever kind of relationship with her, but they were still
hanging out
, right? And they
had
been out in public together before.

“But as we are both going,” she said, her voice as light and quivery as her confidence, “I thought it might be nice to go together.”

He shifted his arm out from underneath her, displacing her as he sat and swung his legs out of the bed. “I wasn’t going to go with anybody,” he said as he reached for his discarded shirt and threw it on over his head.

Harper stared at his back as he slid his legs into his snug boxer briefs. A cold fist squeezed around her heart. “Are you worried I might make inappropriate jokes about rucking?”

He stood as he pulled the underwear up, and she caught a brief glimpse of taut ass before it was encased in snug black cotton. He turned to look at her, his eyes roaming over her with his usual thoroughness. “I’m just not ready to go… public with us yet.”

“Okay…” What the fuck did that mean? It wasn’t like whatever the hell they were doing was a secret. “But we’ve been out to a wine and paint restaurant
and
to Luna Park. You asked me out in front of a handful of your teammates at a rugby game. Hell, I’ve been in the Smoke’s corporate box at Henley stadium.”

“Yes, but…
everyone
will be there.” His eyes drifted to her breasts before returning to her face. “Sponsors, the media, the WAGS…”

He looked at her helplessly, and the hand squeezed a little harder.

Was he…worried how it would look rocking up to a glamorous event with someone who wasn’t a size six on his arm? Was he trying to tell her that she couldn’t possibly play in the same sandbox as the glamorous creatures she’d spent a fun few hours with at that home game?

Christ. Did he think she didn’t
know
that?

The thought cut hard—harder than any insult her stepbrother or mother had handed out over the years—and she reached for the sheet, pulling it up her body, tucking it in under her arms as all the old feelings of inadequacy crashed in.

“And I’m not quite the image they have of a rugby union star’s girlfriend, right?” Her heart beat with a sick, heavy heat, like molten rock in her chest.

He looked at her blankly. “What?”

Harper sucked in a breath, trying to stem the hurt haemorrhaging in her chest. “You’re e
mbarrassed
to be seen with me,” she stated, proud of how calm she sounded when she was dying inside.

It sure as hell explained why he was so keen to always stay in. Harper had loved that he’d felt at home in her home, but she’d thought that was about privacy, not secrecy.

When all along he’d been
ashamed
to take her anywhere.

They’d joked in the beginning about her being his dirty little secret, but it looked like she actually
was
.

“Don’t be ridiculous,” he growled, dismissing the statement with an impatient wave of his hand. “You should know by now that I can’t get enough of you. Why on earth would you think that?”

Was he joking? Was he seriously kidding her now?

“Maybe because I have no
fucking
clue what the hell we’re doing here, or how you
feel
about me.”

“God, Harper, please,” he said, shoving an exasperated hand through his hair. “You know I think you’re awesome.”

Awesome?

Harper snorted. Loud. It was that or burst into tears. “Awesome?” Hot tears scalded the backs of her eyes, but she blinked them back. “What are you, like, five?”

She thrust back the sheet and scooped up her discarded gown from the floor, sliding into it as she stood.

“You didn’t seem to mind the compliment a few weeks ago.”

He was right. She’d been happy when he’d told her she was awesome. But she’d moved on. And awesome was wholly fucking
inadequate
.

She was
in love
with him for fuck’s sake. Awesome was an insult.

She tied the belt of the gown tight. “And just
why
am I so gosh-darned awesome?” she demanded, tossing her hair over her shoulder, glaring at him. “Because I’m no serious threat to your career? Because I don’t make any demands? Because I’m a pushover? You knock on the door and I open my
goddamn
legs for you?”

“No!” Dex shook his head vehemently.

But Harper was on a roll, the hard ball of hurt inside her morphing into simmering rage. “Because I don’t expect anything from you, don’t pressure you for anything? Because you’ve got the best of both worlds—a steady supply of sex with absolutely no commitment. And I’m just good old Harper who’s been stupid enough to go along with it. Well, guess what, Dex, I’m not going to be your dirty little secret anymore.”