Playing it Cool (Sydney Smoke Rugby) (6 page)

Then he stepped around her and walked out the door, leaving Harper entirely unfit to paint anything.

Chapter Five

Harper was killing anything that crossed her path.

Nothing better for an attack of the nerves than jumping on the PlayStation and kicking some Battlefront ass while she waited for Dex to pick her up.

She’d been a gamer since her teens—much to Anthea’s displeasure—and if it wasn’t for the twins and Em making demands on her time, she’d probably be one of those sad basement-dwellers wearing stained trackies, surrounded by take-away cartons and floor to ceiling bottled water in case the zombie apocalypse actually happened while she was questing with online friends in World of Warcraft.

Right now, it felt good to be blowing shit up. Gave her something else to think about.

The Sydney Smoke had lost their game last night but had still managed to score four tries. Which meant she was going to have to look Dex in the eye when he got here, knowing
he knew
exactly what she’d been doing during those eighty minutes.

On Friday, and even last night in the midst of it all, it had been thrilling to perform such an illicit act in the privacy of her own apartment. Naughty. And…liberating. But having to face Dex knowing that
he knew
what she’d done? That was an entirely different matter.

There was a rap on the door. Her suddenly nerveless fingers paused the game before the controller clattered onto the coffee table.

Dex.
Five o’clock. On the dot. Heat flooded Harper’s face.
God.
What was she doing with him? What was he doing with her?

A second knock yanked her out of her inertia. She rose off the couch automatically, her legs moving mechanically to the door. Thoughts twirled round and round in her brain like a spinning top.

Be cool. You’re an adult. You’re both adults. You’re single. He’s single. You’re allowed to play games.
Sexual
games. You haven’t done
anything
wrong.

“Hey,” he said, as she swung the door open, one big hand sliding up high on the doorframe, his gaze speculative as he looked her up and down in a way that left her in no doubt as to what he was thinking.

“Hey,” she said back, a little breathless from the dirty in his smile.

She had the crazy urge to lean forward and kiss him on the cheek. As a…greeting. After all, she
had
gotten naked and masturbated last night—
four
times—because
he’d
asked her to. But something stopped her. Kissing him on the cheek? That seemed a little too…familiar.

She didn’t know if they had
that
kind of relationship.

She settled for checking him out instead. Like her, he was in jeans and a T-shirt—perfect attire for the drive-in movie they were seeing. His shirt was light gray, his jeans a soft, distressed blue that appeared to be more from age than any kind of design intent. His smile was smooth, his stubble was rough, and he smelled like he’d been dipped in cinnamon sugar.

Her own personal churro.

Even the slight puffiness of his left eye where he’d copped an elbow last night added to his sex appeal.

He wore the hell out of all of it.

“Does it hurt?” she asked, nodding at the injury.

He shook his head as he pressed gently around the orbit. “Nah. Had worse.”

She’d seen enough images of him online with blood pouring out of his head to believe him. “I’ll just go grab my bag.”

He nodded, and Harper was conscious he’d followed her into the apartment. Conscious of his gaze burning a hole in the rump of her jeans. She wished she’d worn the longer shirt now. Showing off the ass he’d already confessed to liking had seemed like a good idea a couple of hours ago but now that he was two paces behind her, not so much.

Harper was snatching up her bag off the lounge when he said, “Now
that’s
what I call a television.”

“Oh…yes.” She’d bought the unit specifically with her gaming habit in mind. She also had large dual computer screens for her online gaming.

The game she’d been playing was still frozen on the screen, and she strode toward it to turn it off.

“That must be what? Seventy inches?”

“Eighty.”

He stuck his hands on his hips and glanced at her. “You sure know how to intimidate a man.”

Harper snorted. She knew for a fact that Dexter Blake had no reason to be intimidated.

“You game?” he asked as she picked up the controller.

“Yep.”

He grinned at her. “Harper Nugent, you just get more and more awesome.”

It was hardly romantic or flowery, but Harper buzzed all over from the compliment, her rib cage suddenly too small to contain the surge of pride rising in her chest. She grinned back, recognising the zeal of a fellow gamer in Dex’s eyes. “You play, too?”

“I’m a more recent convert, although it’s been a while.”

“Battlefront?” she asked, cocking her head toward the screen.

“Hell yeah.” He glanced at his watch, the fingers of the other hand drumming against his thigh. “We still have an hour before we absolutely
have
to leave. Fancy a game?”

Considering he’d had the upper hand in the
games
they’d already played, Harper was more than keen to partake of one where she felt in control. “Sure,” she said casually.

“You any good?”

Harper gave her very best nonchalant shrug as she crossed to the long, low television cabinet and dragged out another cordless controller. “I do okay.”

He narrowed his eyes as she passed it to him. “You’re going to kick my ass, aren’t you?”

She bit the inside of her cheek to stop from laughing as she walked to the couch and sat. “I can be gentle with you if you like.”

“I would like,” he said, sitting down beside her. The couch was a long three-seater, deep, with generous cushions. She’d sat just off-centre of the middle, and Dex had done the same, about a foot separating them.

“Of course, you are injured after all,” she murmured, leaning forward at the hips as she snatched her controller off the coffee table and navigated to a new map. “You want to play as a team, or you want me to kick your ass first?”

He laughed. “Bring it.”

“All right then. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.” Harper grinned. “Prepare to be annihilated.” Her fingers moved quickly on the controller as she set things up. She glanced across at him. “You ready?”

Dex stretched out his traps. “I was born ready, baby.”

Harper pressed play, and they were off, sitting forward, shoulders hunched, brows furrowed. Dex did a cute thing where he stuck his tongue out whenever he was about to shoot. It made it easier for Harper to pre-empt, but still it took her twenty minutes to get him just where she wanted him. If this was him rusty, then he must have been damn good at one stage.

She was closing in on him, going in for the fatal blow when he said, “Is this where you did the deed last night?”

Harper startled at the unexpected question and misfired. His guy blasted a bunch of hers. She paused the game, and he grinned as she looked at him.

“Are you doing this on purpose, to try and put me off my game?”

“Damn straight,” he said, completely unabashed, looking boyish suddenly. “Is it working?”

It most certainly was. Her concentration was shot now she’d been brought out of the virtual world to face the real world and the real man sitting beside her.

“It was, wasn’t it?” he insisted, harking back to his original question.

It would have been handy to be able to muster a glare, but the fact that it was, in fact, the place where she had
done the deed
, put Harper on the back foot.

“I have a blush that tells me it was.” He looked up and down the length of the couch then back at her, his gaze lowering to her mouth. “I’m sorry I couldn’t have made it more than four for you but we were robbed with a couple of those penalties.”

Harper was relieved the Smoke had only run the ball over that many times. She wasn’t sure she’d been hydrated enough for a fifth orgasm.

“So…how was it?”

There was no way she was telling him last night had been the single most risqué thing she’d ever done. Or the thrill of it alone had kept her excitement at fever pitch between tries.

He’d held the upper hand in this conversation far too long.

Recovering her composure, Harper injected some steel into her spine. She leaned in slightly and lowered her voice. “You want a…blow by blow?”

His big smile oozed sex and confidence. “Hell yeah.”

“I videoed it if you want to watch?”

His sudden stillness, and the bob of his throat as he sat even more forward, were gratifying. “You…did?”

Harper dropped her head to the side and shot him a
gotcha
smile before pressing start and blasting his last man to smithereens while he was still staring at her. “Oops.” She turned to him and batted her eyelids as
Game Over
flashed on the screen. “Sorry.”

He laughed then. Big and deep. “You like to play dirty.”

She arched an eyebrow. “I’m learning to play by your rules.”

He grinned. “Oh, this is going to be so much fun.”

Harper rolled her eyes at his obvious enjoyment. “Another?”

“Sure. But let’s play as a team this time. At least until I’m not so rusty anymore. Then I’ll kick
your
ass, paint girl.”

“Ha!” Harper said, setting up another game. “Dream on, rugby.”

They didn’t go to the drive-in. The time came to leave and they were in the middle of a battle against enemy insurgents, and they decided to just keep playing. Harper grabbed two beers and some corn chips and salsa, and they worked their way through dozens of levels together.

Dinnertime came and they ordered pizza. They devoured two between them and drank more beer. Harper couldn’t remember the last time she’d had this much fun.

With her clothes on anyway.

It was ten before they were triumphant in their third map together.

“Another?” Harper asked.

He was lounging back on the couch, his legs wide apart in that potently casual way of men. His T-shirt fell flat against the planes of his belly, and his jeans clung like a second skin, stretched out over thick quads and cupping the bulge of what she knew to be a decent size package at the juncture of his thighs. Every line and angle of his body reflected a man relaxed and content, like a big jungle cat, stretched out all loose-limbed, his stomach full.

Except his eyes. There was nothing content about those. They were much more alert. Much more…carnal. Up until now, the only thing that had charged the atmosphere had been a keen sense of competition. But it had been companionable.

Matey. Blokey, even.

But those eyes made her wary. And just a little bit horny.

“Sure,” he said, still casual. “Want to make it interesting?”

“Ah, you want to battle
me
, huh? Feeling confident again?”

He grinned. “I think I have my mojo back.”

As if he’d ever lost it. “All right then,” she said, leaning forward, elbows on her knees as she set up a battle between the two of them.

“Can I suggest a variation?”

Harper looked over her shoulder at him. “A variation?”

He nodded, his eyes glittering now. “Strip Battlefront is kinda fun.”

Her breath stuttered to a halt somewhere between her lungs and her mouth. “Strip Battlefront?”

“Sure.” He grinned. “The guys and I play it
all
the time.”

She relaxed slightly at his teasing tone. The thought of a bunch of buck naked rugby players striping off their clothes in front of a video game was amusing as hell. “Oh really? That’s funny,” she mused. “None of
my
guy friends have ever suggested it.”

“I’m sure they wanted to.”

Harper snorted. “I doubt it.” She often got together with a bunch of other gamer friends and pulled all-nighters.

“Are they gay?”

“Only a couple of them.”

His gaze dropped briefly to where the V of her T-shirt skimmed her cleavage before returning to her face. “So, just stupid then?”

Harper smiled at the compliment. Dexter Blake was good for her ego. “I prefer gentlemen.”

It was his turn to snort, and Harper wasn’t left in any doubt that Dex thought her friends were fools. “What about your girlfriends?” he pressed. “You must have played something like that at girlie sleepovers?”

“Sure.” She smiled sweetly. “Just before our naked pillow fights.” Harper rolled her eyes. “In your dreams, rugby.”

“You have no idea.” Dex grinned. “So…what do you say? You up for it?”

Harper wished she could say she wasn’t. Wished that she could say he’d shocked her and slap him across the face for suggesting something so outrageously risqué. But given what she’d done on this very couch twenty-four hours ago, it was probably a bit late to play the puritan.

And, God help her, there was something so illicitly wicked about the thought.

Was she up for it?

Anticipation fluttered fingers over muscle fibres deep in her pelvis as her pulse tap-danced at her wrists and temple. It seemed, as far as Dex was concerned, she was up for anything. Maybe it was because she knew they weren’t in any kind of a relationship that she felt like she didn’t have to follow any of the relationship rules.

“You’re very daring aren’t you?”

He shook his head. “Only on the rugby field. And around you, it seems.”

Harper tried not to let that go to her head. She failed. “How do you play it?”

His slow smile spread heat through her belly and thighs. “Simple. Every time you lose a man, you lose a piece of clothing.”

Harper did a mental inventory of what they were wearing. She had a grand total of four items of clothing—they’d both discarded their shoes a long time ago. Unless Dex had a fetish for women’s underwear, he only had three. Two if he was commando.

Lordy.
Her heart palpitated wildly at the thought.

Given how quickly men died in the virtual world they could both be naked pretty damn quick. She’d have to be careful. None of her players could be expendable. She’d have to play it really safe.

Which was ironic given how she was doing the exact opposite in the
real
world.