Playing it Cool (Sydney Smoke Rugby) (8 page)

Dex nuzzled her hair and murmured, “Kiss me,” into her ear.

Her response was instantaneous. She turned her head, her lips blindly seeking his. There was nothing glamorous about the kiss. It was breathy and sloppy and noisy, more passion than finesse, but it was like a hit of speed tripping through his blood, rippling pleasure through his thighs and buttocks and belly, their heads twisting greedily in time to the wild buck of his hips.

Dex broke off, groaning “Harper,” low in her ear, her nipples harder than he’d ever felt them before. “You’re making me come. Want to come with me?”

She moaned, “
God yes,
” her hand loosening its grip on his thigh to slide between her legs.

“
No
.” Dex relinquished a breast to pull her hand away, his fingers taking the place of hers. “
I
want to.”

She gasped, and her body trembled against him as he found the hard little pearl between her legs. “God, you’re wet,” he whispered as he rubbed in time with his own strokes, burying himself inside her to the hilt with each thrust.

“Dex,” she moaned, turning her head toward him again. There was so much in that desperate little tremble in her voice that he understood. Need. And ache. And want.

Her lips found his, and he met the demand in her kiss. Kept pace with it, kissing her long and deep and wet. The angle was awkward for both of them but it didn’t matter. All that mattered was his mouth on hers, his cock moving inside her, his fingers moving outside her.

The feel of her body against his.

The combined beat of their hearts, and the frantic pull of their breathing.

It didn’t take long for the pleasure to overtake them. They came together in a wild, reckless, sweaty mess. Dex did his best to hold her as she splintered apart, falling against the arm of the couch, following her down, clutching her to him, pumping his hips as he, too, splintered, riding the spiral through a kaleidoscope sky for as long as it lasted. He clung to her as she rode it with him, thankful for the solid furniture beneath his knees keeping their bodies earthbound as their minds twirled together on some astral plane somewhere.

She called out his name and he called out hers as they were dumped out the other end in a gasping heap, collapsing against each other, barely able to move, to breathe, to
think
.

All he could do was just…exist, just
be…
in a state of utter content.

Deep down in his bones content. The type of content that only came from beating the All Blacks or a truly good orgasm.

Both of them had been awfully frickin’ rare.

Hopefully not anymore.

…

“You know what this poker game needs?”

There were general groans around the table. Linc said the same thing every poker night.

“Let me guess,” Bodie Webb chimed in sarcastically as he dealt out six hands. “Is it women?”

Linc raised his beer bottle. “You got it, Spidey.”

“No women,” Tanner Stone growled.

It was the skipper’s one rule. For the last couple of years, the game had been held at Tanner’s luxurious apartment situated at the prestigious Finger Wharf on Sydney Harbour, but since he’d hooked up with his high school girlfriend and now
shacked up
with her, they’d moved the show to Dex’s place.

According to Tanner, poker night needed a bachelor pad, and his place no longer qualified. A point proven by the fact that at the present time, Matilda and some of the other WAGS, along with Valerie King, the coach’s daughter, were drinking wine on his balcony at Finger Wharf.

Dex had volunteered his digs as an alternative. He owned an apartment near Henley Stadium, the Smoke’s home ground. It was in a gated community in an exclusive area with its own courtyard and a ten-minute drive to the stadium. It wasn’t Sydney Harbour. But it was no Perry Hill, either.

“I’m just sayin’,” Linc continued, “there are very few scenarios that cannot be improved with some female company.”

Ryder Davis, his big, round belt buckle glinting in the downlights, looked out from under the brim of his Akubra and raised his beer to Linc. “That’s what Brooks and Dunn reckon anyway.” Which just went to show you could take the boy out of the country but not the country out of the boy.

“Well, I don’t know who they are.” Linc grinned, taking a swig of his beer, “but I like ’em.”

“Jesus, Linc,” Ryder bitched. “That’s like saying you don’t know who…” He cast around, obviously lost for a suitable comparison.

“Simon and Garfunkel,” Donovan Bane, who was taking his seat after a visit to the bathroom, offered helpfully.

“Thank you. Who Simon and Garfunkel are.”

Linc frowned. “Who the fuck are Simon and Garfunkel?”

“Bloody hell,” Bodie groaned as the others laughed. “Just as well you can kick a ball. What the hell do you talk to women about?”

“Who says we talk about anything?”

Donovan shook his head. “One day some woman is going to do a number on you, and I hope I’m around to see it.”

“Not a chance, Dono.” Linc shook his head cockily. “Too many chicks. Not enough time. Why settle for just one?”

“Maybe we should ask the boss?” Donovan suggested, reaching for his sixth slice of pizza. The front-rower was a hard guy to fill up. At six foot three he was, in part thanks to his Maori heritage, built like a brick shithouse.

Everyone glanced at Tanner, who gave a nonchalant shrug but couldn’t hide the start of a goofy grin. His mates gave him absolute hell for it, drumming on the table and grunting “Woo, woo, woo,” like a bunch of wild gorillas.

“Okay, okay,” Tanner griped good-naturedly, picking up his hand now Donovan was back. “Are we playing fucking poker or you want to sit around and knit or something?”

Everyone followed suit, and there was quiet for long moments as they checked out their hands. “Speaking of chicks,” Linc said, breaking the silence and glancing over the top of his cards at Dex. “How’s things with Chuck’s sister?”

Dex had been having a good night. He’d heaped plenty of crap on his mates while avoiding the same fate, and he was winning. Glancing at his pathetic hand and the five pairs of eyes now trained quizzically on him, he figured he’d just run shit out of luck.

“Nuthin’ to tell,” he remarked casually as he threw four cards down, retaining his ace.

Nothing he wanted to tell them anyway.

Nothing he wanted to think about right now, given how he’d crept out of her bed at dawn and left without saying good-bye.

He’d fallen asleep.

Dexter Blake
did not
fall asleep with a woman. He didn’t spend the night. He was still trying to wrap his head around that one. And the fact she hadn’t contacted him…

In his experience, women always tried to push him for more.

“I’ll take four,” he said to Ryder.

“You go on that date?” Tanner asked.

“Yep.”

“How was it?” he pushed.

Dex shot his friend and captain a you-have-to-be-shitting-me look. “We playing fucking poker or knitting?”

Tanner whistled long through his teeth and shook his head in faux seriousness. “That good, huh?”

“Sure as shit doesn’t sound like he got laid, does it?” Linc added.

Bodie nodded. “Totally struck out,” he agreed.

“She do that painting?” Donovan asked, lifting his chin toward the kitchen.

Dex had glued some magnetic strips to the back of the canvas frame and slapped it on the side of his fridge. He’d forgotten about it being there. “Yep.”

Four pairs of eyes swivelled to the painting. Linc got up—
of course he did
—to inspect it closer. He plucked it off the fridge and brought it back to the table. “That’s some girly-assed goalposts,” he said as he passed it around.

Dex felt unaccountably twitchy at the painting being pawed by a bunch of blokes who wouldn’t know a work of art from their elbows.

“Looks like those murals we saw at the kids hospital last week,” Bodie said when it got to him. “Hey, wait a minute…” He glanced at Dex. “This is her signature, too.” He pointed at where Harper had signed it. “I remember that little heart instead of the a.”

Dex wondered how long it would take Linc’s filthy mind to connect the dots.

Not long, as it turned out.

“
Aha
,” he crowed, grinning around his beer bottle as he took a triumphant swig. “So
that’s
where you disappeared to the other day.”

“And came back with a mysteriously wet jersey,” Tanner added.

Dex glared at his friend. “The
tap
over sprayed.”

Everyone laughed. “
Something
over sprayed,” Linc said. “It’s usually what happens when you live like a monk. Massive sperm pressure, man, I’m telling you, it’ll kill you.”

“And what would
you
know about MSP, Linc?” Donovan quipped.

“It’s
platonic,
” Dex growled, wanting to put an end to the conversation for once and for all.

“Sure it is.” Tanner grinned. “If platonic means ripping one off with Chuckie’s sister in a hospital full of sick kids.”

Dex flipped him the bird. “Bite me.”

“Methinks he doth protest too much,” Donovan mused.

Linc frowned. “He doth wha?”

Donovan rolled his eyes. “It’s
Shakespeare,
dickhead.”

The guys laughed, but Dex was done with them discussing him and Harper. “For Chrissakes, are we playing or not?” he demanded then glared at Ryder. “I need four fucking cards.”

Everyone laughed, but Ryder dealt, and the game got back on track.

Chapter Seven

Two days later, Harper was done with waiting. “That’s it,” she said to Em, “I’m texting him.”

She hadn’t contacted Dex before now because she didn’t want to freak him out any more if he was already freaked out enough.

Em, who was still in full-on wallow mode, practically inhaling an entire two-litre tub of rocky road ice cream before Harper’s eyes, snatched the phone from Harper’s fingers. “No.”

She was surprisingly quick for someone with only one unoccupied hand, who looked like she survived on thin air. That’d be the sixty billion ice-cream calories she was currently consuming.

She shoved the phone in her back pocket. “Absolutely not.”

“It’s just one text.”

Harper had been disappointed to wake Monday morning and find the bed empty, but not surprised. Dex had been upfront concerning his attitude toward dating and relationships, and there wasn’t anything between them. Aside from some truly awesome sex.

Which had, admittedly, complicated things somewhat.

But only if they let it.

She just hoped his silence wasn’t because he was checking himself into a witness protection program somewhere.

“That’s not the way this works,” Em insisted. “Treat them mean, keep them keen.”

Harper blinked. Em had
never
treated a man mean in her entire existence. She was the very definition of a pushover and men knew it.

“You were the one who said I should go out with him to get up Chuck’s nose.”

“That’s because I was drunk. And now I’m sober, and as your friend, I am duty bound to inform you that all men are bastards.”

Em was still shitty on men in general and determined to concentrate on her career as a high school science teacher instead.

Knowing Em like she did, Harper thought that’d probably only last to next week.

“You know we’re talking about
my
situation now, right?”

“It applies to
any
situation,” Em said.

Harper doubted it. Considering she’d already blown the whole treating-him-mean thing by getting down and dirty with him two out of the three times they’d met, it was a little hard to go back.

“We’re not a
thing
,” she insisted. “That’s not what we’re doing. I just want to check he’s not freaking out.”

“He
should
be freaking out,” Em said around a mouthful of ice cream, jabbing her spoon in Harper’s direction. Harper had her own spoon, not that she was getting much of the sweet treat that Em was zealously hoovering up. “He slept with you and snuck out like a bloody thief in the night. I
hate
it when men do that.”

Harper shrugged. “I don’t care about that.”

“Well,
I
care.” More spoon jabbing. “He better not show his face around me or I’ll…”

She stopped and inspected the ice cream like it might suggest a suitable punishment. “Send him to the principal?” Harper ventured.

“Ha.” Em glanced at her, face stern. “You so funny.” Then she returned her attention to the ice cream, hunching over it further.

“Would you like me to leave you two alone?”

Em looked up apologetically. “Sorry,” she grimaced. “I can’t seem to stop.”

Harper sighed, placing her spoon down. “Don’t worry about it.” She patted Em’s hand. “It’ll just go to my ass anyway. And I have to go pick up Jace and Tabby from their gym class.”

Em nodded and handed over Harper’s phone. “I love you. Stay strong.”

Harper took it, nodding assuredly, with absolutely no intention of listening to a woman high on sugar and man-hate.

No matter how much she loved the nutter.

She waited till she got to the car before she texted. It took her another ten minutes to compose, edit, delete, recompose, and edit again before she settled on what she wanted to convey. That she wasn’t pissed about waking up alone. That she was up for some casual fun. That she didn’t expect anything from him.

Which was
all
true.

Sure, she didn’t normally do this kind of thing, but why not? Plenty of women did. And she was young and alive. If the sudden death of two parents had taught her nothing else, it was that everything could be over in the blink of an eye.

She read over the text one last time.

In overalls. Will be home in one hour. Need a hand with my zip if you’re around.

She hit send quickly, before she could change her mind, and then started the car.

Harper pulled into her townhouse complex one hour and ten minutes later. Dex hadn’t replied, and she didn’t know what that meant. Had she gotten the tone all wrong? Had she overstepped the mark? Had it freaked him out even more, and he was too chicken shit to tell her he didn’t want anything to do with her?

Or maybe…he was just busy and hadn’t checked his phone yet.

Thoughts churning wildly, she slowed her car down to ten, obeying the speed limit in the complex as she navigated to the driveway that serviced the block of four townhouses where hers was situated. A car was parked outside in one of the guest spaces. It belonged to Dex. She’d seen it the night of the wine and paint party. And even if she hadn’t, the rugby stickers on the bumper would have given it away.

Rugby players do it with grunt
was her favourite.

The car was empty, so he must be waiting for her inside the hallway to her apartment. That was a good sign, right? Her heart thumped hard in her chest for a beat or two before accelerating at a lighter, quicker pace.

There was only one way to find out…

Harper garaged her car quickly, her hand unsteady as she reached to open the door. She paused with her fingers around the handle, making a snap decision. Quickly she unzipped her overalls, slid her hands around the back and unhooked her bra. Pulling the straps down her arms and out the end of the overalls, she whipped the bra off and tossed it on the backseat before zipping up again.

She pulled her hair out of its ponytail, too, and gave it a quick shake, scrunching the natural waves to give them some volume.

Maybe he was here to tell her he’d changed his mind about their arrangement. But if he wasn’t? Why not be prepared…

Dex was lounging against her door, his phone in hand, when Harper stepped into the corridor that fronted all four townhouses. She shut the door that led from her garage behind her and headed in his direction, anticipation tingling between her legs.

She’d been hoping for round four when she’d woken Monday morning, and had been frustrated to find that wasn’t going to happen.

She’d been fantasising about it ever since.

He straightened as she approached, slipping his phone into his pocket. “Wow,” she said, her gaze devouring the way the fabric of his dark suit outlined his shoulders and pulled taut across his thighs. His hair had been carelessly ruffled with some kind of gel into a sexy-messy combo, and he was cleanly shaven.

“You didn’t have to dress.”

The man looked hot in his jersey, sexy as hell in a pair of jeans, and goddamn mouth-watering in nothing but his tan.

In a business suit? He looked utterly fuckable.

As she pulled up in front of him, Harper had to grind her heels into the floor to stop herself from climbing up his body. She couldn’t believe she had carnal knowledge of every delicious inch of what lay under that suit.

She smiled, searching his face for any hint of hesitance or withdrawal. She’d seen it in the faces of enough guys over the years to know the signs. All she found was a slow grin and eyes that had already locked onto her zip like a heat-seeking missile.

“Oh yes,” he said, glancing dismissively at his suit. “I have an official rugby thing to go to, so…”

Harper felt a hot spike of disappointment that he was going out. Without her. Which was completely
insane
. Whatever he did, wherever he went, was no business of hers—that wasn’t the kind of dating they were doing.

Besides, he probably already had a date. One of those women the WAGS liked to set him up with.

Skinny women.

“But…” He smiled at her as he shoved his hands in his pockets. The action parted his jacket below the buttons, revealing the tight pull of his trousers across the tops of his thighs, and Harper’s knees weakened. “I couldn’t leave you here wrestling with your zipper all alone, now could I?”

She shook her head. “Absolutely not.”

“I figured I could offer my services, at the very least.”

“That’s very gentlemanly of you.”

He laid a hand across his chest. “But of course. That’s why I play rugby.”

Harper laughed. “Oh really?”

“Well, that’s why
I
do. I’m pretty sure guys like Lincoln Quinn only play it to get laid.”

“Oh, I don’t know,” she teased. “That seems to be working out for you quite well at the moment.”

His gaze dropped to her mouth, and Harper’s breath hitched. “I can’t complain.”

They stood staring at each other for long moments, Harper trying not to grin like a goofball at Dex.

“You want me to give you a hand with that thing out here,” he asked, finally breaking their strange inertia. “Or you want to take this inside?”

Harper gave herself a mental shake.
Pull yourself together woman.
“Sure.” She stepped around him and shoved her key in the door, throwing “Come in,” over her shoulder as she strode ahead of him, determined to act cool if it killed her.

Act nonchalant.

Like she had hot rugby players help her with her zip every day of the week. Twice on Sunday.

“You want a drink?” She threw her handbag on the central island countertop as she headed straight for the fridge, pulling it open. “I have some beer. There’s some coke, too,” she mused, bending slightly to paw through an array of half eaten food in some sudden manic nervousness. “Although, I think it’s diet. Or I can do a coffee.”

She straightened and looked over her shoulder. He was leaning casually against the island, the two buttons of his jacket undone, clearly checking out her ass. Heated awareness of him darted seductively from one side of her pelvis to the other, and her mouth turned as dry as day old toast.

“Or tea,” she ended lamely. Christ…next she’d be going all
Notting Hill
on him and offering him some bloody apricots in honey.

He shook his head as he lifted his gaze to her face. “I don’t want a drink.”

Good for him. She sure as hell could do with one. A big one. A vat, preferably, of something dangerously alcoholic that would still the frantic pulse hammering between her legs.

“I wanted to say something…”

“Oh?” Harper hoped she sounded nonchalant.

“About Sunday night.”

“
Oh
.”

“I’m sorry I left the way I did,” he apologised, shoving his hands back in his pockets. “Without waking you. I don’t usually stay the…”

He broke off, obviously deciding against that choice of words before boldly ploughing on.

“I mean, I don’t usually fall asleep…after. Like that. And I guess I panicked a little because you’re the first woman I’ve felt really comfortable around. You don’t expect me to be
on
around you, to be the rugby star, and I was really petrified I’d probably blown that. But I still should have woken you or left a note or something. I wasn’t thinking. I just needed to get out in case you woke and thought…”

He broke off again, a deep crease furrowing between his eyebrows as he shoved a hand through his hair, messing up the already artfully messy style. She loved that he felt comfortable around her. That she put him at ease. She supposed some women would consider that an insult to their femininity, but the truth was she felt comfortable around him, too.

Appreciated.

Secure in his desire for her, and not self-conscious as she so often was around men.

Harper smiled at his obvious discomfiture, and quirked an eyebrow. “In case I thought that you staying the night was a sign of your undying love and fidelity and you were about to pledge me your troth?”

He gave a short laugh, thick with irony, as he shifted uncomfortably. “Something like that.” He inspected the ground for a moment before he raised his gaze to her again, full of earnest intent. “I really like you, but I really,
really
need to concentrate on rugby at the moment.”

Wow. The guy had obviously twisted himself in knots over this. “It’s okay, Dex,” Harper said, shutting the fridge door and walking toward him, halting a couple of metres away. “I understand. And you don’t owe me any explanations. Stay the night, don’t stay the night. I’m not going to read
anything
into it, okay? If you want to hang out, then I’m around.
Your
call. I’m not going to boil your pet bunny or tell Facebook you have a small dick, I promise.”

“Good to know.” He laughed, and the crease between his eyebrows ironed out.

Harper sucked in a breath as it transformed his face, and he went from earnest and serious back to utterly fuckable again. Her nipples, bare beneath the overalls, brushed against the material, scrunching into tight points. Awareness tickled low and deep as if he had swiped his tongue along the sensitive skin that sloped from her hip bone to groin.

Oestrogen fogged her brain with primal demands.

“So,” she said, taking a step closer, tugging the tab he’d been periodically eyeing down with a loud
zzzzip
.

Dex stilled as his gaze zeroed in on her chest. “
Holy. Fuck.
”

Harper wasn’t sure how much the fabric gaped or how much Dex could see but she could feel the touch of cool air on the centre of her chest, and the intensity of his stare spoke volumes.

“I believe you were going to help me with this?”

He swallowed as he dragged his gaze north. “Your zipper seems more than fine to me.”

“You got me.” Harper shrugged knowing the motion would cause the fabric to gape even more. “I used it to shamelessly lure you here.”

“You’re so bad.” He grinned. “I don’t know
how
you live with yourself.”

“You’re right,” she murmured, taking the last two steps toward him slowly, until the front of her body was a whisker from the front of his. Their level gazes locked. “I may need to be punished.”