by Amy Andrews
‘Yep,’ she said, trying to sound boringly disinterested as she concentrated on her breathing.
Wendy, who was skipping on the other side, narrowed her eyes suspiciously. ‘Sounds like she knows him, knows him.’
Crap. Darcy didn’t mind her teammates knowing she had been in a relationship with Tony. There were enough people who had known them both as a couple in the echelons of the AFL for it not to come out sooner or later. She was just hoping she could have some control over that process.
Obviously not.
‘We used to live together.’
Genevieve stopped skipping. ‘What?’
‘It’s was a couple of years back. It’s over now.’
That was the most important take home as far as Darcy was concerned. That everyone knew it was over. That there’d be no favouritism. No pillow talk in either direction.
‘You go girl,’ Shayla said. ‘He’s hot.’
‘We’re not together anymore.’ Darcy felt the need to repeat it—just in case.
Wendy, who was skipping like she was born to it, didn’t even sound out of breath when she asked, ‘What happened?’
‘Just the usual.’
‘He cheated?’
Darcy startled at Genevieve’s matter-of-fact suggestion. ‘No... Jeez. What kind of men are you seeing?’
Genevieve grinned. ‘The female kind.’
‘Oh. Right.’ Darcy blinked. It hadn’t occurred to her that Genevieve was gay. But then people’s sexual orientation didn’t usually occur to her as a matter of course. ‘Well... what kind of women are you seeing?’
‘Not the staying kind.’
‘And here I thought it was just men who were bastards,’ Wendy muttered.
‘Nope.’ Genevieve shook her head. ‘It’s just as rough out there in girl town, trust me.’
‘You’ll be knocking the chicks back with a stick soon,’ Shayla said. ‘You’re going to be famous, baby.’
‘That’d be nice. I haven’t had sex in two months. I’m about to burst a boiler.’
Darcy snorted. ‘Try two years.’
It was out before she’d given it any thought but she didn’t expect the combined looks of horror. ‘Bloody hell,’ Wendy murmured, ‘That shit’s just not healthy. I hope you have some electronic assistance.’
All Darcy had was her right hand. But she wasn’t about to admit that among these women who were looking at her like they all knew how to take care of themselves in that department and what the hell was wrong with her? ‘A whole drawer of it,’ she lied making a mental note to do some online shopping as she reached her hundredth skip and threw her rope on the ground to perform another set of lunges.
A blur of movement from the crowd caught her eye and she zoomed in on Levi waving at her with a huge goofy grin. Of course he’d be here. Where else? Her heart, already pumping hard in her chest, skipped a beat or two as she grinned back and waved.
Wendy, who’d also dropped into a set of lunges, elbowed her. ‘Who’s that?’
The other women looked in the direction of Wendy’s gaze. ‘That’s Levi. He’s my flatmate.’
Wendy stared at her. ‘Your flatmate? You live with him?’
Darcy could see where she was going with this. ‘It’s purely platonic. We’re just friends.’
‘So... let me get this straight,’ Shayla mused. ‘You lived with coach hottie and currently live with man-bun hottie. And you haven’t had sex in two years. Are you doing something wrong?’
Warmth spread to Darcy cheeks that had nothing to do with the work-out. ‘We’re just friends,’ she repeated.
‘Does he have a girlfriend?’
‘No.’
Genevieve studied him for a moment. ‘He’s not gay, is he?’
‘No.’ Darcy was starting to get a little exasperated.
‘Why do you have a drawer full of vibrators when you can have him?’
Darcy hoped like hell Levi hadn’t developed a sudden sixth sense as the women all stared at him. ‘We’re friends.’ The muscles in her neck tightened. How on earth did they get here and could they please just stop talking about it? ‘And I’m fine with the vibrators.’
‘Are you using them right, because you seem kinda tense?’
She rolled her eyes at Genevieve whose grin told Darcy she was just teasing. But Darcy was tense and it had nothing to do with the lack of sex and everything to do with the fact that Levi was a friend and talking about him like this—objectifying him—caused her to squirm.
And get really hot in places she couldn’t attribute to exercise.
‘I’m thinking threesome.’ Shayla eyed both men in turn. ‘That’s my kind of man-wich.’
Oh for the love of... this was getting out of control. ‘I make it a rule never to get into bed with a guy who has better hair than me.’
The women laughed and Darcy relaxed, hoping her quip had been a circuit breaker.
‘It is rather glorious,’ Wendy agreed. ‘It’s like a shampoo commercial director’s wet dream.’
‘He does have beautiful hair.’ Genevieve sighed wistfully. ‘I’d almost go straight for a guy with hair like that.’
Darcy blinked. Bloody. Hell. She had a feeling she was going to come to love these women. Today was not that day. She only hoped they were this unstoppable on the field.
‘Alright, you lot, enough warming up.’ Tony left the sideline, jogging towards his players. ‘Let’s get into some drills.’
And for the first time in over two years, Darcy felt like kissing him.
***
Two weeks later, Levi was just settling in to watch some Netflix when he heard the key in the lock and the door opened to reveal Darcy. But not the King Gee and steel-capped boots Darcy.
Oh no.
This was a very sexy sophisticated version of Darcy in a figure-hugging, satiny, silver dress with a slit that stopped just short of showing panties, and strappy, spiky stilettos that she might as well have kicked straight into his groin.
She’d been at a Women in Aussie Rules photo shoot for some local glossy but currently looked like she’d never kicked a footy in her life. Hell, she looked like she’d never seen a footy in her life!
She groaned as she sagged against the door, using her weight to close it, kicking up first one foot then the other behind her, pushing off her shoes and groaning in relief.
The type of groan that went straight to his dick.
Levi gaped at her, actually wordless for the first time in his life. He would have risen were it not for the sudden urgent rise of his cock. He thanked God for the cushion he’d absently plonked on his lap while he’d flicked through the TV menu a couple of minutes ago.
‘What?’ She frowned at him, obviously annoyed as she leaned into the door for long moments, suddenly inches shorter. She fanned her toes rhythmically, then scrunched her feet up and released. Scrunched and released.
‘You look... I mean your clothes are...’ Oh for fuck’s sake. He couldn’t even get out a full sentence now?
He’d seen her in a dress before. And in heels. And make-up. But this? This was something else. Spending the afternoon at a photo shoot with a professional photographer with access to a killer wardrobe and a make-up artist was... transformative. It had been easy to ignore his unwanted sexual feelings when she dagged around the house in sloppy trackie daks, but in a dress that left nothing to the imagination... She was a lot harder to ignore.
He must still have his mouth open because she frowned at him, plainly not in a good mood. ‘It’s just a dress, Levi.’
That was not just a dress. It shimmered and moved, flowing like silk over her body, framing her hips and breasts and waist, hugging her thighs and showing a helluva lot of leg through that very high split.
That was the embodiment of every erotic dream he’d ever had. She looked like a sexy, sexy angel. And he was going to hell for thinking of a dozen ways he could corrupt her.
‘Photo shoot didn’t go well?’
‘It was fine.�
��
Any other woman he knew would jump at the chance to play dress-up for the day. Not Darcy. Her voice was unimpressed and she screwed up her face as she hobbled towards the couch. He scooted along as she collapsed on it, swinging her legs up and stretching them out as she dropped her head back on the arm, shutting her eyes. She extended her feet and fanned and unfanned her toes, almost brushing his quad with each movement.
His gaze trekked up her body—he couldn’t help it. He sure as shit couldn’t stop it. Not when the satin was so shiny and that slit so long. So high. Revealing acres of leg and the splendour of that shadowy area beyond the slit, hidden but welcoming.
Enticing.
As enticing as the flat of her abdomen and the firm rise of her breasts.
He swallowed. Hard. ‘Sore feet?’
If she were any other person, he’d reach out and massage them for her. He did know a thing or two about massage after all, and he knew he could make them feel better pretty quickly. But he’d deliberately never offered her any kind of massage, despite her numerous sports-related injuries over the years that could have benefited.
More importantly—she’d never asked. Even now, with feet that must be throbbing, she wasn’t asking.
Which was just as well because laying hands on Darcy was a monumentally stupid idea. Laying hands on Darcy in that dress, with the split revealing the creamy, pale skin high up on her thighs... that was dangerous. As was the thrum of desire heating his blood and pounding through his veins.
She sighed and he followed the slow, steady rise of her chest as she inhaled, obviously in a state of bliss now she was horizontal. ‘Stilettos are deathtraps for feet,’ she grumbled.
‘They’re terrible for feet.’ And, in his purely professional opinion, they were. Exceedingly bad. But he wouldn’t be male if he didn’t appreciate the spectacular things they could do to a pair of calves and an arse.
‘Beauty is pain. Apparently.’
She sounded weary as hell and Levi practically sat on his hands, ignoring the seductive wiggle of her toes. ‘You were longer than you thought?’
Her eyes fluttered open and she tilted her head forward, piercing him with her slanted cats-eye gaze. They were artfully made-up with green shadow and ringed with dark kohl, making them even more mesmerising. ‘It went for bloody hours. How do models stand it all day?’
‘I... don’t know?’
At the moment he didn’t know a single thing. There wasn’t one thought in his head other than that shadowy area beyond the split in her dress.
‘Crazy,’ she muttered, shaking her head.
The movement slid some hair forward over her shoulder and his gaze was drawn to it. It had been styled in a way that gave her that tousled just-out-of-bed look, sort of full and teased and a little on the messy side. She was wearing earrings too, the chandelier kind that flirted with her hair and her neck and made him want to nuzzle her there.
Darcy rarely wore any earrings at all. She didn’t wear rings, or bracelets or even a necklace. Just a fancy sports watch that calculated her daily exercise stats. She was a nobling woman. But when she did, she knew exactly how to hit his weak spot.
He just never knew he had so many until now.
‘What are you watching?’ she asked absently, turning her head to the side, setting those chandelier earrings a’swishing, brushing against the side of her neck, right where he’d like to put his mouth. ‘You weren’t going to watch the rest of Orphan Black without me, were you?’
She turned accusing eyes on him and he forced himself to lighten the mood. It was that or pass out from lack of blood to his big head.
‘As if.’ He returned her look with one of calm indifference, the exact opposite of what he was actually feeling. ‘Modelling makes you cranky.’
‘Tony said the same thing.’ She snuggled her head back against the arm again and shut her eyes.
Levi’s gut hardened to rock. Tony? ‘Tony? He was there?’
‘For a couple of hours. They wanted a pic with him and us in our uniforms and then in our glad rags. Bet they don’t make the men do ridiculous shit like that.’
Another time Levi might have laughed at her accurate statement but he hadn’t computed anything much past her confirmation that Tony had been there today.
No doubt in his fucking element.
She stretched a little then and moaned. ‘It actually feels like my feet are bruised. I hope I’m not a bloody cripple for training on Friday. I’ll be really shitty.’
‘Here. Give them to me.’ Levi told himself he was doing this for Darcy’s football career as he grabbed one of her feet and plonked it on his thigh, pulling her down the couch slightly. But that wasn’t the truth. Not the full truth anyway. He knew exactly what was behind the decision to firmly step over a line they’d not crossed before.
Tony fucking Cameron.
Her head shot up, her gaze locking with his, the green shadow, the smoky kohl, the glisten of gloss on her mouth giving her a sexy as fuck wide-eyed appearance. He’d never offered her this before. Hell, he’d never touched her so intimately before. His self-preservation instinct had been alive and well these past couple of years.
But tonight he’d been fully goaded into action and it was only her feet...
She opened her mouth like she might be going to object, like she was a nanosecond from pulling her foot away, but then he slid his fingers to her instep and pressed into the soft flesh with his thumbs and her eyes practically rolled back in her head.
‘Jesus.’ She dropped her head back onto the couch on a soft moan that wrapped its way right around his dick. He pressed deeper and she moaned again, shifting restlessly against the warm leather. ‘Bloody hell.’ Her voice was soft and breathy, sliding right between his ribs to wrap around his heart. ‘That’s the most delicious torture.’
Levi couldn’t agree more. Touching her foot when all he wanted to do was push his hands all the way up under her skirt and bury his face between her legs was agony. Especially as she moaned and sighed with every roll of his thumbs.
He’d be alright if he concentrated on the job. On the stroke of his fingers and the right amount of pressure and where to head to next.
His thumbs moved to her heel and on to her Achilles and she moaned louder. ‘Christ, yes.’
When he slid his fingers between her toes, he swore he heard her pant and she actually arched her back. He was lost then, his fingers massaging on autopilot as his gaze was drawn to the tight bow of her body. To the slit of her dress ridden even higher. To the twist of fabric over her belly. To the erect outline of nipples atop the thrust of breasts.
It was one hundred per cent R rated.
He should stop. Unhand her. Immediately. Offer to get her a bowl of hot water to soak her feet in, or suggest she sit in a bath. But... he couldn’t. For starters, she had two feet and it would be rude and downright cruel to neglect the other one. And for seconds, wild horses couldn’t have stopped him.
He’d offered to give her a foot massage and she was going to get the best damn foot massage he’d ever given.
And maybe this was his moment? Maybe she’d never looked at him in that way because he’d never done anything to let her know he’d be amenable to moving their relationship to another level? Because he’d been scrupulously platonic with her.
She’d be deadset against getting into anything right now that would distract from her footy career. He didn’t even have to ask her to know that. He knew how hard she’d worked and that Darcy was capable of a singular focus that could be truly terrifying. She’d probably never forgive him if he tried to complicate things for her.
But maybe if he laid the groundwork? Maybe if he flirted a little? Eased them in to it? Then at the end of the season he could declare himself and hope she’d be up for it as well?
It sounded like a plan to him. Which meant he had to stop gawping at her body and act like a goddamn professional.
Eyes on her feet, dumbarse.
Chapter 4
>
Darcy bit her lip and hoped like hell she wasn’t drooling as Levi’s strong, sure fingers took her to a state of being that bordered on sexual. It wasn’t right, she knew that. This was Levi.
Her friend. Her roomie.
The guy who’d been a shoulder to cry on when Tony left, a brilliant landlord and her biggest career cheerleader.
The one who believed in her the most.
And he was doing her a favour, diligently working on her second foot now, coaxing the knots out and massaging away all the sore spots. He did this all day at work and he was probably over it by the time five o’clock rolled around but he hadn’t hesitated in giving her some relief.
There wasn’t even anything remotely sexual about his touch, for crying out loud. It wasn’t soft and slow and sensuous. It wasn’t the kind of massage that promised to be more. It was firm and strong and deep—methodical. It was bordering on downright painful for crying out loud.
It was the very definition of hurts so good.
But here she was... fantasising about the man. About how good his fingers felt on her instep and how masterful they were and how she wanted his hand to travel higher and higher and see how masterful they really could be.
What the hell was wrong with her lately?
Why was she lying on this couch a quivering mess? Her heart beating loud in her ears, her breath thick and hot in her throat, her legs jammed together so tight every prod of his fingers almost caused her to orgasm.
Crap. Was it possible to climax from a foot massage? What was that stuff about chakras and meridian lines? Reflexology? Or something? Where each area of the foot was responsible for certain body parts and could be manipulated to create relaxation and healing.
Could it be manipulated sexually? Was Levi blindly, ignorantly tweaking the line that ran straight to her clitoris while she lay here and took it? Begged him silently for more? Because it sure as hell felt like it. And how freaking embarrassing would that be? Her body bowing and writhing in climax, him staring at her in horror?
She could never look at him over her rice bubbles and Milo ever again.
