Playing it Cool (Sydney Smoke Rugby)

by Amy Andrews

  And he’d done that to her.

  “Fuck,” he whispered, his heartbeat galloping as emotion erupted in his chest and fogged his senses. He swooped down to claim her mouth. To taste it. To lick it. To devour every swollen millimetre of it. His fingers ploughed deep into her hair, and she moaned against his lips as he kissed her harder, hyperextending her neck in his greedy demand for more.

  “Lay back,” he panted, breaking away finally.

  “Condom?” She was panting, too.

  He nodded. “In my wallet. I’ll get it. You…” He reached down and pinged the side seam of her underwear against the flesh of her hip. “Get out of those.”

  Dex turned away, groping for his jeans on the floor, the sounds of Harper squirming around on the couch behind messing with his fine motor control. He located his wallet quickly and grabbed a condom. The foil packet slipped out of his hands twice, and he cursed it under his breath.

  In rugby, Dex was known worldwide for his sure, safe hands. Someone threw him a ball and he never let go of it—not even in rainy conditions that made grip nigh on impossible. But right now—as he dropped the condom for the third time—a small square foil packet was absolutely defeating him.

  He steadied himself and took a slow deep breath, trying to still the fine tremble of his hands and clear some of the sticky fog of desire from his brain.

  It worked. He grabbed hold of the condom, ripped it open, and had himself sheathed in seconds. Which was just as well because when he turned back to the couch, what he saw just about caused him to lose his load on the spot—a buck naked Harper on her knees, leaning over the high arm of the couch on bent elbows, heavy breasts swinging free. The glow from the television accentuated her tan, the river of hair flowing down her back, and the round globes of her ass pushed enticingly in his direction.

  She was looking over her shoulder at him. “Is this okay?”

  Dex blinked. Okay? She couldn’t have been any more okay had she been dipped in marshmallow and rolled in coconut.

  “Uhh…” At least Dex hoped it came out as that, instead of the uhmphgng it had sounded like in his head.

  “Well?” Harper smiled, arching her back as she angled herself up onto the palms of her hands and wiggled her ass. “Are you bringing your spoils over here, or am I going to have to start without you?”

  That pulled Dex out of his inertia and had him striding the two paces to the couch. “As tempting as it is to stand here and watch you getting off”—he sunk a knee down on the sofa’s edge—“I need to be inside you more.”

  The front of his thigh fit along the back of hers as Dex stroked a hand up the furrow of her spine. She shivered as he pushed her hair aside and it slid over the shoulder closest to the couch.

  “You’re beautiful,” he murmured, brushing his mouth up the path his hand had just taken, from the small of her back to the first notch of her nape. Goose bumps buzzed his lips, and she moaned long and low when he swiped his tongue up the side of her neck.

  “You make me feel beautiful,” she gasped, reaching both hands behind her to plough into the back of his hair and anchor his front to her back.

  Her chest opened up and her breasts thrust out enticingly as his other knee hit the couch. Their thighs nestled together as the rock hard length of his cock found the cleft of her buttocks. Dex ground against her as he slid both his hands up her stomach and over her ribs to claim her breasts.

  “Fuck, I love these,” he groaned in her ear, still grinding as he squeezed the lush flesh in his hands and pincered the hard peaks of her nipples between thumb and forefinger. She bucked and cried out, and he taunted them some more just to hear the noises she made—the breathy pants, the whimpery moans—and know that it was he who caused them.

  “Dex…please,” she begged on a hoarse moan, her hips rotating in an agitated rhythm to the slow grind of his cock.

  She sounded as desperate as he felt.

  “Shhh,” he soothed, his hands falling from her breasts and feathering down her body as he eased away from her. Her hands fell from his hair as his trailed to her back, urging her gently down over the arm of the couch again, his thighs bracketing hers. She went eagerly, falling onto her elbows as if she could no longer keep herself upright.

  God, she was magnificent. Her rich brown hair tumbling over the straight plains of back, the hourglass curve of her waist flaring out to the buxom line of her hips, her ass jammed into the cradle of his pelvis and perfectly splayed.

  Her tiny waist leading to the rounded flesh of her butt was dizzying. He grabbed a cheek in both hands and kneaded.

  Vigorously.

  The arch of her back, her answering moan almost brought him undone.

  “I want to…” Dex sucked in a breath. God, he didn’t know where to start. He vibrated from toes to scalp with the need to possess, his heart galloping in his chest. He wanted to kiss it, lick it. Bite it. He wanted to grip it hard as he hammered into her. He wanted to feel it move and clench with every thrust and slam of his body.

  He shifted slightly to rub his cock up and down the slick folds of her sex. She gasped this time, rotating her hips.

  “Yes, yes. Please, Dex. God, yes.”

  The urgency in her voice, the throbbing in his groin, the roaring in his blood reached a crescendo that could not be denied, and Dex swiftly notched himself at her entrance and thrust.

  Her head reared back, and they both cried out as he pushed high and hard inside her. Neither moved for long moments. Dex just breathed, absorbing the tumble of sensations before primal instinct kicked in demanding more.

  “Christ,” he murmured, sagging against her back and planting kisses down her neck. He wondered if she could feel the frantic punch of his heart. “You feel good.”

  “You feel big,” she panted, amusement lacing her voice as she flexed her pelvis a little.

  “Jesus.” He gripped her hips, holding her tight against him as her internal muscles massaged his cock. “Do that again.”

  She laughed and undulated muscles up and down the length of him again. “Yoga,” she said. “Great for the pelvic floor.”

  He laughed. “You want to know what else is good for the pelvic floor? Orgasms.” And he withdrew his cock almost all the way before sliding in again.

  “More fun than yoga,” Harper moaned as she pushed back, inviting him in deeper.

  Dex followed. He couldn’t not. And then there was no more talking as the spark caught and the rhythm of their bodies took over. Instead, he tuned into the saw of his breath and the wash of blood through his ears and the unbearable ache in his balls. Into the incoherent noises falling from her mouth and the delicious tightness of her and the glorious shift and clench of her ass with each flex of his hips.

  But soon it wasn’t enough. He needed to touch her, all over. He needed more skin on skin. He needed his mouth on hers. Not missing a beat, he slid his hands from her hips around to her belly and then up—up her stomach, over her ribs, urging her against him as he thrust in and out, rocking her body with each jerk of his hips.

  Finally his hands found her swaying breasts, and she gasped as he cupped them. “Yes,” she moaned as his fingers taunted the nipples to stiff points.

  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.”<
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  “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.