Playing it Cool (Sydney Smoke Rugby)

by Amy Andrews

  He produced the goodies from behind his back. “Who likes chips?”

  Jace and Tabby’s eyes almost popped out of their heads. Anthea was all about whole food and calorie counting—the prospect of having a child with a weight problem was just too much for her vanity—so treats were rare.

  “Me, me, me,” they chimed simultaneously.

  And just like that, they fell under his spell, too.

  Harper had to think hard to remember a time when she enjoyed herself as much as she had today. The fact that Dex, like Harper, knew most of the dialogue in the film line-for-line won him major brownie points with the twins. And then he went and won all the brownie points by ordering the pizzas over the phone in a Darth Vader voice.

  Harper doubted she’d laughed this hard in a long time.

  They paused between movies to eat the pizzas. He asked them about their school and what their hobbies were, and Tabby was telling him about how she’d just started playing the saxophone when Jace interrupted with, “Are you Harper’s boyfriend?”

  Harper almost spat her mouthful of water all over the table then nearly choked trying to swallow it instead.

  “Of course not,” she said as soon as she could catch her breath. She shot a panicked look at Dex in case he thought they had heard the term from her. “I told you, we’re just friends.” She smiled almost maniacally at her little brother in an attempt to convey how friendly they both were.

  “Like you and Em?” he asked.

  A little hand clamped around Harper’s heart. Jace, his face earnest, was so like their father sometimes. “Exactly like that,” Harper nodded.

  If she and Em were playing strip Battlefront and getting each other off at work.

  “Isn’t that right, Dex?” she said, nodding at him encouragingly.

  Dex, a small smile on his lips, raised a sardonic eyebrow but joined in, saying, “Exactly.”

  Jace opened his mouth as if he was going to ask more questions, but Harper had absolutely no intention of answering any of them. “Who wants ice cream?” she asked, standing and making a big deal out of cleaning up the pizza boxes and paper towels she’d used as disposable plates. “I’ve got some rocky road in the freezer especially for you guys.”

  Actually, she bought it for Em’s impromptu visits, because that’s what besties did—enabled their friend’s ice cream habit. She’d certainly not planned to feed it to her brother and sister tonight. Anthea would have a pink fit. But desperate times required desperate measures.

  There were cries of, “Me, me, me,” and Harper breathed a sigh of relief.

  …

  Less than ten minutes and four bowls loaded with ice cream later, they were all sitting on the couch watching the opening to The Phantom Menace. It wasn’t Dex’s favourite of the franchise, but it was fun watching it through the eyes of those who hadn’t seen it before.

  He glanced over the tops of the twins’ heads at Harper. Even with the kids sprawled between them, he was aware of her and that bloody dress on a primal level. It swished when she walked and rustled when she moved, which was frickin’ distracting as all hell.

  He hadn’t come over for that. Sincerely. Her eleven-year-old siblings were here for crying out loud. He’d come because he plain old liked her. And enjoyed her company. Not to mention he liked kids, and Star Wars even more so. It had been a no-brainer for him.

  But then she’d answered the door in that dress, with her shiny lips and her wavy hair all loose around her face and shoulders, and he remembered how into her he was, how much her curvy body turned him on. He remembered the feel of her ass in his hands and the way she moaned his name as she came.

  And he’d been excruciatingly aware of her ever since.

  Compartmentalising Harper and his desire for her was easy when they were apart. He was so programmed to put rugby first that pushing everything else aside was a matter of habit. But rugby, apparently, took a backseat inside her townhouse.

  Today, every shift, every wriggle, every time she stood to get something, or laughed, or opened her mouth to speak to Jace or Tabby, his desire burned hot and bright and he wished like hell those two cute, funny kids were far the hell away.

  Awareness of her prickled from his skull to the base of his spine on a continuous loop.

  He wanted her on her back. He wanted her naked. He wanted her legs twined around his waist.

  Not touching her was torture, and every time he forgot and reached for her and had to stop himself, the pressure in his balls cranked up a little bit more.

  Still, despite the sexual frustration, being here with her still beat the hell out of the usual way they celebrated a Saturday night victory, hitting the town on a Sunday night with Linc and some of the other single guys from the team. Which meant too much booze, and a parade of rugby bunnies after selfies and a quickie in a toilet stall if one of the guys was so inclined.

  Sometimes even a strip club.

  Dex shuddered. He hated strip clubs—and the lap dances that Linc loved so much and always tried to buy him. Skinny women in G-strings with pneumatic boobs gyrating around, eyes blank as they pretended it was the best job in the world.

  That was normally the part of the night where he bailed and went home.

  Mostly he just hated always being on. Being Dexter Blake, Sydney Smoke front-rower. Aware that people recognised him, and that made him a target. Fans were usually pretty good. They just wanted an autograph or to impart some friendly advice, but there was always someone who wanted to pick a fight.

  And for damn sure someone somewhere always had a mobile phone, snapping off surreptitious pictures and video, uploading them without permission to social media and watching them go viral.

  Linc loved that kind of shit, but Dex had never been into the sideshow that was fame. It was all such a trap, and he’d worked too hard to get where he was to be distracted by any of it.

  Not to mention how fake it all was. With so many sycophants hanging around, how were young guys coming up through the ranks supposed to know who was genuine and who wasn’t?

  It was getting harder and harder for Dex to tell, and he’d been around for a while now.

  Harper was genuine, though. He rolled his head to the side to watch her. She had her arm around Tabby, her hand absently stroking the top of her little sister’s head.

  Harper Nugent was the real deal. 100 percent diamond.

  Nothing cubic about her.

  And he’d known that from the beginning. From her reluctance to get involved with him in the first place, to her lack of artifice, to how easy it felt sitting here on her couch, Harper had been a breath of fresh air.

  It felt good just being around her.

  Being with a woman and not feeling any pressure was a revelation. Dex too often felt he was expected to act a certain way. To talk rugby all night, to throw a lot of cash around at a flashy restaurant, to be outrageously blokey.

  But not with Harper. She didn’t seem to have any expectations. She certainly hadn’t asked for anything. She’d been happy to keep things low key and hang around with him outside the glitz and glamour of rugby. There was no pressure with her to perform, to be something he wasn’t.

  And that was way more seductive than a rugby bunny dropping to her knees in a toilet stall.

  Chapter Nine

  Jace and Tabby groaned and complained when the movie ended, stalling their little hearts out to stay a bit longer.

  Dex shamelessly curried their favour by prolonging things with a batch of hot chocolate he’d whipped up on her stove, but eventually Harper called it a night.

  “Come on, you two,” she said, gathering their mugs and dumping them in the sink.

  “Can’t we stay the night?” Jace pleaded.

  “No. It’s school tomorrow,” she said. “You know the rules. Now, quick sticks, I promised your mum you wouldn’t be too late. Go get ready and I’ll drive you home.”

  “I can take them, if you like,” Dex said. “I’m going anyway, and they’re on m
y way.” He hadn’t planned on leaving until much later, but if Harper had to drop her siblings home, it made much more sense for the guy who was leaving anyway to do it.

  “Oh yes, pleeeease,” Tabby said, sitting up in her chair and clapping her hands, then clasping them together as if in prayer as she looked at her sister.

  “Please, Harper, please!”

  Dex laughed as the twins pleaded in unison, with that strange twin thing they had going on. They may not be identical, but he’d noticed tonight how often they’d finished each other’s sentences.

  She blinked. Dex wasn’t sure if it was to do with his offer or how quickly the kids had gone from begging to stay to pleading to go. “Oh…I don’t know.” She glanced at him, a tiny crease mark between her eyebrows. “I don’t want to put you out. You don’t have to do that.”

  Dex shrugged. “I know. But it’s no bother.”

  “Pleeeease, we’ll be reeeeally good,” Tabby added for an extra dollop of emotional blackmail.

  “Okay sure.” She smiled at him, and Dex was grateful for the solid weight of the island bench at his hip holding him up as a big hand squeezed hard around his gut. “Thanks. I appreciate it.”

  He smiled back, locking his gaze with hers. “My pleasure.”

  Which wasn’t entirely true. Being with her tonight had been the most agonising mix of pleasure and pain.

  Her lips twitched, but she didn’t look away from him as she said, “Okay, you two, you know the drill. PJs, slippers, and teeth. First one back here ready to go with all their stuff gets to sit in the front with Dex.”

  The twins took off like a pair of cartoon roadrunners. “I hope you don’t mind,” she apologised. “They respond best to a bit of healthy competition.”

  Dex couldn’t have cared less. All he cared about was that they were alone for the first time in hours, and he wasn’t going to waste an entire second. He strode across the kitchen in three paces, crowding Harper back against the sink and kissing her like it was his last hour on Earth.

  He half expected her to protest, to push him away in case the twins came back and sprang them making out, but she moaned and clutched his arms, bunching the fabric of his sleeves, murmuring, “Yes, God yes,” against his mouth as she kissed him back.

  The roughness in her voice and the surge of his cock against the confines of his fly emboldened Dex, and he slid a hand to the back of her thigh, inching up the slippery material of her dress. He groaned when his palm finally hit bare skin and pushed under the fabric, heading north until he was squeezing a handful of her ass.

  “God,” he panted, “I’ve been wanting to get under this skirt all bloody afternoon.”

  And he kissed her again, sliding his thigh between her legs, pressing the thick wedge of it against the centre of her. She moaned and he pressed harder, the kiss suddenly exploding, careening out of control, their heads twisting and turning, their breathing laboured as each fought to keep up with the other.

  Thankfully, a loud thump somewhere in the direction of the bathroom dragged them out of their sexual bubble, and they broke apart, his hand falling from her ass, his thigh unjamming itself from between her legs.

  Dex shook his head to clear the thick fog of lust demanding he shove his thigh right back where it was and pick up where they left off.

  “What was that?” Harper called out, her mouth still wet from their kiss.

  “Just tripped over,” Jace yelled.

  She frowned but didn’t have time to ask anything more as both the twins raced into the kitchen, Tabby just ahead of him.

  “Yes!” she crowed. “I bags the front.”

  Jace looked like he was about to complain, but Dex got in ahead of him. “You can ride in the front next time, buddy.”

  Harper glanced at him, startled, her expression clearly saying Next time? He grinned and shrugged. Why not?

  “Say thank you and good-bye to your sister,” he said, in his best Darth Vader voice.

  Jace and Tabby laughed, but they enthusiastically hugged and kissed Harper. Dex was left in no doubt that not only did they love their big sister as much as she loved them, but they obviously thought she’d been at the head of the line when the awesome sauce was being dished out.

  Dex couldn’t have agreed more. Harper was awesome to the power of infinity.

  At almost nine on Sunday night it was only a ten-minute drive to the twin’s house, and it was a fun ride. Jace and Tabby kept giving him quotes to say in his Darth Vader voice, and they were all still laughing as the front door swung open.

  A petite, immaculately coiffed woman in her early fifties opened the door. “Hey Mum,” Jace and Tabby said in unison, hugging their mother in turn.

  “Hello darlings,” she said, eyeing Dex as she accepted hugs and noisy kisses. “And who’s this?”

  “Harper’s boyfriend,” Tabby said casually as she and Jace entered the house.

  Dex blinked, as the older woman said, “Boyfriend?”

  “She said he was just a friend,” Jace added for clarification, “but we saw them kissing in the kitchen.”

  Dex blinked again. He thought about how far up Harper’s skirt his hand had been buried and wondered just how much the two eleven-year-olds had seen.

  “Boyfriend?” Anthea repeated, doubt colouring her voice, clearly having trouble wrapping her head around the concept.

  His natural instinct to correct Tabby’s preposterous statement—he didn’t do girlfriends—warred with the knowledge that the reason he and Harper were seeing each other in the first place was for her stepbrother and mother to think they were romantically involved.

  He put his hand out. “Hi. I’m Dex. You must be Anthea.”

  “Dexter Blake?” The male voice drifted from somewhere behind Anthea, and Dex looked over her shoulder just as Chuck Nugent appeared. The twins had already called out their thanks and good-byes as they’d wandered into the house, so he was alone with Harper’s two nemeses. “Hey, Chuck,” he said, dredging up a polite smile.

  “Nice to see you.” Chuck stuck out his hand and pumped Dex’s, his smile obsequious. “Come in and have beer,” he said, standing aside.

  “Oh, no thanks.” Dex shook his head. “I have to be going.”

  Chuck took the rejection on the chin. “So…” he said enthusiastically, “you and Harper, huh?”

  It was a good act but Dex was used to spotting fakes, and he could see the slight moue of distaste bending Chuck’s mouth out of shape. Before Dex could reply, Anthea was lining up for a shot, too.

  “Are you and Harper actually…seeing each other?” Unlike her son, Anthea didn’t make any attempt to hide her incredulity.

  Dex’s ire stirred at the utter meanness of the question. He remembered the text from the restaurant, and the same anger he’d felt then boiled in his gut. If anything, it was worse, more acute now he’d witnessed Anthea’s lack of compassion face-to-face.

  “That’s right,” he nodded. “For a couple of weeks now.”

  “Oh.” Anthea looked quite taken aback by the news. “I wouldn’t have thought she was your…type.”

  Dex tightened his jaw, resentful that Harper was still being demeaned by people who were supposed to love her, and that he’d been stereotyped, as well. The urge to punch a hole in the nearby door rode him hard, and he stretched out his traps on one side of his neck then the other to dissipate the impulse.

  After all, there was more than one way to call someone on their crap.

  “Oh yes.” He nodded. “She’s exactly my type. I’m completely smitten. But please,” he said, leaning in conspiratorially, encouraging both Chuck and Anthea to lean in, too. “Don’t say anything to her, because I’m pretty sure she’s just using me for sex.”

  A soft gasp escaped Anthea’s mouth as the colour drained from her face. Had she been chewing on anything, Dex was pretty sure she’d be choking on it about now.

  “Anyway,” he said to the two stunned faces, “I’d best be getting on. Lovely to meet you, Anthea.” Ab
out as lovely as a dose of food poisoning, and just as toxic. “See you around, Chuck.”

  Dex didn’t linger for a good-bye, or even to see if they would recover from his deliberately provocative statement. He just strode away with only one thing on his mind.

  He had to see Harper.

  Twelve minutes later, Dex pulled up at her place and was knocking on her door. She was still in that dress, but she could have been wearing a sack as far as he was concerned. He just wanted to hold her.

  “Dex?” She frowned at him, clearly not expecting him to have come back, although the slight tremor in her voice did betray her excitement that he had.

  “I don’t think I’m going to be invited to any Nugent family BBQ’s in a hurry.”

  Harper laughed, folding her arms as she settled against the doorframe. “Oh no. What happened? Did you punch Chuck?”

  Dex snorted. “No. But I may have…implied you were using me for sex.”

  She blinked. “Implied?”

  “Well…stated is probably more accurate.”

  She laughed harder. “What the hell?”

  “What can I say?” He shrugged. “They were pissing me off.”

  She fluttered a hand over her heart and gave an exaggerated sigh. “My hero.”

  His gaze fell to where her hand nestled against the roundness of her breast. She was so soft there. When Dex returned his attention to her face she was watching him closely.

  “Thank you for defending my honour.”

  He chuckled. “By besmirching it?”

  “Meh,” she said dismissively. “Whatever works.”

  They grinned at each other for long moments. “Do you need to go home?” she asked.

  Dex hesitated. He should. Griff had organised some ex-military guy who specialised in survival training to do some sessions with them. For some unknown reason these started at four in the morning—some crap about mental conditioning—and tomorrow was their first session.