Game for Love

by Bella Andre

  He didn't ask against again, he simply kept her trapped in the dark heat of his gaze.

  And he waited...waited for her to realize that she was less shocked by his command than she was by the impossible excitement that swamped her at the thought of moving into the oh-so-vulnerable position.

  Her limbs were too shaky for her to even try to move in a sensual manner, but when she finally got into position, resting her weight on her palms and her knees and shins, and looked over her shoulder at Cole, he was looking at her as though she were--

  "A miracle. You're a goddamned miracle."

  The look in his eyes, the reverence in his words didn't just make her wet, didn't just make her ache for his touch.

  It made her heart pound harder, swell bigger.

  It made her fall deeper than she should.

  And it made her get way too close to the one thing that would rip her apart and tear her previously fine life to shreds when their temporary marriage ended.

  Thankfully, there was no way for her thoughts to spin any further toward the danger zone, not when he was stealing them away with the firm press of the toy's head against her folds.

  Sliding easily into her wetness, it felt so good that she had to arch into it, had to tilt her head back to try to take in enough air to fuel the desperate need taking her over.

  "I wish you could see how beautiful your ass looks, so round and soft and sweet."

  His lips moved over her bottom and even as his kisses there shocked her, especially when she felt his teeth lightly score her skin, she whimpered her pleasure.

  "I knew watching you take this would be good, Anna," he murmured as his mouth moved down over the curve where her bottom met her thigh.

  She gasped as he licked at the seam of incredibly sensitive skin, bucking herself even harder into his hand, the heel of his palm landing hard and heavy against her aching clit with every thrust of the toy.

  "But I had no idea it would be this good."

  She could feel the heat of his eyes on her pussy, on the wet clench of her muscles against the toy.

  "Nothing has ever been this good, baby."

  He moved before she could react, sliding his head beneath her open thighs, his tongue reaching out to lave her clit, his free hand pulling her down onto his mouth.

  She came that quickly, her climax a lightning bolt that ran from her clit to the tip of her toes, the top of her head, the tips of her fingers. Even her earlobes tingled. And all the while, Cole's tongue on her clit was driving her crazy. All the while, he never lost his rhythm with the decadent, sinful toy in his hand. All the while, she was gasping her pleasure into the pillow, grinding herself down onto his face, onto the wonderful pressure of the toy inside her.

  And then the toy was gone, making a loud thud as he threw it across the room. Cole slid out from under her and came around her back, covering her hips with his, her back against his chest. Thank God he held her up as he drove into her, taking her in a position she'd never let another man take, with her up on her hands and knees, her breasts in his hands, his mouth kissing, sucking, inhaling the skin along her neck and shoulders and back, his hard flesh driving, stretching her open as far as she could go.

  She'd never heard sounds like the ones coming out of her mouth as he drove into her. But it wasn't a one-way street, wasn't a world where he put her where he wanted her and she gave him pleasure despite herself.

  No, it was the exact opposite.

  Anna was taking at least as much pleasure from Cole as she was giving to him. She pushed back into his hard shaft, into the rock-hard muscles of his thighs and tight hips, with everything she had, used up every last ounce of energy to find her way back over an even higher peak than the one she'd just crested barely moments before.

  "Come again for me, baby."

  The raw command came with the sudden press of rough, calloused fingers over her clit and this second unexpected hit of extreme pleasure had her crying out with what was left of her voice. Her entire body exploded around his, black spots appearing in her vision as Cole roared out her name, his out-of-control thrusts pushing her flat into his mattress, his fingers never once losing ground on her pulsating clit, wet with her arousal and his come. But even after she came down from the heady pulses of her climax, she loved the way Cole continued to drive into her, his cock still hard as steel against her swollen, sensitive inner walls, as he continued to stimulate her clit.

  It should have been impossible--her body couldn't possibly sustain this level of pleasure, could it? --but before she knew it, she was right back in the place she thought she'd just left behind, on top looking over the edge.

  "Again, sweetheart. One more time. For me."

  His thrusts were more measured now, his touch more concentrated on the stiffening bud between her legs. But it was the warmth, the adoration, the sheer need in his tone that had her crying out one more time.

  Holding her steady until she rode out the astonishing waves of pleasure, Cole shifted his weight slightly off the side, just enough to cover her still without crushing her.

  Anna's mind worked to right itself, but Cole's nearness had always made clear thinking difficult. More so now than ever before. No matter how she tried, she couldn't think past--no, couldn't ignore the question that had been there since his first kiss in the club: Who was she letting herself become?

  And was there any way she would ever be able to go back to the woman she'd been before Cole?

  "Sweet Anna."

  He moved onto his back and effortlessly lifted her so that she lay across him rather than the mattress. She relaxed into him, utterly sated now, and realized with a small smile against his chest that they were no longer strangers. Two days of almost constant togetherness meant that she could recognize the sounds of desire and arousal, anger and frustration, in his voice. And now, the way he almost dropped the last syllable of her name as exhaustion took him toward sleep.

  He pressed a soft kiss onto her hair. "You're the best thing that's ever happened to me."

  His sweet words were on the verge of being slurred and she wasn't surprised when his breathing became slow and even. Just as she wasn't surprised by the truth staring her in the face as she lay there with his heart beating steadily beneath her palm.

  There was no going back from the way she felt about this man.

  Not just because they'd made love without protection twice in a row and she might have already conceived their child. Not just because being with Cole made her happier than she could ever remember being. Not just because he'd spent every minute of their short relationship cherishing her, worshiping her. Not just because of his fierce love for his grandmother.

  No. It was all so much simpler than that.

  Cole was the key. The key to the prison in which she'd been locked her whole life.

  In two days, he'd managed to not only set her body free.

  He'd set her heart free, too.

  And as Anna reached for the covers and pulled them over their naked bodies, she knew she wasn't just losing the fight to keep her heart from her husband...she was chucking it onto the field with both hands.

  Chapter Fourteen

  "Now that's a pretty sight for a Monday morning."

  Cole stepped into the shower just as Anna was rinsing the shampoo out of her hair. Even with her eyes closed, her body instantly responded to his nearness.

  "Let me do that for you." He moved behind her and his hands went to her hair, lightly massaging her scalp as the warm water washed the suds down her back.

  He hadn't been in the bed when she woke up and she'd instantly missed him. But the numbers on the alarm clock had her rushing into the bathroom to get ready for work.

  When he turned her around in his arms and kissed her all the way awake, late or not, she couldn't keep her hands off his hard muscles.

  She stopped at his biceps. "You're bigger than you were before."

  "It's always like that after I lift weights."

  "Oh." She couldn't keep t
he murmur of appreciation for his incredible, ridiculously perfect body to herself.

  His hands ran down the sides of her spine before cupping her bottom. "Other things are bigger now too. Wanna see?"

  Oh yes, she really did. "I need to hurry and get dressed or I'm going to be late for school."

  Still, even knowing she didn't have time to do anything more than throw her clothes on at that point--blow drying and makeup weren't in the cards today--she couldn't stop herself from pressing her lips to his big, broad chest and licking across a nipple.

  "What will happen if you're late?"

  His hands roamed from her hips to her breasts--and the already slick flesh between her thighs.

  "My first graders will worry that something happened to me."

  His hands paused on their trip across her erogenous zones. "Those kids owe me big time for this." When she didn't immediately move away, he said, "You'd better go before I change my mind, sweetheart."

  Her body throbbing with unsatisfied desire, she had to force herself to step out of the shower and grab a towel.

  She was surprised when he emerged sixty seconds later, threw on some clothes, and picked up his keys. "Ready whenever you are."

  "Wait a minute. If you work on Sundays, shouldn't you get today off?"

  "Most guys do, but as defensive captain I need to look at game tapes while it's still fresh." He leaned against the door, twirling the keys around one finger as he watched her put on her shoes. "So, where am I taking you?"

  She looked up at him in surprise. "You don't have to take me to school. I usually take the bus."

  His grin made her heart beat faster. "Not too many bus stops in this neighborhood."

  She frowned. "I hadn't thought about it."

  Clearly. Of course, not having a plan to get to her job on Monday morning was only one of a hundred things she hadn't given any thought to when she'd agreed to marry Cole in Las Vegas on Friday night.

  "You saw my office, Anna. Now I'd like to see yours."

  He called his grandmother from the car's built-in speakers to check on her, and this time Anna said a quick hello, too. She smiled all the way through town, right until they turned the corner to her school.

  "Sorry, Grandma. I'll have to call you back later." Clicking off the phone, he said, "Damn it. They shouldn't be here."

  Anna craned her neck. "Who's here?"

  "The press."

  She put her hands in her still damp hair. "I look horrible."

  "No way. You're the prettiest thing I've ever seen."

  A fake husband didn't have to say things like that to his fake wife. Just as he didn't have to touch her the way he did, or give her so much pleasure that just thinking about all the things he'd done could have heated her up in a snowstorm.

  Knowing she was blushing from his compliment, she clarified. "While I know they want pictures of you, not me, I'm really afraid I'll be late if we have to run into them now. There's a back entrance, just around that corner."

  He frowned, but made a quick right turn before they were seen. "I don't like dropping you off on a street corner."

  His clear concern was very sweet, and definitely deserved a kiss. "You're a very sweet man, Cole."

  "Good thing my boss doesn't agree with you," he grumbled against her mouth, but she knew he appreciated her words by the gentle way he kissed her back.

  Working to catch her breath, she was grabbing her bag and clicking the door open when she felt his hand on hers.

  "What time should I pick you up?"

  Warmed by the fact that he wanted to go out of his way to come get her--her school was on the opposite side of town from both his house and the stadium--she said, "Again, very sweet.

  But on Mondays, after I meet with the other K through 2 teachers, my friend Virginia usually gives me a ride. I should be home no later than six."

  Seeing the way his eyes warmed at the way she'd naturally called his house home, hope swelled inside her chest again. Maybe their fake marriage could turn into a real one in the not so distant future. She went out on a limb by giving him another kiss.

  "I had a great weekend with you, Cole."

  "Only great?" He nipped at her lips, teasing her as much with his mouth as he did with the question.

  "No," she said softly. "It was phenomenal."

  And as she jogged away from the car toward the elementary school campus, making it just in time for the bell, she realized she still couldn't stop smiling.

  Because of Cole.

  *

  "Miss Davis, my mommy said we should call you Mrs. Taylor now. Why did you have to change your name?" "What's it like to be famous?"

  "Can you have Cole sign this for me and my big brother?"

  Anna was suddenly hard-pressed to keep smiling. Okay, so she was getting slightly more comfortable with the fact that she'd fallen head over heels for a man she hadn't known last Thursday. But everything that came with him...frankly, she wasn't sure when she'd get used to it.

  Some people were made for fame. Some definitely weren't.

  It was pretty darn clear which check box her mark belonged in.

  Knowing it was perfectly natural for her students to be excited about the news of her marriage, she carefully answered each and every one of their questions. Somehow it got to be recess. After she let her kids out to play for fifteen minutes, in lieu of her usual cup of coffee in the teacher's lounge, she was about to close the classroom door when a well-manicured hand pulled it open.

  "Anna. Congratulations."

  Biting back a sigh that she wasn't going to get the tiny bit of quiet time she desperately needed to get her head on straight, Anna accepted her principal's congratulations.

  "I've been thinking," Celeste Manning began, and Anna forced herself to keep smiling, even as her gut told her to be wary. "As you know, we've really had some trouble getting the community to contribute to our fundraiser this year, what with the current economic climate. But, that was before I found out we have a celebrity in the Cougar school family."

  Anna couldn't imagine Cole at one of their little school fundraisers.

  "I'm sure my husband would really love to help the school out, but--"

  Celeste's clapping hands cut Anna off mid-sentence. "Wonderful. I have to hurry back to my desk to let not only our parents, but also everyone in the city know that we will be auctioning off a special dinner with Cole Taylor."

  Anna gripped her boss's wrist before she got away. "Celeste, you don't understand. He's very busy."

  "He couldn't possibly be too busy for his wife. Besides, our phone lines have been clogged all day with calls from the press. At least now I'll have something to say to them that will benefit our school." Celeste glanced down at her wrist and Anna released her. "Although I do have to say, we all feel rather taken by surprise. You should have let us know you were engaged. We would have thrown you a party with cake."

  Cake.

  They would have fed her cake.

  Anna could barely hold in her laughter until she got the door closed. And if it was slightly tinged with hysteria, well then, at least she had the rest of recess to get ahold of herself.

  *

  Before he went to the tape room, Cole stepped into Julie's on-site PR office, knowing she often started her day at the stadium before moving to her office across from the Bay Bridge. "We have a problem."

  Julie frowned as he told her about the paps waiting outside Anna's school. "Fortunately, Cole, they aren't legally allowed on a school campus."

  "She feels trapped." And he hated seeing that fear come back into Anna's pretty eyes.

  "Of course she does. Marrying an Outlaw is definitely not for the fainthearted." Julie pinned him with one of her trademark no-bullshit gazes, always a little strange on such a classically attractive face. "Look, Cole, I know you wanted to keep your relationship private, but the fact is, if you want them off your back, you're going to have to give them something."

  The thought of exposing Anna, his swe
et, innocent Anna, to the craziness of fame made his gut churn. "No."

  "I'm not talking about a press conference. One interview." She held up her hand to stop him from telling her where to shove her suggestion. "I'll handpick the journalist. Trust me, she'll be thrilled to get the scoop on the surprise marriage of the season."

  "Anna never asked for this."

  "Speaking from personal experience, loving an Outlaw has always been worth the price that sometimes needs to be paid."

  Cole knew he hadn't done a damn thing in his life to deserve a good, sweet woman like Anna--especially with the bonus that she'd turned out to be a wildcat in bed. But despite the way he couldn't stop thinking about her, couldn't stop touching her--despite how good just being with her made him feel--he had to keep reminding himself that there was no way she was going to fall in love with him.

  Unlike Julie, who was willing to make sacrifices in the name of love for her husband, Anna wasn't in love with the man who'd tricked her into marrying him. She didn't know about his past, about the fact that while he might be acting sweet around her now, he'd been anything but sweet before.

  Anna didn't deserve to pay any price at all.

  Unfortunately, none of that made a damn lick of difference to their current situation. A situation that was entirely his fault.

  "Should I make the call?" Julie held up her phone, her eyebrows raised.

  "Make the damn call."

  He'd hit the tape room later. First, he needed to beat the crap out of some tackling dummies.

  *

  Anna couldn't believe the way her day had gone. If she'd been smart, she would have gone with Cole's suggestion to have the school get a substitute--and stayed in his bed all day. Instead, she'd naively walked into a situation so far beyond her control, she didn't have the first clue about how to get it back in line. She'd never seen so many parents come to pick their kids up, especially the fathers of girls and boys who usually took the bus. By the time the last of them cleared out, it felt like she'd been smiling that pasted-on smile for hours.

  After hiding out in her classroom at lunch, her colleagues weren't any better when she got to her weekly planning session. Between the squeals over the size of her ring to the not-so-veiled questions about what it was like to be married to a big, strapping Outlaw--they didn't care about the married part, just the marital relations part--Anna's budding headache turned into a biting migraine.