Playing the Player (Sydney Smoke Rugby #3)

by Amy Andrews

“Because I’m not your type?” he pressed, his voice light and flirty despite the knock back. Clearly it was amusing to him that he wouldn’t be any woman’s type.

  “No. Because you, unfortunately, are exactly my type.” Lincoln Quinn was the type of guy she’d always been drawn to—easy-going, high-spirited, free-loving.

  He laughed. “Okay. You’re going to have to explain that one to me.”

  She rolled her head back toward the window. “You’re easy and fun and sexy and up for anything.” He laughed again, and Em figured she shouldn’t be telling him this stuff.

  But she didn’t seem to be able to stop herself, either.

  “So,” he persisted. “What’s wrong with that?”

  “Nothing,” she murmured, “Nothing at all.” The warmth and motion of the car was making her drowsy. “But guys like you don’t stay.”

  “Ah.” The car pulled to a stop at a traffic light.

  “Yes. Ah.” Em rolled her head back and inspected his profile. The crescents of his lips had flattened out a little, his forehead was crinkled. “I’m over men leaving me for something shinier somewhere else.”

  “So you’re holding out for Mr. Right?” he asked, reaching for the cuff at his wrist and flicked the buttons open.

  The engine idled as he rolled the sleeve up his left arm. Testosterone oozed into the warm air at the potently masculine move. Between that and the casual sexuality of his dangling bow tie, she could barely breathe from the thick charge of male hormones.

  Em watched in fascination as an expensive Tag Heuer watch was uncovered, followed closely by an intricate web of tattoos. She knew, because Harper had dragged her along to a training session once, that they covered both arms and shoulders and that each pectoral also sported ink.

  He repeated the process on the other side, and she looked away for her own sanity. “No. I’m hanging out for Mr. Worthy.”

  She didn’t want perfect. She wanted a stayer.

  The light changed green and the car growled forward, the fabric of Linc’s trousers pulling taut across a powerful thigh as he changed gears, the muscles of his forearm rippling with every motion on the stick, his TAG gleaming in the flash of passing streetlights.

  “So, what…in the meantime, you just…” He glanced at her then back at the road. “Deny yourself?”

  Em gave a half smile at the incredulity in his voice. Clearly it was a foreign concept to him. “It’s okay. I have a battery operated boyfriend awaiting my attention when I get home.”

  He shot her a quick, open-mouthed stare, his lips parted enticingly. He looked so stunned at her admission she couldn’t help but laugh.

  “Sorry, didn’t you know that women did that, too? Did I shock you?”

  “Not at all.” He recovered quickly, a big smile splitting his profile. “I’m just trying to decide which is sexier. Self-denial or self-abuse.”

  “Really?” She tried and failed to keep the derision out of her voice. “A guy has to ask that question?”

  He laughed. “But…a vibrator can’t hold you in its arms or give you the full-body experience.”

  Em clamped down on the wicked surge of heat between her legs, thinking about a full-body experience with Lincoln Quinn. “It’s not going to make me lie in the wet spot, either.”

  “It can’t snuggle with you after,” he countered with another laugh.

  Em snorted. “And that’s your specialty, is it? Hanging around for pillow talk?”

  “I’ll have you know I give very good pillow talk.”

  Sure. And Elvis was alive and living at Henley Stadium. “Right,” she muttered. “Of course you do.”

  “I really do.” He nodded. “Most women seem to be more interested in me giving them good head, but hey, I’m a full service kinda guy.”

  With his fingers wrapped around the steering wheel and his bare forearms taunting her, the last thing Em needed were visions of his head between her legs. She squirmed against the soft leather under her, the sudden rush of heat to the apex of her thighs nothing to do with the inbuilt technology of the car seat.

  “Thank you for the offer,” she said primly, using every ounce of willpower to not straddle him right here and now and do something about that heat. “I’m okay with self-service.”

  And she prayed like hell her underwear didn’t burst into flames, giving a whole new meaning to liar, liar, pants on fire.

  Chapter Three

  Ten minutes later the Porsche was pulling into the driveway of Em’s townhouse. “Thank you,” she mumbled, groping for her clutch and her wrap and the door handle all at once, desperate to get out of the car and out of Lincoln Quinn’s orbit.

  By the time she was struggling to climb out of the vehicle, he was at her side, witnessing her uncoordinated attempts to exit. The car was so damn low and her heels so damn high she almost fell out of the bloody thing.

  “Here,” he murmured, a faint trace of amusement in his voice as he took gentle hold of her elbow. “It’s kinda low. Let me give you a hand.”

  Em dragged her gaze away from the zipper of his fly and the rather nice bulge behind it that just happened to be at eye level. Her heart skipped a beat as all sorts of dirty scenarios flashed through her overheated imagination.

  Her skin buzzed beneath his touch. She pulled her arm out of his grip and her head out of his underwear. “I can manage,” she grouched. A fact quickly disproven when she wobbled on her heel and collapsed back onto the seat after barely getting her ass off it.

  “Allow me,” he said, crouching down and sliding a hand onto her left ankle, paralysing her foot. Hell, paralysing everything from her waist down.

  Apart from her vagina. It was practically throwing a party in her pants.

  “You’re going to break your neck in these things,” he tsked, sliding first one heel off then the other with absolutely no protest from her.

  Maybe she would, but she liked shoes and makeup and clothes and getting all dressed up when she went out. Being a high school teacher didn’t exactly give her the opportunity to show off her fashion sense.

  Goose bumps fanned up her calves as his warm fingers held firm and, she was almost positive, lingered. Or maybe that was just the power of positive thinking coming from the direction of the party.

  He gave her the heels and smiled. Even on one knee, his big broad shape loomed over her. The shoulders that filled out the snowy white of his shirt blocked the light shining behind him, casting his face in shadow and creating a thin golden halo around his head where the light tinged the blonde spikes of his number-two-blade cut.

  Maybe the man actually was an angel.

  A dirty, dirty angel.

  A waft of wild masculine scent danced around her, and Em inhaled deeply, her eyes closing as his aroma filled her head. “Mmm,” she said, high on the smell of him, more intoxicating than champagne or heavy duty migraine meds.

  Her eyes fluttered open, her mouth engaging before her brain. “How am I ever going to reach to kiss you without my heels?”

  He chuckled. “Oh, you’re going to kiss me now, are you?”

  His voice held a deep, rich vein of amusement, and for a moment Em wanted to drown in it. Then sense returned as did the knowledge that she’d spoken aloud. She gave herself a mental shake.

  “No.” She shook her herself physically, too, wagging her head back and forth vehemently, hoping to convince herself as much as him. “I’m just saying if I were to…take complete leave of my senses and do something so…crazy—then the heels would make it a hell of a lot easier.”

  She couldn’t see his eyes, hooded in shadow as they were, but she could feel his gaze heavy on her mouth. He didn’t move or speak for a beat or two, and she held her breath, her heart thudding thick and slow. The night seemed to hold its breath around her.

  After long moments, a rush of air, very much like a sigh, was expelled from his lungs. “Probably for the best, then,” he said.

  It was? “It is?”

  “I make it policy not to ki
ss women under the influence.”

  Em blinked. It was a good policy. She just hadn’t expected it from a guy who seemed to pick up a lot of women in bars if the tabloids and tidbits of information gleaned from Harper were anything to go by.

  He pushed to his feet, and Em felt stupidly bereft as he took his bulk and warmth with him. “Come on.” He reached for her elbow again. “I’ll walk you to your door.”

  She didn’t argue this time. She figured his car was probably difficult enough to get out of sober, so she allowed him to help her out and guide her down the path. She didn’t notice the cold cement beneath her bare feet, conscious as she was of his hand on her bare arm, of the brush of his sleeve against her shoulder, and the occasional bump of their hips.

  She was glad the distance was short because her resolve to go inside alone was weakening by the second. Ever since he’d mentioned kissing, she could think of little else.

  Oh, that’s right, she was the one who’d mentioned kissing.

  Em turned as she mounted the one step that formed a small alcove to her recessed front door. He stayed on the path, but he was well within touching distance. The overhead light shone directly on his head, spilling golden rays over his blond hair and making the snowy white of his expensive shirt glow. The open collar and the dangling tails of his bow tie added a whole extra dollop of sexy.

  He was simply dazzling, and Em’s pulse fluttered madly at the sight of him.

  Green. His eyes were a pale green.

  “Thank you for the lift. And for the hand out of your ridiculously low car and your assistance to my door. And for not making a move on me.”

  “It was my pleasure. Or, you know”—he grinned and shoved his hands in his pockets—“not, as the case may be.”

  Em grinned back, momentarily awed by the way his face moved in perfect combination to create such utter masculine beauty. It was hard to believe it was regularly driven into the dirt in the name of sport. She half expected to see a little fake sparkle shining from one of his front teeth like a toothpaste commercial.

  Standing here smiling at each other like idiots under her front porch light, Em thought maybe they could actually be friends. She’d never had a guy friend, due to the whole desperately seeking daddy thing that had been occupying her psyche for far too long. It could be kinda cool, and Harper would like it. But then his gaze dropped to her breasts. And lingered.

  Nope. Definitely not friends.

  “You should go in. You’re cold.”

  He could have been referring to the goose bumps on her arms, but he wasn’t staring at her arms. He was staring at her fripples, twin headlights beaming at him, the tight points almost painful against the fabric of her bra. Those green eyes widened at the sight, the small dark blobs of his pupils dilating slightly. She might still be a little tipsy, but she knew lust when she saw it.

  And just like that, she was back to wanting him.

  Friends? She could never be friends with Lincoln Quinn. She was always going to want to tear his clothes off.

  Damned if that didn’t send a frenzy of signals to all her good places. A flood of heat erupted from her pelvis and flashed like wildfire through her system. Her heartbeat drummed through her head and throbbed between her legs—the perfect duff duff beat for her vagina party.

  Em couldn’t ever remember wanting a man like this.

  “Oh, screw it,” she muttered to herself, dropping her clutch, phone, shoes, and wrap in a messy, noisy heap as she took a step forward, rose on her tiptoes, slid her arms around his neck, and pressed her mouth to his.

  She didn’t know what to expect. There hadn’t been a plan, like so often when she kissed a guy.

  Hell, she wasn’t thinking logically.

  She just…wanted. Desired. Needed. Like a drink of water for a parched throat. Or a blast of oxygen to deprived lungs.

  But Lincoln seemed to know what to do, opening to her straight away on a groan that vibrated through her belly, his hands sliding around her waist and pulling her closer.

  He tasted like wedding cake and every bad thing she’d been denying herself. She had four months of pent up lust vibrating inside her, and she was giving it all to him.

  Suddenly, though, he was tearing his mouth away, shaking his head. “Okay, wait,” he panted, pressing his forehead to hers. “Wait.”

  Em sucked air in and out of her lungs, confusion muddying her thoughts. Her heart hammered against her ribs like it was trying to get out.

  Wait?

  “We really shouldn’t be doing this,” he whispered, his voice low and throaty, the light green of his eyes practically swallowed up by the dilation of his pupils.

  He was right. They shouldn’t be. They should stop. If they didn’t, she was going to hate herself in the morning for her lack of control.

  “I know,” she said huskily, trying to clear her head, trying to resist temptation, but failing as her hips moved restlessly against him. “I know,” she repeated.

  But maybe, just for now, they could…

  Her lips brushed lightly over his. “Just let me—”

  Lincoln cursed under his breath then swallowed up whatever she was going to say, the pound in his blood beating like a jungle drum as he kissed her again, desperately dragging air in through his nose, half crazy for the taste of her.

  Champagne and strawberries.

  His dick was already rock hard at the thought of what she’d taste like everywhere.

  He’d been wanting to do this ever since he’d seen her at the wedding this afternoon in her sexy little dress of indeterminate colour. He’d bet it was orange. Bodie had bet it was red. Ryder had put his money on ochre—like Uluru, he’d said.

  Matilda, Tanner’s fiancée, had rolled her eyes and informed them it was a russet georgette with an A-line skirt and a cowl neckline. Given she’d been a style columnist for a major Sydney newspaper for two years, no one had argued with her.

  All he knew was that it complimented the wild tangle of her hair, did nothing to hide her high-beaming nipples, and right now it moved like silk over her ass.

  She hadn’t spoken to him at the wedding. Had barely even glanced in his direction. But he’d been aware of the crackle between them. So had she. Which only made this moment even headier.

  Not so armour-plated panties tonight.

  He thrust his tongue into her mouth, demanding she give him everything she had. Her moan was gratifying, so was her restlessness as she shifted against him. Blood coursed thick and sluggish through his head and chest and groin. His dick felt like a lightning rod.

  He wanted to grind against her. Push her against her door, ruck her dress up, and bury himself inside her. He wanted to hear his name on her lips. Begging him for more. Begging him to make her come.

  And not just because of the bet that had grown the last couple of days, since the rest of the guys had thrown their money in as well.

  Christ. The bet.

  Like the proverbial bucket of cold water it brought Linc back from the brink. Back to the here and now, with a chick high on champagne and headache tablets.

  And the thought of taking advantage of that was abhorrent.

  He tore his mouth from hers, the hot pant of his breath as he struggled for oxygen misting into the frigid air.

  “Wha…?” she murmured, eyes heavy lidded as she tried to come back at him.

  “No, no, no,” he whispered, sliding his hands onto her upper arms, holding her gently away from him as she mewed in protest and strained to get closer.

  He noted absently how cold her arms were.

  “Linc?” Her voice was small and shaky, uncertain as she blinked up at him from under the springy curls of her fringe. Her lips glistened in the light, and he almost groaned at the sight.

  He’d done that. He’d made them all wet and swollen.

  “You should really go inside now,” he said.

  Her glazed, unfocused stare was starting to clear, and the cranky look he was used to being levelled at him started t
o take shape. “And if I don’t?”

  “You want to fuck me on your doorstep?” he asked, his voice low and gravelly. “Call me tomorrow when you’re sober. I’ll be right over.”

  She jutted her chin defiantly—clearly pissed at him for trying to be the responsible one. “I won’t need you after I’ve spent all night with a couple of multi-speed toyfriends and a box of batteries.”

  Linc shoved his hands on his hips, pushing back unhelpful images of her naked and pleasuring herself with a hot pink cock. “Go inside,” he growled.

  Before he did something crazy like offering to watch.

  …

  “It’s Ermintrude, isn’t it?”

  Em blinked at the wicked sexy voice in her ear. At her desk. At her work. Thoughts of last night—loose bow tie tails, angel-lips, and the hot, urgent press of an erection—flitted through her brain. “How did you get this number?”

  His low chuckle slid into her ear canal and oozed down her body like warm, sticky treacle. “I asked Dex which school you worked at, then I Googled it and asked for you when the admin dude answered the phone. Not just a pretty face, huh?”

  She guessed she deserved the heavy trace of derision in his voice. “Apparently.”

  Another chuckle caused an eruption of goose bumps down the side of her neck. “Sleep well?” he inquired.

  Em’s cheeks warmed. “Like the dead.”

  “And how many batteries did you go have to go through to achieve that?”

  Her cheeks blazed. She hadn’t even lasted a damn minute with her vibrator.

  “That many, huh?”

  Em was happy to let him think she’d gone through all her batteries. It was far preferable to the truth—she’d been so primed to go off she’d exploded like a firecracker after a disgustingly short period of time, his face burned on her retinas, his name on her lips.

  “Is there something I can help you with?” she asked with saccharine sweetness. “I have a class to teach in five minutes.”

  “Come to dinner with me tonight.”

  Em quashed the little spike of pleasure at the invitation. Lincoln Quinn was a player and she was done with them. “No.”