Sweet Talk Boxed Set (Ten NEW Contemporary Romances by Bestselling Authors to Benefit Diabetes Research plus BONUS Novel)

by Novak, Brenda

  “Wasn’t, actually. It was a couple other things.”

  She set the brush back in its holder, flushed, and began to work on the sink. “Tell me,” she said, because something in his voice told her it was important.

  “Well, first I went by that bloke Chaz’s house and told him he was done.” Will was still scrubbing. “Can’t believe I didn’t do that yesterday.”

  “Yesterday? What?”

  “I saw Talia with him, down at the lake. And I didn’t do too well.”

  “You didn’t tell me that. Was that why you—grabbed me?”

  “Nah. I grabbed you because you were naked, and I snapped. And all right, maybe I was keyed up, and the naked part tipped me over the edge. And after that, you may have got me distracted enough that I forgot to mention about Talia.”

  “Well, I’m not sorry you grabbed me. But I’m sorry if things didn’t go well.”

  “All good now, I hope. Or at least on the way, because this morning, when I woke up, it seemed pretty obvious that it was the thing to do.”

  “To tell him he was…done. And that was it?”

  “It’s all in how you say it. No worries. He’s done.”

  “You didn’t beat him up or anything, did you?” she asked in alarm. If he’d been suspended for some pictures, what would actual violence do?

  “Nah. Didn’t have to, did I. Pussy.”

  She had to laugh at that. “Really? That’s great. Boy, sometimes I wish I was a guy.”

  “Well, if I get an opinion, I’m glad you’re not.” He’d finished scrubbing. Meticulously, she’d noticed, getting into all the corners. When Will decided to do something, he did it right. “What do I do now?” he asked.

  “Spray it down,” she said. “Wash all that cleanser off. I know you know how to do that. Just pretend I’m in there.”

  He grinned at her. “Yeh. I’d say you do know. Do we get to do our shower next? Because that could be an idea. Might work even better if we stripped down and attacked it from the inside. Much more efficient, eh. I’m thinking men might do more housework if women were willing to get naked doing it. Every fella loves a team sport. Specially if there’s contact.”

  “Hmm,” she said, fighting a smile. “We’d never get through the whole house, I have a feeling.”

  “Oh, I dunno. I think we could. The whole house? Yeh. Bet we could. If you were hoovering naked, especially. I’d watch every bit of that. Or scrubbing the floor.” He sighed. “That one would be good. Course, then we’d have to take a break. You could be right at that.”

  “Mmm. I notice I’m doing all the housework in this scenario, and you’re watching.”

  “I could do the baths, now that I know how,” he suggested, and she laughed. The terrible thing was, she wanted to do it.

  “That sounds like a pretty good morning’s work, though.” She did her best to keep to the topic. “Of course, I wonder how Talia will take it.”

  “Well,” he said over the sound of the spray, since he was wielding the shower nozzle with some gusto, “I had a wee chat with her too, actually.”

  “Oh, really?” He sounded much too casual. “How did that go? What did you say? You didn’t threaten her, did you? Were you careful?”

  “Not sure about careful. Maybe not so much. But we talked, about our Koro and all, and about our dad, too, and Mum. Didn’t talk about that Chaz at all, come to think of it, but I think it was all right anyway. And then she cried. Sounds bad,” he went on hastily, “but I don’t think so. It was more…good. I hope.”

  “Sometimes crying’s exactly what you need.” Her heart was swelling a little now. She hadn’t been wrong about him. She hadn’t been wrong at all. “What did you do when she cried?”

  “Just held her, I guess. Didn’t know what else to do. She seemed to—it seemed all right. What, was I meant to do something else?”

  “No.” She smiled at him. “No, that was right. I’m betting that was right. You did all that today? You are such a good man,” she went on impulsively, because the words were there, and they needed to get out.

  “You really…” He stopped, cleared his throat, then made a business of putting the shower nozzle back into its holder and straightening the hose.

  “And I’m wondering,” she said. “This house. Exactly whose is it?”

  “What d’you mean, whose? It’s my family’s, of course.” He’d tossed the sponge onto the counter and was leaning against the wall by the tub, frowning at her.

  “Is it yours?” It was the question that had been uppermost in her mind from the moment she’d seen it. It was none of her business, she knew it wasn’t, but she needed to know. “You said your dad wasn’t…in the picture. And your mom works at the i-Site, and your grandparents must have been too old, and your sisters are in Australia. Was it your dad, though, who bought it? Or your sisters, somehow? A group effort? Or was it you?”

  “I bought it,” he said, “if that’s what you mean. Of course I did. Why?”

  “Oh, nothing.” The happiness was bubbling up inside her. “I just wondered why you wouldn’t have mentioned that you’d bought a house for your family. One of Talia’s friends said that going to university was your family’s thing, too, and that made me wonder some more, because how does that happen?”

  “Well…me,” he said. “Of course me. Who else?”

  “Uh-huh. And you started playing rugby when?”

  “What, professionally, you mean? Nineteen. Soon as I left school. Soon as I could.”

  “Right. As soon as you could. You said you went to Australia for money, like you’re some kind of playboy. And to the U.S., too, I remember that. For the money. But it wasn’t really for that, was it? You went for your family. You went for this. For the house, and the university.”

  “Maybe,” he said cautiously. “Maybe I did, partly. Why?”

  “Don’t you see?” She was still wearing her yellow rubber gloves, and he was standing there with his wet hands, but it didn’t matter at all. “My mom told you that you were chocolate cheesecake, and you sat there and took it like you knew it, like you believed it. How could you believe it? Do you really not see how much more you are than that? Do you really not realize that you’re the real deal?”

  “Me?” he said, sounding nothing but surprised. “No. I’m no hero. The last thing from it, in fact. My Koro…yeh. Maybe. But not me. I didn’t do anything anybody else wouldn’t do. I just did what had to be done.”

  “Oh, Will,” she said, the tears pricking behind her eyes. “Don’t you get it? That’s what heroes do.”

  Change of Venue

  He knew it wasn’t true, and he didn’t know what to say. So he decided to kiss her instead.

  She squeaked a bit in surprise when he shoved off the wall and took hold of her, and knowing that he could do it—that was nothing but sweet satisfaction. His mouth closed over hers, he felt all that heat, all that softness as she opened for him, and he lost it a little. There was nothing for it. He had to put his hands on her waist and lift her up to sit on the counter.

  “Will,” she said with an unsteady little laugh. “At least let me take off my gloves.” She was stripping them from her hands, tossing them into the sink even as he was stepping between her legs. She wasn’t saying no, not a bit of it, so he reached a hand around to unfasten her hair and sent the plastic clip after the gloves.

  “Ah,” he sighed, wrapping a hand through that soft mass, “I love this.” He pulled her head back gently, exposing her throat, and set his mouth to her. When he grazed the skin beneath her ear with his teeth, she shifted against him and moaned, and just like that, he was gone. His hand was tightening in her hair, and he was pulling a little harder, biting with a little more force, and she was wriggling under him, making some soft, urgent noises that were only making it worse.

  He had to slide his other hand inside her neckline then, didn’t he? Because there she was, all soft and sweet and needing to be touched. Her slim, vulnerable neck definitely needed his teeth,
too. That hollow just above her collarbone, especially, where she was arching away from him. That needed him most of all. So he did it, and she was grabbing his shoulders, and he was sliding right down that slippery slope, because this was only going to end one way.

  “Ahem.”

  The cough came from the doorway, and Faith jumped beneath him. It took a moment for the message to get through the insistent drumbeat in his head, but he turned at last. And then he pulled his hand out from under her shirt.

  “If you’re all done here,” his mum said, “I could use the loo.”

  “Oh. Sorry,” Faith said. She scrambled down, stumbling a little in her haste, and he put a hand out to steady her. “We’re all finished.” She was shoving the cleaning supplies back under the sink, then reaching for her hair clip and gloves. “Sorry,” she said again. “We’ll just…go do our bathroom.”

  “Reckon I should be glad you did mine first,” Will’s mum said dryly.

  Since that was about as close to a joke as she’d got since Faith had arrived, Will grinned at her and said, “Reckon you should. We may not get to ours for a bit, actually, but no worries, we’ll do it tomorrow, now that Faith’s taught me how to clean the bath and all.”

  “She has, has she?” His mum shot a glance at Faith, who was, of course, turning a delicious shade of pink. She was trying to smooth her hair while being inconspicuous about it, as if his mum wouldn’t have known exactly what they were doing, and that made Will smile some more. Faith thought she was so naughty, when she was nothing but sweet.

  “We’ve got a booking just now, though,” he said. “We’ll bring back a takeaway for the match,” he thought to add. “Be back about seven.”

  “We will?” Faith asked. “You didn’t say—”

  “Saying now, aren’t I. And we’re late.”

  She was still talking when he got her through the door into their bedroom. “You didn’t tell me we were going somewhere today. I’d have gotten this done sooner.”

  “Didn’t know myself. Call it spontaneous.”

  “I need to change, then,” she said, brushing at her jeans. “Outdoors or indoors? Dress up or down?”

  He pulled out the drawer of his bedside table, grabbed a few packets, and shoved them into his pocket. “The dress code for this,” he informed her, “is naked. Except that you can grab those undies with the bow on them, because I’m going to need to roll you over and do some touching while you’ve got those on. That’s fairly urgent. And eventually, when I’ve done that enough—which is going to take a while, I warn you—I’m going to need to take them off you and do something else.”

  He could see her shudder, because that was just how easy she was. Exactly as easy as him.

  “Are we going—” she began.

  “Yeh. We are. We’re going to a motel. Someplace where I can put you up by the sink, into the shower, on the floor, against the wall, or anyplace else I want to, and you can make as much noise as you need to, and nobody’s going to be knocking at the door. I told Kuia we needed some privacy, remember? Turns out I meant it.”

  Consolation Prize

  Faith was relaxed to the point of bonelessness by the time she was sitting on one of the big couches next to Talia that evening, eating Thai takeaway in front of the TV. She had no idea what she was watching, but who cared?

  Will hadn’t just been talking, because she could swear they’d used just about every surface in the motel room that afternoon. She knew for sure that he’d put her into every position she’d ever heard of, and a few she hadn’t. Maybe she hadn’t had a workout, but she’d raised her heart rate enough for a marathon all the same.

  He’d paid about as much attention to her today as a man possibly could, in fact. Right up until they had turned on the TV, because from then on, he’d been all focus. He wasn’t even sitting with her. Clearly, this was work, not recreation, but of course it was. It was much more than a game for him. It was his job, and his entire family’s livelihood.

  He had gotten distracted once, though. He had even laughed. It had been before the game, of course, and he’d been laughing at her, but still.

  Talia had been trying to explain the rules to her in one headlong ten-minute rush as the pre-match commentary had ticked down on the screen. The girl had talked about the breakdown and the ruck and the scrum and the lineout until Faith’s head had been swimming.

  “Wait, wait, wait,” Faith said at last. “I’m completely confused. Let’s start over. The English guys are wearing white, and New Zealand’s wearing black, right?”

  “Yeh,” Will said. “That would be why we’re called the All Blacks.”

  “That’s good. Means I can tell who’s who,” Faith said.

  “Well, that and we’re better-looking,” Will said. “Because of all us brown boys.”

  “Obviously,” she said solemnly. “That goes without saying. And they can only move the ball by passing it backwards.”

  “Or kicking it,” Will said. “Or handing it off in the breakdown, of course.”

  Faith put up a hand. “No breakdown,” she commanded. Will laughed, and she continued. “When our guys have the ball, they’re trying to get across the line and fall down, and the other guys are trying to stop them, and then it switches around because…because reasons, and everybody goes the other way. We’re ahead when there are more points for us in a little box that I devoutly hope will be on the screen. And that is all I need to know.”

  Will was grinning. “Got to get you up in the commentators’ box. I’d pay money to hear that.”

  She needed to know a little more than that, though, when the anthems had been sung and the men in black were striding to the middle of the field, ferocious intent in every swinging arm, every hard line of jaw.

  “This is how it starts?” she asked when they had lined up in several rows.

  “Nah,” Will said. “This is that thing you wanted to watch. This is the haka.”

  The camera zoomed in on a burly figure with a Maori tattoo even bigger than Will’s decorating one massive arm. He stood solid for a moment, then began to pace on legs like tree trunks, shouting out what was clearly a Maori challenge at the top of his lungs.

  His voice could have cleared a room, his battered face was twisted into a savage mask, and if he’d been coming at Faith like that, she’d have been running in the opposite direction. She barely wanted to look at him, and as far as playing a game against him, where he’d be charging her at full speed like an enraged rhino, intent on bringing her to the ground, and probably killing her while he was at it…no.

  A shouted instruction, an upraised arm, a clenched fist, and every man on the squad sank into a crouch, feet planted wide, bodies and faces signaling nothing but male aggression. The group began to slap bulky thighs and heavy biceps in unison, shouting out their own chant in the gaps between the leader’s fierce exhortations. The stadium erupted in cheers and applause, and the hair was rising on Faith’s arms.

  The camera switched back and forth between the menacing men in black and the white-clad team who faced them, chests incongruously decorated with the red rose of England, their arms around each others’ shoulders, expressions determinedly stoic as they waited it out.

  It shouldn’t have been so impressive, not from a group of men wearing tight, short-sleeved jerseys, little shorts, and knee socks. They could have looked ridiculous, but they didn’t. They were too big, too strong, too fierce for that. They looked ready to go to war, and even with the distance of television, Faith’s heart was beating faster, her breath coming more quickly.

  She looked across at Will to see his reaction, and caught that same expression on his face. Hard. Set. Intent. She knew, as surely as if she were inside his head, how much he needed to be out there with his team, and how much it was hurting that he wasn’t.

  The men on the field stomped once more, slapped their biceps one last time, and shouted a final “Hei!” as gouts of flame flew skyward from the four corners of the field and a roar erupted
from the capacity crowd. The Englishmen offered one final hard stare in response and turned their backs. The game hadn’t even started, but the challenge had been flung down, and it had been accepted.

  “Not an easy thing to face, the haka,” Talia said proudly as the teams lined up for the kickoff and Faith tried to get her breath back. “Especially when you’re facing the best team in the world, and you know they’re about to come at you exactly like that.”

  “Be coming at them harder if our Will were kicking off, the way he should be,” Miriama said from her chair. “Next week, eh.”

  Faith was starting to get it, and she didn’t need to understand anything about the game to do it. This mattered. It mattered to Will’s family, it mattered to the crowd. And it mattered to New Zealand.

  But mostly, it mattered to Will. He was sitting forward in his chair, his elbows on his knees, his chin resting on his clasped hands, his eyes scanning the big screen.

  The team in black kicked off, and Faith was immediately lost. Except that it was brutal. That part, she got immediately. The intensity of the collisions, the sheer physicality, the pace, the skill…it took her breath away. This couldn’t be what she’d be seeing from her sweet, funny, relaxed Will, except that it had to be. These were the best of the best, and he was one of them.

  But they weren’t always the best in the world, maybe. Not every week. Not tonight, because the All Blacks were struggling, and even Faith could see it, if it hadn’t been evident from the tension in the room, the rigidity of Will’s posture. The little box in the corner of the screen was telling her so. The score was 13 to 13, and the clock was ticking down.

  A blare from a horn that meant time had run out, and Faith sat back and exhaled.

  “A tie,” she said, but nobody was listening, and nobody onscreen had stopped. The All Blacks still held the ball and were battering down the field with it, going down in tackles from an equally determined English side, but getting the ball off again and going some more.