by Amy Andrews
She laughed and shook her head, raising the bottle to her lips as she said, “Going off their tits,” and Cole had never been so jealous of an inanimate object in his life as she took a long, deep swallow. He supposed it was sexy because it drew attention to her mouth and her wet, beer-kissed lips, but she looked like every good thing he’d ever denied himself, and he wanted this woman so damn hard.
It sure as hell made him wish he was kissing her now instead of pretending to be friends.
More silence as they both looked out into the night. “You’ve had a long day,” she finally said, rolling her head to the side. “You tired?”
He rolled his head, too. There was a good two feet between them, but they were gazing directly into each other’s eyes, and, under the canopy, with the quiet pitter-patter of the rain, it felt cozy and intimate. “Yeah. It was full-on.”
“Is that an option for you?” She took another sip of her beer. “When you go back? Coaching?”
“If I wanted to, yes.”
“But…you don’t?”
The wet shine of her mouth was so damn tempting Cole had to force himself to concentrate on what she’d asked rather than what she’d used to deliver the question. “I don’t think I could be that close to it without wanting to play it again. Rugby’s an all-or-nothing kind of thing, if you know what I mean? No half measures.”
“Yeah. I know.”
Her gaze scrutinized his face and lingered a second or two on his mouth, and Cole wondered if she was thinking the same as him. No half measures, just like them.
“But there’s this sportscasting job I’m waiting to hear about with one of the news channels back home.”
“Is that what you want?”
He shrugged. “It’s the best of both worlds, really. It keeps me in the realm of rugby while giving me some physical distance from the field.”
“So you’d be on TV?”
Cole had already been on TV more than enough for his liking. That kind of attention had been flattering at the start of his career, but it had soon worn off when he realized it was a double-edged sword. He didn’t crave the limelight in that way anymore. But he didn’t exactly have another career to fall back on, either.
All he knew was rugby.
That thought was depressing as hell, so he reached for something to lighten the atmosphere. “Whaddya reckon?” He turned his face so she could inspect his profile, then turned it back again. “Face for TV or face for radio?”
Jane rolled her eyes. “Stop fishing for compliments,” she muttered as she turned her attention to the falling rain.
Cole grinned. “But what about my poor ego?”
She snorted, refusing to look at him. “I’m betting your ego could take a few hits and still be pretty damn robust.”
He threw back his head and laughed, the swing creaking and squeaking a little as his body shook. Big egos were essential in professional sports, and she was right—his was still reasonably intact, despite the major hit it had taken due to his injury.
His laughter eventually settled, and they fell back into quiet contemplation of the rainy night as they drank their beer and the swing gently rocked back and forth.
“I’m sorry I didn’t make it down to the park today,” she apologized after a while.
Cole shrugged. “It’s fine. We managed. And Finn seemed to enjoy himself okay.”
“Okay?” She laughed, rolling her head to the side again. “Way more than okay. I think you made a rugby player out of him. Tad is going to freak.”
Considering Finn’s father still hadn’t returned, Cole wasn’t particularly worried about Finn’s changing football preferences. If he wanted the kid to follow gridiron, then maybe he should be throwing a ball to him in a park somewhere, not in Las Vegas with his band.
But Cole was keeping those thoughts to himself. Jane hadn’t said anything to him, and she was super positive with Finn when he asked about his dad, but, as an adult, he could spot those tiny little tells—the clench of her jaw, the slightly strained note of her voice—and understand what they meant.
She was putting on a brave front, and she didn’t need his unsolicited opinion.
“I think the important thing at his age is to just let kids run around outside and play.”
“God yes,” she agreed. “Can you imagine the destruction Finn would cause if he didn’t run off all that excess energy?”
Cole grinned at the thought. “He’s a bit of a live wire.”
She paused with the bottle a whisper away from her mouth. “A bit?”
Forcing himself to keep smiling and concentrate on her words, not her mouth or the way her throat undulated as she took a swallow of her beer, Cole gave a careless shrug. “He reminds me of me when I was a kid.”
“Yeah.” She absently wiped the backs of her fingers across her wet mouth while her gaze took a quick tour of his shoulders, his abs, his thighs, before returning to his face. “I can see you being a live wire.”
Cole didn’t think she’d meant anything dirty by what she’d said, but combined with her thorough once-over of him, his dick was reading all the dirty into it.
That was what it was best at, after all.
He dragged his gaze off her, fixing it on the tire swing he could just make out through the gloom. “It’s a boy thing, I think.”
She gave a half laugh. “I think you might be right. I just…” She turned, her body angling toward him slightly, tucking one foot under her knee, leaving the other foot firmly grounded. “I look at Finn sometimes and think, I don’t understand you. I mean…the way he thinks and the things he does seem so foreign to me, so not the way I would ever have thought, and I don’t think it’s an age thing… I think it’s a male brain versus a female brain kind of thing. And I don’t know how to handle that, because mostly he just has me. This little boy who is such a bundle of energy and vitality has to live with someone who doesn’t get him about fifty percent of the time.”
Cole blinked, surprised at her admission. Surprised that this woman who seemed so competent and efficient, so indulgent and loving and protective—hell, she for sure would have torn out his jugular with a pair of needle-nose pliers if he’d even looked at Finn funny—could be so unsure of her parenting.
She sighed as she shifted her gaze from him to the back yard. “I worry that without a father I’m going to…I mean… I try really hard to walk that line between giving him freedom and keeping him safe and try to give him the room and time to express himself and be who he is and just, well…love him, really. But what if he needs more than I can give him? What if leaving Tad and raising him as a single working mom is going to ruin him somehow?”
Okay…things had gotten really deep, really fast. But there was a genuine note of concern in her voice. Cole had known Jane for just over a week, and she’d always seemed so together. But here she was, confiding in him about all her insecurities. He wished he knew what to say to reassure her she was doing great.
“Oh God.” She looked back at him. “I’m so sorry.” She tipped her beer back and swallowed the last few mouthfuls down. “I shouldn’t have said that; it must’ve been the beer. Please ignore me.”
Cole smiled. “It’s fine.”
“No.” She shook her head, absently glancing down at her bottle and picking at the label. “It’s embarrassing.”
“Because it’s me or because you’re the mum and you’re supposed to have all the answers?”
She laughed but didn’t look up. “Both.”
“Well, if it helps any, I think you’re doing great.”
“You don’t have to say that. I wasn’t fishing for a compliment.”
“I know, but it’s the truth. Finn is an awesome kid.” Cole had to address her downturned head, but he meant every word. “Sure, he’s energetic, and that paint-licking thing is kinda quirky, but he’s polite, and he plays w
ell with others, and he’s kind and considerate. He spent all day today mindful that he might be trampling a thousand ants to death with his feet because Crikey was so obviously upset at the idea.”
Jane glanced up with a frown. “What?”
He waved her question away. “Long story. The point is, I know I have zero child-rearing experience, but I do know what it’s like to be raised by a single working mother, and all I ever needed was a safe place to call home and to know that she loved me. And that’s all Finn really needs, too. The rest is just…” He shrugged. “Bullshit.”
She glanced up again as her fingers continued to destroy the label. “You didn’t feel like you missed out, not having your father around a lot of the time?”
Oh hell, no. Of that, Cole was certain. “My old man wasn’t like Tad. He wasn’t just irresponsible and self-centered; he was a bully and a drunk, and life was much better without him.”
“Oh god.” She put her hand over her mouth. “I’m so sorry… I didn’t realize.”
“It’s okay.” What his old man had or hadn’t done two decades down the track was neither here nor there. “I had a great uncle and my high school rugby coach and an amazing mentor when I first went pro who were all good role models. They filled in the gaps. And Finn will find gap fillers, too. There are plenty of good men out there, Jane.”
“Yeah.” Her hand slid from her mouth to her lap, and she smiled at him. “Thanks.”
That genuinely grateful smile was more potent than any coy, flirtatious little moue she could have sent him. Hell, it was more potent than a titty flash, because it not only made his libido go boinnnng, but it made his heart go kerthump. Made his chest all warm and his throat all tingly and his breath hot and prickly in his lungs.
Cole finished off his beer in a few long swallows, the liquid cool on his suddenly parched throat, his gaze returning to the dark misty corners of the backyard. The view out there was far less tempting than the one on the love seat. Jane all prickly and threatening him with needle-nose pliers, then kissing the hell out of him was a mix of hot and cold he’d gotten used to, but this Jane? Vulnerable and uncertain Jane?
She called to him in an entirely different way.
He kept his eyes trained on the back wall as she fiddled with her label, the silence growing between them. Not uncomfortably. But he was aware of it and aware of her like an invisible force field buzzing against his skin.
“Well…I think I better head in.”
Her husky announcement sounded more like a question than a statement of intent, but she held out her hand for his empty bottle, and Cole passed it over. Their hands brushed, and a flare, like a sparkler igniting, burst to life. Heat pulsed in electrical waves up his arm. Her fingers lingered, her gaze locking on their point of contact.
“Okay,” Cole said, wholly unable to move or think or, hell, breathe as he, too, stared at where their fingers met.
“Okay,” she repeated after a beat or two, not withdrawing her hand, not looking away. Her voice was a low, sonorous rasp now, unfurling like smoke inside Cole’s veins, whispering seductively about long rainy nights and twisted sheets.
“Or you could…” Cole swallowed against the parched thickness in his throat, his heart beating like a drum through his ears. “Stay a little longer.”
She nodded. “I could.”
Then she raised her gaze and looked at him, and Cole’s throat just about closed off, his heartbeat going off like a bomb in his ears now. She seemed as helpless in the face of this—whatever the hell this was—as he was.
The hyperactive boy in him wanted to run at her like a bull at a gate, but the adult male in him urged caution. He sensed, as she searched his eyes for who knew what, that decisions were in the balance right now. That options were being weighed, that consequences were being assessed, pros and cons considered.
And whatever way he looked at it, he was a con.
Cole could handle that, though. She wasn’t exactly a pro in his life, either. What he couldn’t handle was being a regret. So now wasn’t the time for rushing and thinking with his dick. It was the time for a rational head. Not the libidinous one in his pants.
“Seems to be a lot of reasons why you shouldn’t,” he said, choosing his words carefully.
He didn’t need to be a rocket scientist to figure out that whatever was about to happen—if it happened—was going to step right through the unspoken rule between them. The one where they’d didn’t go any further than kissing.
And he needed her to be sure, because he was. And he was ready to take the consequences. This could never be anything but a short-term fling. He knew that.
“Yeah. There are. There really are.”
Cole’s gaze locked on hers. He liked that she wasn’t wasting any time pretending she didn’t know where her staying out here with him would lead. “It’d mess up the friends thing, for starters,” he said. There wouldn’t be any going back. There’d be no more just friends.
No more half measures.
“For sure.” She nodded her head slowly. “And…every decision I make can affect Finn.”
“Especially when I’m not going to be here for very long.”
“Right? I gotta be responsible. My days of rushing in and doing crazy things are well and truly gone.”
“Yeah. There’s probably no point starting something that can never go anywhere.”
Another nod. “I’m a single mom. I don’t do one-night stands. Or indulge in clandestine…liaisons with visiting Australian rugby players.” She dropped her gaze to his mouth. “I can’t.”
Cole’s belly did a slow roll at the deep well of regret in her voice and the raw hunger in her eyes. He exhaled a slow breath as they seemed to run out of words. He could hear the slight squeak of the swing, the light fall of rain, and the loud clash of his thoughts. Or maybe it was the loud clash of hers.
“But…”
Cole’s pulse sped up. “But?”
“I have enough friends.”
He swallowed. Was she saying what he thought she was saying? “So do I.”
“And…”
She dropped her gaze to her lap briefly before staring out over the yard, her palms absently ironing the fabric of her dress flat against her thighs. Cole waited for her to continue, going slowly mad. When the silence stretched to a point where he could no longer take it, he spoke. “And?” Considering he was ready to shake it out of her, his prompt was remarkably gentle.
She turned her head, their gazes meeting. “I want to anyway.”
A smile spread slowly across Cole’s face. “Yeah,” he said. “Me, too.”
A slow smile spread across her features as well until they were both sitting there grinning at each other, the rain a soft background melody. They didn’t last long, however, as their prolonged eye contact slowly shifted from humor to heat, and Jane’s laughing gaze dropped to his mouth, becoming hungry again.
Cole, his stomach pulling taut at her blatant desire, lifted his finger and crooked it, gesturing to Jane to move closer. “Come here,” he murmured.
She put the beer bottles on the cushion between them and did his bidding. Cole met her halfway, their lips joining softly, gently. An explorative press, a prelude to something more, but also a chance to change their minds.
For Jane to, anyway, because Cole had never wanted anything more in his life.
But the low noise at the back of her throat, the way she sighed “Cole” against his mouth just before parting her lips, supercharged the moment, and he was lost. His hand slid onto her cheek and pushed into her hair as he met her open mouth with his own, groaning at the dizzying rush caused by her taste and her smell hitting his senses all at once.
“Fuck,” he muttered, and his tongue licked into her mouth, needing to taste more of her, all of her. Her appreciative moan stiffened his dick and squeezed his balls.
&
nbsp; He was harder than he’d ever been in his life.
The kiss escalated; their tongues danced, stroking and intertwining until they were both panting, their heads twisting and turning as they tried to go deeper and deeper. Cole couldn’t get enough—he wanted more. The wild belt of his heart demanded more. He wanted her closer; he needed her closer. He wanted to touch everywhere, lick and kiss and explore every last inch of her skin.
He wanted to be over her, on her, in her. He wanted to hear her pant and moan and beg. He sure as hell wanted to hear his name on her lips as she came.
Christ. He wasn’t close enough. Not nearly close enough.
“Closer,” he muttered against her mouth as his hand slid to her hip and around to her arse, then to the back of her thigh, urging her over.
“Yes,” she muttered against his, going with him as she slid her leg over his thighs, pulling her dress out from between her as she went, straddling his lap, the soft give of her center pressed against the hard bulge at his center.
The move was accomplished in seconds, the swing rocking and lurching, but he barely registered it as their kiss continued, deeper and wetter, his neck extended back now as she loomed above him. His hands settled on her arse, where her dress had bunched up, holding her fast, holding her just there, where it felt so good, especially when she started to flex her hips, rubbing herself against him rhythmically.
Cole gasped, breaking their lip-lock as every nerve ending in his crotch caught fire.
“What?” She stared down at him, the pant of her breath and the wet shine of her mouth sexy as fuck. “Oh, shit…sorry…” She frowned. “Is it your leg, your hip? Is it capable of taking my weight?”
Cole choked out a husky laugh. He was feeling zero pain right now. Hell, he was so far gone he could’ve been balancing the planet on his lap and not registered it.
Thank you, dopamine.
“Oh, it’s more than capable.” And he thrust against her a little to demonstrate his competence and his readiness.
Every single inch of it.
Her hands clamped hard on his shoulders, and she closed her eyes on a moan, her head falling back. Cole licked straight up the ridge of her trachea as his palms ran up the sides of her body. He vaguely registered the hard plastic of the baby monitor on the left—in a pocket, maybe—as his hands moved up, up, up, his fingers thrusting into her hair, pulling out the band holding her ponytail in place, setting her hair free, reveling in the cool spill of it against his palms.
