Playing with Trouble

by Amy Andrews

  “In my bedroom, Jane Spencer?”

  “In your bed, Cole Hauser.”

  “I like the way you think.” He scooted over and pulled back the sheet.

  Jane’s gaze dropped to the black briefs, the only barrier to his modesty. It reminded her of their first-ever meeting. “I pictured you sleeping in the buff.”

  He cocked an eyebrow. “You pictured me, huh?”

  “Oh please.” Jane rolled her eyes. “Like you didn’t already know that.”

  He grinned. “I thought it was safer to wear something since coming to stay in a house with a small boy and an escapee chameleon, neither of whom seem to understand the concept of privacy.”

  “Yeah…sorry ’bout that.”

  He shrugged it off like waking up to chameleons on his chest was nothing. “Are you getting in?”

  Jane’s eyes returned to the length of his bare leg. Heat radiated off him in waves, delivering the warm, delicious scent of him on a cloud of pheromones as she lifted her eyes to his. “How’s your hip?”

  “It’s fine.”

  “Really?”

  “Yes.”

  “But you haven’t done this since…”

  “Don’t worry.” He grinned. “I hear it’s like riding a bike. You never forget.”

  Jane gave a half laugh. That wasn’t what she’d meant, and he knew it. “Look, I get some people are into pain, but it’s not my thing.” It was bound to hurt enough when he was gone.

  “I’m sure I can work it out.” He patted the mattress. “Now get your arse up here.”

  Jane didn’t need any further invitation. She’d done her due diligence with his injuries, and Cole was a grown man. He knew what he could and couldn’t handle. Stopping only to empty her pockets onto the bedside table, she slid into bed beside him.

  “Hi,” she said again as she half turned to face him, her head and shoulder leaning into the headboard.

  “Hey.”

  He smiled at her, his eyes roaming around her face, his fingers lifting to push a chunk of her hair back behind her ear. Goose bumps broke out on her arms, and her nipples tightened at the light drag of his fingers across her skin.

  “How about we do a different kind of appraisal?” he suggested. His fingertips trailed down her neck.

  “What did you have in mind?”

  “Let’s agree that I have excellent skills as a manny and move to a blow-by-blow appraisal of my skills as a lover. You can score me out of ten.”

  Jane gave a half laugh, which melted into a nonsensical kind of sound as his head lowered and his lips brushed her jawline. She shut her eyes as sensations swirled in her belly. “You won’t feel…objectified?”

  He chuckled low and close to her ear. “Objectify me, baby.” And then his hand slid around to her back, and somehow he was easing her down to the mattress, his lips barely lifting from her skin. Her head landed on the pillow, and he licked her neck.

  “How’s that?”

  Jane swallowed and shut her eyes, glorying in the wet lap of his tongue. “Good,” she panted, her pulse fluttering madly. “Very good. An eight, at least.”

  “Hmm,” he murmured, and it buzzed against the hollow at the base of her throat. “I’m sure I can do better than that. Where else?”

  “What?” His lips brushed her skin as he talked, which was exceedingly distracting.

  “Where else should I lick you?”

  Wicked, wicked thoughts exploded in her brain. Lower. Her nipples, her belly button, her…god, just everywhere. But she pointed to her mouth, because if she didn’t kiss him soon, she was going to die. “How about here?”

  He lifted his head, chuckling as his mouth drew nearer to hers, puffing warm air over her as he hovered his lips, teasing her with their nearness.

  Well…screw that.

  Jane lifted her head and snatched his mouth for her own. Opening to him—unleashing, devouring, her tongue stroking inside and owning the kiss, her arms snaking around his neck, her fingers thrusting into the wild tangle of curls at his nape as she pulled his body flush with hers. But then he unleashed, and she moaned and clung to him as he took the kiss deeper and wetter and dirtier, her head sinking into the pillow as his lips moved hard and hot over hers.

  For long, drugging moments, there was nothing but his mouth and his taste and the husky chug of their breathing and the loud thrum of her pulse through her ears. But then he was gone again, and Jane whimpered something unintelligible—hell, it was barely human—in protest.

  “Don’t worry,” he panted, his lips at her throat again, “I’ll be back for more soon.”

  Then he was licking down her body, wreaking all kinds of havoc with his hot tongue. Along her collarbones and following the V of her T-shirt as his hand found the hem and slid it up, his palm smoothing up her belly and her chest until her breasts were fully exposed and his mouth found a nipple.

  Jane gasped at the hot lick on the almost unbearably aroused tip. Her hand sank into his hair, holding him there, her body shuddering and melting as he trekked his tongue from one to the other, lingering longer each time, the rhythmic suction strumming nerve endings buried deep inside her inner thighs and the lips of her sex.

  Then he abandoned the flushed, engorged peaks for destinations farther south. The surface muscles of her abdomen leaped and contracted beneath his mouth, and the erotic rub of his whiskers. His tongue played around her belly button and lower again, his hands busy easing her pajama shorts and her underwear down her hips and then stripping them off until she was automatically kicking them off her feet and spreading her legs for him to settle between.

  His tongue licked up her inner thigh, and Jane cried out as she arched off the bed.

  He chuckled low, puffing warm air over the wet streak he’d just made on her thigh. “How am I doing?”

  Confused for a moment, Jane lifted her head. Her belly contracted hard at the sight of him propped up between her thighs, all smug and comfortable, overbearingly masculine with his dark whiskers and his hair rakishly tousled. Like a king settling in for a feast. With his big shoulders filling the space between her legs, spreading them wide, he grinned at her, resting his chin on her mons, making hot, frank eye contact.

  “Well?”

  Jane frowned. “What…?” She’d already forgotten the damn question, and him lazily rubbing his chin back and forth was not helping her recall.

  “How am I doing?”

  How was he doing? Jane made a nonsensical noise somewhere between bone-deep pleasure and red-hot lust with a side of you really need to ask?

  There wasn’t a word for that.

  His grin broadened. “That’s better.” Then he used those shoulders to push her legs wider, lowered his head to the slick furrow of her sex, and licked her straight up the center.

  Jane collapsed back to the pillow on a strangled moan. And when he did it again and again and again, she planted her heels in the small of his back and slid her hands into his hair and held him there, riding his tongue as he licked and flicked and sucked, her heart crashing, her back arching, her lungs desperately sucking in air.

  It didn’t take long for the first twinge to hit or for the twinge to become a ripple, causing Jane to buck and pant. Her buttocks contracted as the ripples spread farther and farther afield, then surged on a wave, flushing through her body as he slid a finger inside her, then another. Her pulse roared, and she cried out, a strangled, “Oh God!” as everything contracted and pleasure arced through her like electricity, lighting up every cell in her body and saturating her in ecstasy until it had soaked through every layer of her skin and she was drenched down to her bones.

  Jane didn’t know how long it took her to come back from her orgasm. All she knew was she was flying high for so long, marinating in a vat of sensation not of this earth, and then slowly she became conscious of the rough pant of her brea
thing and the mattress at her shoulder blades and Cole’s lips working their way up her belly and over her breasts to the ridge of her trachea and the underside of her jaw to her mouth.

  And then he was kissing her long and deep and slow, and she could taste herself, and she was kissing him back, twisting her arms around his neck, the hard thump of his chest centered over the hard thump of hers as she whimpered against his mouth.

  “I need you in me,” she panted, her lips barely leaving his as her hands slid to the waistband of his underwear and pushed them down.

  He groaned. “I need to be in you, too.”

  He reached for the condoms, grabbing one, tearing it open with his teeth as he levered himself away a little, helping her push his underwear halfway down his thighs before quickly donning the protection and settling between her legs again, his cock notching at her entrance, thick and blunt and perfect.

  “God.” Jane pressed against him urgently as she wrapped her legs around his waist. “That feels good.”

  He gave a half laugh as he raised up onto the flats of his forearms, looking down at her. “It’s going to feel better,” he muttered and entered her in one smooth stroke.

  Jane’s breath was torn straight from her throat as he seated himself high and hard, right to the hilt. She couldn’t cry out or moan or even pant, because that required a functioning set of lungs, and Cole Hauser buried deep inside her for the first time had temporarily rendered her body incapable of normal function.

  “Fuuuuuck.” He dropped his head, pressing his face into the side of her throat as he gathered her close and held on for a few seconds.

  There were some people in the world who thought F-words were the domain of the poorly educated. But Jane knew sometimes only an F-word would do, and Cole had summed this moment up perfectly.

  She had never felt this at one with a person in her life. It was freaking…spiritual.

  They lay panting into the silence for a beat or two, Jane deliciously aware of him inside her, stretching her so damn good, feeling the buzz and tingle that had settled in the aftermath of her orgasm flare to life again.

  “I knew we’d be perfect together,” he muttered, his mouth sliding up her neck as he lifted onto his forearms and started to move.

  Jane gasped as he withdrew and moaned, “God, yes…” clutching his ass, keeping him close.

  But then his breath hissed out, and his glutes clenched hard as granite. “Cole?” What was happening? Was it his hip again?

  “Hang on a moment,” he muttered, his voice low and guttural.

  He shifted slightly, grunting a little as he gathered her close, tilting his body to the side a little, obviously redistributing his weight to his good leg, and suddenly, his whole body relaxed against hers. He dropped his forehead to her chest for a beat or two, taking slow, steady breaths.

  “Is it okay now?” she asked.

  He gave a half laugh, lifting his head to lock eyes with her as he slowly withdrew and thrust again—hard—with no apparent impediment. “What do you reckon?”

  Jane smiled. “I reckon that’s an eleven out of ten and you should do that again.”

  “My thoughts precisely.”

  So he did it again. And again. And again. And he kept doing it, over and over, thrusting and withdrawing, groaning and panting, the aroma of hot, wild man intoxicating her, as he reared over her with each thrust, his biceps trembling and his glutes tightening and his breathing getting jerkier and jerkier. The embers of Jane’s orgasm reignited quickly, Cole’s relentless strokes fanning the flames until suddenly it was right there and she was breaking, drumming her feet on his ass as she flew apart.

  The roar he made when he followed her in the next stroke was the kind of noise that spoke to Jane on a primal level. She’d done this to him. She’d made him sound like that—half sex-crazed man, half wild animal. Her.

  Divorced, single mom, Jane Spencer.

  And hell if that wasn’t the hottest thing ever as they rocked through a mutual orgasm that shook Jane to her very core.

  Jane woke who knew how long later. There was no bedside clock, so she could’ve spent minutes or hours snuggled in Cole’s arms, although it felt like a reasonable amount of time had elapsed. She wouldn’t have thought him the type who snuggled, which was, she guessed, pretty awful stereotyping, especially considering he’d been the one to initiate it in the aftermath.

  She’d expected there to be a lot of silence as they lay on their backs and stared at the ceiling. It was an impressive stamped tin ceiling, and Jane could’ve easily chatted about it to cover for any awkwardness, but it hadn’t been required. He’d reached for her without hesitation, pulling her close and tucking her into his side, then promptly fallen asleep.

  So, obviously, had she. Little wonder, really. She’d been exhausted in the way really good blow-your-head-off sex made a person exhausted, and listening to the steady thump of his heartbeat under her ear had been hypnotically rhythmic.

  Hell, she’d only woken now because Cole had stirred and slipped out of bed.

  Jane’s gaze fixed on the spill of light across the sheets coming from the miniscule opening—merely a crack—in the bathroom door. God…she’d slept with Cole Hauser. Snuggled with Cole Hauser. Her heart banged a little louder in her chest at the thought of her daring, but…what next?

  More sex? More nights like this? More taking advantage of their enforced proximity for as long as it lasted? Or were they going to be one and done?

  They hadn’t really talked about it, after all.

  The faucet ran, and the light flicked out, and Jane’s eyes slowly adjusted as the shadowy figure of Cole limped slowly back toward the bed, sans cane. By the time he was beside the bed, her pupils had fully dilated, and the realization he was still totally naked was staring her in the face.

  She hadn’t really gotten a good look at this part of his anatomy, too damn greedy to get him inside her earlier to touch it or study it at length. But, even in the darkened room, it was an impressive specimen. Thick and long, the crown a large spongy dome. It nestled in a thatch of hair darker and springier than that on his chest but blending seamlessly where the two met.

  And just like that, she wanted him again. She wanted to reach out and stroke him and keep having nights like this for as long as she could have him.

  “What time is it?” she asked, curling her fingers into her palms so she wouldn’t slide her hand onto his back as he lowered himself to the mattress.

  He looked over his shoulder at her, and Jane felt ridiculously shy as his gaze dropped to her breasts, still bare, her shirt still hiked up. She pulled it down self-consciously as their gazes met. “It’s half past midnight.”

  Then he lay down, scooped his arm under her head, and pulled her close again, and Jane, who didn’t even realize she’d been holding her breath, slowly relaxed into him. She didn’t shut her eyes, though, and neither did he. She didn’t have to look at him to know he was wide awake; she could tell by the way he held himself.

  “You were a hit with the kids this weekend,” she said, breaking into the hush of the night, her fingers trekking to one flat male nipple and circling it. His chest hair tickled her skin, spreading goose bumps up her arm.

  “Oh god.” He gave a low groan, the rumble tickling her ear. “I felt like I was herding cats all day.”

  Jane laughed. “It can feel a bit like that.”

  “Kids are not my forte, I’m afraid.”

  Her finger stopped as his words sank in. Sometimes, without knowing it, people let themselves be seen, and a smart person understood it was a lesson. “You’re good with Finn.”

  “One kid, sure. Kids plural?” He shuddered. “I don’t think that’s me.”

  I don’t think that’s me. Listen, Jane. “You’ve never wanted any yourself?”

  “Sure…I guess. It’s crossed my mind as a one-day kinda thing
. In the context of a committed relationship. But I’ve never really been with a woman long term.”

  “You haven’t?”

  He shook his head. “Professional rugby demands a lot, which is hard on relationships, and I don’t suppose I’ve ever found someone I ultimately cared about more than my career.”

  So basically, he’d never loved a woman more than he’d loved rugby. If Jane wasn’t lying in bed naked with him, she’d have admired his honesty, but right now, it was sobering. If she hadn’t known his priorities before tonight, she did now.

  “Rugby was my only long-term goal, and there wasn’t room for anything else.”

  “And now?”

  Jane knew talking to a guy she’d just had sex with about having babies was a surefire way to scare the bejesus out of him. She seriously didn’t even know why she was pursuing the point. But Cole didn’t appear freaked out. If anything, he was settling in, his hand sliding from her arm to her bare hip, his fingers tracing patterns over the curve, spreading goose bumps down her leg and turning everything below her belly button into gelatinous goo.

  “Now? There’s too much uncertainty about my future without adding in that kind of pressure.”

  “They are a big responsibility.”

  “Would you want another one? Another baby?”

  Jane blinked at the unexpected question. “I…don’t know.” It felt like she’d been on a treadmill for years, and with her marriage breaking up and her business taking off, there hadn’t been a lot of focus on her and what she might want long term. But if neither of those things had happened? “Maybe. I’ve got a lot on my plate, and it’s easy to get caught up in all the things that overwhelm me, but the truth is…I love being a mommy. So…yeah, maybe. In the context of a committed relationship.”

  “Finn would make an awesome big brother.”

  “Yes.” Jane laughed, her heart giving a funny little wobble at the affection lacing Cole’s voice. At the way he’d come to know her son in such a short space of time. “He would.”

  “If I ever become a father, I want to do it right. I want to be there for my kid, not be absent like…”