Текст книги "Game for Love "

Автор книги: Bella Andre

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Текущая страница: 11 (всего у книги 15 страниц)

And yet, even as she responded to him, even as her body begged him for more, for faster taps on her backside, even as she felt herself grow wetter, more open for him, she couldn’t hide from the fact that nothing about this was right.

Not when pain was everywhere in the room. Not when pain was taking her over, top to bottom.

She didn’t really feel the pain of his hand on her bottom. He wasn’t hurting her at all with his little smacks. He simply didn’t have it in him to hurt her. Physically, at least.

No, the pain she felt was all Cole. It was seeping from his cells, his veins, from his heart to hers.

On the verge of taking her, he’d sudden gone completely still, his fingertips digging into her hips so hard she knew she’d have ten finger-sized round bruises on her skin in the morning.

He moved away so abruptly she would have fallen if not for the table holding her up. She blinked back tears as she slowly pushed herself up so that she was standing, using the time to pull her underwear back up and smooth down her skirt to catch her breath. Finally, when she felt strong enough, she turned and faced her husband.

He’d righted his clothes too and now he was standing halfway across the room– away from her—his hands in fists, his eyes so dark and so bleak she had to choke back a sob.

“Tell me what you see now. Tell me if they’re all blind now, Anna.”

She knew what he was doing, that he was trying to force a monster into the room. But there wasn’t one.

“I see a man who knows exactly how to touch me.”

His jaw tightened, his biceps flexing as he clearly worked to control himself. “Fuck no, Anna, I was hurting you.”

“We both know you weren’t,” she countered in a soft voice as she took a small step toward him. “We both know I was loving, craving your touch. The way I always do. The way I always will. The way I’m craving it right now.”

She knew she had to be careful, that the big strong man who hadn’t run from anything in his life was a heartbeat away from bolting. But she was so sick of being careful. She'd spent a lifetime being careful.

She’d taken her first risk on Friday night when she’d let Cole kiss her, and then one after the other since in his arms. Every minute with him the risks grew bigger.

But so did her courage.

“Do you want to know what else I’m seeing, Cole?”

Instead of answering her, he said, “Don’t do this, baby. Don’t try to convince yourself that I’m someone I’m not.”

“Don’t you dare talk to me like I don’t know my own eyes. My own mind. My own heart.”

And despite the way he was trying to push her away, she knew deep in her heart that she wasn’t wrong about him.

“I know what I see. I see a man who loves his grandmother, who plays for his team with all of his heart, who treats complete strangers with respect.” She took another small step toward him. “I know what I feel. I feel your innate tenderness. I feel the pure comfort of being in your arms. And I know, without a doubt, that you’re the best thing that’s ever happened to me.”

His eyes flashed as she repeated his earlier, sleepy words back to him. His barriers had been down after their lovemaking, so different from the thick wall she was facing tonight.

“I see what you let me see, Cole. But I want to see so much more. I want you to trust me the way I’ve trusted you.”

“You know firsthand just how well I can lie, Anna. You shouldn’t trust me. Not for one second, sweetheart.”

Did he hear himself call her sweetheart even when he was trying like hell to push her away? She’d given him her body. Now there was only one thing left to give him.

And even though she knew it was the very thing he was fighting against, she couldn’t keep it inside.

She wouldn’t.

Not when he’d taught her how to take a chance, how to grab his hand and fly higher than she’d ever thought she could.

“I’m not an opponent you can tackle to get me out of your way,” she told him. “If you want to try to push me away then you’d better be ready for me to push right back.” She moved the rest of the way across the room, leaving only a couple of feet between them. “I thought I was the one who needed to learn from you. I thought I was the scared one, that you weren’t afraid of anything. I thought you knew more than I did. I thought you were going to teach me crazy and I was going to learn everything I could. But only about pleasure.”

She stopped, held his dark, dangerous eyes with her own. She wasn’t scared anymore.

Even though her heart was completely on the line.

Instead, the strength of her feelings for the one man she never would have thought to fall for in a million years gave her the strength she’d always been searching for.

“You are the only person who’s ever looked at me and thought that there might be strength inside. You are the only one who’s ever held my hand and helped me fly.” She held out her hand to him. “Let me do that for you, Cole.”

His face was completely empty of expression and it took everything in her to keep her hand from trembling, to keep from backing away from the biggest chance she’d ever taken.

It took more strength than she even knew she possessed to hold steady, to know that she couldn’t force him to feel something he didn’t feel.

And to still say, “I love you.”

Chapter Sixteen

Her bravery stunned him. The sweet girl he’d propositioned in Las Vegas was still there, just as innocent, her halo still hovering over her beautiful hair. But that Anna wasn’t the only one standing in front of him, hand outstretched. An incredibly strong woman stood there, too.

Offering him something he didn’t deserve: Love he didn’t think he was capable of returning.

Cole didn’t know what the fuck he was going to do about it. All he knew right then was that he couldn’t let her go. Not like this.

Not fucking yet.

It was the fear of losing her that had him pulling his feet up out of the hardening cement, it was a vision of her dropping her hand and walking away forever that made him reach out and take it.

Their first night together, he’d held her hand, had loved the feeling of protecting her. But he didn’t know who was protecting whom anymore.

He dropped his gaze to their linked hands, turned hers over and stroked his thumb across the base of her palm, along the very edge of her wrist.

“I—”

Cole had lied so many times. Lies had kept him on teams he should have been cut from.

Lies had kept him in beds he shouldn’t have been allowed anywhere near. One more lie shouldn’t be so hard. One more lie would keep Anna right here with him.

He lifted his gaze to hers, watching her watching him as blue turned to green, then back again. The storm was still raging in her ocean eyes, everything swirling together—her love, her pain, her hope, the desire he’d taught her to crave.

There was only one other wish he’d wanted to grant so badly. Making that wish come true for his grandmother had brought Anna to him.

But he couldn’t grant this wish for love as easily. Cole hadn’t grown up in a home where he could watch how a man was supposed to love a woman. But Anna had.

“Don’t, Cole.” She gripped his hand more firmly in hers. “Don’t say something you don’t mean just to try and make me happy. That isn’t what I want from you. That isn’t why I said what I just said.”

But even as she spoke, she moved closer and he could smell the storm on her, sweet and spicy and darker than ever. And he couldn’t help but notice she hadn’t said “I love you” again, just as he couldn’t help the flash of disappointment at not hearing it fall from her sweet lips one more time.

Knowing himself for the bastard that he was, he said the only thing he could.

“I really, really, really, really like you.”

Disappointment flared blue-green, before laughter filled her big eyes. Eyes that would haunt him forever.

“Wow. Four really s. That’s a whole lot of like.”

The words danced in her laughter, but all he could hear was the pain beneath them.

“Anna, I—”

But this time, she wouldn’t let him finish, her finger moving over his lips. “Take me to bed, Cole.”

And as he lifted her into his arms, instead of the relief he should have been feeling that she’d not only let him off the hook but still—miraculously—wanted to be in his bed, Cole couldn’t escape the dragging feeling of discontent in his gut that told him he was on the verge of making the biggest mistake of his life.

* * *

Anna felt Cole’s frustration as if it were her own. She’d never learned how to block out other people’s emotions, especially when she cared deeply for the person who was hurting. She should have been the one in pain—the one who gave love and only got like in return. And yes, a part of her was smarting from that.

But for all of her fears, she’d grown up with a foundation of love. While she knew Cole had always been loved by his grandmother, she suspected that hadn’t been enough. He’d needed a family of more than two.

If she could, she’d give him all the love he’d never had. Even knowing he might not ever give it back to her.

He laid her down on the bed, so gently she knew he was trying to make up for the way he’d been on the dining table. He moved away, but she was quicker, pulling him off of his feet so that he couldn’t stop himself from falling onto her, the hard thud of his heavy muscles knocking the breath from her lungs.

“I keep hurting you,” he said as he lifted his weight up over her.

Didn’t he know she loved having all of him, loved knowing she drove him so wild that he lost control and took them both to the edge of reason?

“No, Cole. You would never hurt me. Never.”

She took advantage of his surprise by pushing him with all her might so that he was lying sprawled on their bed. She swung her legs over his, tucking her groin against the hard length in his jeans.

He groaned and she threaded her fingers through his, holding them away from his body.

“I’m sure one day I’ll need you to be gentle, to kiss me softly and stroke me, to whisper in my ear and take me slowly.”

Pure lust flared in his eyes at her soft words, his hips grinding into hers as automatically as hers came down onto his.

“But I’ve had gentle my whole life.” She let her lips move into a wicked smile she hadn’t known was a part of her. Until Cole. “Right now, I like it—” She leaned down, the tips of her hair brushing against his chest, his neck as she put her mouth to his ear. “—raw.” She nipped at his earlobe. “And rough.” She licked over the small bite. “So, are you going to keep apologizing to me—or are you going to give me what I really want?”

And just as she’d hoped he would, he immediately answered her demand with one of his own as his strength overpowered hers, flipping her onto the mattress. But then, she saw him pull back, watched as his hard-won control came back down over them.

“You don’t know what you’re saying.” His nostrils flared, his jaw jumped. “You don’t know what you’re asking for.”

Excitement, anticipation, desire, along with the swirling darkness surrounding Cole, shuddered up her spine, made her nipples even harder, sent blood racing between her thighs.

“Everything.” She could be just as stubborn as the beautiful man she’d fallen so deeply in love with in such a short time. “I want everything you can give me.” She wrapped her legs around his hips, pushed herself into him. “Just like this, Cole, take me just like this. Show me how much you want me. I need to know how much you want me.”

Still fully clothed, he thrust against her as hard as he ever had, his hands dropping hers to grab her hips instead. She gasped as he roughly gripped her still-tender butt cheeks, but instead of pulling back he gripped her harder, grinding her sensitive, almost painfully aroused flesh against his erection. The covered zipper against her clit drove her crazy with need, but it was his words—“You have five seconds to come or you’re going to feel my hand on your sweet ass again”—that had her pussy clenching. And oh God, how she held out those five seconds, as he ground out, “Five. Four. Three. Two,” pausing far longer than he needed to before saying, “One,”

she didn’t know.

And then she wasn’t thinking anymore, couldn’t get any part of her brain that wasn’t connected to sex to work, because he had flipped her back over, one hand in her hair to keep her face down against the mattress, the other shoving her dress up, her panties down. And then he was lifting her hips up so that she was on her knees and she could almost feel it, the sweet burning of his palm across her skin.

Nothing happened. The air was still. She held her breath, then had to let it out when she didn’t have enough oxygen.

Whack!

Nothing could have prepared her for his hand coming down over her pussy. She cried out, the sound more pleasure than pain, partially swallowed by the thick comforter. There was no time to get used to the new sensations wracking her, no time to try and anticipate his next move, no time to get her head around the fact that she was being spread open by thick fingers, that they were driving high and hard inside of her.

She’d asked for rough and he was giving her things she’d never known she wanted, never could have guessed that she needed. Every second, he took her higher, showed her something new and wonderful. Like now, with his teeth against the raw, tender skin of her bottom, his thumb a hard and wonderful press against her clit.

The beginnings of a climax crawled down her spine, one heavy throb of pleasure after another, slower to build than any other orgasm he’d given her, but promising to be so much bigger, so much better. Anna gloried in deeper, darker pleasure than she’d even known was possible.

And then, as she felt Cole’s hips behind her, his cock pushing her open so much farther than his fingers had, as his chest covered her back, as he turned her head to the side and his mouth found hers, Anna finally understood what love could do.

Love could take pleasure and make it thrilling bliss, blessed ecstasy. Love could throw her into the midst of luscious heat. And through it all, through every rough and raw and overpowering release, even as she lost not just her control, but the entire thread of who she was, Cole was there with her. Strong. Comforting.

And more loving than he seemed to know.

Chapter Seventeen

“I meant to tell you last night,” Cole said as she was brushing her hair in front of the mirror the next morning, “Julie set up an interview.” He paused, his gaze locking with hers in the mirror. “For us to talk about our marriage.”

Anna had known something like this had to be coming, that Cole’s fans would demand answers about his quickie marriage to a nobody. But that knowledge didn’t make her any less nervous about it.

She was happy blending in, fading into the background. At least, she’d always thought so.

It was only these past few days, in the hours she’d spent with Cole, that she’d begun to wonder at the truth of everything she believed about herself.

Still, finding a core of deep sensuality inside herself was a very different thing than wanting any part of the limelight.

“The writer is a friend of Julie’s. You don’t have to answer any questions you’re not comfortable with.”

Anna knew he was trying to reassure her. And though she was glad to hear the interview wasn’t going to be televised, she needed to know something first. “Which paper?”

She watched him with rising alarm as he moved toward her, knowing it was his nature to instinctively try to protect her from things he thought would hurt her.

“USA Today.”

The brush clattered from her fingers to the sink and he tried to smile reassuringly.

“They’re probably just going to ask the same questions we’ve already answered for everyone else. Where we met. Why we kept our relationship a secret.” His body was warm against hers, his chin too high to rest on the top of her head. “I’ll field her questions, sweetheart.”

How had their one little lie—no, their huge lie—for his grandmother spiraled off in so many directions?

“When is the interview?”

“Tonight. Six o’clock. At Max’s.”

Trying to act normally, she moved to pick her brush up, but Cole beat her to it.

“Let me.”

Long strokes soothed her, had her unable to look away from the heat in his eyes.

She loved him. But he didn’t love her.

It was one thing to try and hide the truth from family and friends, made easier in some ways by the fact that they’d see what they wanted to see. They wanted to believe she was the luckiest girl alive to have captured Cole's heart. They wanted to believe in love at first sight.

They wanted to believe that an invisible girl like her could be a superstar’s everything.

But strangers didn’t care about her happiness. Some would be jealous, the ones who dreamed of men like Cole. Most wouldn’t believe it. They’d all seen the kind of women he usually chose.

None of those women were short with slightly crooked bottom teeth. None of those women walked around with an extra five pounds on their hips. None of those women were first-grade teachers who usually liked talking with the kids way more than chatting with their parents.

And not one of those women wore a halo.

* * *

On the drive to her school, neither of them spoke about what had happened the previous night—or what she'd said to him—and Anna, for one, was glad for some time to try and wrap her head around the multitude of ways her life had changed in such a short time.

But it wasn’t just her life that had changed.

She’d changed...shifting a little more each time Cole touched her.

She felt simultaneously uncomfortable and more in tune with her true self than ever before.

The discomfort came from her heightened sensitivity to everything. The sun was brighter.

The sky more blue. She noticed every chirp the birds made. And her skin sizzled at Cole’s slightest touch. Even when he wasn’t touching her, just the heat in his eyes caused a flush to move across her chest, over her cheeks.

Before Cole, she’d been afraid to feel too much, had done everything she could to block sensation. From that first kiss, her husband had stripped away those layers, was still stripping them away one at a time, leaving her to look with surprise into the mirror each time she passed.

The woman staring back at her was similar to the one she’d seen for thirty years, only with an edge of sensual comprehension and pure emotion that she hadn’t previously possessed.

He walked through the halls with her, his left hand never letting go of hers as he shook hands with what felt like every person in San Francisco. The ringing bell gave her license to drag him away to the relative safety of her classroom, where she all but slammed the door in the faces of her students’ parents.

Not looking the least bit bothered or put out by any of the attention, Cole got down on his knees on the linoleum floor, surrounded by overexcited first graders. His laughter was contagious. He was a total natural with kids as well as adults. They didn’t have to be a fan of his football skills to fall in love with him.

Anna put her hand to her heart at the sight of his gentleness, his laughter at the kids’

antics, at his pure enjoyment of being with a bunch of six-year-olds.

He was going to be a wonderful father.

And as her hand moved from her heart to her stomach, Anna couldn’t hide from the fact that her dreams and hopes for a family of her own—and a husband who loved her with all his heart—had already taken root.

She didn’t just want Cole’s love.

She wanted a family with him, too.

She wanted forever.

* * *

Later that night at Max’s, all around them people in the popular city bar and restaurant were laughing, drinking, flirting. Some were playing with their cell phones. But all of them had one thing in common: They were all focused on Cole and Anna.

After years in the spotlight, he was used to being the center of attention in public. But Anna, his sweet Anna, wasn’t. It was pure instinct to want to protect her from it. He was thirty seconds from dragging her out of the restaurant and locking her up in his bedroom until news of their marriage had blown over. Pissed that he’d let Julie talk him into this, he’d almost risked getting kicked off the team by tackling her husband in practice.

At one point the bastard golden boy had given Cole one of those shit-eating grins everyone so stupidly ate up. “Marriage kicking your ass, huh? I’d be happy to give you some advice on keeping your wife happy, if you need it.”

Cole had almost jumped him right there. But he could see that was exactly what Ty wanted and he couldn't give the motherfucker the satisfaction of knowing just how twisted up in knots he was over his sweet, pretty wife.

“I’ve had gentle my whole life. Right now, I like it raw. Rough. I want everything you can give me. Show me how much you want me. I need to know how much you want me.”

Jesus, just remembering what she’d said to him had his dick about to bust out of the zipper. He’d been surprised by her last night, and now, here she was surprising him again during their interview. He’d thought that Anna was going to be the nervous one, but she was amazingly relaxed. He was the one gritting his teeth, worrying about every fucking question. Pummeling the crap out of his teammates in practice hadn’t taken the edge off a damn thing.

“So you grew up in the Bay Area?”

Anna nodded, smiling at the journalist in her open, friendly way. The same way she’d looked at him that first night in the club. With pure, shining innocence.

“My whole family is here.”

“How did they react when you brought Cole home for the first time?”

He tensed at the question, but Anna’s eyes sparkled. “They loved him, of course.

Although one of my brothers-in-law almost had a coronary when he realized his biggest hero had just walked through the front door.”

“What about your parents? How did they feel about their daughter dating a big, bad Outlaw? Were they worried he’d break your heart?”

Anna didn’t answer right away. When she did, her words rang with honesty. “Of course they worried. What parent wouldn’t?”

Cynthia raised an eyebrow in Cole’s direction. “So then, how did you prove to them that they could trust their precious daughter’s heart with you?”

His throat felt way too tight. For some reason, the man who had sweet-talked his way into more panties and out of more sticky situations than he could keep track of couldn’t find any way out of this one.

Anna leaned her head against his shoulder. “The truth is, they never had a chance, not even my mom, who was worried about me at first. They love him as much as I do. How can they not?”

She tilted her face up to his, so beautiful that he had to touch her, couldn’t stop himself from lightly brushing his thumb across her lower lip.

The photographer Cynthia had brought with her snapped a rapid flurry of shots, Anna’s love for him a radiant, glowing presence at the table.

“Wow, it really seems like you two are the fairytale come true. The sweet schoolteacher who tamed the bad boy.”

The journalist smiled and Cole thought it seemed genuine. Still, he’d been burned one too many times by the press to trust the woman any further than the next table over.

Anna’s smiling eyes found his. “Did you hear that? She thinks I’ve tamed you.”

Her laughter was infectious, even making his mouth move into a grin.

His wife shook her head, still laughing as she turned back to Cynthia. “Trust me, my husband is completely untamable.” Her gaze flicked back to him, shot through with wild heat.

“And the truth is, I wouldn’t want him to be any other way. I wouldn’t ever want him to be something that he’s not or feel like he has to say or do the right thing to make me happy. He makes me happy just the way he is, just the way he’s always been.”

“I see why you fell for her.” Cynthia broke the spell his wife was wrapping around his heart. “But since my readers aren’t here with us to see the two of you together in person, I’d love it if you could tell me what drew you to Anna.”

He didn’t have to think about it, didn’t have to pretend. “I’ve never met anyone so sweet.

Or so beautiful that I can hardly believe my eyes every time I look at her.”

“Cole.”

Anna’s whispered exclamation came with a deep flush in her cheeks. Any other woman would have preened, but she was more embarrassed than anything.

“But what you can’t see is how brave she is. She has more courage in her pinkie than a tailback running into a team of three-hundred-pound defensive linemen.”

“Wow,” Cynthia said as she scribbled in her notebook. “People are going to go crazy for you two.”

But Cole didn’t care about the interview anymore. He couldn’t focus on anything but Anna.

“One more thing,” Cynthia said. “When did you realize Anna was special, Cole? When did you realize you were going to marry her? When did you know you loved her and only her?”

Cole didn’t look away from Anna, couldn’t have torn his gaze from hers as he said, “The first time I saw her I knew I couldn’t let her go. I asked her to marry me that night.”

“Was it love at first sight for you, too, Anna?”

“I’d never done anything that crazy before,” Anna said in a soft voice, “but being with Cole felt so right from the start.”

“So, you’re telling me that you asked her to marry you the night you met and you accepted right then and there?” She looked at Cole, then Anna, her eyebrows raised with surprise. “So then why wait months to finally do the deed? And why do it in secrecy?”

Anna response was quick, fluid, believable. “My sister was getting married. I didn’t want to overshadow her wedding. And then, when she was heading off on her honeymoon, Cole showed up out of the blue. We just couldn’t wait another second.”

Cole’s gut cramped at her easy lie. She could never have done that on Friday. He’d promised to teach her new things, but he’d never meant for one of those things to be twisting the truth.

How could he ever forgive himself for doing that to her?

Cynthia turned off her recorder. “Seriously, guys, my readers are going to love your story.

It’s so romantic. So perfect. Thanks so much for chatting with me. If I have follow-up questions, I’ll be in touch. Look for the story in the weekend edition.”

They said their goodbyes, walking the journalist out to a cab. They drove back to his house in silence. There were so many things he suddenly wanted to say to her. So many things he didn’t know how to say.

Nothing in his life had prepared him for Anna.

For the love that she gave him so freely, no strings, no demands.

Just love. Pure and sweet.

Yes, he’d given her pleasure, but along the way he’d forced her to take on skills she should never have needed to know.

Lying.

Evading.

They walked into his house and Anna reached for his hand. “Are you okay?”

He wanted so badly to pull her against him, but he couldn’t stand the thought of sullying her with his touch. “You don’t deserve this mess. Not any of it.”

Her hand slipped tighter through his, so warm, so soft. “You’re not forcing me to do anything, Cole. Marrying you, staying with you, doing this interview—they were all my decisions, right or wrong. If I wanted to stop, I’d stop.”

He didn’t have the strength to keep his gaze off her beauty, the innocence that still clung to her, despite his bad influence. And then he saw it, the question in her eyes.

“What you said to Cynthia...did you mean it?”

Since that first moment he’d seen her, he’d been getting lost in her eyes. Lost again even as guilt bore down on him, he said, “I meant everything I said tonight.”

She’d protected him from even one small lie, taking the weight of them all on her own shoulders. No one but his grandmother had ever protected him before. No one had ever cared enough to take a risk like that for him.

Her beautiful eyes swam with disbelief and confusion. “How could you possibly think I’m brave?”

It killed him that she didn’t see it, that she didn’t already know.

“Do you remember our first night together?”

She flushed, leaning her forehead into his chest. But he wouldn’t let her hide from him, couldn’t stand not to see the sweet heat in her eyes as she rewound back to their first time together.

“How could I ever forget?”

He grinned down at her. No one had ever made him feel this happy. This good. And not just in bed, where she kept blowing his mind. Just like this, talking, teasing.

“You could have told me to stop at any time.” He brushed a lock of hair away from her sweet lips. “You were so brave. Not just that night, but every time we’ve been together.”

She shook her head, protesting, “That was just sex.”

“I’ve had plenty of sex, sweet girl. Trust me, what we’ve got going isn’t even close to

‘just sex.’ But if that’s not enough for you, I saw you with your mom. In the kitchen at her house.”

Her eyes widened in alarm. “How much did you hear?”

“Enough to be proud of the way you stood up for yourself.”

And for him. She might not have been telling the complete truth about their relationship to everyone that night, but she’d told her mother a truth she’d held inside for far too long—about how lonely she’d felt in her own big family, surrounded by loving parents and siblings.

As lonely as he’d felt in his family of two.

“There hasn’t been a single situation where you haven’t held your own, no matter how strange it all is for you, like the VIP box or dealing with the paparazzi. By the way, Julie and Melissa already told me that if I ever screw up and you leave me, they’ve chosen you over me.”

He loved the small smile she gave him. “Hell, tonight during that interview, you were the calm one. The brave one protecting me.” He tipped her chin up with a finger. “Do you believe me now?”

“It’s just that no one has ever called me brave before.”

“Then they’re all wrong.” He hadn’t forgotten a word she’d said to him the previous night. And now, he was the one saying them all back to her. “They’re all stupid. And blind. Crazy blind.”

“Crazy,” she echoed, the one word breathless with the same need that was killing him as they stood in the middle of his kitchen.

He needed to be closer to her, needed to know that she was right where she belonged...in his arms.

“I know I promised you crazy, sweetheart. I know you told me last night that you like it raw. Rough. And so do I. But right now all I want is to make love to my wife.”