"I can feel how wet, how swollen you are for me even through the silk."
She was only just managing to take in his low words as he spoke against the curve of her breasts, when he nipped at her breast. Maybe it was the sweet flash of pain that cut the final thread that was holding her to reality. Or maybe it was the way he licked over the tiny abrasion so gently, so lovingly that had her crying out his name as the lowest part of her belly tightened, threatening to shatter. Or maybe it was looking down and seeing his dark head bent over her chest, that sent her orgasm slamming through her, from the apex of her thighs all the way down to her toes and fingertips and everywhere in between.
"Anna. Sweet Anna. I love hearing you come. Watching you come. Feeling you come."
Just the sound of his voice was enough to keep her orgasm spiraling on and on, until she was fighting for breath, praying for oxygen to fill her empty lungs.
"I thought you were joking," she admitted when she was finally able to speak again. "I didn't know I could come like that."
"It will happen again. I can promise you that. Only next time we'll get there with just these." He pressed soft kisses to her breasts, first one and then the other, and her low moan sounded in the room. "Let's get this all the way off you."
His words were steady, his face focused, but his hands gave him away, the slight tremble that she'd never thought to see in the incredibly strong man she'd married.
It shouldn't make sense that having him undress her was such a big deal. Not when he'd had her naked so many times before, not when he'd had her tied up, not when he'd played with sex toys with her, not when she'd taken him down her throat and swallowed his come. But he'd never looked at her like this. Even when lust was tearing them both apart, there'd always been a barrier. Not just his, she realized with surprise, but hers, too.
Because even as she'd been falling in love with him, she'd been scared. Holding back if not her heart, then the last piece of her soul.
Tonight, he was claiming every part of her, inside and out.
"All of me," she whispered as he gazed down at her naked skin. "I want you to have all of me."
A sound--half growl, half groan--rumbled out of his chest and over her, but before she could reach out for him and demand the kiss she was so desperate for, his face was between her legs, her thighs spread open over his shoulders.
"I haven't spent enough time here, haven't tasted your sweetness nearly enough," he lamented as he gazed at her wet folds with something akin to rapt wonder. "My damn dick is just going to have to learn to share."
She shouldn't be able to feel such deep emotion, such powerful desire, and still laugh.
None of those things had ever gone together before. But Cole tapped into every part of her: The part that wanted to laugh. The part that wanted to love. The part that wanted to fuck like a wild woman.
"You laughing at me, sweet girl?"
His tongue curled around the tight bud of her clit before pushing between her labia, and then his fingers joined his tongue, plying her open, sliding into her aching core.
She arched into his mouth, his fingers, opening wider, taking him deeper. And through it all, she was smiling, was so happy she thought she might burst.
"You make me smile."
And then Cole was saying, "You're right," and he was up and over her so quick she barely had time to mourn the loss of his tongue against her clit. How could she miss that when he was pressing the thick head of his erection between her slick folds?
"Tomorrow." Propping himself up on his elbows, he cupped her face in his hands. His mouth a breath from hers, he said, "I'll love you slow and easy tomorrow."
He thrust all the way into her at the exact same moment that their lips touched. It didn't matter that she'd detonated just minutes ago, that she should have been sated. In fact, her previous orgasm only seemed to make her more sensitive, more responsive. And when his tongue found hers and he kissed her like he'd never get enough of her, she came undone. Again.
Only this time, it wasn't just her pleasure that she was getting lost in. She was right there with Cole for every stroke, every thrust, every groan, feeling his climax as if it were her own.
Just as her love for him meant that she would willingly take on his pain, she now realized she would always share his pleasure, too.
Chapter Nineteen
Cole was a master at holding focus. Even as a little kid, he'd been able to forget everything but the game. Didn't matter what else was going on in his life, as long as he was on the field, he was good.
He'd been off all goddamned day.
So far off that the guys were not just giving him confused looks, he could see a couple of the rookies, hungry for the chance to shine on the team, talking about him. Like hell if they were going to take his position anytime soon.
He ran faster. Tackled harder. Physical pain meant nothing as he worked to recapture the one thing that he'd always taken as a given.
But it remained just out of his grasp.
The linebacker coach had to pull him off the field. "Quitting time."
Cole looked up, saw that the field was almost empty. Only Ty was still out there, practicing hitting his targets.
"But if you want to run some more formation reads, Cole, I'm happy to stay a little longer."
Fuck. He didn't want to go in now. But Joe had a new baby at home and Cole knew he wanted to be there with his family. Not out on the field with some messed-in-the-head linebacker who didn't know which way was up.
"No, I'm good." He couldn't miss the relief in the other man's eyes.
Ty walked into the locker room just as Cole stepped into the hot spray of the shower.
"You're not the only one, you know."
Cole slammed the nozzle shut. "Fuck off, Ty."
He'd spent some of his best nights with the guy, celebrating big wins with beautiful women, but that didn't mean he wanted to sit there in towels and share feelings.
"Planning on it tonight with my wife." Ty toweled off his hair, before twisting the towel around his waist. "Julie told me you met Anna in Vegas, but I told her you couldn't have found a nice girl like that in the middle of Sin City."
Cole turned to his ex-friend with murder in his eyes. "You won't be able to fuck your wife any time soon if you're not careful."
Not looking the least bit scared, Ty reached into his locker, actually turning his back on Cole. "Julie also said you were with Anna for months. Dating in secret." He turned back around, pinned Cole with a knowing look. "You're a lying sack of shit, aren't you? Your game was different this Sunday. Not worse, just different. Like football isn't the only thing that matters to you anymore."
Cole's fists tightened as he got ready to punch Ty's smug face, just hard enough to make him a little less pretty. Not that Julie would care. She'd still love the bastard anyway.
Just like Anna loved him. And last night, instead of keeping his feelings locked up like he should have, he'd given in.
And loved her right back.
What the fuck had he done?
He was a man with enough darkness in his soul to spill over onto her innocence. The thought of Anna waking up one day and wondering, "Why did I love him?" or realizing it was just great sex and the excitement of the situation that had her temporarily thinking she loved him, killed him.
Anna didn't care about his money, his fame. She cared about her family and her friends and her kids at school. Whereas, at his core, he knew he'd lived a totally selfish life--and enjoyed the hell out of it.
Odds were, one day he was going to wake up and feel trapped. And when he felt trapped, he acted stupid. He didn't want to promise her anything he couldn't deliver. Fidelity had never been his strong suit. Which was why he'd never limited himself to just one woman and had definitely never made love to one before. It was why he'd never, not once, let himself get involved with a good girl.
Not until Anna.
"Look, Cole, I know you were struggling out there today. Now you know l
ove does that to you. Fucks you up for a little while. But then one day you realize you're actually better for it.
So, how about you tell me the truth about where you found your wife? Just between you and me, Scout's honor."
Ty had never been a Scout. Neither of them had. And his friend's easy talk about love made Cole's insides go still. Cold.
He and Anna weren't real. Not the marriage. Not her feelings for him. He'd let the great sex confuse him just like it had clearly confused Anna.
"My grandmother needed to think I was settled. That I'd found true love. It was her last wish." Ty knew about Cole's grandmother and his eyes darkened with sympathy. "So I called 1-800-Good-Girl and they sent her over."
"Holy shit, are you saying that you married Anna only because of your grandmother?"
"I found Anna in a club Friday night, looking like a doe caught in the headlights. I convinced her to marry me, then presented her to my grandmother on a silver platter at the hospital Saturday morning."
Cole's gut twisted tighter with each sentence. He'd thought laying it out in black and white would help set him straight, that he and Ty would laugh at another play pulled off to perfection.
But Ty wasn't laughing.
And neither was Cole. Hell, he felt like a bigger shit than he ever had before.
"Are you telling me that the nice girl I met Sunday let you buy her?"
"No." Fuck no. She wasn't a whore--wouldn't even take money or jewelry for her cooperation. "She won't take anything from me. Says she doesn't want it."
"I think I hear what you're saying, but this isn't adding up. Especially since Julie said Anna clearly doesn't know the first thing about football. She's not a groupie. She doesn't want your money. Why would she actually go through with marrying you?"
"She's got a soft heart." Cole had seen Anna with his grandmother, with her family, with the children in her class. "I didn't play fair. I wouldn't let her leave me until she met my grandmother."
And he'd promised her pleasure, thinking it was a fair trade.
What a fucked-up asshole he was.
Ty's frown lifted suddenly. Too suddenly. He shook his head slowly, whistled between his teeth. "You do realize that she's doing it because she's in love with you, don't you?"
"She's not in love with me," Cole countered. "She just thinks she is."
"Right." Ty sounded less than convinced, but he dropped it. "So we shouldn't get too used to seeing her around, then?"
"We'll stay together as long as we need to." It went unspoken, but understood by both men, that everything would change once his grandmother passed away.
Ty zipped up his jeans. "Julie really liked Anna. Said she wasn't like the other girls you've brought around. She said Anna's soul hadn't been sucked out with a liposuction tube."
Maybe another time that would have been funny. But Cole didn't see a whole lot of laughing in his future. The time would come when Anna wasn't in his house, wasn't in his bed, wasn't in his life anymore. And it would suck.
"Look, I know I'm no expert in the whole relationship thing." Ty put his hands up and Cole recognized it as his usual tactic. Playing the nice guy before he went in for the kill.
"That's for damn sure," he bit out, fully aware of the way Ty had fucked things up with Julie, knew the fuckups had gone all the way back to high school. The last person who should be giving him advice was this prick.
Then again, Ty was happy now, wasn't he? With a wife any guy on the team would kill to be with.
Everyone but Cole.
Because he couldn't see past Anna to any other woman on the planet.
"I don't know much, but the thing is--" Ty stopped packing his duffel bag, looked Cole in the eye. "--I know one thing for sure. I couldn't live without Julie. Wouldn't want to do it, period. But I almost had to. Because I was an idiot. More than once. Truth is, I should have been down on my knees groveling, begging, praying for her to give me another chance and not screw it up years ago." Ty zipped up his bag, put it over his shoulder, and shrugged. "Anyway, see you at practice tomorrow."
Cole slammed his locker shut, the entire wall of metal shaking even after he walked away. Who the fuck did Ty think he was, giving him advice?
Cut and dried. The whole goddamned situation with Anna was cut and dried.
He'd needed a temporary wife. She'd agreed to a trade of great sex. Both of them were upholdingtheir sides of the original deal. Once they were divorced, once she wasn't coming around his dick every thirty minutes, she'd realize she wasn't actually in love with him.
And when she looked back, she'd see that loving him couldn't have been possible in the first place.
Working like hell to straighten himself out before he went home to Anna, he almost trampled a woman waiting in the hallway.
"Cynthia?"
What the hell was the journalist doing here?
She quickly shut the phone at her ear. "Cole. Your coach told me you were getting changed. I've got some follow-up questions about your career that I wanted to put in the article."
Cole worked to keep his expression clear as he walked with her and answered her questions.
Had the guard in the hall let Cynthia into the locker room while he and Ty were talking?
He couldn't tell from looking at her, didn't think she was acting any differently now than she had the previous night.
What had she heard?
Shit. He couldn't just ask her, couldn't give her any ammo if she didn't already have it.
After she'd asked him her questions, he went down to his car. But instead of driving out of the underground lot, he sat and stared at the cement wall.
*
Cole walked into a scene out of every guy's fantasy. Dinner was on the table and Anna was sitting in her seat wearing nothing but one of his ties and spike heels, her legs kicked up on the table, ankles crossed.
"Welcome home, honey. How was your day at the office?"
His wife--his oh-so-beautiful wife--was smiling and sexy, but also shy and nervous.
And so sweet he couldn't believe she was his.
For now.
He moved across the room, dropped to his knees in front of her. Picking her legs up off the table, he put them on either side of his face.
"A whole hell of a lot better now."
He lowered his mouth down to her sweet pussy and her hands dropped from where they'd been covering her breasts--that combination of sinful and innocent that blew his head apart every time he looked at her.
Every time he loved her.
And when she cried out at just the barest touch of his tongue on her clit, so wet and ready for him, he had to pull her down onto the floor with him, had to be inside of her while she came.
Notorious among the football groupies for his staying power, Cole didn't have a prayer of lasting any longer than Anna had. And as he came deep inside the soft, sweet woman riding his lap, he knew himself for the fool he was after what he'd said to Ty.
Cole had found something special in Anna.
Now he just had to hope that one stupid, stubborn conversation didn't come to light...and pray that it didn't all go to hell.
Chapter Twenty
Anna had never felt so good. Or so happy. So incredibly happy that sometimes she was sure she must be dreaming, that she was going to wake up one of these days and realize Cole wasn't real, that she'd invented him to be her perfect man. Strong, dominant, sexy, and yet so caring, so warm, so wonderful.
Neither of them had to get up early on a Saturday morning and for the first time since coming home to San Francisco, they'd had a chance to have leisurely morning sex. Not, she thought with a smile as she burrowed deeper in the covers, that there had been anything particularly easygoing about it.
They were way too hot for each other to make it too long without combusting in each other's arms.
And the thing was, Anna had had enough easygoing sex before Cole. She loved the hot flash of attraction, loved how powerless she was to her desire.
/> Because that's what Cole was to her. A deliciously sensual drug that swamped her system.
She craved his touch. His warmth. His words whispering over her skin. From the first moment that he'd kissed her, she'd been lost, with no desire to be found.
Time and time again, she'd forgotten to protect herself against pregnancy when they made love. But instead of being worried, instead of wondering how she could possibly have let herself get so carried away, she found herself noticing the tenderness in her breasts and wondering if maybe, just maybe, in nine months she'd be seeing Cole's eyes on a little girl or boy.
Everything she'd ever wanted was coming true, things she'd almost stopped dreaming about.
All because of the beautiful man walking into the bedroom holding two cups of coffee.
Her cell phone jumped on the dresser across from the bed. The ringer was off, but Cole eyeballed the screen. "It's your mother."
"I'll call her back later."
She took the mug from him, sipping from his lips first. She'd barely tasted her coffee before he took it from her and put both of their mugs down on the nightstand.
"You don't mind cold coffee, do you?"
She shivered in delicious anticipation at the wicked look in his eyes. "Isn't that why they invented microwaves?"
She went to her knees to reach for him and his arms immediately surrounded her, her mother's call and the coffee completely forgotten. But then, her phone jumped again--and this time she could hear his ringing, too, from the drawer in the closet where he put it at night.
Cole's hands stilled on her skin. He tilted back just far enough that she could see into his eyes. "Sweet Anna, you know how much you mean to me, don't you? You know how happy I was to find you in that club in Vegas, don't you?"
The only time she'd seen him look this serious was when he'd been talking to his grandmother's doctors. "I'm happy, too, Cole."
But the frown between his brows didn't ease, but only burrowed in deeper. "I should have told you how I feel a hundred times by now, baby. I should have been sending you cards and flowers to let you know what you mean to me."