Game For Love (21 page)

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."

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.

* * *

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.

"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.