Authors: Donna Gallagher
She lovingly massaged a journey up his sexy limbs. “If you only knew the torture it was to touch your body and not make love to it, Rook. I love the feel of you under my fingertips, the warmth of your skin, but there is one place that I’ve been very remiss in touching, one place I have never been allowed to touch.
“Remember when I had to help you shower? It took all my strength not to fall to my knees and worship you. I’m supposed to be a professional, but you were naked in the shower, water cascading down your body. The temptation to grab the soap from you and lather it on my hands, soaping and cleaning every damn inch of your body, was overwhelming. It didn’t matter that you were injured. All I wanted to do was ravish you, comfort you, love you. But you showed no reaction to me at all—hey, I would have been able to tell. Nothing about you was hidden from me that day. It was cruel and unusual punishment to have to see you wet, all muscles and hardness, and not be able to do anything about it… It made me so wet, I had to go change my panties. And Mitch? It wasn’t the water from the shower that did it. But I have you at my mercy now…”
“You don’t know how wrong you were, baby… I wanted you something fierce that day. The lengths I went to to distract my mind from you were painful, I promise…”
Pippa licked her lips as she crawled up into the V made by Rook’s spread legs, her actions disrupting any further admissions or conversation. Softly, she finger-walked up his erect penis, rimming the edge of the bulbous head before encircling its circumference entirely in her hand. Drawing her fingers up and down its length, she pumped languidly, forming a slow-paced rhythm.
“You’re killing me, babe…”
“Like not being able to touch you when you were all nude and wet killed me?” Pippa crooned.
She did show mercy at Rook’s anguished words, though.
Pippa lowered her head and lightly blew onto the now glistening tip, then stretched her lips wide over the head of his cock. She took his length into her mouth, sucking at him until he bumped the back of her throat. She couldn’t stop from making purring sounds, loved the taste of him in her mouth, the satiny feel of the skin covering his shaft so in contrast to its swollen, rigid form. She was just thinking that she could make love to him this way all night when she felt his hands on her shoulders, urging her to let up.
Pippa let Rook’s penis plop from her mouth, and showed her displeasure at having to stop by forming a moue with her lips, making sure Rook noticed her unhappy pout.
“I wasn’t finished with you yet.”
“It’s my turn…” Rook said just before positioning himself between her now naked legs and attaching his talented lips to her wet and willing pussy. When he sucked on her sensitive clit, she nearly flew up from the bed, the feeling was so intense—if not for his arms weighing down her legs, she indeed would have. Rook’s fingers and tongue worked her expertly—he knew where to touch gently, where to be firm. The orgasm hit her hard and fast. The sensations were indescribable. Waves of pleasure cascaded over her, through her. It was too much and yet not enough.
“Please, Mitch, fill me. I need to feel you inside me,” she whispered, her voice strained with emotion.
Rook began moving slowly up her body, paying attention to every inch of her on his travels. He playfully nipped at her hip bones before licking a circle around her belly-button. He spent so much time laving at her middle, Pippa though she would explode from the frustration. It was not where she wanted him to be. When he finally reached her breasts, sucking first one nipple, then the other into his mouth, drawing on each of the hardened nubs hungrily, Pippa was thrashing her head from side to side.
“Please, Mitch, I need more…”
“What’s the hurry, Pip? I’m enjoying myself, aren’t you?” He chuckled as he drew face to face with her. Rook gazed into her eyes—his, she noticed, were slightly hooded and looked as sexy as hell.
“Do I need to stop and find a condom, or are you taking some sort of contraception? I’m clean, babe. As much as you seem to think I’m a player, it’s been months since I was with a woman, and you look very much like her, anyway.”
Pippa loved the fact that she was the last person Rook had made love to, and couldn’t help but be surprised at the same time. Yes, she had thought him a player. Mitch ‘Rook’ Harris was so gorgeous and sexy—and famous. She wouldn’t really have blamed him, was sure he could have his pick of women whenever he wanted. But ultimately, she was glad that she had been mistaken in her opinion of Rook’s morals. She had made so many mistakes, jumped to so many false conclusions where this man was concerned. But this was a new beginning. This was a chance to make everything she had ever wanted become real, corporeal. No longer just a dream or fantasy, her man was here, his body shrouding hers, his lips so close she could feel the expelled air from his mouth puff against her skin as he spoke.
“I’m safe and clear, and dying a slow death without you inside me. Please, Rook, make love to me.”
His first thrust was almost enough to bring her to orgasm, his penis stroking her throbbing clit as he entered her, seating himself fully and joining them together. She began the now familiar climb towards ecstasy. She looked into Rook’s face—it was a study of concentration, his lips pulled back over his teeth in what was almost a grimace, his eyes squeezed shut, an adorable crease in the centre of his forehead. She knew he was fighting to hold on, fighting to stop his own release before she had reached hers. The realisation of it, and of the fact that she was the reason for his struggle, made her orgasm peak. She was aware of Rook reaching his own pinnacle—he shouted her name as her inner walls clenched around him, and with one final surge he tensed and arched. Her own orgasmic sensations washed over her, a wave of warmth, satisfaction and a feeling of ultimate joy left in their wake.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Making love to Pippa had been monumental. Rook lay watching her sleep. She had drifted off after their third round of lovemaking, and he was enjoying just watching her, studying every delicate feature of her face close up, without the need for stealth. There was now no need to hide his attentiveness. She was breathtaking. He could see that her lashes were still blonde, the colour not completely hidden by the black goo that she had covered them with. There was a smattering of very faint freckles over her nose and cheeks. Her lips, relaxed in sleep, formed a slight smile, and her chin jutted out just a touch, begging to be kissed.
He held her hand in his, brought it to his chest, over his heart, and rubbed the pad of his thumb—lightly, so as not to disturb her—over the back of her hand. These hands had, over the last few months, wrought so much pleasure and torturous frustration. As she had tended to his recovery, all the massages and all the touches that her warm, slender fingers had inflicted on his recovering muscles, which he had not been able to reciprocate…they had driven him mad with lust. And now she was his, free to lust over whenever he wanted. Rook smiled to himself at the thought, knowing that he would be lusting often.
Rook did take a moment to thoroughly dissect his emotions, verify without hesitation or doubt that what he felt for Pippa was true. Was it possible that he and Pippa could really feel that strongly for one another? Yes—they had known each other for a long time, but most of it, until just recently, had been spent apart. They did have a lot in common, enjoyed a lot of the same things. His sport was not only his career, but also hers. His friends were her friends. She shared and was a part of many of his memories.
Rook did know one thing for a fact, and that was that his heart was so full that it felt as if it was about to punch through his chest. Looking at her sleeping form, he could not imagine being anywhere else, could not imagine making love to anyone else and sure could not bear to think of Pippa touching or being touched by anyone but him.
He was so caught up in his own thoughts that Rook didn’t notice Pippa’s eyes had fluttered open until she spoke. He realised she was awake and studying him, as well.
“You are so handsome, perfect. You make me melt just looking at you, Mitch. I know we haven’t spent any time together—well, apart from professionally, that is—but I do know you, Rook. You are the same Rookie who was kind to Riley way back in the days after his folks died, and he and Caitlin were left to fend for themselves. The same Rookie who used his first contract payment to financially set his mum up in her own business. The brave Rookie who saved Mandy from her vicious ex-boyfriend without a thought to his own safety, and the same honourable man who turned away a fanciful young girl before she embarrassed herself.”
Rook was humbled by her high opinion of him, unsure that he was worthy of her praise. He believed that most men—or sons—in the same position would have mimicked his actions, but he couldn’t not notice the warmth in her eyes as she spoke of him. A sliver of worry began to grow in the back of his mind that maybe she was only attracted to his younger self.
Pippa, as if somehow connected to his thoughts, continued on in her praise of him, and his fears began to recede. “And look at you now—matured and impossibly more gorgeous, a successful businessman as well as a well-respected member of the Jets. Captain, leader, mentor to the younger players. Gareth speaks so highly of you—well, except where I’m concerned.” She giggled. “Even after I tricked you into sleeping with me you kept my confidence. You could have embarrassed me in front of the team, undermined the job I had trained for, but no. You treated me with respect. More than I deserved. You, Mitchell ‘Rook’ Harris, are a good person and the man I love. Will always love.”
Rook was stunned, shocked and speechless. Pippa had managed in just a few minutes to make him love her even more.
She saw him in such a wonderful way. She was so generous in her praise for him. Maybe if she believed he was good enough for her, then that was enough. Rook knew it not to be true, though—she was infinitely better than him. Pippa was not only streets ahead of him in intelligence, with a degree at university to prove it, but she was also gracious and caring. She had friends and family who had stuck with her throughout her whole life, and she made more friends every time she turned around. Rook had his mum and Trevor, and perhaps some of his Jets teammates, to call family. New friendships for Rook were often tainted by who he had become, and not who he was.
And she was sexy as hell. And she was his.
“I love you, Pippa. I always will. I will marry you, Pippa, and I will get down on my knees and beg you to say yes, but first I need to have a conversation with a few people. Your dad, Dave, for starters, and then Brodie, JT and Gareth… Probably should throw Riley into the group while I’m at it—pretty sure the kid will have a few choice words to say about it all. But first I need to love you some more.”
And Rook made good on his threat, smug in the knowledge that he had made Pippa fall apart in his arms more than once before he gave in to his own desire.
Epilogue
Three months later…
Pippa was so proud she thought she would burst. Not only had her fiancé successfully returned to the playing field—knee fully recovered—but Rook had carved up the opposition as well, scoring and setting up tries left, right and centre. She could tell by the grins on the faces of her friends—Brodie, Caitlin and Riley, JT, Mandy, Cassie, standing there beside Laura and Trevor—that they were all as relieved as her that Rook had made it through his first game back from injury safely.
Her dad—the coach who had signed Rookie to the Jets—and her mum had made a flying trip from the UK to visit. They stood beside her as Rook, with his arm possessively wrapped around her, yet still managing to sign autographs for his adoring fans, was analysing the game with Gareth. Rook eagerly included her dad in the footy conversation, so honest in his respect and admiration for her father that it just made it all the more perfect a moment for Pippa.
Life had given her everything she could possibly have dreamed of, and still more. Pippa no longer needed her fantasies—she had the real deal standing beside her in all his sexy-fleshed, toned-muscled and strong-boned glory. Rook had given her his love and she would love him in return, forever.
Also available from Total-E-Bound Publishing:
League of Love: Laura’s Light
Donna Gallagher
Excerpt
Chapter One
“This is pointless. What on earth was I thinking? Forty-two-year-old women do not accept dates from thirty-four-year-old men, especially when the man in question is a famous and mouth-wateringly hot television personality.”
Laura Harris scolded her reflection in the full-length mirror she was standing before. “This is a nightmare. What
do
old, desperate women wear to this sort of thing?” she groaned as she took in her appearance grimly.
“Nope, too much cleavage,” she said as she ruthlessly tossed aside the little black dress.
“Far too short…” was the decision that condemned the blue dress to the pile of discarded clothes that was becoming a mountain on the floor of her small, but usually tidy, bedroom.
“Yeah, okay… Maybe these black pants with this sweater—I do love the feel of the soft wool and these little pearl buttons are so sweet… Oh, my God—sweet. This is ridiculous! I’m too old for sweet. Sophisticated. Mature. That’s what I need. How do people do this…dating thing?” She waved frantically at her dishevelled self in the mirror. “I’m terrified.”
She took a deep breath, then shook her hands a few times to try to dispel the anxiety that was eating her up.
“No, Laura, get a grip. Terrified is finding yourself pregnant at twenty. Terrified is being kicked out of home by your unforgiving parents with no way of supporting yourself. This is just dinner, dinner with a man who presents a sports programme on TV. A man who knows your twenty-one-year-old, football-playing son.”