Playing By Her Rules (Sydney Smoke Rugby Series) (13 page)

Well
. That was direct…

Matilda took a sip of her wine to cover the sudden knot of nerves tightening her throat. “It’s complicated,” she said lamely.

Kathy eyed her shrewdly. “Is it?

Matilda tried to smile again as the first tendrils of irritation crawled up her spine. “Look, I know all the guys think the sun shines out of his—”

Her laugh interrupted Matilda. “It’s not just the guys. If it wasn’t for Tanner, John wouldn’t still be playing rugby. He was almost cut from the team after he injured his ACL three years ago. He was in his mid-thirties and had a bunch of niggling injuries. It was Tanner’s first year as captain, and he went to bat for him.”

Kathy paused and sipped her wine, her hand gripping the railing as she stared into the lights on the harbour surface.

“Tanner insisted that they needed guys like John with his level of experience on the team, and then he trained with John every day in secret sessions to make sure his knee was indestructibly strong after the operation. John’s playing better rugby than he’s played in his life. He’s been picked for the Australian team the last two years. As far as
I’m
concerned, the sun
absolutely
shines out of Tanner Stone’s ass. ”

Matilda would have been able to hear the passion and conviction in Kathy’s voice from the other side of the harbour.

“Men like that don’t come along often,” she said, dropping her hands from the railing.

With a squeeze of the arm and a quick, easy smile, Kathy departed. Matilda watched her before turning back to gaze at the skyline. She had to admit Kathy was right. Men like Tanner were rare. She’d always known that deep down. She’d known it eight years ago, and everything she’d seen of him in the last six weeks had confirmed it.

Helping with her grandmother’s porch, hanging paintings, his charity work, the story about John…

So why had he cheated? He’d always had such a strong moral code and belief system. She’d have never thought it of him, and even now, she couldn’t believe it was something he would have done casually. So…why?

Had she driven him to it?

Maybe she had? Maybe
she’d driven him to it
. Because Matilda couldn’t see why a guy who just didn’t
do
that kind of thing had gone and done that kind of thing.

Maybe she’d held out on him too long? They’d gone out for three years, but she hadn’t wanted to rush into sex, had wanted to be sure. About him and herself. She’d only decided to take that last step six months before they broke up. She’d thought he’d been okay with that, but maybe deep down he hadn’t been?

It had sure as hell seemed like everyone on his team was doing it toward the end there.

Oh, God
…what if she hadn’t been that good and he hadn’t had the nerve to tell her? Or maybe it was because she hadn’t let him go down on her?

She’d bet Jessica freaking Duffy hadn’t been so bloody fussy.

Ultimately, it didn’t really matter. There was no excuse for his cheating. But maybe she needed to look at her part in it. What had she done or not done to drive him to another woman’s arms?

It might not have been the sex thing. It could have been other things. Maybe it was time to ask. To have that conversation. To tackle the elephant in the room.

And the even bigger conundrum? If it
was
her fault in some way, no matter how small, but he was here now and he plainly wanted to try again, maybe she should give that a shot?

Maybe with maturity, wisdom, and
experience,
they could be really great together.

Matilda was in the kitchen washing up the wineglasses when she heard the door to Tanner’s apartment close. It was almost midnight, but she wasn’t tired. Tanner had been staring at her all night, a look of strained anticipation warming his gaze, and she was
alive
inside.

“I thought they’d never go,” he murmured as he prowled toward her, stopping about an arm’s length away, parking his butt against the edge of the bench.

Matilda’s heart thudded in her chest as he crossed his arms and the thorns decorating his biceps bulged in her peripheral visions.

He nodded to the sink. “You don’t have to do that.”

Oh, yes, she did. If she didn’t do something with her hands, she just might put them all over him. Those biceps would be a good place to start. Or maybe down the front of his jeans.

“You got a guy for this, too?”

His mouth kicked up at the side. “You want another drink?” He pushed away from the bench and headed for the fridge, which was behind her.

“I…should go.”

He didn’t seem too perturbed by her announcement. Its complete lack of conviction probably had something to do with it.

She heard him rustling through the fridge as she stared at the bubbles in the sink. There was the
tink
of glass against marble and then the sound of a cupboard opening. She could hear liquid pouring next, then a soft twisting noise of a lid being opened.

She could sense him drawing nearer again, her nipples tightening, the hairs at the back of her neck standing to attention as heat enveloped her from behind. He stepped in close, the front of his body almost touching the back of hers.

A glass, half filled with pale yellow wine, was placed on the bench near her hip. His beer bottle was slid into place on the other side. He nuzzled his nose along the line of her nape, and Matilda felt it deep inside her belly.

“You want the grand tour?”

She shut her eyes as the serration of his warm breath created havoc in places just
south
of her belly. She wanted to snake her arm up around his neck, to arch her back and purr, rubbing herself against him. She wanted him to slide his hands onto her hips then up to her breasts and pinch her aching nipples hard between his fingers.

God help her, she shouldn’t. But she did.

She shook her head.

“No?” he whispered, his hands finding her hips as his body fully aligned with hers, the bulk and the heat of him trapping her against the sink. “What
do
you want?” he murmured, the flat of his tongue swiping up the side of her neck now.

Matilda grabbed hold of the edge of the sink as her knees gave a precarious wobble. She should be asking him about his cryptic comments, about what
had
gone down that night eight years ago if it really
hadn’
t been what she’d seen with her own two eyes. But if she asked him now, before what was
surely
imminent sex, and it started a fight, they might never get around to the sex bit.

And, God help her, she wanted to feel Tanner Stone deep inside her so bad right now she was fully prepared to fuck first and ask questions later.

Fully prepared to hate herself in the aftermath.

She just
had
to have him. Even if it was only once.

“Tilly,” he groaned, grinding against her, one hand gliding up just as she’d wanted, cupping a breast, his thumb sliding in delicious torment over the proud, taut peak of her nipple. The other headed down into her jeans, pushing past the waistband of both denim and the lace beneath, zeroing in on more taut, aching flesh, standing just as proud, begging to be touched.

Matilda gasped and bit her lip. “
Taaaanner
,” she moaned, her pulse roaring in her head as she turned in his arms.

Chapter Thirteen

Her mouth devoured his. Or maybe his devoured hers. Matilda wasn’t keeping score. She just hung on to those big shoulders, opened her mouth, and gave him everything she had, demanding the same in return.

She greedily ate the groan that seemed to come from the pit of his stomach and gave him one back, pressing herself harder against him, standing on her tiptoes, needing to feel the hardness that was rubbing against her belly rubbing against the spot between her legs, where his fingers had been only seconds ago.

She moaned in frustration as she tried to facilitate it, half climbing his big frame to hit the jackpot. Without breaking his liplock, Tanner hauled her up, grinding against the middle seam of her jeans, giving her exactly what she craved. She gasped, breaking the kiss as a million stars burst behind her eyes, her entire body shuddering in pre-emptive satisfaction.

He looked at her, his blue eyes blazing heat and intensity even though his eyelids were at half-mast. “You want me there?” he demanded, his voice low and throaty as he rubbed himself obligingly in just the right spot.

Matilda gasped again, her arms anchoring hard around his neck as she tilted her pelvis to maximise the effect. “Yes,
God yes
, don’t stop.”

“Hold on,” he said, sliding his hands under her thighs, fitting her more snugly against the large bulge in his jeans as he pulled away from the kitchen bench.

Matilda wasn’t sure where he was taking them—she assumed the bedroom—she just held on like he asked, kissing him like he was oxygen and she was drowning, riding the hard edge of his cock for all she was worth. By the time he dumped her on the bed, she was about as close to an orgasm as was possible, fully clothed.

She grunted as Tanner’s weight came down on hers, but she didn’t pause to collect her breath. She clawed at his clothes, dragging his T-shirt up and off his head, sliding her hands all over his magnificent chest.

A red graze marred the skin covering his ribs, almost from nipple to belly button, a tag from where an opponent’s boot had left its mark. She traced it with her finger, remembering that he’d just played a bruisingly rough game of elite rugby.

“Are you sore?

He shook his head. “No more than usual.”

“You want me to be gentler?” she teased.

“Hell no.”

Just what she wanted to hear as she lowered her hand to his fly, fumbling it down, reaching inside and freeing the hard jut of his cock.

“
Fuck
,” he groaned, burying his face in her shoulder as she squeezed it.

“Jesus,” she murmured, her fingers clamping around his girth, palming it, refamiliarising herself with every contour. “I’d forgotten how well hung you were.”

He let out a shaky laugh, lifting away slightly to look down at her. “I’d forgotten how you could almost make me come just from touching it.”

Breathlessly, she stroked him from root to tip as their gazes locked. “I think, from memory, I actually
did
that the first time.”

He laughed again, all low and sexy. “You did.”

“Do you remember this?” she asked, pushing against his chest, eager to get fully reacquainted.

He didn’t budge.

“Move,” she muttered.

“Why?”

But the look on his face told her he knew exactly why she wanted him to move. “I want to see if I remember what you taste like,” she said, leaning up to run her tongue down the prickly sweep of his throat.

Liquorice allsorts. Is that what he’d taste like down there?

“No way.” The deep rumble of his voice tickled her lips as her tongue lapped at the thick slow bound of his carotid pulse.

“I used to love the taste of you.” And she had. She’d also loved the power having him in her mouth gave her, knowing he’d have begged her for it if she’d demanded it.

She pushed against him again, hoping to catch him off balance. But he wasn’t about to give her any advantage, caging her firmly against the mattress.

“I’m not going to disgrace myself in front of you again.”

“Oh?” she teased, slowly gliding her hand up and down the length of him now. “Where’s all that tough guy rugby stamina?”

It was satisfying to feel the involuntary thrust of his hips. “I’ve had a hard-on for you for the last six weeks.” His teeth were gritted, his voice a husky growl. “I went home that night after I went down on you and jacked off in the shower. Hell, I don’t think I’ve jacked off this much since I was thirteen. I’m barely hanging on, Tilly, and your mouth isn’t going
anywhere
near my cock until we’ve taken the edge off.”

He reached down, yanking her hands away, trapping them both above her head with one big hand as his mouth descended.

Matilda gasped as he zeroed in on her nipple through the fabric of her shirt, her eyes rolling back in her head as he sucked it hard, his teeth scraping, almost bruising in their treatment.

It felt so damn good.

“More,” she moaned, arching her back.

He gave her more, still holding her one-handed, his other making short work of her shirt and bra, releasing her hands to get her out of them before throwing them on the floor. He gazed at her small breasts like they were a gourmet delight, and she felt the way she always had when he looked at them like that—like she had a glorious set of double Ds.

He lowered his head, and his mouth was merciless against the bare peaks of her nipples, teasing them with teeth and tongue, grazing and sucking until the heat between her legs roared like a furnace, the sweet torture almost too much to bear.

All she could do was cling to the smooth heat of his shoulders as she mindlessly begged him to put her out of her misery.

“You want this?” he asked, shoving her jeans and pants off her hips.

“Yes,” she gasped, lifting her hips, helping him, wanting them off and gone and his dick, so tantalisingly out of reach, buried to the hilt.

“This?” His fingers slid from her clit and burrowed inside her.

A dry sob broke from her throat. “Please…Tanner… please.”

“What?” he panted, his eyes glittering down at her as he watched her face contort with each thrust of his fingers, like he was a puppet master pulling strings in some very intimate places.

“I need you inside me,” she gasped, arching her back as he plunged his fingers in nice and hard.

“I am inside you,” he grinned, crooking his fingers, hitting a spot that just about made her lose her mind.

Matilda shook her head, pulling at his shoulders. “All of you. I need all of you.”

Even three-quarters of the way to insanity, the truth in her words hit hard. She didn’t just mean the steady shove of his fingers or the hard thrust of his cock, but everything he had to give. She’d had it once, and, God help her, she wanted it again.

She needed all of him.

He kissed her and tears burned hot behind her closed lids. He slid his fingers out and Matilda whimpered, grabbing his arm, trying to stop him.

“Hang on, baby,” he said, pulling away to reach into his back pocket.

Tanner stood, his erection standing proud from the opening of his zipper as he grabbed a foil packet from his wallet. Hastily, he discarded his half undone jeans and underwear and, reaching down, he yanked Matilda’s off, too.

All she could do was watch, her chest tight at the sheer masculine beauty of him. Tanner had always been magnificent—something that could only be truly appreciated in his naked form. But he wasn’t a teenager any more. He was a man, and he had a
man’s
body, with all the subtle differences wrought by maturity.

The sight of him stole her breath and filled her heart with an overwhelming sense of rightness. Of belonging.

Him to her. And her to him.

He quickly rolled the condom on then crawled onto the bed, settling over her but holding the weight of his torso above her slightly, balancing on the flats of his forearms.

“You were always the best part of me,” he said, his voice tremulous as his eyes roamed over her face and his fingers brushed the lobes of her ears. “Always.”

Tears pressed behind her lids again as he kissed her hard and long and slow—like he used to. She clung to him, kissing him back as he slid the thickness of his cock through the slickness between her legs, setting up a torturously slow rhythm.

“Tanner,” she gasped, breaking off as muscles deep inside her started to spark and pulse. “
Please, I…
”

“Shh,” he murmured, kissing her again, his fingers ploughing into her hair, his thumbs at her jaw, tilting it to gain deeper access to her mouth.

The thick, blunt prod of him, notching himself at her entrance, shot the sparks higher, forking up her spine like a streak of lightning. Her hands convulsively gripped his biceps as she shamelessly wrapped her legs around him, easing his first deep, gratifying thrust. She gasped, the kiss broken, at the welcome invasion, everything tight and hot and full, stretching and pulsing and exploding behind her eyes and deep inside her pelvis.

Matilda anchored the backs of her calves to the backs of his thighs, holding him there tight—
right there
—buried to the hilt, and everything seemed to stop as if they were held together in a moment of suspended animation, pulsing together as one.

“Tilly,” he groaned in her ear on a roughly exhaled breath. His mouth was pressed to her neck and even just that sensation was too much for a nervous system at flash point. “I have to move. I…need to…”

Tilly loosened her grip on his buttocks.
She needed it, too.

The rhythm of his hips took over, rocking her high and hard with each stroke, the walls of her world collapsing in all around her so quickly.

Too quickly
.

Everything dissolved as he reared over her, and she clung to his biceps, feeling the flex and bunch of them. Everything quivering and clenching. Everything rippling and spiralling. Until they were both lost in a storm of pleasure, calling out each other’s names, one pounding, the other clinging, both working in tandem, stroke for stroke, until neither of them had anything else to give, and they collapsed in a heap on the bed.

They dozed for a while. Tanner didn’t know for how long. All he knew was he woke a little later, her ass pushed against a cock that was telling him it wasn’t done yet.

He kissed her neck and stroked a nipple, rousing her slowly until she turned in his arms, not talking, not asking, just exploring each other’s bodies, this time with a languorous thoroughness that kindled his hopes of a burgeoning connection between the two of them.

Something more than physical. Something deeper.

He lay in a glorious post-coital haze in the aftermath, malaise invading his bones, the still darkness of the night blanketing them in a drowsy cocoon. Tilly was smooshed up along his side, her head on his chest.

Having her here tonight in his apartment, with the guys and their wives, having a good time, all relaxed and laughing, had seized great big handfuls of his gut and squeezed. This was his world. Rugby. His teammates. Tanner had hoped she’d fit in. He’d
hoped
that she’d like his friends, that she’d embrace his world, too.

And she certainly seemed to.

His fingers trailed from the curve of her shoulder to the dip of her waist then back again. Her fingers drew patterns on his chest before wandering to his biceps to trace the outline of his tattoos.

“Why thorns?” she asked after a while.

Tanner, whose eyes had been drifting shut, stirred himself, resuming his stroking, goose bumps roughening the pads of his fingers in their wake. “I liked the symbolism,” he murmured. “You want to get past me then you’re going to have to hack me down.”

“Tough guy, huh?”

He swore he felt her lips curve against his chest. “When it comes to rugby? Sure.”

When it came to her? To love? He was weak as piss.

But not anymore. It was past time he put things right with her.

“I’m sorry,” he said tentatively, aware that his heart was suddenly thudding loudly in his chest as his palm came to rest on the spread of her ribs, “about how…things ended between us.”

The stroke of her finger halted abruptly, and she grew very still.

“If I could do that moment over again, I would.”

He would have been honest. He would have used his words instead of a dumb, ill-considered,
rash
action
. Made
her see the sense in not following him. In pursing her own dreams.

Her cheek tensed against his pec, and he swore her lungs hadn’t inflated since he’d opened his mouth. “It’s fine,” she said, her voice toneless. “I’ve pretty much come to the conclusion that it must have been something I’d done anyway.”

It was Tanner’s turn to still
and
to tense.
What the fuck
? What the hell was she going on about? He frowned down at her blonde head. “What?”

She shrugged, her fingers resuming their patterns on his arm. “I’ve been angry at you and blaming you all this time, but I realised today that everyone loves you, and that’s because you really
are
a great guy.” Her voice sounded surprisingly calm and matter-of-fact. “You always were. And you’ve proven that to me over and over these last six weeks. So it has to have been me. I mean, it does take two people to ruin a relationship, right? Maybe there was something I did or didn’t do that drove you to Jessica Duffy? I mean, I made you wait a really long time for sex. And I wouldn’t…swallow or let you go down on me. Maybe if I’d been more open to…things you wouldn’t have found the need to go elsewhere.”

Tanner hadn’t known what to expect when he’d opened his mouth to confess all. It certainly hadn’t been a
mea culpa
from Tilly.

She was blaming herself now? Because she hadn’t been comfortable with certain sexual things?

He hadn’t heard anything so crazy in his life.

“That,” he muttered, curling himself up into a sitting position, displacing Tilly in the process, “is utter
bullshit
.”

He glanced over his shoulder at her, the sheet twisted between her legs covered nothing much at all. Her breasts were bare, as were most of her legs. Just a swath of skin from hip to thigh was hidden from his view. His dick twitched. Even in her state of obvious confusion, frowning up at him, he wanted to rip that sheet away and bury his face in the bit he couldn’t see.