Tigers & Devils (13 page)

We didn’t speak. The only sound in the room was both of us breathing heavily; we leaned against each other, sweating and dishevelled, unwilling to let go. Waiting for a second round.

82 | SEAN KENNEDY

“IT’S past midnight,” Declan murmured in the dark.

“Are you going to turn into a pumpkin now?” I asked, giving his horrendous soul patch a slight tug.

“Oww,” he moaned, grabbing the offending fingers and holding them tightly.

“Hey!” I protested, and then I moaned as he then began sucking on them slowly. As much as I didn’t want to, I withdrew them and smacked him lightly on the top of his skull. “Hey, pumpkin boy!”

From the small amount of light coming through the window, I could see him looking offended. “What?”

“So it’s midnight.”

“Oh, yeah. No more playing.”

“I thought you said it was only the evening before?”

He chuckled. “You’re insatiable.”

“I didn’t hear you saying no any time.”

“But I feel pretty exhausted and a little bit sore now.”

So was I, but just knowing he was here in my bed with me could almost get me going again. I kissed him slowly and tenderly, and he responded eagerly.

“Christ,” he moaned. “What the fuck are you doing to me?”

“It’s reciprocal, believe me.”

Five hours ago, I had been wary of taking my clothes off before him. Now I never wanted to put them on again. We lay skin to skin against each other, sticky, sweaty, happy.

“I never asked you before,” he said. “But I was hoping I could stay the night. Is that okay?”

I laughed and nuzzled his shoulder, the hair on his chest tickling my chin. “Yeah, I guess so.”

He looked over his shoulder at the pile of messed up and crumpled clothing next to the bed. “I really need to wash those so I’m somewhat presentable when I go to my parents’ tomorrow.”

86 | SEAN KENNEDY

“You at least brought clean socks and jocks, though?” I asked.

“Yeah, but I didn’t think you were going to make me come in my jeans,” he complained.

Dirty pillow talk is so hot. “Sorry. Couldn’t help it.” I didn’t want to leave the bed, but I scrambled over him. While my arse was up in the air I received a resounding slap on it. “Hey!” I cried out.

Declan laughed. “Where are you going?”

“To put these clothes in the wash.”

“Do you have a dryer?”

“I live in this city, don’t I? You can’t survive here without one.”

You seriously couldn’t. Melbourne had long had a reputation for being the city that experienced all four seasons in one day. You could never rely upon the weather report. He grabbed me around the waist. “Maybe I don’t want you to leave.”

I retaliated by digging him in the ribs. “Stay in bed, do my laundry. What am I, your maid?”

He spoke directly into my ear, his warm breath an invitation. “You can be whatever you want.”

“Hold that thought.” I ground against him, and he moaned, but I slipped out of his grasp and deftly scooped up all of our clothes in one move while heading out of the bedroom and towards the laundry.

“Tease!” he yelled after me.

As I made my way through the lounge, Maggie watched me disapprovingly from her position on the couch. She had been locked out of the bedroom during our shenanigans, and she was not happy.

“Sorry, baby,” I whispered. I gave her a quick rub behind the ear, and her tail twitched dangerously.

In the laundry I threw the clothes in the washer, chucked in the powder, and slammed the lid shut as quickly as possible in order to race back to bed. When I turned around, Declan stood behind me. In the full light, he was even more fucking hot and beautiful. Declan Tyler. Naked in my laundry.

“Now that’s even better than your calendar shot,” I said, before I could censor myself.

“You’ve seen my calendar shot?” He grinned, looking slightly bashful.

“Dude, it was splashed over every newspaper. Why the fuck did they make you wax though?”

Now he really
did
look bashful. “Apparently women like a smoother body.”

“They don’t know what they’re missing.”

“Please, let’s stop talking about the calendar.”

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“Why?”

“It’s embarrassing. I didn’t even want to do it in the first place.” He moved closer to me and took my hand, leading me back to the bedroom.

“Why not?” I asked. “It was for a good cause.”

Back in the bedroom, he pulled me onto the bed and lay on his back, using my shoulder as a pillow. “I wasn’t comfortable doing it, being on display. But it was when I was first starting, and I didn’t feel like I
could
say no.”

“But you can say no now?”

“I’m in the position where I can, yeah.”

“Bet they were disappointed.”

“I make a donation to them every year instead of doing it.”

I found myself stroking his hair as we lay looking at the ceiling. “I bet you sales have plummeted.”

He laughed. “I remember you saying a while back you didn’t think my ego needed to be stroked.”

“I also told you that I tell the truth.”

“So would you do it?”

“What?”

“Pose in a calendar for charity.” His hand travelled down and rested upon my knee.

“No way.”

His thumb caressed the flesh of my knee. “Hypocrite.”

“Nobody would buy a calendar with me in it.”

Declan rolled over, resting his arms upon my chest. “I would,” he said.

“Great. I would sell one copy.”

He kissed me. “Nah, I’d buy a few.”

Fuck, I was ready for him again. “Shut up. Or else I’ll make you defy your superstition.”

But his fingers were travelling down my body, and he soon had me in hand. “I thought I said evening, didn’t I?”

My eyes rolled back in my head, and I managed to grunt out, “As long as we make it clear—”

Declan silenced me by arching up and kissing me again. Afterwards we showered, and I threw the now-clean clothes into the dryer. Declan helped me strip the bed, and we remade it with fresh sheets and then fell beneath the covers dead with exhaustion.

“Goodnight,” I whispered, but there was no answer from him because he was already asleep.

88 | SEAN KENNEDY

THE sun glaring in my eyes, I rolled over to find Declan’s side of the bed empty. I know it sounds really girly, but I wanted to wake up with him. Although disappointed, I wasn’t acting stupid enough though to wonder if the previous night’s events were all just a dream or fevered fantasy. I pulled on a pair of trakkies and a Tshirt and padded quietly out to the lounge. Maggie was sitting in the window, looking out into the garden. I peered through the blinds and saw that his car wasn’t in the driveway. Puzzled, I looked around to see if he left a note but there wasn’t one.

Strangely enough, the table had been cleared, and the dishes were stacked neatly in the sink. I sure as hell hadn’t done it, so I could only assume he had. I went through the motions of starting a pot of coffee, wondering what it all meant. If he was doing a fuck and run, he wouldn’t have cleaned up. But he would have left a note if it wasn’t. None of it made any sense.

Of course, it did five minutes later when I was morosely sipping at a cup of coffee and heard the sound of a car pulling into the driveway. Maggie mewed a warning, and I petted her absentmindedly as I stood behind her to look out into the garden once more. It was Declan. He jumped out of the cab of the SUV and reached back in to pull out a couple of brown paper bags. I hurried back to the table and sat down again, trying to look nonchalant. I heard him fumbling at the front door with keys, and he stumbled through trying to balance everything.

“Hey,” he said cheerily, catching sight of me. “Morning. You sleep like the dead, you know that?”

This was true.

He noted my expression and asked, “Did you think I had abandoned you?”

“No,” I scoffed. But neither of us was fooled.

Declan made his way over to me and dumped the bags on the table. “I bought breakfast.” He leaned down and kissed me. “You’re not a morning person, are you?”

I cleared my throat so it wouldn’t sound rusty. “Not really. Do you want a coffee?”

“Sure, thanks.”

We moved together throughout the kitchen, me making him a cup of coffee, him finding plates and utensils. It was all bizarrely domestic and easygoing. In fact, Declan was acting right at home, as if he had been doing this with me for months instead of it being a new experience for him.

“I found this great little café just down the road,” he said, sounding a bit muffled as he was investigating the cupboards. “You probably already know it. The Tin Man.”

“Yeah, it’s a good place. Good muffins,” I nodded, realising I didn’t really know how he took his coffee.

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He was on the ball. He swept past me on his way back to the table. “White with one, thanks.”

As I poured the milk and stirred the coffee, Declan pulled open the bags and started placing containers on the table.

“Wow, you went all out,” I said appreciatively, joining him at the table. He had. Turkish bread, omelettes, muffins, hash browns, bacon, and mushrooms spread across the table. Being an athlete, he had the appetite to match, but he also had the table manners of a girl who had attended finishing school. Declan grinned, noting I was watching him. “They make us attend etiquette classes, in case you were wondering.” He was starting to make me feel like trailer trash as he deftly smeared his Turkish bread with butter and nibbled at it daintily.

“Boy, they’re really taking it seriously.”

He shrugged. “There’s been too much trouble with other teams. They think if they enforce manners classes and public relations training that things will improve.”

“It can’t harm it, can it?” I began piling omelette onto the bread and sawing away at it. “But you’ve always stayed pretty much out of all that kind of crap. The partying and that, I mean.”

He shrugged. “It’s not my thing. They can act like fucking idiots when they get on the piss.”

“Anybody can.”

“Yeah, but they think they can get away with it, because most of the time they do. The clubs always manage to cover up about ninety percent of their indiscretions.”

I looked at him thoughtfully and swallowed before speaking. “So why are you so sensible?”

He grinned. “Because my mum would kill me if I acted like a fuckwit.”

“And all your colleagues don’t have mothers?”

Declan shrugged. “I guess some of them don’t listen to theirs.”

I couldn’t decide if that was cute or slightly Oedipal.

“What time do you have to leave for work?” Declan asked. I looked at the clock above the fridge. “Shit, in about half an hour.”

“I have to go to Telstra Dome for a team meeting. I can drop you in the city.”

“That buys me a little more time,” I said, reaching for a muffin.

“I’m going to grab a shower if that’s okay.”

“Sure.” I stood up, still holding the muffin. “Come with me, I’ll grab you a towel.”

He followed me back to the hall, where I opened the linen cupboard and passed him what he needed.

“Don’t you need a shower?” he asked.

“Yeah, but you can go first.”

90 | SEAN KENNEDY

He reached out and stroked my arm. “Aren’t you a greenie? Shouldn’t we conserve water and share?”

That… was a pretty good idea actually. To save time, I stuffed the muffin in with the other towels and followed Declan to the bathroom.

“SO what are your plans for the rest of the day?” I asked as we headed towards the city. Declan glanced into the rear view mirror as he changed lanes. “Meeting, practise, press conference, dinner with my parents.”

“Wow, that’s pretty packed.”

“I’d like to see you tonight,” he said regretfully, “but I promised my folks I’d see them.”

“You could always come over after,” I said, trying not to sound too eager.

“I don’t think I could resist you if I came over tonight,” he replied in all seriousness. That bloody superstition.

I tried to laugh it off. “Yeah, I’m pretty irresistible.”

His hand rested briefly on my knee between the changing of gears. “You are.”

I stared out the window, hiding my smile.

“And tomorrow I have the game,” he continued. “But remember how I told you I was trying to stay on another day or so? I managed to arrange it.”

I looked back at him. “Really?”

“Yep.”

We had now entered the city and were making our way down Flinders Street.

“That’s great,” I said, because I couldn’t really think of any other way to express how bloody fantastic I thought it was.

We crossed down to Elizabeth Street, and it was only a matter of moments before we were at my building.

“I’ll call you before then,” he said. “But I’ll be seeing you Saturday. If you’re free, of course.”

“I think I should be,” I said, my mind too muddled to remember if I had anything planned or not. Richmond was playing away this week, so there wasn’t a game to go to.