His dad blew his whistle, and Ford trudged onto the field. Mud squelched beneath his feet, the pitch churned up after a couple days of rain. Holly faced him across the grass, her shirt and shorts filthy, her eyes sparkling with the burn of being seven points ahead, teeth bared in a bring-it grin. Loving every moment.
A sudden hot punch of blood surged from his heart to his groin, waking his dick as effectively as a shot of java woke him every morning.
Hell, no. Worst timing, ever.
He wrenched his gaze from Holly and zeroed in on her teammate, Ben, who had the ball. Ben gave a small shake of his head, a smirk curving his mouth. Caught out, again. The whistle blew, and Ford ran, using every ounce of concentration and skill learned over too-many-years-to-count sessions on the pitch.
With only five minutes to go, Ford’s team clawed their way to one point behind Ben’s. Time to empty the tank on the field or roll belly up—which was not an option.
Holly caught a perfect pass from Noah, double feinted Kez, who swore loudly in Italian, then legged it toward the try line. And him.
Ford swerved and reached to tag her arm—and Holly slipped, her eyes flying wide, her mouth a perfect O before she slammed into his chest. He backpedalled with the impact, his own feet sliding in the mud. Then came the falling—and twisting so Holly landed on him, rather than having eighty kilos flattening her.
As curvy and soft in all the right places as Holly was, she had some hard edges. She blinked down at him, her mouth still in the cute O shape, her elbows digging into his guts because she still had the rugby ball locked in her arms. Ford’s hands gripped a shoulder blade and one firm butt cheek.
He’d always scoffed at the “life flashing before your eyes in an instant” cliché. But sprawled in an ungainly heap, muddy water soaking through his shirt and shorts, winded and with Holly tangled up on top of him and breathing like a marathon runner, he discovered the truth to the cliché.
Only it wasn’t his life he saw—one filled with a shitty childhood or the years rebuilding himself one lousy brick at a time. Not even his life of good times with mates and family or the few good-while-it-lasted relationships.
He saw his life with Holly. Curling around her at night, waking her with kisses and coffee in the morning. Laughing, grieving, fucking, playing, hiking, dancing, singing, fighting, making love, making a family, growing old…
Ford flung his arms off her—he’d been palming her ass for at least three seconds more than what was anywhere near socially acceptable—and rolled her onto the wet ground.
“Okay, Hol?” His voice sounded like someone had nicked chunks out of his vocal chords with a rusty razor blade.
“Yeah,” she said and rolled onto her knees.
She slapped the ball onto the ground as Noah jogged to her side and extended a hand. The big cop hauled her to her feet.
“Good job,” he added, then switched his game-face stare to Ford. “That wasn’t a penalty, by the way.”
Ford gained his feet and mustered up an indifferent shrug. “Shoulda been. Your girl tackled me.”
Noah grinned. “Bitching about Holly taking you down? Man—did you get a boo-boo or something?” He signalled Holly. “Roll ball.”
The fact Holly continued to stare at Ford’s mud-smeared chest instead of ragging on him alongside Noah told Ford she was more affected by their muddy tussle than she let on.
He glanced across at his team. Emily watched him with the intensity of a scientist studying a newly discovered virus, her lips cutting a straight, tense line across her pretty face. Ford swiped a hand down his dripping hair and flicked off mud.
A few things had become crystal clear. One—he wouldn’t waste Emily’s time, pretending a genuine interest that just hadn’t been there from ground zero. And two… Ford tensed as Holly rolled the ball between her legs to Noah a short distance behind. Continuing to pretend he wanted anyone but Holly wasted what little time they had left.
***
Ford’s team lost. Least of all his problems.
After the customary fist bumps with the opposing team—accompanied by grief via Ben, Joe and Noah—Ford dragged his sorry ass over to where Emily stood a few feet away from the other women.
“Walk you back to the hotel?” he asked.
She nodded, offering him a drawstring pucker of a smile. “I’m glad there’s not a water ban—I’m going to drain the hotel’s hot water.”
Ford dragged his palm down his face, his fingertips rasping against a smear of dried mud. “Yeah, me too.”
They walked across the grass toward the main road, Ford making a concerted effort to keep his gaze on the horizon instead of looking over his shoulder to check if Holly watched them leave.
He chugged on his second water bottle, hoping it’d loosen the blockage in his throat. The snippets of rehearsed platitudes appeared to have been knocked from his head the moment Holly had collided with him. He couldn’t think of one tactful way to let Emily down easy. That her earlier suggestion of a visit to Ulva Island’s Bird Sanctuary that afternoon had all the appeal of a proctology exam. At least the exam would be over faster.
Ford winced, slanting a glance at her mud-covered arms folded tightly across her chest, the downturned set of her mouth, her hunched shoulders. He stuttered to a halt at the steps leading to Due South’s wrap-around veranda.
“Emily?” he asked, as she started up ahead of him.
A glimmer of desperate hopefulness combined with resignation in her Bambi-big eyes made him feel as if he was about to kick a puppy.
“I can’t…” Words stuck to his tongue. He flexed his jaw, trying to unglue them, but nope. He had nothing.
“I know,” she said after another beat of silence got sucked away in the sea breeze. The kicked puppy expression on her face only a moment ago disappeared, hardening to a dog backed into a corner, ready to bite. “There’s no point staying another night, is there? I’m going to catch the afternoon ferry.”
“I’m sorry.”
“So am I,” she said. “And a little pissed at being dragged down here under false pretences.”
“What would those be?”
Emily arched her chin. “Your profile clearly states you were available and looking for love.”
Biting down the urge to go all Beyoncé with his ring-less fingers—because, hell, Emily wasn’t completely off base—Ford met her gaze evenly.
“You weren’t honest with me,” she added. “Because it’s obvious you’re already involved with someone else.”
Honest? Oh—he was not going there.
Ford clenched the water bottle in his hands, the plastic crackling threateningly. There’d be a row of teeth marks in his tongue after this conversation was over, but he said nothing. While his smart mouth had gotten him in the shit with women on more than one occasion, he’d also learned basic guy-tactics to avoid meltdowns.
“I’m sorry things didn’t work out,” he said. “You’re a really nice lady.” Listen to him being all adult and anti-assholish.
Emily’s eyes slitted. “You can’t even admit you’ve got the hots for Holly, can you?”
Maybe he needed a refresher course on the whole female wrangling. Ford showed her his palms. “She has nothing to do with why you and I didn’t click.”
“She has everything to do with it. You’ve been looking at her as if she’s an all-you-can-eat buffet from the moment I got here, and this morning”—Emily blinked rapidly, her eyes suspiciously shiny—“I ruined my nails and my hair and my new tee shirt just to run up and down that stupid muddy field and watch you groping her bum.” Her voice rose to an only-dogs-could-hear pitch on the last word.
Then seeing him continue to stare numbly at her, Emily whirled and stomped up the remaining steps, disappearing into Due South.
“Good talk,” he said weakly.
And there ended his short and fucking disastrous attempt at blind dating.
Chapter 12
Writteninthestars.com Daily Horoscope.
/> Pisces.
Passion and promise are just around the corner. Take a step in the right direction and follow your heart.
News travelled faster along Oban’s grapevine than a winter cold…or a dose of the clap. Emily leaving on yesterday’s ferry after the touch rugby game had burned up the phone lines for the rest of the afternoon.
Ford wouldn’t confirm or deny any speculation, since he’d retreated into his cave like a hibernating bear. According to Shaye, who’d texted Holly between lunch and dinner service, both West and Ben had tried to talk to him, only to be met with Ford in stonewalling mode. Nothing or no one could make Ford open up if he got it in his head to hold his tongue. Only Holly would be dumb enough to try.
She smoothed sweaty palms down her skirt and kept her back pressed to the rear wall of Ford and Rob’s workshop. The roller doors out front were closed, the only sign of life inside the thumping bass of heavy rock, volume cranked until it vibrated through the soles of her boots. Ford’s working-off-a-mood music. And since Ford’s dad claimed he’d rather listen to Taylor Swift than AC/DC, apparently Rob wasn’t keeping his son company on his Sunday off.
That worked.
Holly rolled her head to the side, scanning the workshop’s cramped back yard. Her only witness this morning was a kaka perched on a small mountain of tarp-covered spare parts. The parrot cocked its brown-feathered head and let out a raucous squawk.
“Shhhh,” Holly hissed.
Not that Ford would even hear the damn bird, or that anyone walking past the workshop could see her back here.
The kaka ruffled its feathers, sending over a beady-eyed stare that clearly stated the bird knew exactly why she’d shown up at Ford’s workshop wearing a cute hippie-style skirt and a push-up bra that gave the girls a nice boost under her cleavage-on-display top.
“Shut your cakehole, Birdbrain,” she muttered. “A girl can choose to look nice when she goes for a Sunday stroll.”
Whether or not it was Del’s loud and constantly peanut-demanding feathered friend, she couldn’t tell. But regardless, arguing with a parrot was stalling. Major stalling.
Holly pushed away from the wall and approached the workshop’s back door. Her fingers closed around the doorknob, and for a moment, she froze, Ford’s words echoing in her head.
If you want me to kiss you again—if you want me to do every dirty, secret thing you’ve imagined me doing to you—then quit lying to us both and ask for what you want.
She’d lied to herself every step of the way this morning. From showering with her most expensive body wash—because Ford had once complimented her saying she smelled good…better than a new-car-smell good—to carefully selecting the push-up bra and matching panties that looked sexy while not trying-to-look-sexy. She’d also shaved her legs and armpits, moisturised her skin from hairline to toes, plucked her eyebrows, and spent ten minutes worrying whether her pubic hair looked like a seventies porn star. Then she’d lied to herself even further by slipping on her guaranteed-to-see-action heels, kicking them off thirty seconds later, because, obvious—and tugging on her less obvious black ankle boots, which were much more practical for a Sunday morning stroll. Which was all she was doing. With maybe a quick, “Hey-how’re-ya-doing-are-you-okay?” stop at Ford’s place.
Only he hadn’t been there, so she’d used her powers of deduction and inside knowledge of Ford’s man-sulks to figure out where he’d be. And bingo.
Here she was, right outside his door.
Because the truth boiled down to this. Ford had nailed it. She’d lied her ass off refusing to admit that yeah, their chemistry was off the freaking charts. And yeah, the only woman she wanted him to fuck was her. Even if it could only be a purely physical thing that lasted for a few weeks more.
If you want me to do every dirty secret thing you’ve imagined me doing to you…
Holly opened the door and stepped inside, her gaze immediately drawn to the sprawled figure on his back working under the ute on a wheeled creeper.
Oh…she’d imagined, all right. Imagined all sorts of bad-girl things.
One of Ford’s work-booted feet tapped the bass rhythm, the movement straining the already ripped jeans over his bent knee cap. Faded denim clung to long, muscled thighs and cupped the bulge between them most appealingly. And that ass? Holly swallowed, tracing her gaze over the jeans’ stretched inseam and the tight-as-hell mounds beneath. That ass was enough to turn her back from semi-vegetarian to full-on meat-lover in an instant.
The toe-tapping stopped, thigh muscles suddenly rigid beneath Ford’s jeans. He planted his feet and pushed, two grease-smeared hands appearing on the ute’s bumper as he rolled out from under the vehicle. His lips were moving and turned down in a scowl—cursing up a storm, she imagined—then his fierce expression switched to polite neutrality. With an undertone of wariness.
Holly darted for the stereo and dialled the volume down to where Brian Johnson rasping about dirty, dirty love was a subtler reminder of her not-so-pure motivations for being here.
“Hey,” she said, facing him. “There you are.”
Brilliantly witty start to a conversation. One for the record books. You go, gurl.
“Yeah. Here I am.”
Some impressively wicked abs flexed under Ford’s tee shirt as he folded upward to prop himself on his elbows. Why hadn’t she ever noticed how hot it was to watch a man roll around under a car? Like a stripper pole, but for men…
Holly licked her lips. “So. Um. You’re working on your day off?”
He lifted a shoulder. “The new muffler isn’t going to fit itself. And plans for my day off changed.”
“I heard.”
Ford slanted her a narrowed glance then the corner of his mouth twitched. “Why are you all dressed up? Going to church?”
“No, smartass.”
He lowered himself down on the creeper and disappeared between the ute’s rear wheels. A moment later came the rattle of metal on metal.
“Getting hit by a lightning bolt as you step into the First Presbyterian would be a Sunday morning buzzkill.”
Huh. Since he apparently wasn’t interested in a face-to-face conversation, Holly crossed to the ute and boosted herself up to sit on the cargo bed beside the shiny new muffler. Tucking her fingers under her knees, she swung her feet, studying Ford’s supine form beneath her—from the crotch down.
He had the right idea.
Talking to Ford’s best-bits-on-display was marginally easier than allowing him to catch a glimpse of her face. Because even though she’d hung out with him alone dozens of times here, she was sure her sweaty palms, fluttery tummy and go-for-broke heartbeat showed. Vulnerability 101—a class she didn’t have a great track record for doing well in.
The ute’s bed shuddered under her butt. Ford wrestling with stubborn nuts. This wasn’t her first muffler replacement.
“Nuts still too tight?” she asked.
Another shudder and grinding noise.
“My nuts are never too tight.”
A glance down revealed that Ford’s nuts were, indeed, relaxed. She closed an eye and angled her head. But was the bulge in his jeans bigger? Holly wriggled, swinging her feet faster.
“Need some more penetrating oil?” she asked.
And did saying the word penetrating raise the temperature inside the workshop just a fraction higher? Yes, it did. Or maybe that was her skin warming to the thought of riding Ford and his creeper like a rodeo star.
The shuddering stopped. “Nah. I’m all set.”
“Oh, good. Well, if you need me to hold any of your tools—”
Ford rocketed out from under the ute as if his creeper had developed jet propulsion. His biceps were two rigid mounds as he caught himself by his hands on the bumper. Sizzling chocolate eyes stared up at her, lighting a fuse in her belly that burned hot and fast down to her core.
Without breaking eye contact, Ford dragged a rag from the back pocket of his jeans and wiped his fingers. “Playing games with me? T
hat’s dangerous sport.”
She pursed her lips, and even upside down she could see him track the movement. Predator meet prey. But who was who? Who was playing who?
“Just trying to help you out,” she said. “Faster you’re done here, the faster you can get back to doing what you want to be doing on your day off.”
Ford sat up, and Holly shifted her dangling legs to the side so she didn’t kick him in the head. He stood, brushing his hands down his shirt and jeans, watching her, weighing up her intentions.
Which she could tell him right now had gone from let’s go flirt with Ford to let the foreplay begin.
Ford toed the creeper, and it disappeared under the ute with a rattle. He made the small distance between them vanish, moving in to brace his arms either side of her hips. “What I’d rather be doing, huh? That’s easy.”
She squeezed her thighs together, her knee caps pushed tight to the solid wall of his stomach. His thumb glided lightly along the crease of her body where thighs met hips.
“Look at you,” he murmured. “So prettily packaged in your Sunday best. And me with my dirty hands so close to that sweet-smelling skin.”
He bent in, and Holly arched away, fingers scrabbling over the smooth metal bed. His gaze flicked from her face to her breasts, shoved high and near his face. As if his gaze were a tripwire, both of her nipples tightened, ready to play peek-a-boo with the sexy mechanic.
Ford lowered his head farther, so his nose was only a few inches from her breast. “Skin that smells like heaven—at least, my idea of heaven.”
He brushed his nose over the hard bump of her nipple, and tingles of pure pleasure shot through her.
“Yeah, all that pretty, clean skin, much too clean to get my dirty hands on.” He raised his head, his lips curving as if the small shiver she couldn’t help make told him just how turned on she was.
Oh, wait—it probably had.
Playing For Fun Page 15