Game For Love (Bad Boys of Football 3, An Erotic Contemporary Romance)

by Bella Andre

  But it remained just out of his grasp.

  The linebacker coach had to pull him off the field. “Quitting time.”

  Cole looked up, saw that the field was almost empty. Only Ty was still out there, practicing hitting his targets.

  “But if you want to run some more formation reads, Cole, I’m happy to stay a little longer.”

  Fuck. He didn’t want to go in now. But Joe had a new baby at home and Cole knew he wanted to be there with his family. Not out on the field with some messed-in-the-head linebacker who didn’t know which way was up.

  “No, I’m good.” He couldn’t miss the relief in the other man’s eyes.

  Ty walked into the locker room just as Cole stepped into the hot spray of the shower. “You’re not the only one, you know.”

  Cole slammed the nozzle shut. “Fuck off, Ty.”

  He’d spent some of his best nights with the guy, celebrating big wins with beautiful women, but that didn’t mean he wanted to sit there in towels and share feelings.

  “Planning on it tonight with my wife.” Ty toweled off his hair, before twisting the towel around his waist. “Julie told me you met Anna in Vegas, but I told her you couldn’t have found a nice girl like that in the middle of Sin City.”

  Cole turned to his ex-friend with murder in his eyes. “You won’t be able to fuck your wife any time soon if you’re not careful.”

  Not looking the least bit scared, Ty reached into his locker, actually turning his back on Cole. “Julie also said you were with Anna for months. Dating in secret.” He turned back around, pinned Cole with a knowing look. “You’re a lying sack of shit, aren’t you? Your game was different this Sunday. Not worse, just different. Like football isn’t the only thing that matters to you anymore.”

  Cole’s fists tightened as he got ready to punch Ty’s smug face, just hard enough to make him a little less pretty. Not that Julie would care. She’d still love the bastard anyway.

  Just like Anna loved him. And last night, instead of keeping his feelings locked up like he should have, he’d given in.

  And loved her right back.

  What the fuck had he done?

  He was a man with enough darkness in his soul to spill over onto her innocence. The thought of Anna waking up one day and wondering, “Why did I love him?” or realizing it was just great sex and the excitement of the situation that had her temporarily thinking she loved him, killed him.

  Anna didn’t care about his money, his fame. She cared about her family and her friends and her kids at school. Whereas, at his core, he knew he’d lived a totally selfish life—and enjoyed the hell out of it.

  Odds were, one day he was going to wake up and feel trapped. And when he felt trapped, he acted stupid. He didn’t want to promise her anything he couldn’t deliver. Fidelity had never been his strong suit. Which was why he’d never limited himself to just one woman and had definitely never made love to one before. It was why he’d never, not once, let himself get involved with a good girl.

  Not until Anna.

  “Look, Cole, I know you were struggling out there today. Now you know love does that to you. Fucks you up for a little while. But then one day you realize you’re actually better for it. So, how about you tell me the truth about where you found your wife? Just between you and me, Scout’s honor.”

  Ty had never been a Scout. Neither of them had. And his friend’s easy talk about love made Cole’s insides go still. Cold.

  He and Anna weren’t real. Not the marriage. Not her feelings for him. He’d let the great sex confuse him just like it had clearly confused Anna.

  “My grandmother needed to think I was settled. That I’d found true love. It was her last wish.” Ty knew about Cole’s grandmother and his eyes darkened with sympathy. “So I called 1-800-Good-Girl and they sent her over.”

  “Holy shit, are you saying that you married Anna only because of your grandmother?”

  “I found Anna in a club Friday night, looking like a doe caught in the headlights. I convinced her to marry me, then presented her to my grandmother on a silver platter at the hospital Saturday morning.”

  Cole’s gut twisted tighter with each sentence. He’d thought laying it out in black and white would help set him straight, that he and Ty would laugh at another play pulled off to perfection.

  But Ty wasn’t laughing.

  And neither was Cole. Hell, he felt like a bigger shit than he ever had before.

  “Are you telling me that the nice girl I met Sunday let you buy her?”

  “No.” Fuck no. She wasn’t a whore—wouldn’t even take money or jewelry for her cooperation. “She won’t take anything from me. Says she doesn’t want it.”

  “I think I hear what you’re saying, but this isn’t adding up. Especially since Julie said Anna clearly doesn’t know the first thing about football. She’s not a groupie. She doesn’t want your money. Why would she actually go through with marrying you?”

  “She’s got a soft heart.” Cole had seen Anna with his grandmother, with her family, with the children in her class. “I didn’t play fair. I wouldn’t let her leave me until she met my grandmother.”

  And he’d promised her pleasure, thinking it was a fair trade.

  What a fucked-up asshole he was.

  Ty’s frown lifted suddenly. Too suddenly. He shook his head slowly, whistled between his teeth. “You do realize that she’s doing it because she’s in love with you, don’t you?”

  “She’s not in love with me,” Cole countered. “She just thinks she is.”

  “Right.” Ty sounded less than convinced, but he dropped it. “So we shouldn’t get too used to seeing her around, then?”

  “We’ll stay together as long as we need to.” It went unspoken, but understood by both men, that everything would change once his grandmother passed away.

  Ty zipped up his jeans. “Julie really liked Anna. Said she wasn’t like the other girls you’ve brought around. She said Anna’s soul hadn’t been sucked out with a liposuction tube.”

  Maybe another time that would have been funny. But Cole didn’t see a whole lot of laughing in his future. The time would come when Anna wasn’t in his house, wasn’t in his bed, wasn’t in his life anymore. And it would suck.

  “Look, I know I’m no expert in the whole relationship thing.” Ty put his hands up and Cole recognized it as his usual tactic. Playing the nice guy before he went in for the kill.

  “That’s for damn sure,” he bit out, fully aware of the way Ty had fucked things up with Julie, knew the fuckups had gone all the way back to high school. The last person who should be giving him advice was this prick.

  Then again, Ty was happy now, wasn’t he? With a wife any guy on the team would kill to be with.

  Everyone but Cole.

  Because he couldn’t see past Anna to any other woman on the planet.

  “I don’t know much, but the thing is—” Ty stopped packing his duffel bag, looked Cole in the eye. “—I know one thing for sure. I couldn’t live without Julie. Wouldn’t want to do it, period. But I almost had to. Because I was an idiot. More than once. Truth is, I should have been down on my knees groveling, begging, praying for her to give me another chance and not screw it up years ago.” Ty zipped up his bag, put it over his shoulder, and shrugged. “Anyway, see you at practice tomorrow.”

  Cole slammed his locker shut, the entire wall of metal shaking even after he walked away. Who the fuck did Ty think he was, giving him advice?

  Cut and dried. The whole goddamned situation with Anna was cut and dried.

  He’d needed a temporary wife. She’d agreed to a trade of great sex. Both of them were upholdingtheir sides of the original deal. Once they were divorced, once she wasn’t coming around his dick every thirty minutes, she’d realize she wasn’t actually in love with him.

  And when she looked back, she’d see that loving him couldn't have been possible in the first place.

  Working like hell to straighten himself out before he went hom
e to Anna, he almost trampled a woman waiting in the hallway.

  “Cynthia?”

  What the hell was the journalist doing here?

  She quickly shut the phone at her ear. “Cole. Your coach told me you were getting changed. I’ve got some follow-up questions about your career that I wanted to put in the article.”

  Cole worked to keep his expression clear as he walked with her and answered her questions.

  Had the guard in the hall let Cynthia into the locker room while he and Ty were talking? He couldn’t tell from looking at her, didn’t think she was acting any differently now than she had the previous night.

  What had she heard?

  Shit. He couldn’t just ask her, couldn’t give her any ammo if she didn’t already have it.

  After she'd asked him her questions, he went down to his car. But instead of driving out of the underground lot, he sat and stared at the cement wall.

  * * *

  Cole walked into a scene out of every guy’s fantasy. Dinner was on the table and Anna was sitting in her seat wearing nothing but one of his ties and spike heels, her legs kicked up on the table, ankles crossed.

  “Welcome home, honey. How was your day at the office?”

  His wife—his oh-so-beautiful wife—was smiling and sexy, but also shy and nervous.

  And so sweet he couldn’t believe she was his.

  For now.

  He moved across the room, dropped to his knees in front of her. Picking her legs up off the table, he put them on either side of his face.

  “A whole hell of a lot better now.”

  He lowered his mouth down to her sweet pussy and her hands dropped from where they’d been covering her breasts—that combination of sinful and innocent that blew his head apart every time he looked at her.

  Every time he loved her.

  And when she cried out at just the barest touch of his tongue on her clit, so wet and ready for him, he had to pull her down onto the floor with him, had to be inside of her while she came.

  Notorious among the football groupies for his staying power, Cole didn’t have a prayer of lasting any longer than Anna had. And as he came deep inside the soft, sweet woman riding his lap, he knew himself for the fool he was after what he’d said to Ty.

  Cole had found something special in Anna.

  Now he just had to hope that one stupid, stubborn conversation didn’t come to light...and pray that it didn’t all go to hell.

  Chapter Twenty

  Anna had never felt so good. Or so happy. So incredibly happy that sometimes she was sure she must be dreaming, that she was going to wake up one of these days and realize Cole wasn’t real, that she’d invented him to be her perfect man. Strong, dominant, sexy, and yet so caring, so warm, so wonderful.

  Neither of them had to get up early on a Saturday morning and for the first time since coming home to San Francisco, they’d had a chance to have leisurely morning sex. Not, she thought with a smile as she burrowed deeper in the covers, that there had been anything particularly easygoing about it.

  They were way too hot for each other to make it too long without combusting in each other’s arms.

  And the thing was, Anna had had enough easygoing sex before Cole. She loved the hot flash of attraction, loved how powerless she was to her desire.

  Because that’s what Cole was to her. A deliciously sensual drug that swamped her system. She craved his touch. His warmth. His words whispering over her skin. From the first moment that he’d kissed her, she’d been lost, with no desire to be found.

  Time and time again, she’d forgotten to protect herself against pregnancy when they made love. But instead of being worried, instead of wondering how she could possibly have let herself get so carried away, she found herself noticing the tenderness in her breasts and wondering if maybe, just maybe, in nine months she’d be seeing Cole’s eyes on a little girl or boy.

  Everything she’d ever wanted was coming true, things she’d almost stopped dreaming about.

  All because of the beautiful man walking into the bedroom holding two cups of coffee.

  Her cell phone jumped on the dresser across from the bed. The ringer was off, but Cole eyeballed the screen. “It’s your mother.”

  “I’ll call her back later.”

  She took the mug from him, sipping from his lips first. She’d barely tasted her coffee before he took it from her and put both of their mugs down on the nightstand.

  “You don’t mind cold coffee, do you?”

  She shivered in delicious anticipation at the wicked look in his eyes. “Isn’t that why they invented microwaves?”

  She went to her knees to reach for him and his arms immediately surrounded her, her mother’s call and the coffee completely forgotten. But then, her phone jumped again—and this time she could hear his ringing, too, from the drawer in the closet where he put it at night.

  Cole’s hands stilled on her skin. He tilted back just far enough that she could see into his eyes. “Sweet Anna, you know how much you mean to me, don’t you? You know how happy I was to find you in that club in Vegas, don’t you?”

  The only time she’d seen him look this serious was when he’d been talking to his grandmother’s doctors. “I’m happy, too, Cole.”

  But the frown between his brows didn’t ease, but only burrowed in deeper. “I should have told you how I feel a hundred times by now, baby. I should have been sending you cards and flowers to let you know what you mean to me.”

  Her heart all but stopped pounding. She had to force herself not to hold her breath, to keep breathing. She’d hoped, prayed, for this moment.

  Both of their phones rang again and he seemed momentarily distracted. Now she was frowning, too.

  “Tell me now, Cole. Whatever it is, I’m right here. Listening.”

  His gaze bored into hers and she swore her heart actually quaked behind her ribs.

  “I love you, Anna. So much.”

  Dreams really could come true. Even the ones that seemed impossible.

  “I love you, too.”

  “Promise me that you’ll remember, sweetheart. No matter what happens. Promise you won’t forget that I love you.”

  She opened her mouth to promise, to tell him there was no way she could ever forget that he loved her, but just then his doorbell rang in unison with both their phones.

  “What’s going on? Why is everyone trying to get a hold of us this morning?”

  He didn’t answer her, just cupped her face in his big hands and kissed her with the very love he’d just professed.

  He moved away from the bed and put on his jeans, looking like he was going to face the executioner.

  “What’s going on, Cole?”

  He closed his eyes, stood in the middle of his bedroom like a man who was just about to lose everything. “I fucked up, baby. Big time.”

  She was up out of the bed now. Her heart, which had been so full just moments before, was abruptly poised on the edge of a knife.

  “How?”

  “I said some things to Ty in the locker room. Stupid things. Because I was freaking out about everything.” He ran a hand across his stubbled face. “The journalist came to the stadium to ask some follow-up questions. I think she overheard our conversation. I think that’s what this is all about.”

  Everything froze for Anna in that moment. The very air went so still before her that she could see the dust motes stopping their dance in front of the window’s morning light.

  “What did you say to Ty?”

  “I’m sorry, baby.”

  He was moving toward her, but when she held up a hand, he stopped immediately.

  “What did you say?”

  “Ty was pushing me, so I told him the truth about how we met. About why we got married.” He ran a big hand through his hair so that it stood on end. “But the truth has nothing to do with how we met or why we got married. The only thing that’s true is how much I love you.”

  The knife made its first cut into her hear
t.

  “So, let me see if I understand you correctly. You told Ty our secret just because he asked you one little question, but I’ve lied to everyone I love again and again.”

  She couldn’t believe her voice was so steady. But maybe it was because she was so cold. Frozen from the inside out. Tears couldn’t possibly come from a block of ice. There had to be warmth for water to drip.

  And there was no warmth anymore.

  “I’d take it all back if I could,” the man she’d loved so much swore. “I’d rewind back to Wednesday night and say different things. I’d go back to that moment and tell him I was in love with you. Hell, I’d go back to that night in the club and know without a doubt that I was going to fall in love with you.”

  “Wednesday night? You talked to Ty on Wednesday night about us?”

  A quick reel played through her head of all the ways he’d touched her in the nearly three days since then, all the times she’d told him she loved him. She’d thought she was safe with Cole. She’d thought she’d found comfort in his arms.

  Lies.

  They’d all been lies.

  “We don’t know for sure that she heard what I said to him, that she printed it in the paper. Maybe everyone is calling to congratulate us.”

  “Don’t lie to me anymore, Cole. At least respect me enough to admit that you know that’s not why they’re calling.”

  And the truth was, she didn’t have to read the article to know that all of her dreams had come crashing down. Hadn’t she known all along that this would happen if she were stupid enough—weak enough—to let herself fall for Cole?

  She lifted her chin, standing there naked in front of him, her stupid body still wanting his despite the way he’d sliced through the center of her heart.

  “We need to talk to your grandmother.”

  She saw the moment he realized the full ramifications of what he’d done, the way his face fell even further than it already had. “She doesn’t deserve this.”

  “I agree. That’s why I need to go apologize to her. In person.” She paused, waited for her heart to start beating again, then realized it was going to take a hell of a lot longer than this. “And I want a divorce.”