by Amy Andrews
It sure as shit put her Potts Point apartment to shame.
Clearly, everyone else had already been here as she was the only one walking around with her mouth open.
“I’ll show you round later,” he murmured, all low again, his hand on her hip just as Valerie bounced over and said, “You have to come check out his awesome view,” and Linc said, “Where are those damn pizzas you bribed us with?”
The view was indeed awesome, with Sydney’s skyline laid out before her, dramatically punctuated by Centrepoint tower rising into the night sky. Closer to the apartment, the lights from the restaurants that ran the length of the wharf reflected in the surface of the harbour. She could hear a low murmur of voices floating up from below and hear the occasional slap of water against wood.
It had always been a fantasy of Matilda’s to live somewhere with a sea view. This wasn’t exactly the beach but hell…it was the next best thing.
The pizza arrived fifteen minutes later and they all sat around, some on chairs, some on the floor, and ate. Matilda had deliberately chosen to sit on the couch between two of the WAGS—she wasn’t sure she could cope with Tanner being too near again.
He sat in an armchair a few feet away, the smile on his face telling her he knew exactly what she was up to.
The casual meal was fun. There were five couples—not including her and Tanner because they weren’t a couple—plus four single guys—Linc, Dex, Bodie, and Ryder—and Valerie. They sat around talking and laughing about a variety of subjects, not just the game. They seemed to enjoy each other’s company even if that meant taking turns at being the brunt of merciless razzing.
One thing was clear, she had plenty of fodder for her next feature and an angle—how much he was loved and respected. Because it was clear here tonight that everyone loved Tanner. Sure, there was trash talk, but she could see right through it to the respect and affection that underpinned it. And it wasn’t just because he was their captain, either. It was because of his generosity of spirit. He’d praised all the guys for their part in the win today, and every one of them had sat a little taller in their seats.
It shouldn’t come as any surprise. Tanner had always been well liked because, quite simply, he’d always been one of the nicest guys around. Apart from the incident with Jessica Duffy, he’d never put a foot wrong.
His mother had brought him up to be kind, respectful, and decent, and students, teachers, his fellow players, coaches, and even his opponents had liked him. He’d been polite, well-manner and always ready to lend a hand if someone needed it.
What wasn’t to love?
Matilda dragged her thoughts away from that dangerous question, switching her attention to Valerie teasing Linc about being a glutton as he wolfed down the last slice of his second pizza. If she wasn’t very much mistaken, it may have even bordered on flirting. Linc razzed her back about his manly appetite in a very brotherly fashion.
Hmm. Interesting. She leaned toward John Trimble’s wife, Kathy, who sat beside her. “Is Linc blind?” she whispered. “Valerie’s gorgeous and flirting?”
Kathy smiled and whispered back, “No messing with the coach’s daughter.”
“That’s an order from the coach?” Griffin King had barely acknowledged his daughter. Why would he care?
Kathy shook her head. “Not in so many words. It’s kind of an unspoken law. But Griff is too much of an enigma for anyone to push that envelope even a little.”
Matilda glanced at Valerie. Poor girl. Growing up around all this beefcake and not able to nibble at some of the hamburgers.
After the pizza had been eaten and the boxes thrown out, a more in depth dissection of the game started and Matilda wandered out with her glass of wine to the deck to admire the view again. Watching the New Year’s Eve fireworks from here must be breathtaking.
“Not too shabby, huh?”
She turned to find Kathy joining her. John Trimble was the oldest member of the team and his wife was about thirty. “I think I could hack it,” Matilda smiled.
“Play your cards right and that might be a possibility,” she teased. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen our Tanner quite this smitten.”
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 h
ead 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.