by Amy Andrews
Reaching the open doorway, Cole paused for Finn to catch up. Jane had her back to him, kneeling on her kneepads, hunched over the floor, prying a tile loose. The room was almost half done, now, and he was impressed with her progress, but that position could not be good for anyone’s posture. Her back and knees and neck must ache like crazy at the end of the day, yet he’d not heard her grumble or seen her stretching out her muscles or rubbing at her neck.
He could rub her neck. He could rub her wherever she wanted…
“Mommy!”
Cole started guiltily at the voice, having temporarily forgotten that Finn—Jane’s kid—was with him. Jane, who he was picturing stretched out on a massage table, glistening in oil as he rubbed her down.
Jesus. What was wrong with him? He was probably going to hell for mentally debauching a mother with her four-year-old son right beside him. MILF hell. Where you could look but never, ever touch for all fucking eternity.
Jane glanced over her shoulder and smiled. “Knock, knock,” Cole said, indicating the tray as he hoped like hell the desire running hot through his veins was not reflected on his face. Or behind the zipper of his jeans. “Finn thought you might like some milk and cookies.”
Jane tapped a button on her nearby phone screen, and the music cut out as she sat back on her haunches, wiping her forehead with the back of her hand. Her gaze fleetingly captured his before she turned her attention to Finn. “I was just thinking that’s exactly what I want,” she said with a grin. “I’m starving.”
“We can have a floor picnic, Mommy.” Finn held up the checked tablecloth.
“I love that idea, Finny.” She pushed to her feet with an effortless ease that had Cole both envious and horny as fuck. Even in kneepads, Jane Spencer’s fix-it-woman look totally floated his boat. “How about over there?”
She pointed to the midsection of the remaining tiles, far away from any potential spill hazards to the exposed parquetry. Finn lifted the stick and skipped over to the indicated area and proceeded to spread the tablecloth on the tiles. Jane headed toward her son; so did Cole.
“You can sit here, Mommy.” Finn pointed to where he wanted his mother to sit, and Jane dutifully sat. “And you can sit there, Cole.”
An imperious little finger pointed at a spot next to Jane. It wouldn’t have been where Cole would have sat, but it wasn’t exactly a huge tablecloth, so there wouldn’t be much distance between them wherever he sat his arse down.
“You want me to take that?” she asked, holding out her hands to take the tray.
Cole’s instinct to say no battled with the practicalities of his predicament. There was no way he could sit and take the tray with him. He was going to need the assistance of his stick to get all the way down on the floor. A well of frustration rose in him, but Jane smiled gently and waggled her fingers a little.
It wasn’t in Cole’s nature to appear weak to anyone. Over a decade in professional sport had taught him that weaknesses could be exploited. But he’d already exposed his vulnerabilities to this woman—both his pain and his desire for her—and she didn’t look like she wanted to exploit him. Just…help.
Clearing his throat, Cole muttered, “Thanks,” and handed over the tray.
“Finn, pass Cole his stick,” Jane said as she settled the tray on the cloth.
And, just like that, no fuss, the stick was passed over, and Cole had lowered himself to the floor. No one was asking him how he felt or watching him with trained eagle eyes. No one was making notes. There wasn’t a camera recording the moment, and some annoying journo wasn’t going to write about his fitness.
Just this woman and this boy and a floor picnic.
“Did you make these?” Jane asked her son as Cole found a position of comfort. “I thought I smelled cookies.”
“I did,” Finn said. “But Cole helped.”
Cole smiled. If Finn’s definition of helping was to eat as much of the cookie dough as possible, then he’d helped—a lot.
She picked up a cookie and a glass of milk. “I hope you didn’t give away the secret family recipe, did you?”
Finn shook his head solemnly. “No, Mommy. Cole dooddled it.”
Jane raised an eyebrow, then winked at Cole as she dunked her cookie in the glass of milk. “Did he, now?”
That wink, the amused tilt to her mouth, were something else. Like they were both in on a joke together. Her genuine delight reminded him of the night she’d talked about her work with him, and this whole domesticated scene made Cole feel…like he was part of something. Part of this little circle. Not a duo plus an outsider—a trio.
Warmth flooded his chest. Then she bit into the cookie and shut her eyes, and warmth flooded an area a little farther to the south. She sighed exaggeratedly, her eyes fluttering open to look at Finn.
“Mmm,” she said. Her tongue flicked out to lick at the crumbs on her mouth, and Cole honest-to-god forgot to breathe for a second. “These are dee-licious.”
Finn nodded as he also dunked his cookie and took a bite. “Cole said I’m a good cook.”
She glanced at Cole and smiled a small smile that clearly said thank you. “Well, he’s right.” Jane shifted her eyes back to Finn. “But look at all these cookies. How are we going to eat them all?”
“You’re lucky; there are supposed to be more,” Cole said. “But somebody—I can’t tell you who—” He bugged his eyes at Finn. “Likes cookie dough very, very much.”
She feigned a shocked gasp and said, “Oh no, I don’t believe that,” in an exaggerated manner, waggling her eyebrows at Finn, who laughed, completely unabashed by his consummation of half the cookie mix. Jane laughed at her son’s glee, and hell if Cole didn’t laugh, too.
“Mommy likes the dough, too,” Finn said as their laughter settled.
A very indecent image—Jane licking cookie dough off her fingers—sprang into his head fully formed. Followed closely by another of him licking cookie dough off her fingers.
And her throat. And her nipples. And around her belly button.
“That’s because the dough is the best part. Isn’t it, Finn?”
Finn agreed with a vigorous shake of his head. Cole also agreed. In fact, Cole doubted right at this moment if he’d ever agreed with anything more. But then Jane asked Finn about their day, and Cole once again felt guilty about the direction of his thoughts—thoughts about Finn’s mother—so he wiped them from his brain and ate a damn cookie instead.
He ate a bunch of cookies as Finn and Jane chatted away and Carl basked happily in a patch of sunlight about a foot from the tablecloth. It was easy listening, requiring little input from him, and he found himself slowly relaxing amidst their uncomplicated intimacy. His recovery was complex, his future was uncertain, and his feelings for Jane—who he’d known for less than a week—were getting more complicated as the days went by, but this relationship between mother and son was an oasis of calm in the middle of a turbulent sea.
“I doubt Wade and CC would mind. But I can text her if you’d like? To check if it’s okay?”
Cole’s mind scrambled to compute what they’d been saying.
“About the swing?” Jane prompted.
“Oh…right.” Cole had suggested to Finn while they’d been cooking that the oak tree was perfect for a tire swing. It was massive, its solid limbs easily able to support what he had in mind. He’d suggested to Finn they go and buy the materials from the supply shop tomorrow, and he could help Cole set it up. Finn had been fully on board with the plan. “Thanks, that would be good.”
Finn gave a little whoop, but Cole barely registered it as Jane shot him another grateful smile. Never in his life had gratitude been a turn-on, but it seemed he couldn’t get enough of this woman’s appreciation.
“Right, then.” He grabbed his stick before his dick started to show its Team Jane spirit in embarrassing ways. The throb of discomfor
t that grabbed at his hip as he levered himself to his knees, killed any stirrings in his loins. “There’s a sprinkler with your name on it, mate.”
Finn, who still beamed every time Cole called him mate, also sprang to his feet. “You need a hand, Cole?”
“No, thank you, Finn.”
Cole pushed slowly to his feet as Jane rose easily, laden tray in hand. Finn grabbed the tablecloth off the floor. “Can we have a floor picnic every day, Mommy?”
“Oh.” She glanced sideways at Cole. “I guess that’s up to Cole.”
“Can we please, Cole?”
Finn clasped his hands together like he was praying, and Cole almost laughed out loud at the kid’s eagerly desperate expression. Aware, though, that they were going to be at a rugby clinic for a couple of days this week, Cole said, “Most days we could.”
Because he’d like nothing more than to sit on the floor with a woman who kept kissing him and running away, like they were a family. Playing house with her and Finn while ignoring how much he wanted to lick cookie dough off every inch of her body.
“We’ll make jam drops next time.”
“What’s that?” Finn asked as he picked up a sleeping Carl off the floor and plonked him on his shoulder.
“My secret family recipe.”
He reached to relieve Jane of the tray, but she shook her head. “I’ll take it.”
Cole knew she was trying to ease a burden for him, and, curiously, it didn’t piss him off. Not that long ago, it would have. He would have taken her offer as a judgment on his ability, but this time away from the pressure cooker of his career prospects had blunted the edges of his defensiveness.
He’d have done the same for her, had the positions been reversed.
Except he could manage the tray, even if he was a little slow. Waggling his fingers at her, he said, “I’m okay, really. And you have work to get back to.”
She didn’t argue the point, just handed it over, her fingers brushing his as she transferred the tray to his grasp. Little diamond sparks of heat spread up his arm from their point of contact even as she withdrew quickly from the touch.
“See you later,” she said, the rough note in her voice causing more sparks, more heat.
Cole quirked an eyebrow. “For my performance appraisal.”
“Yep.” Her throat bobbed as she swallowed.
“We’re still calling it that?” Not making out on the porch…?
“Yep,” she repeated, her gaze locking with his.
“All right then. I’m…looking forward to it.”
She cleared her throat. “So am I.”
Chapter Seven
Jane was determined to not kiss Cole tonight.
She was going to have a beer with him; they were going to chat about Finn. About not letting him eat too much cookie dough and the swing—like, did he even know how to make one that wouldn’t fall down and kill her son—and the rugby clinic. Maybe the weather. Then she was going to get up, go inside, go to bed, and work on her laptop for a few hours. There were invoices and emails she hadn’t gotten to today.
Then she was going to sleep. That was it.
She couldn’t keep kissing him because she wanted to. She was an adult, not a horny teenage girl. There was too much going on in her life and too much on her plate She didn’t have the luxury of making out with guys on porches.
And it didn’t matter that him being here was allowing her to work or that he’d made her milk and cookies or that Finn was so damn happy it made her heart glow. So happy he hadn’t even asked when Tad was coming back the last couple of nights, like he had every day since his father had left him in Credence and hightailed it to Vegas. Tad, who had eventually responded to her where-the-hell-are-you voicemails with vague sorry-more-work-came-up-be-back-soon texting.
It didn’t matter, because it wasn’t right to kiss a man out of gratitude. Not that kind of kissing, anyway. And it sure as shit wasn’t right to fool herself into thinking that was the only reason why she was doing the kissing thing.
So when she slid him his beer over his shoulder like she’d done the last two nights and sat next to him, her long, flowy dress sliding between her legs, she had every intention of not kissing him; then he turned to her after a mouthful of beer and said, “Hey,” and she wanted to kiss him so freaking bad she didn’t bother with cracking her beer at all, just answered his hey with her lips crashing onto his.
But this time she did not let him take control of the kiss. She started it, and she was going to control it, her hands burrowing into his hair to hold his head still as her mouth opened and her tongue pushed inside, and he groaned, and she felt it vibrate all the way down to her toes, her sex clenching in response. Her body pushed closer as she deepened the kiss, sucking up the taste and the aroma and the essence of him, demanding he follow her lead.
And he did. God help her, he did, absorbing the electrical charge pulsing from her body, his hands finding and anchoring on her hips, anchoring her to the stoop. Anchoring her to him as her body throbbed with the desire running hot and heavy through her veins and beating through the aching flesh between her legs. A noise somewhere between a moan and a whimper tumbled from the back of her throat, and Jane fisted her fingers in his hair.
Her heart crashed in her chest, and her lungs struggled to suck in the required amount of oxygen to sustain life. God knew what her blood pressure was like. She was a damn stroke waiting to happen, and none of that mattered because Jane just couldn’t get enough. Enough of his taste and his scent and the hot feel of those hands like iron bars on her hips.
But it was okay. She was still in control. She could walk away at any time. Easy peasy. She just needed one more minute.
Just. One. More. Minute.
Damn it…one more minute and she’d be in his lap—possibly on his dick, the way it was going. So, to prove to herself she could, Jane broke away, sitting herself back from him, their fast, erratic breathing the only sound in the thick kind of silence that followed. His syrupy gaze had turned dark as molasses as he searched hers for some kind of explanation. His mouth was kiss-swollen, and he touched his bottom lip with the pad of his thumb, and it was so freaking sexy she knew if she didn’t stand up and get away, she’d be back at his mouth again, demanding more.
Jane pushed to her feet—a move that seemed dumb, now, given falling down appeared to be imminent—grinding her flip-flops into the stoop to keep herself upright.
“What was that for?” he asked, mimicking her question from their first kiss as his gaze trekked up her body, his voice a low burr in the night.
Hell if she knew.
“The milk and cookies,” she muttered, and, like the two nights before this, she turned on her heel and hightailed it back into the house.
…
If Cole had thought forgetting the first two night’s kisses had been hard, last night’s kiss was impossible. That had blazed a path to his balls all damn day no matter what he was doing, including sweating his arse off anchoring the tire to the tree branch. Finn was helping, mostly by splashing water from the running hose in Cole’s direction. Given it was a hundred degrees and hot work, Cole wasn’t really objecting.
His board shorts were made for the beach, and they would dry.
He gave the rope, now hanging over the tree branch above and anchored to the swinging vertical tire, a tug. Then he put his left foot inside the ring of the tire, and, using the rope to pull himself up, he stepped off the grass so that the swing was fully supporting his weight. Given he was two hundred and fifty pounds, it was a good test, but still, he bounced a little through his left knee and tugged hard on the rope to check that it was fully sound.
Cole hadn’t doubted it would withstand the test. The branch he’d chosen was thick and solid, as were the rope and the quality of his knots. Satisfied it was safe, Cole stepped down from the tire onto the grass. “Oka
y, matey, it’s ready.”
Finn gave a little whoop, dropping the hose near Cole’s bare feet. Wiping his wet bangs out of his eyes, he ran towards the swing. “Can I have a go?”
“Of course.”
Cole showed Finn how to grab the rope and step up into the ring, then gave him a push. “Higher!” Finn said, and Cole gave him a harder push. “Wheeeee!”
Cole laughed as Finn hung on to the rope, his feet anchored inside the ring, and let his head drop backward, clearly enjoying the ruffle of air currents in his wet hair. Who needed the roar of a rugby crowd when the delighted laugh of one little boy could make a guy feel like Superman?
“Higher,” Finn demanded.
“Hold on,” Cole said. “Let me show you another way to ride.” He caught the tire and gently stopped its momentum before grabbing Finn under the arms and lifting him until he was sitting on top of the tire, his legs on either side of the knot that held the tire fast. “Hold on to the rope. Like this.” He placed Finn’s hands, one above the other at the right height, closing his fingers tight around the rope. “You ready, mate?”
A blond head bobbed enthusiastically. “Yep.”
Cole gave the tire a couple of pushes, and Finn held on, grinning crazily as the tire swished back and forth and side to side in random patterns. He swung it so it went around in big circles, and, after that, much to Finn’s absolute delight, he spun the tire around and around, twisting the rope all the way up to the branch, then let it go, watching Finn spin around and around and around as the rope unspooled.
“You dizzy yet?” Cole teased as the tire finally pulled out of its spin for the third time.
Finn giggled and said, “Nope,” but he wriggled as if he was trying to get off, and Cole helped him down. He was comically unsteady on his feet for a beat or two on the squelchy grass, but it didn’t stop him from lurching drunkenly in the direction of the house.
“What are you doing?” he called after the boy, who seemed to be regaining his balance with every step.