Bigger Than Beckham (27 page)

And Martha felt exactly the same way, her
panties already damp with wanting him. She smoothed her hands up
and down the back of his shirt, loving the power and strength of
his magnificent body.

“I’d hoped the meeting wouldn’t take this
long,” she said, arching her neck to give him better access. “I had
a bit of a hard time getting away from Colton.”

Tony eased her away, holding her at arm’s
length. “What happened?” Then he shook his head. “No, hold that
thought. Let me get you a drink first.”

“Tea would be good,” she said, following Tony
toward the rear of the house. “I’m already a little foggy from the
wine at dinner, and then a rather spectacular cocktail at the
Langham.”

Tony wheeled around, catching her up short.
“You two went to a bloody hotel after dinner?” he said, his eyes
flashing.

Though it shouldn’t have, his caveman
response flattered her. “Relax, we didn’t get a room, hon. In fact,
Colton didn’t even come inside. I only made a little pit stop there
to shake him off. He kept insisting on driving me home, but I said
I was meeting friends at the Langham for a drink.”

He gave a half-satisfied grunt and turned
away. She followed him to the kitchen where he got the tea
going.

“So, are you going to take the job or not?”
he said. His disgruntled expression confirmed what she already
knew. He was not pleased at the prospect.

Martha slid her arm around his waist and
snuggled against his broad back as he scooped loose tea from a tin
and dropped it into a big blue and red Blackhampton Lions’ teapot.
She inhaled both the faint, fragrant perfume of Earl Grey tea and
Tony’s clean scent, which included a trace of the body wash they’d
used when they showered together a few hours ago.

“I think so,” she mused. “The man is
completely full of crap, but he’s going to agree to pretty much
everything I asked for. I suspect he’s even going to come around to
doing the interviews in Jacksonville, since I told him my
responsibilities to the team demanded that I be there. I made it
clear that anything else on that score would be a deal
breaker.”

She sure as hell wasn’t going to breathe a
word about Colton’s Fantasyland proposal for a European shag-fest.
As loopy and downright ridiculous as she’d found the idea, Tony
would
not
be amused.

He turned around, forcing her to let go. “I
presume he had something else on his mind?” he asked
sarcastically.

Crap
. She should have kept her mouth
shut because now she’d have to skate a bit. “Oh, he claimed he had
some sponsor commitments on this side of the pond. And he said he
had to work with his swing coach, too. But I wasn’t going to turn
myself inside out to accommodate him. I told him he’d just have to
work around the sponsor stuff, and he could fly his coach over to
Florida to work with him there. Even after losing some
endorsements, the guy still has money coming out his ears, so he
can afford it.”

Tony gave a satisfied nod. “Good for you.
He’ll respect you more because you stood up to him. Any more
insight on why he insisted that Martha Winston had to be the one to
prepare the world for his little coming-out party?”

She leaned a hip against the granite kitchen
counter and crossed her arms. “Other than my sterling reputation
for journalistic excellence, you mean?”

“Of course,” he answered in a serious voice,
even though his lips twitched.

“Well, he knows me a little, and I guess he
thinks I’ll give him a more sympathetic hearing than he’d get from
anybody else. Which is kind of weird since I’ve always been very
direct with him. Other than that, I can’t explain it,” she replied
in a bland voice.

She hoped he’d drop the subject now. Telling
him what she really thought about Colton’s intentions was never
going to happen. If she blurted that out, Tony just might decide to
challenge the jerk on it and maybe end up scuttling the whole
deal.

Hours ago, she wasn’t even sure she wanted
the job and wouldn’t have cared whether Colton walked away or not.
But now she was becoming invested, almost like she had a mission to
tell the world the sordid truth about the guy. In the end, though,
everything was going to ride on Ginny Cross’s willingness to open
up, either in a pre-publication interview or in a follow-up piece.
And Ginny coming through might very well depend on the man standing
beside Martha, making a cup of tea.

After pouring boiling water into the teapot,
Tony folded Martha into his arms. She melted as he eased aside one
shoulder of her dress and ran kisses along her collarbone.

“You appear to have something other than a
quiet cup of tea on your mind, sir,” she said a mite
breathlessly.

“We’ll drink it in bed.” His voice was a
lust-filled rumble. “After.”

He kept kissing her neck and shoulder as one
of his hands dipped below her low neckline and covered an already
aching nipple.

“In bed,” she managed in a shaky voice. “What
a novel idea. That would be a rare treat for us, since we’ve mostly
been doing it on various other pieces of furniture. But a real bed
does sound rather divine at the moment.”

Tony easily scooped her up into his arms,
over six feet of her in her heels. As corny as it was, his powerful
move thrilled her, since—with the exception of Nate Carter—none of
her boyfriends would likely have had the strength for it. When it
came right down to it, she could probably wrestle most of her
former beaus to the ground without breaking a sweat.

Not Tony, though, and she found his power and
masculinity truly…stimulating.

Martha draped her arms around his neck,
snuggling right in as he carried her up the stairs. He kept right
on going even when he knocked a lamp off the table at the top of
the landing, and she couldn’t hold back a giggle.

Angling them through the door to his room,
Tony set her down in the middle of his very large bed. She hiked
herself up on the mountain of pillows and glanced around the
dimly-lit space with interest, since she hadn’t seen it yet. But
before she could really take it in, he climbed onto her and claimed
her mouth with a hot, wet kiss that made her forget everything but
the cascade of deliriously wonderful sensations he set off in her
body.

The kiss seemed to last forever, a glorious
eternity of lips and tongues that drenched her in helpless passion.
When he finally finished plundering her mouth, easing up to study
her with hot interest, Martha could barely remember her own
name.

She stared up at him, riveted by the
possessive hunger in his dark eyes. Something else lurked there,
too, a brooding intensity that lifted the hairs on the nape of her
neck. Tony didn’t strike her as the jealous type, but she suspected
her evening with Colton had pushed more than a few of his alpha
male buttons.

“I hated every minute you were with that
bastard,” he said, his voice holding a rough note. “Just the idea
that he might try to touch you was driving me out of my mind.”

She had to bite back a smile at his
disgruntled confirmation of her suspicions. He should know by now
that she could take care of herself, but she couldn’t repress the
little rush of delight that he would worry about her. It confirmed
her instinct that Tony was the type of guy who would do anything
and everything to protect the people he cared for.

“I know, big guy,” she said, brushing the
back of her hand over his angled jaw. “But I have no problem
handling the likes of Colton Butler. If he ever tried to get fresh
with me, he’d find himself in for a monumental surprise.”

A reluctant smile curving his sexy mouth,
Tony settled comfortably on top of her. His erection nudged into
her belly, thick and beautifully hard.

“Getting fresh? That’s a term I haven’t heard
in a long while. Good God, woman, who in sodding hell talks like
that anymore?”

She scowled up into his laughing eyes. “Don’t
you make fun of me, Tony Branch. My mama brought me up right, I’ll
have you know. There’s no need to have a potty mouth to get your
point across.”

He leaned down and nibbled the shivery part
of her neck, just under her jaw. “The only point I want to make
right now is that I’d love to have that mouth of yours on my
cock.”

Martha let out a gasp, part of her genuinely
startled by his blunt salvo. The other part, of course, was
ridiculously turned on.

“You behave yourself,” she exclaimed, trying
to sound shocked.

He let out a low, husky laugh that sent
shivers of pleasure rippling along her nerves. “Now, Ms. Winston,
what would be the fun in that?” He sat up and back on his knees,
pulling her with him. Reaching around her, his deft fingers found
her zipper and eased open the back of her dress.

“Have I told you yet how good you looked in
this little number?” he said as he smoothed the dress over her
shoulders. “One hundred per cent fuckable.”

Lord help her, she couldn’t stifle a giggle.
“I believe you said something to that effect before I left for
dinner.”

That dark, edgy look flashed over his
features again. “Forget about dinner,” he growled. “Forget about
everything but this moment and us, together.”

Her mouth went dry at the intensity of his
gaze. No matter how hard she tried, Martha couldn’t pretend that
whatever happened between them didn’t mean anything. And, scarily
enough, that was just fine with her.

“Agreed,” she whispered. Her heart was
pounding so hard she could barely hear her own voice.

Tony gave a brusque nod then let his gaze
drift over her, matching it to the slow slide of her dress as it
pooled about her waist. His eyes flared with hot approval as he
took in her lacy black push-up bra, the one that half exposed her
nipples.

“Christ, babe,” he rasped out. “You have
truly gorgeous tits.”

He reached out with both hands and pushed
aside the lace trim, taking her nipples between his fingers. He
tugged gently, pulling them into stiff points, thumbing them until
they ached with a delicious fire. Martha gasped and gripped the
fluffy duvet cushioning her bottom, loving the carnal expression on
his tight features as much as she loved the rush of heat gathering
low in her body.

As he played with her, brushing his calloused
palms across her flesh, she reached behind and opened her bra,
letting her breasts spill into his hands. With his fingers closed
tightly around them, kneading with a firm, knowing pressure, she
let her eyes drift shut as she moaned with pleasure.

Suddenly, his hands fell away from her body.
Whimpering out a protest, she opened her eyes. But her objections
died since Tony was ripping off his shirt, exposing his brawny,
tanned chest.

“Excellent idea,” she said in a breathless
voice. “Let’s get naked.”

“That’s the plan.”

He rolled to the side of the bed and kicked
off his shoes. His trousers came off a moment later, and then he
was back on the bed, helping her wriggle her slim-cut dress over
her hips. Eagerness made her clumsy, and Tony finally pushed her
hands away so he could slide the dress down her legs.

He paused, kneeling over her, taking in her
black lace bikini panties. “Also gorgeous,” he murmured as he
rubbed a long finger right over her cleft.

Sensation rocketed through her and she
instinctively drew her legs up and wide, opening herself to him. As
he drew his fingers over her, teasing her through the damp fabric,
she sighed and stretched out her arms, pressing her fingertips
against the heavy wood of the headboard.

Tony growled in response to her deliberately
provocative pose. Martha eyed his cock, straining huge and hard
over the top of his white briefs, and she wanted to touch him, to
play with that temptingly masculine length the same way he was
playing with her.

Fighting against the sensual inertia weighing
down her limbs, she pushed herself up and wriggled closer to him.
His mouth quirked in a puzzled little smile—until she reached out
and pulled down his briefs, wrapping both hands around his thick
erection. It pulsed in her hands, hot and smooth, and Tony let out
a harsh groan.

“Fuck, Martha,” he growled as she wrapped her
fingers around him. When she slowly pumped him, letting one hand
drop down to cup his balls, his fingers tightened on her hips. “If
you keep that up much longer, this is going to be over before we
even get started,” he bit out from between clenched teeth.

But the gleam in his eyes told her how much
he relished her attentions. “Why, Mr. Branch, I didn’t know you had
so little self-control,” she teased.

He let out a guttural laugh. “I’ll show you
self-control.”

His hand returned to her thighs, sliding
inside her panties to slip between her slick folds. Martha
squeaked, her eyes going wide as he pushed two fingers deep inside
her. “Oh, God, Tony, that feels so damn good.”

Clumsily, she tried to scoot closer,
desperate to increase the contact between them.

“Hang on a sec, babe,” he whispered. Easing
from her body, he shifted his hands to her waist and lifted her
onto her knees. Now they faced each other. “Let’s try that again,
shall we?” he murmured, his lips sliding into a cocky smile.

His hands delved back into her panties,
pushing them down to the top of her thighs. They slid across her
clit, flirting with her soft inner lips. Letting her eyes go to
half-mast, drowning in pleasure, Martha grasped Tony’s cock in both
hands.

For several long minutes they played with
each other, their hands sliding between their bodies in an erotic
dance, piling sensation upon sensation. Tony slipped two fingers
deep inside, massaging her with a steady pressure that twisted her
insides into a tight spiral. His other hand came up to curl around
her breast, kneading her, then tugging on her stiff nipple until
she let out a broken cry. It was so damn delicious she could barely
stand it.