Playing By Her Rules (Sydney Smoke Rugby Series) (6 page)

“Enough of your blarney there, Slick, or I’m going to have to insist you volunteer every time I’m rostered here,” she said cheerfully.

“I don’t think you’re supposed to monopolise volunteers.”

“Psshhff,” Kathleen grunted waving her hand dismissively. “I’m in charge of the roster and you’re good for my ego. Plus you’re not too shabby to look at. Don’t you agree, Matilda?”

Matilda wasn’t sure nuns were supposed to notice such things, but even so, “not too shabby,” was putting it mildly. “If you like that kind of thing,” she shrugged nonchalantly.

She’d be damned if she was going to puff his ego up any further.

He chuckled as Kathleen quirked an eyebrow at him and said, “I wouldn’t be getting her to write your biography.”

By the time the dishes were finally done, Tanner had chronicled his journey from France until joining the Smoke, and Matilda was a pool of sweat. Her blouse had succumbed to the moisture from her damp skin, clinging even more efficiently. The feathery tips of her hair had long ago lost the will to wisp.

Tanner, on the other hand, looked fresh as a freaking daisy. How could he smell so good when she was so…sticky?

He smelled like…liquorice allsorts.

God,
yes,
that
was the spicy-sweet aroma she’d been trying to place all night.

Great.
Now he really
was
good enough to eat.

“Man.” She threw the almost soaked tea towel on the bench and fluffed the damp, limp strands of hair off the back of her neck as she tried to blow her equally damp fringe off her forehead. “I think I’ve completely melted away.”

She pulled at the front of her blouse and fanned it in and out to try and relieve some of the stickiness. It was times like this she was grateful she had no cleavage.

“Put the fan on,” Tanner said, as he wiped around the sink with a washcloth.

Matilda blinked. “There’s a
fan
?”

“Sure. Just inside the store cupboard.”

Matilda’s legs followed the direction of Tanner’s finger to discover the storeroom and the fan just inside the door. She turned to him as she hauled it out. “Could you not have told me this before now?” she asked incredulously. “Did you not notice I was a dripping mess?”

“You told me to keep my eyes forward.”

Muttering to herself, Matilda carried it to the closest power outlet, which was on the bench opposite. She set it down on the gleaming metallic surface, next to another large sink, quickly plugging it in, turning it on, and pushing the button that said
High
.

She dragged it close to the edge and positioned herself right in front of it, bending forward slightly so the breeze was directed straight down her top, grabbing the bench on either side with both hands. She shut her eyes with a low moan as the powerful breeze ruffled her blouse, instantly cooling the sweat and evaporating the stickiness of her skin.

She only wished she could straddle the damn thing and have it blow straight up her skirt. It was kinda heated up there, too.

Unfortunately, she couldn’t blame that one on stockings and humidity alone. Tanner Stone in those jeans and tats was responsible for most of the heat between her legs.

“Better?” he asked from somewhere behind her.

She could hear the thick streak of amusement in his voice even above the racket of the fan.

“So,
so
good,” she confirmed. “Better than an orgasm.”

Tanner’s dick responded predictably to her choice of words. The visual stimulation of her ass wiggling as she rocked from foot to foot and weaved her torso in front of the fan, didn’t help things.

Better
than an orgasm?

Clearly the woman was having lousy orgasms.

Another long, low moan came from her direction, hardening his dick to granite. She obviously wasn’t the only one who needed to cool down. “Would you like me to leave you two alone?”

Although, that was the last thing his dick wanted. It was settling in for the show, and Tanner wasn’t about to disappoint a particular part of his anatomy that had never once let him down. He couldn’t even say that about his kicking foot.

She didn’t answer, so Tanner assumed she either hadn’t heard, or she wasn’t going to dignify his innuendo with a comment. Knowing Tilly it was probably the latter.

He lounged against the bench, his feet crossed at the ankles and arms folded across his chest. He knew he should just walk away and leave her and the appliance to it. But not even an advancing All Blacks haka could have dragged him away from the swing of her ass.

A loud clap of thunder echoed through the louvers and open door. “God, I wish it’d just rain already,” she grouched, angling her head from side to side, the tips of her fine blonde hair fluffing out with the breeze. “Something has to cool it down out there.”

Out there? If something didn’t cool it down in here, he was going to walk up behind her and bend her over that damn bench.

She wanted rain? He glanced to his left. He could give her rain.

Flicking the tap on, he reached for the rinsing hose, pulling it out of its receptacle. Before he could change his mind, he aimed it at her back and squeezed the trigger. A jet of cold water shot from the end and hit her right between the shoulders.

Chapter Six

Tanner released the trigger at her audible gasp and the violent arching of her back. She whipped around to glare at him, the fan blowing the wisps of her hair forward. “What the fuck, Tanner?”

With the light behind her, she looked like a furious punk-rock angel. Her outrage was funny as hell, and he couldn’t help but laugh. “Oh, I’m sorry. Did I make you wet?”

Air shunted noisily in and out of her chest as she gaped at him, obviously speechless. But Tanner knew that wouldn’t last for long.

“It takes a lot more than a hose to make me wet.”

There it was.
Atta girl, Tilly
. “I remember.”

Her brow furrowed, and she opened her mouth to let fly, but he didn’t give her a chance. He squeezed the trigger again, the water hitting her right between her breasts, soaking her blouse.

“Tanner
Stone
,” she half squealed, half gurgled as she raised her hands, trying to block the spray, averting her face.

He released the trigger, and the water cut out. Slowly she turned her face, dropping her arms as she glanced at the front of her blouse. He looked, too. He couldn’t stop. The red fabric was plastered nicely to the slight swell of her breasts.

He remembered how much she’d hated her A cups. But he also remembered how perfect they’d been—small, yes, but perky and crowned with the palest of pink nipples.

And now? They looked as sweet as he remembered.

Sweeter.

Slowly, she returned her gaze to his. “This blouse,” she said, the whiskey flecks in her eyes glowing like fire in opals, her nostrils flaring, “is a warm-water wash only.”

“I can add in some hot,” he suggested, reaching for the tap again.

“Don’t”—she held up a finger to halt his movements—“even think it. Drop it, this instant.”

A loud clap of thunder underpinned her warning.

It was on the tip of his tongue to say
make me
. But he’d probably already pushed her far enough for one day. “Okay, fine,” he sighed, turning and placing the rinse hose back in its receptacle.

He didn’t expect the cold slap of water between his shoulder blades, and gasped at the shock of it, whirling around as it seeped into his T-shirt and ran down his back.

“Oops. Sorry,” she said, the hose from the other sink in her hands.

She was pointing it at him like a weapon, her arm extended, her finger hovering over the trigger. She looked like one of those chick television detectives in their skirts and heels, looking glamorous and powerful and sexy with their guns out.

She was totally hot right now.

A Mona Lisa smile played on her lips as her chest rose and fell, her gaze darting all around, a wariness to her stance and a tenseness to her muscles, primed for his next move, primed to react. Possibly to flee.

Clever woman.

“So that’s how it’s going to be, huh?” He reached for his hose again, but she didn’t give him the chance, shooting a stream of water at his chest this time, as he had done to her.

“Oops, sorry,” she repeated. “Guess I have a bit of a trigger finger going on.”

The water was bliss on his heated skin, especially with the breeze from the fan, but it was doing nothing to cool Tanner’s engines. His heart banged against his ribs as anticipation tightened his belly and his balls.

She wanted to spar with him?
Bring it on
.

Tanner cocked an eyebrow. “You sure you want to get any wetter?”

She cocked her eyebrow back at him before lowering the hose and aiming it at his fly. “Big talk for a man with no weapon.”

His dick did not respond as if it were under imminent threat.
Oh, no.
It was practically busting out of his pants, begging for it. “I think I can hold my own.”

A massive boom of thunder rattled the pots and pans hanging from a nearby rack, just as she squeezed the trigger.

“Doesn’t look like,” she said, water soaking the front of his jeans. His dick got harder at her cockiness. “Oh, dear…” She dropped her gaze. “that could be difficult to explain.”

He chuckled and Tilly smiled at him, triumph replacing wariness.
Rookie move.

He lunged, the kind of move that had earned him a formidable reputation on a football field. She let out a tiny squeal and tried to twist away, but she was too late. He wrestled control of the hose from her easily, wrapping her up in his arms, whipping her around to hold her captive, her front trapped against the bench.

The fan blew on them directly, cooling nothing down as she struggled against him, her ass taunting his groin. His arms banded together around her ribs locking her arms by her sides, hemming them in with the thick muscles of his biceps. The nozzle of the hose came to rest just under her breasts.

He was aware of the frantic expansion and retraction of her rib cage, the erratic pull of her breath. As erratic as his own.

“Let me go,” she said, her voice husky.

“Just trying to cool you down, baby,” he taunted.

“It’s not working,” she argued.

“Maybe this will.”

Tanner squeezed the trigger gently, sending a brief spurt of water straight into her cleavage and up her neck. It spread south as well, further soaking her blouse and wetting his forearms.

She gasped, her arms struggling against the bands of his again, her ass pushing backward.

“How’s that?” He smiled.

“What do you think?”

“Not working for you?” he asked innocently. “How about this?”

Holding her steady with one arm, he slid the other down her belly, pushing the nozzle into the waistband of her skirt.

“
Tanner
,” she squeaked. “Don’t you
dare
.”

Tanner chuckled as he squeezed the nozzle.
Oh, he dared, all right
.

“Sorry ’bout that,” he said as she gasped and spluttered, wiggling her ass
so damn good
as she desperately tried to back away from the spray. He pulled the nozzle out of her skirt. “Guess I have a bit of a trigger finger going on there,” he mimicked, thoroughly enjoying himself.

Enjoying the feel of their bodies together again. The sharp intake of her breath. The way he fit around her, the back of her head cradled against a pec. The rub of her ass.

“Okay fine,” she said, the fight suddenly leaching from her body. “You win. Just put the damn hose away and let me go.”

Tanner chuckled, loosening his arms as he threw the hose back in the sink. He didn’t try to reclaim his previous position, instead placing that hand on the bench near her hip, his other hand sliding to the countertop on the opposite side. The fronts of his thighs were still pressed into the backs of hers. His groin still trapped her hips to the bench, but not like they had when she was struggling.

He waited for her to push him away, tensed for a sharp elbow to the abs now that he wasn’t restraining her. But there wasn’t one. Just another crack of thunder reverberating around the kitchen.

He didn’t know what her placidness meant, exactly, but he sure as shit was going to exploit it for as long as she’d let him. He’d dreamed of being this close to her since he’d first seen her again in the locker room, wearing that awful pantsuit. Wild horses couldn’t have dragged him away.

From his height vantage, he could see the fan blowing cool air on her wet blouse. See her eyes shut as if she was enjoying the light caress. See the pebbling of her nipples.

Were they hard because of the cool water and the artificial breeze? Or for other reasons? The same reason his dick was hard?

Was she as turned on as him? His instincts told him yes but…he couldn’t tell with her anymore.

The urge to slide his hands onto her belly and rip all her buttons open roared through him with a primitive insistency, and he curled his fingers around the edge of the bench so he wouldn’t. He didn’t want to do anything that might startle her out of whatever trance she was in.

She angled her head to the side. Was it to catch the breeze on her neck or did she want him to nuzzle her there?

“That feels better, doesn’t it?” he murmured, lowering his head to the vicinity of her ear, her hair brushing his cheek.

More thunder rumbled in through the open door, pressing in and thickening the air.

She didn’t say anything.

“You look much cooler.”

“Uh huh,” she murmured, her voice as thick as the air around them.

Tanner wasn’t. Tanner was about to burst into frickin’ flames. He brushed his lips against the exposed side of her neck, his heart thundering in his chest, his dick so hard she must be able to feel it jammed against her ass even through several layers of fabric.

“Tanner don’t,” she whispered, but it was weak. Not very convincing.

He nuzzled lower. “Don’t what?”

“Kiss me.”

It was more a pant this time as she settled herself more firmly against him, her hand creeping up around his neck, anchoring where hair met nape, her fingers furrowing into the shagginess of his hair. Tanner shut his eyes as the sensation streaked straight to his balls and almost brought him to his knees. He locked his legs hard.

Okay, she didn’t want him to kiss her? Fine. As captain of the Smoke he often had to change tactics on the fly. He could sure as hell do that here. He dropped his hands to her hips. To that damn skirt that had been driving him crazy all night. Thunder rumbled as if in warning but he paid absolutely no heed.

“I like this skirt,” he said, keeping his voice low and right near her ear as his hands slid down the sides. “Makes a guy wonder just how to get a girl out of it.”

He walked his fingers along the seams, drawing fabric up as he went, inching the skirt higher. “Do I undo the zip or do I just”—his fingers kept gathering fabric, slowly, surely—“ruck it up at the sides?”

She huffed out a shaky half-laugh. “Well, you’re the expert on rucking.”

He smiled, his lips brushing the tip of her ear. “Damn straight I am.”

Tanner didn’t care, as the skirt eased higher on her thighs, that they were in a soup kitchen. He didn’t care that Kathleen, or anyone else for that matter, could come through the door at any moment. He was beyond caring that Griff would probably bench him for the entire season if he knew where Tanner’s hands were right now.

All he cared about, as the rain finally crashed down with furious intensity, was the sensuality of her silky stockings, the eroticism of their lacy tops and the illicit thrill as his hands hit bare skin.

She tensed and gasped as his hands slid around to the fronts of her thighs and he groaned, “
Jesus, Tilly
,” directly into her ear to be heard above the pelt of rain. The aroma of rain and shampoo and the way she’d always smelled in that sweet spot just behind her ear joined the hammer in his chest and the roar in his head.

She moaned, low and needy, turning in his arms as if she knew the pressing enormity of
his
need. Like he was going to die if he didn’t kiss her right this second. She didn’t talk, she didn’t even really look at him, just at his mouth as she slid her hands around his neck, raised herself up on her tippy-toes and yanked on his neck.

Tanner didn’t need any more encouragement, meeting her mouth halfway, their lips clashing with an intensity to rival the storm. His hands, thanks to his earlier ministrations with her skirt, slid onto the cheeks of her nearly exposed ass, and he dragged her in close and tight, lifting her a little so he could grind the hard press of his dick against the almost exposed apex of her thighs.

The kiss was wild and out of control as he strained to breathe, forgot to think. Their heads twisting, their mouths devouring, their tongues hunting. Tilly—
his Tilly
, her taste, her smell—filled up every breath until Tanner was dizzy with it. The imperative to
possess
her echoed in every frantic beat of his pulse.

And then the back door slammed.

Hard.

A huge clap of thunder and a massive gust of wind crashed the flimsy wood back into its frame, and Tilly wrenched her mouth away, looking around wildly as if she was coming out of a trance, confused about where she was.

Who
she was with.

“Fuck,
Tanner,” she swore, pushing him back and slipping out of reach, walking away. He barely registered the flash of butt cheek attached to a petite leg and a sexy, lace-topped stocking before she was yanking her skirt down.

Tanner shoved a hand through his hair. “Tilly, I—”

She whirled on her heel, holding up her hand to silence him, the fingers of her other hand pressed to her mouth as if she was still confused as to how Tanner’s lips had ended up on hers.

The rain on the roof roared around them as they stood, breathing hard, staring at each other.

“I told you I didn’t want you to kiss me,” she said, her tone accusatory.

“I seem to remember it was you who kissed me.”

She glared at him, but Tanner didn’t care. Whatever had happened just now had been completely mutual. If she wanted to bury her head in the sand about whatever it was that was still there between them, then she could go right ahead, but he wasn’t going to be her enabler.

She lifted her chin. “It wasn’t even very good.”

Tanner knew a bald-faced lie when he heard it. She’d been as affected by the kiss as he had. Hell, she was still breathing hard, the pulse in her throat still rapid, her eyes still a little glazed. “You tell yourself whatever gets you through the night, Tilly.”

Her brows knitted together as she opened her mouth to say something, but somebody bustled in from the dining room and she shut it with a snap. “Oh, fabulous,” Kathleen enthused, oblivious to the tension. “I see you’re all done then?”

Tanner, his back to her, dragged his chaotic thoughts together to mumble a vague, affirmative reply.

“You can both go when you’re ready, with a blessing and thanks from everyone here at the Chapel,” she prattled on, moving closer to Tanner and Matilda. “I hope you brought your brollies, though. It’s chucking it down out—”

Kathleen stopped as she finally got close enough to take both of them in. She looked at Tanner’s white T-shirt, transparent in its soaked state, and the big wet patch on Tilly’s skirt. She glanced at the puddles on the floor then back at them, an eyebrow raised. “I was going to say be sure not to get wet out there but I see that’s kind of moot.”