“Oh, my God.”
She was too stunned by what she’d seen, by the brutal way he’d stopped the other team from advancing down the field, by what she now realized was his job, to keep the words from leaving her mouth, to keep what she was sure was a clear expression of shock from her face. He was paid to be violent, given so much money for being huge and hard and unstoppable that he could pay for a mansion on the hill in San Francisco, for an expensive sports car, for a penthouse in Las Vegas, for the jewels he’d offered to buy her.
But bigger than her shock at what she’d just seen her husband do, was her shock at herself.
Because instead of being horrified at the violence, instead of wanting nothing more to do with Cole as the other man was helped, limping, off the field, her body had heated up...and she wanted her husband now more than ever.
She wanted all of that barely leashed violence unleashed over her. On her.
In her.
Realizing that both Julie and Melissa were staring at her, questions in their eyes, she shot to her feet. She had to get out of here, had to go somewhere she could be alone and pull herself together.
Somehow, she had to figure out a way to stop reacting with such pleasure every time she saw Cole, or said his name aloud, or even thought about him, about little things like how good he’d been with her family, especially her mother. He’d been perceptive enough to realize that her mother was upset and he hadn’t pushed, hadn’t tried to get Jackie to like him. He’d just been himself, been easy with all of them, telling them football stories he’d had to know they would like, and by the end of the night, Anna had caught her mother smiling at him despite herself.
“I have to go—” She paused awkwardly.
“The restroom is just out the door and down the hall to the left,” Melissa said, concern lacing her brows.
“Thanks.”
Splashing her face with cold water in the bathroom, taking the time to repair her light makeup, Anna stepped outside a sliding door into the cool air off the Bay and tried to breathe deeply. But she didn’t have enough time to figure out a way to deal with her response to Cole, to tamp down on it and contain it in a little box, one she would only let herself open for the sensual pleasures he’d promised her.
Still, no matter how hard it was going to be to hold firm, she couldn’t give up the fight.
Not when she knew with utter certainty that if she gave in to the insidiously soft emotions growing by the second behind her breastbone, she was going to be in a whole lot more trouble than just being caught telling a couple of lies.
If she deviated from their agreement to simply stick it out through his grandmother’s illness, she was going to get caught wanting more. So much more that she could already feel herself drinking in every single one of Cole's touches, his kisses, his gazes.
If there was one thing she knew with utter certainty, it was that no man—especially one this rich, famous, and good-looking—would ever want his fake temporary wife to fall in love with him.
Finally, when she heard loud cheering and saw people beginning to file out into the parking lot, she made herself return to the VIP box. Cole would be worried if he couldn’t find her. Besides, she might not be the most adventurous woman in the world, but she wasn’t a total coward either. Not anymore, anyway.
Thankfully, neither Julie nor Melissa acted like anything was strange about her disappearing for so long. They introduced her to the other players’ families and everyone was incredibly nice, despite their clear curiosity over her sudden appearance in Cole’s life.
But all the while, she was waiting. For Cole.
“Sweet Anna.”
His arms came around her from behind, his heat enveloping her, his breath warm on her cheek, and there was no force strong enough in the world—not good sense or any one of the ridiculously big men from his team who were now in the room with them—to stop her from turning around in his arms and lifting her mouth to his for a kiss.
His smile was the first and last thing she saw before his mouth covered hers and she closed her eyes to sink into the pleasure of being in his arms.
“I missed you.”
He spoke against her lips, just loud enough for her to hear, and as pleasure lit her, inescapable and wonderful, she couldn’t remember what she’d been so certain she needed to fight against just minutes before.
“You’ll get her the rest of your life. Time to share your wife with the rest of us.” The low male voice behind her was laced with barely suppressed laughter.
Feeling her face flame with embarrassment at the way she’d forgotten there was anyone else in the room, Anna tried to pull out of Cole’s arms. But she should have known better. The man she’d married on a whim wouldn’t let her separate herself from him like that—whether they were surrounded by a crowd or completely alone.
Turning so that he was still holding her to his side while they faced the two couples in front of them, he said, “Ty, Dominic, I’d like you to meet my wife, Anna.”
Two of the best-looking men she’d ever seen live and in person smiled down at her. But as she shook their hands and said the appropriate things, instead of her heart beating and her skin tingling with awareness, she felt nothing.
Only Cole could make her heart feel like it was going to break through her ribs. Only Cole could make her skin heat and tighten with desperate need.
His hand lay warm on the small of her back, the only reason she felt at all secure in this strange new place.
She appreciated that neither Ty nor Dominic focused on her, that they both seemed to realize it would make her more uncomfortable than she already was. Melissa and Dominic moved away to talk to some of their other clients. As the conversation swirled around her about the game, about upcoming barbecues, about people they all knew, Anna was able to watch the easy way Ty made Julie laugh, her eyes lighting up every time her gaze landed on her husband.
They weren’t a couple she would ever have put together just from looking at them. Ty was clearly a wild, dangerous bad boy to his core, while Julie was as polished as a woman could be. And yet, despite the fact that they shouldn’t make sense together, their deep affection for each other was powerfully clear, even to a bystander, as was their desire for each other, just barely beneath the surface but visible in the way he was constantly touching her and she was touching him back.
Hope lit Anna’s heart a beat before a bone-deep sadness settled in. It was all very well to wish that she could be as good a strange fit with Cole. But all it did to her was make the knowledge that it wasn’t ever going to happen more painful.
She could feel Cole’s eyes on her, dark with heat and concern. “Ready to go?”
They said their goodbyes, relief hitting her that she didn’t have to try to play the role of Cole’s wife anymore.
He took her out a door that bypassed the press and she got into his car. She had just put her seat belt on when he hit the locks.
“Finally, alone with my wife again.”
That was when she realized she should have made every excuse she could think of to stay in that room with a crowd of strangers.
Because even as he called his grandmother to find out how she was feeling and fill her in on the details of the game, as unsafe as she’d felt in the VIP box, she’d been a million times safer then than she was now.
Chapter Twelve
“Nothing I like better than Sunday afternoons. Especially after a win.”
On the surface, Cole’s words shouldn’t have made shivers run up and down her spine, but she could easily read the subtext, especially when his hand moved to her kneecap. He wasn’t grabbing at her, wasn’t doing anything particularly sexual, and yet her body was responding as if he had put his big hand down her pants—flooding with arousal, her breasts peaking hard and tight beneath her bra and top.