“Do you like animals?”
“Depends on which kind. Dogs, yes. Cats, sometimes, if they’re not trying to claw my eyes out. I have a complicated relationship with sheep because I was raised on a sheep farm. I think fish are pointless, and I am out of my mind terrified of horses.”
Lia laughed softly. What was she looking for, as those bottomless eyes searched my face? She looked so serious. What a change from the fiery girl at the pub, pushing and pushing my buttons, simply because she sensed that I enjoyed having them pushed.
I liked her. It was a strange realization to have in the wake of knowing how much I wanted her. But I did. I liked her. I liked that she was asking me simple questions, and that she was sweet to my housekeeper. I even liked the flat way she said her vowels in her American accent.
Her fingers curled tightly around mine, like she was afraid I’d pull away.
That was when I heard myself say, “I play professional football.”
Lia’s lips curled up at the edges. “I know.”
I blinked. “Did you know the night we met?”
She shook her head. “You showed up on my news app when I was in Haworth. When I saw your picture, I dropped my phone on the floor.”
“Did you now?” I murmured, slowly tugging her closer. Her face showed no shock, no awe, no clamoring to know more. My entire being relaxed.
She nodded, keeping her eyes trained on my lips. “They used your name in Beatles lyrics.”
“Journalists think they’re so clever.” I tugged one hand free of hers, sliding it over the curve of her waist, then her hips. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you.”
Lia laid her hand on my chest, spreading her fingers wide. “When would you have? After I commented on the way players flopped to the ground all the time?”
Chuckling, I exerted the smallest bit of pressure on her hips. “Fair enough.”
“Th-there’s a lot we didn’t share with each other.”
Her slight stutter was triggered by my fingers sliding up under the hem of her shirt, where endless miles of smooth skin greeted me.
“Any husbands or boyfriends?” I asked.
Lia shook her head.
“Do you like animals?” My nose sank into her hair, and I inhaled deep into my lungs.
“Mm-hmm.”
The timer dinged on the oven. There was a perfectly good dinner in there, probably getting burned to a crisp, but we both ignored it.
“Jude?”
My name on her lips did strange things to me. As I hummed in response to that, my lips ghosted over her downy soft temples.
“I …” Her voice trailed off when I kissed my way down her cheekbones to the corner of her lips. “Holy shit, you’re killing me.”
Ducking my head, I sucked her lower lip into my mouth, covering her curves with my palm when her hips tilted toward me.
Here. I’d take her right here the first time. In the kitchen, with the dinner burning and the windows open, and the bright, airy space holding the echo of the sounds she’d make.
Then we could talk all bloody night.
Lia moaned when I did the same thing to her upper lip, soothing the plump pinkness of her mouth with my tongue when I pulled away.
“I’m taking my time with you tonight, love.” Fuck, I sounded like a madman, like I’d chewed gravel and knives and acid.
“Jude?”
“Mmm?” I nipped at the edge of her jaw, and she sucked in a sharp breath.
Her hand pushed at my chest, and I backed away to look at her face.
Lia licked her lips, hitting me with the full force of her blue eyes. “I’m pregnant.”
JUDE
It wasn’t until I slammed my fifth door of the morning that someone finally called me on my piss-poor attitude.
“All right,” Declan growled, shoving me with his meaty paw, “that’s enough. If you don’t quit slamming all the bloody doors, I’m going to rip your hands off.”
I shrugged him off. “I haven’t slammed all of them.”
As our teammates passed us, all headed for the showers or the weight room, I got more than one side-eye.
Declan crossed his arms over his chest and pinned me with his patented
Team Captain stare. “You made one of the physios cry.”
“My knee is fine. He didn’t need to go poking and prodding at it without being asked.”
“And the new assistant?”
I was clenching my teeth so hard they had to be close to cracking. “I didn’t mean to hit him in the head with the ball, obviously.”
Declan sighed, rubbing the bridge of his nose. “McAllister, you have about ten seconds to tell me what your problem is so you can stop taking it out on the rest of us. We’ve got enough to deal with right now without you making it worse.”
I sank against the wall and stared at the glossy blue and white paint opposite me. I’d spent the best years of my career walking this hallway, staring at those colors and a logo that defined me. No matter what else was happening in my life, I knew who I was the moment I entered this arena.
And today, I didn’t recognize any of it. Hardly recognized myself.
He groaned. “This is going to take longer than ten seconds, isn’t it?”
“Probably,” I admitted with a sideways glance. “You sure you want to hear this? We’re not exactly best mates.”
“We’re not.” His massive shoulders shrugged lightly. Declan was big for a goalie and took up so much bloody space, but he still managed to be quick enough. “But we’ve got a young team this year, and they look up to you. You’re the one with your name in the lights, the one who gets to stand in the corner, arms spread wide, listening to the screaming fans when you score. They want to be you, but they’d also take your spot away from you in a heartbeat if you fuck it up for yourself.”
The look I gave him was dry, but after five years of playing with him, I knew Dec’s style of encouragement pretty well.
“My point is, if you’ve got something bleeding into your performance, you better figure it out. Because the second you take it onto the pitch, you’ve got a problem. And you are too valuable to this team for that to happen. I never thought it was something I’d need to worry about prior to today.”
“It was one bad practice after a pretty … life-altering evening.”
“Tell me.”
I cut him a look. “Can you pretend to have manners for two seconds?”
His steady gaze was what I got in answer, rather than a please tacked onto his gruffly spoken command.
New Book: Back Home to Marry Off Myself
Loredana’s father left the family for his mistress, leaving them to fend for themselves abroad. When life was at its toughest, her father showed up with “good news” after 8 years of absence: To marry off Loredana to a paralyzed son of the wealthy Mendelsohn family.