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  She nodded. "He used to be our next-door neighbor when we were younger. Molly had the most obnoxious crush on him, so it was total kismet that they ended up working together at Washington."

  It was interesting, sitting with her while she watched her loved ones play the sport they loved. My parents had never come to a single one of my matches since I became a professional player. My brother came a couple of times a year, but I'd never see him afterward. No one had ever waited to tell me how excited they were for our win or console me after a loss. Never had anyone tell me they'd screamed like a maniac in the stands. Not until Lia.

  "What's it like?" I found myself asking.

  When she turned to me with a question in her lovely eyes, I wanted to retract the words immediately.

  "What?"

  It felt as though I'd rolled over, exposing a soft underbelly that I'd never inspected before. My throat felt dry, and I couldn't quite conjure a flippant response with her looking at me like she was.

  "To watch your family do what they love like this." I gestured weakly at the screen. "Across the ocean, they still hold enough weight in the world that you can sit here on my couch and watch them do this incredible job."

  Suddenly, I found myself holding my breath that she wouldn't brush off my question. I hoped she'd give it proper thought because I wanted to know, quite desperately, what most families must've felt.

  "It's …" She paused, clearly searching for the right words. "It's weird sometimes. Mainly because it's so normal for me to have my brother on camera. I'll admit that I don't think too existentially about it, but other times, like right now ... I'm sitting with you while they talk about my brother and my future-brother-in-law, and honestly, I could cry from how proud I am to call them my family." She smiled. "I was like, twelve when Logan won the Super Bowl, and oh, man, I was so obnoxious when I went back to school. I didn't appreciate the magnitude of it then like I do now, but knowing that people I love have had such an effect on a game on this scale is pretty fucking cool."

  If I'd been anyone else, less emotionally stunted, less ... British, I probably would've teared up at her words. I tried not to think about when Lia needed to go back to Seattle when her semester was done, but moments like that made it difficult to ignore because I'd miss her. I'd miss having her around and hated the thought of it, almost as much as I hated the idea of how completely inept I was at trying to have any sort of healthy relationship. Maybe if that was all she'd said, I could've turned back to the game and marveled at how nice it must be to have a family like that. But then she spoke again.

  And when she did, she sealed her fate.

  She smiled at me, completely unaware of what was happening behind my rib cage, what vulnerable emotions were daring to escape from between the skin and bones. "I guess it'll be that way with me and the little nectarine, huh? We'll be wearing our Sheppertons kits and screaming like maniacs for you next season. We'll be the loudest cheering section you've ever heard."

  "Will you?" I said roughly.

  Her eyebrows bent in over her eyes. "Of course." Gently, she took my hand and laid it on top of the small bump under her black and red Wolves shirt. "This ... this makes us a family, Jude. We'll always have your back."

  What was she doing to me?

  Why did the fabric of my carefully constructed world feel like it'd been ripped in two?

  Lia's beautiful face softened at whatever she saw in mine, and instead of commenting on it, she turned, muting the game. She cupped my face with her hand and slowly leaned forward, placing a soft, heartbreaking kiss on my lips.

  "No rules," she whispered. "Just ... whatever we want this to be."

  My body caught up before my brain did. My hands slid up her arms and into her silky hair, where I could tilt her head and take our kiss into a different depth. Somewhere darker, somewhere delicious.

  She sighed into my mouth, and I pushed her backward onto the couch, prowling over her and caging her head with my arms while we kissed.

  I pulled back, and she blinked slowly.

  "My bed," I said. "No couch, no bloody single bed, no worrying about anything except what I'm about to make you feel."

  Lia smiled. "An excellent idea."

  I stood off the couch and held my hand out to her. "Shall we?"

  Chapter Nineteen

  Lia

  When the strength of his fingers curled around mine as I took his hand, I almost stopped.

  Not because I wasn't sure about crossing this particular barrier—my hormones were screaming at me to bang the bejeezus out of him—but because I was afraid that ascending that staircase would kill the electric mood.

  Weeks ago, I'd stopped trying to figure out what shifted things between us. Sometimes it was a look that lasted just a fraction of a moment longer than was polite. Sometimes, he slid his hand up my back, and I wanted to shove my hand down the front of his pants. Sometimes he breathed, and I wanted to shove his hand down the front of mine.

  It was easy, was what I was trying to say. And when those moments happened, we acted on them. We rarely took the time to relocate.

  But I was so, so wrong. Because instead of trailing him like a horny lil puppy on a leash, Jude tugged on my hand so that I preceded him up the steps to his bedroom.

  "Did you know," he asked lightly, hands curling around my hips as I took the first step, "your arse is abso-bloody-lutely perfect?"

  I almost tripped on the second step. "Is it?"

  He exhaled a laugh, and I found myself smiling. Yes, I knew I had a good ass. Genetics were strong in the Ward family, and we might have gotten a healthy share of family dysfunction, but we'd also gotten high cheekbones, big blue eyes, long legs, and a great frickin’ ass.

  After my breathy question, he crowded behind me, burying his nose into my hair and inhaling greedily.

  "I could fucking inhale you," he murmured.

  "Sounds painful." Was my voice shaking? I think it was. My hands were. My heart was. Every inch of me had a slight vibration that spoke to his potency. My legs could hardly hold me up when I felt him behind me, big, so, so big and so ready.

  Yes, we'd touched each other and yes, we'd perfected the art of non-sex sex over the past couple of months, but I was also so, so ready to feel him again.

  Jude slid his hands up, gripping the hem of my shirt and tugging. I paused, because I was not trying to fall on any stairs right before the big show. He tossed the shirt behind us and fastened his mouth on the base of my neck and sucked.

  "Holy shit," I groaned, my hand tightening on the banister when he deftly unfastened my bra as I neared the landing on the second floor. His tongue, wet and hot, dragged down the line of my neck, and his clever hands cupped my breasts underneath the loosened cups. They were so sensitive that I hissed slowly, each gentle swipe of his thumb directly tied to the apex between my legs that was lighting up like a friggin’ neon sign.

  "Are you ready? Just like this?"

  Oh please, if he thought I couldn't orgasm from his voice alone, he was kidding himself. I cleared the top step and whirled, snaking my arms around his neck and attacking his mouth.

  The kiss was a strange thing, if you thought about it.

  Some were sweet and short and dry, the established motion of lips as a point of connection between two people who knew each other well. And some were in an entirely different category. They transcended the kindling of passion. They transcended the fueling of lust.

  This kiss, as he pushed me against the wall and ground himself against me, was one of those transcendent kisses.

  This kiss was Jude fucking me.

  This kiss was Jude making love to me.

  The lines blurred entirely between the two.

  I felt his heart in that kiss just like I felt my own. It was in the slick slide of our tongues, the serpentine motion he'd established, rolling his hips as my leg hitched up along his skin. And it was in the strange anticipation I felt to fall backward on his bed, in his home, with his arms wrapped tight around m
e.

  We stumbled from the hallway through the open doorway, and he bent at the knees to boost me up into his arms. I leaned my head back, and he licked across the tops of my breasts, still partially covered by the bra we hadn't quite freed me of.

  The moment before he laid me on the bed, everything slowed. He lifted his head and speared me with a look so full of the things he normally managed to hide.

  He wanted so much more from this, maybe more than I'd ever realized.

  I thought of his expression down on the couch, when I’d told him we were a family now, and I felt only the briefest moment questioning whether this was a good idea or even smart.

  Jude was so deep under my skin, and that brief flash of vulnerability buried him even deeper. I wasn't sure I could pull him out, even if I wanted to.

  His knee braced on the bed, and with the utmost care, he lowered us until my back hit the mattress. That he'd managed it so gently was a testament to his unbelievable strength. Again, he kissed me, and my back arched up because I missed that slide of his skin against mine. Quickly, he broke the kiss to tug his shirt off, and when his chest and stomach were bared to me, I couldn't help the happy sigh.

  Jude grinned, and if I'd been standing, that grin would've made me weak in the knees.

  While he worked on his pants, I pushed mine down, only leaving my black lace underwear when he raised an imperious eyebrow. "Let me, love."

  I held my hands up. "Bossy."

  Before me, he stood completely naked, and why wouldn't he? He looked like a Greek god, carved to perfection. With one finger crooked behind the center bow on my bra, he slowly pulled it down, watching the skin uncovered inch by slow, torturous inch until I laid there in only a small scrap of black lace. That came off next—again, with only two calloused fingers pulling it down my legs.

  "Beautiful," he whispered. Jude planted his fists on the bed and prowled up over me like a great big cat, stopping only to drop a gentle kiss on the curve of my belly.

  Inexplicably, tears pricked hot in my eyes at that kiss.

  No, whatever this moment was between us, it wasn't stupid, and it wasn't a bad idea.

  I'd go to my grave remembering him like this. That was the thought in my head when he took my mouth in another searing kiss.

  That was the thought in my heart when he brought me up over the crest for the first time with his hand. Then he whispered into my ear that my pleasure was perfect, that I was the most beautiful thing he'd ever seen in his life, and he couldn't wait to feel me again. How he'd dreamed of it night after night.

  Part of me wanted to reverse our positions, so I could sit up over him and watch as he got his pleasure. Where I could—eyes wide open—see the moment on his face when he let go of all control.

  But when he gripped my thigh tight in one strong hand and pushed inside, I lost my breath. I lost any idea that wasn't this one.

  Jude moved so slowly at first that I almost screamed at him, almost raked my nails down his back, almost exploded again from unspent frustration.

  He whispered things into my skin that weren't clear, things I couldn't make out behind the rushing and roaring in my ears. I arched up, my hands stretching up over my head until I’d braced my palms flat against the headboard. He lifted his head and stared down into my face for one breathless beat.

  Jude looked stupefied. He looked confused. He looked like someone had knocked him flat with a two-by-four.

  But instead of making some pleasure-loaded confession, I saw the moment he was ready to stop prolonging whatever tight-rope he was walking. His jaw clenched, a muscle popping behind the dark scruff on his face, and oh, oh, he began to move.

  By the time I was flung past the second peak, I was practically sobbing, his back slick with sweat and his eyes boring into mine with an intensity that might have scared me if I didn't feel so amazing.

  I arched into one particularly brutal snap of his hips, and he yelled my name.

  He was, without a doubt, the most beautiful thing I'd ever seen.

  Jude slumped over me after a few more slow movements, and I curled my arms around him, tightened my thighs around his hips, and kissed his shoulder.

  "Whoa," I whispered, my heart pounding in a jittering, jangling beat behind my ribs.

  He lifted his head and grinned again, and it was such a dopey grin that I burst out laughing.

  Jude laughed too, rubbing his hand up and down my back.

  After we cleaned up, I snuggled underneath the covers next to him, and the sigh of relief that came from deep within his chest made me smile again.

  It was no wonder that sex became an addiction for some. The sense of power, the relaxed euphoria that I felt lying next to him was unparalleled. The ultimate high that I hadn't even known existed.

  "Stay the night?" he asked.

  I turned slightly, laying my head on his shoulder. "I don't know, my small bed in my small flat sounds so appealing right now."

  He tickled my side, and I laughed into his skin.

  Jude was quiet for the next few minutes, doing nothing more than running his fingers through the ends of my tangled hair. When he spoke, I could feel the rumble of his voice underneath my ear.

  "Care to take a little holiday this week?"

  I grinned happily. "Yeah. You can get away?"

  "I can, yeah. We have international break next weekend. No matches."

  Propping my chin on his chest, I rubbed my fingertips along the scruff on his jaw. "Where should we go? There's a lot I haven't seen yet."

  "You had to leave Haworth early, yeah?"

  "Yeah. Someone's unborn child made me pukey, then I saw that same someone on the cover of a newspaper and cut my trip short to come home and take a pregnancy test."

  He exhaled. "I wish I would've handled all that better."

  I kissed his chest. "I know you do. But I think we're in an okay place now, right?"

  Jude cupped the side of my face and drew me up for a soft kiss. "Aye, we are."

  When I pulled back, I grinned at him. "So, you're taking me back to Brontë country?"

  "If you'd like. You can make me smart, tell me all the things I need to know about these famous ladies."

  "Okay." Was it possible to want to mount him again already? Because the man had hardly had any recovery time, but when he started planning trips for me to go back to my literary idols’ hometown because he remembered I had to cut my time short, it made me feel all sorts of things. Sexy things.

  "What's that look in your eyes?"

  I bit my bottom lip and watched his gaze track the movement. "Take a guess."

  His hands moved low down my back, one palm slowly covering my bare bottom. "You must have a lot of faith in my abilities. I'm old, love."

  My own hand started exploring. "You feel pretty spry right now."

  When he laughed, a sexy, quiet, exhale of a laugh, I pushed on his chest, swung my leg over his lap, and did exactly what I'd imagined earlier.

  Chapter Twenty

  Jude

  By the last handful of hours in Haworth, I'd become addicted to a certain look in Lia's eyes. I'd discovered certain things triggered it.

  - Scones (good scones, at least. She ate a dodgy one at our first cafe stop and spit it out into her napkin)

  - Ancient school buildings where famous literary icons taught the youth of the village

  - Orgasms

  These were not listed in order of priority, of course, because during the two nights we spent exploring Haworth Village together, I saw that look numerous times. We entered the church building, and she grabbed my hand, squeezing it so tightly I thought my fingers might fall off. When we walked through the Parsonage Museum, the home that the Brontës’ lived in, I heard her sniff quietly. In alarm, I'd tugged her round to make sure she was okay, but she had such a blinding smile on her face, I found myself smiling in return.

  "Happy tears," she whispered. "Thank you for bringing me back."

  I kissed her there, soft and quick, and I remem
ber feeling like it was such a normal thing to do.

  A quick kiss in the middle of a normal day.

  The way she walked close to me as we strolled through the park on our way back to our hotel room to pack and head back to London.

  Our fingers brushing against each other’s when we sat and ate a quiet lunch tucked into a small cafe.

  For those three days and two nights, with her curled up against me in our rented cottage in the village, everything felt remarkably normal. We didn't rush what we saw or at the places we ate or when leaving the bed in the mornings.

  When she worked on her laptop, notes strewn across the sturdy wood table on the stone floor, I worked out in the small garden in the back. There were no major distractions for either of us.

  Maybe this was what the rest of the world experienced on a day-to-day basis. But for me, it was bloody foreign. Enjoyable, but still strange. And conversely, it was exactly the kind of thing my parents always told me I was sacrificing to do what I did.

  Don't you want a normal life with a family? A woman who loves you and children to raise? What kind of life do you think you'll have chasing a ball around for millions of pounds every year?

  It was something my mum had asked me back when I was getting my first offers in the premier league. My dad had given up by that point. He knew my success in the German Bundesliga had cemented my path. It was only a matter of time before I came back home and dominated on one of the strongest tiers of play in the entire world.

  As we packed our bags and locked up, I watched Lia with a dawning sense of accomplishment. The look in her eyes, with the exception of the scones, were all from things I'd been able to bring to her.

  I'd accomplished something that my family never thought I'd be able to.

  A good woman, smart and sexy and funny, and children to raise. And still, I was a premier player.

  Lia wrestled her dark hair up into a bun on top of her head and faced me while my mind raced. "What's going on up there?"