Game For Love

She watched him with rising alarm as he moved toward her, knowing it was his nature to instinctively try to protect her from things he thought would hurt her.

"USA Today."

The brush clattered from her fingers to the sink and he tried to smile reassuringly.

"They're probably just going to ask the same questions we've already answered for everyone else. Where we met. Why we kept our relationship a secret." His body was warm against hers, his chin too high to rest on the top of her head. "I'll field her questions, sweetheart."

How had their one little lie--no, their huge lie--for his grandmother spiraled off in so many directions?

"When is the interview?"

"Tonight. Six o'clock. At Max's."

Trying to act normally, she moved to pick her brush up, but Cole beat her to it.

"Let me."

Long strokes soothed her, had her unable to look away from the heat in his eyes.

She loved him. But he didn't love her.

It was one thing to try and hide the truth from family and friends, made easier in some ways by the fact that they'd see what they wanted to see. They wanted to believe she was the luckiest girl alive to have captured Cole's heart. They wanted to believe in love at first sight.

They wanted to believe that an invisible girl like her could be a superstar's everything.

But strangers didn't care about her happiness. Some would be jealous, the ones who dreamed of men like Cole. Most wouldn't believe it. They'd all seen the kind of women he usually chose.

None of those women were short with slightly crooked bottom teeth. None of those women walked around with an extra five pounds on their hips. None of those women were first-grade teachers who usually liked talking with the kids way more than chatting with their parents.

And not one of those women wore a halo.

* * *

On the drive to her school, neither of them spoke about what had happened the previous night--or what she'd said to him--and Anna, for one, was glad for some time to try and wrap her head around the multitude of ways her life had changed in such a short time.

But it wasn't just her life that had changed.

She'd changed...shifting a little more each time Cole touched her.

She felt simultaneously uncomfortable and more in tune with her true self than ever before.

The discomfort came from her heightened sensitivity to everything. The sun was brighter.

The sky more blue. She noticed every chirp the birds made. And her skin sizzled at Cole's slightest touch. Even when he wasn't touching her, just the heat in his eyes caused a flush to move across her chest, over her cheeks.

Before Cole, she'd been afraid to feel too much, had done everything she could to block sensation. From that first kiss, her husband had stripped away those layers, was still stripping them away one at a time, leaving her to look with surprise into the mirror each time she passed.

The woman staring back at her was similar to the one she'd seen for thirty years, only with an edge of sensual comprehension and pure emotion that she hadn't previously possessed.

He walked through the halls with her, his left hand never letting go of hers as he shook hands with what felt like every person in San Francisco. The ringing bell gave her license to drag him away to the relative safety of her classroom, where she all but slammed the door in the faces of her students' parents.

Not looking the least bit bothered or put out by any of the attention, Cole got down on his knees on the linoleum floor, surrounded by overexcited first graders. His laughter was contagious. He was a total natural with kids as well as adults. They didn't have to be a fan of his football skills to fall in love with him.

Anna put her hand to her heart at the sight of his gentleness, his laughter at the kids'

antics, at his pure enjoyment of being with a bunch of six-year-olds.

He was going to be a wonderful father.

And as her hand moved from her heart to her stomach, Anna couldn't hide from the fact that her dreams and hopes for a family of her own--and a husband who loved her with all his heart--had already taken root.

She didn't just want Cole's love.

She wanted a family with him, too.

She wanted forever.

* * *

Later that night at Max's, all around them people in the popular city bar and restaurant were laughing, drinking, flirting. Some were playing with their cell phones. But all of them had one thing in common: They were all focused on Cole and Anna. After years in the spotlight, he was used to being the center of attention in public. But Anna, his sweet Anna, wasn't. It was pure instinct to want to protect her from it. He was thirty seconds from dragging her out of the restaurant and locking her up in his bedroom until news of their marriage had blown over. Pissed that he'd let Julie talk him into this, he'd almost risked getting kicked off the team by tackling her husband in practice.

At one point the bastard golden boy had given Cole one of those shit-eating grins everyone so stupidly ate up. "Marriage kicking your ass, huh? I'd be happy to give you some advice on keeping your wife happy, if you need it."

Cole had almost jumped him right there. But he could see that was exactly what Ty wanted and he couldn't give the motherfucker the satisfaction of knowing just how twisted up in knots he was over his sweet, pretty wife.

"I've had gentle my whole life. Right now, I like it raw. Rough. I want everything you can give me. Show me how much you want me. I need to know how much you want me."

Jesus, just remembering what she'd said to him had his dick about to bust out of the zipper. He'd been surprised by her last night, and now, here she was surprising him again during their interview. He'd thought that Anna was going to be the nervous one, but she was amazingly relaxed. He was the one gritting his teeth, worrying about every fu**ing question. Pummeling the crap out of his teammates in practice hadn't taken the edge off a damn thing.

"So you grew up in the Bay Area?"

Anna nodded, smiling at the journalist in her open, friendly way. The same way she'd looked at him that first night in the club. With pure, shining innocence.

"My whole family is here."

"How did they react when you brought Cole home for the first time?"

He tensed at the question, but Anna's eyes sparkled. "They loved him, of course.

Although one of my brothers-in-law almost had a coronary when he realized his biggest hero had just walked through the front door."

"What about your parents? How did they feel about their daughter dating a big, bad Outlaw? Were they worried he'd break your heart?"

Anna didn't answer right away. When she did, her words rang with honesty. "Of course they worried. What parent wouldn't?"

Cynthia raised an eyebrow in Cole's direction. "So then, how did you prove to them that they could trust their precious daughter's heart with you?"

His throat felt way too tight. For some reason, the man who had sweet-talked his way into more panties and out of more sticky situations than he could keep track of couldn't find any way out of this one.

Anna leaned her head against his shoulder. "The truth is, they never had a chance, not even my mom, who was worried about me at first. They love him as much as I do. How can they not?"

She tilted her face up to his, so beautiful that he had to touch her, couldn't stop himself from lightly brushing his thumb across her lower lip.

The photographer Cynthia had brought with her snapped a rapid flurry of shots, Anna's love for him a radiant, glowing presence at the table.

"Wow, it really seems like you two are the fairytale come true. The sweet schoolteacher who tamed the bad boy."

The journalist smiled and Cole thought it seemed genuine. Still, he'd been burned one too many times by the press to trust the woman any further than the next table over.

Anna's smiling eyes found his. "Did you hear that? She thinks I've tamed you."

Her laughter was infectious, even making his mouth move into a grin.

His wife shook her head, still laughing as she turned back to Cynthia. "Trust me, my husband is completely untamable." Her gaze flicked back to him, shot through with wild heat.

"And the truth is, I wouldn't want him to be any other way. I wouldn't ever want him to be something that he's not or feel like he has to say or do the right thing to make me happy. He makes me happy just the way he is, just the way he's always been."

"I see why you fell for her." Cynthia broke the spell his wife was wrapping around his heart. "But since my readers aren't here with us to see the two of you together in person, I'd love it if you could tell me what drew you to Anna."

He didn't have to think about it, didn't have to pretend. "I've never met anyone so sweet.

Or so beautiful that I can hardly believe my eyes every time I look at her."

"Cole."

Anna's whispered exclamation came with a deep flush in her cheeks. Any other woman would have preened, but she was more embarrassed than anything.

"But what you can't see is how brave she is. She has more courage in her pinkie than a tailback running into a team of three-hundred-pound defensive linemen."

"Wow," Cynthia said as she scribbled in her notebook. "People are going to go crazy for you two."

But Cole didn't care about the interview anymore. He couldn't focus on anything but Anna.

"One more thing," Cynthia said. "When did you realize Anna was special, Cole? When did you realize you were going to marry her? When did you know you loved her and only her?"

Cole didn't look away from Anna, couldn't have torn his gaze from hers as he said, "The first time I saw her I knew I couldn't let her go. I asked her to marry me that night."

"Was it love at first sight for you, too, Anna?"

"I'd never done anything that crazy before," Anna said in a soft voice, "but being with Cole felt so right from the start."

"So, you're telling me that you asked her to marry you the night you met and you accepted right then and there?" She looked at Cole, then Anna, her eyebrows raised with surprise. "So then why wait months to finally do the deed? And why do it in secrecy?"

Anna response was quick, fluid, believable. "My sister was getting married. I didn't want to overshadow her wedding. And then, when she was heading off on her honeymoon, Cole showed up out of the blue. We just couldn't wait another second."

Cole's gut cramped at her easy lie. She could never have done that on Friday. He'd promised to teach her new things, but he'd never meant for one of those things to be twisting the truth.

How could he ever forgive himself for doing that to her?

Cynthia turned off her recorder. "Seriously, guys, my readers are going to love your story.

It's so romantic. So perfect. Thanks so much for chatting with me. If I have follow-up questions, I'll be in touch. Look for the story in the weekend edition."

They said their goodbyes, walking the journalist out to a cab. They drove back to his house in silence. There were so many things he suddenly wanted to say to her. So many things he didn't know how to say.

Nothing in his life had prepared him for Anna.

For the love that she gave him so freely, no strings, no demands.

Just love. Pure and sweet.

Yes, he'd given her pleasure, but along the way he'd forced her to take on skills she should never have needed to know.

Lying.

Evading.

They walked into his house and Anna reached for his hand. "Are you okay?"

He wanted so badly to pull her against him, but he couldn't stand the thought of sullying her with his touch. "You don't deserve this mess. Not any of it."

Her hand slipped tighter through his, so warm, so soft. "You're not forcing me to do anything, Cole. Marrying you, staying with you, doing this interview--they were all my decisions, right or wrong. If I wanted to stop, I'd stop."

He didn't have the strength to keep his gaze off her beauty, the innocence that still clung to her, despite his bad influence. And then he saw it, the question in her eyes.

"What you said to Cynthia...did you mean it?"

Since that first moment he'd seen her, he'd been getting lost in her eyes. Lost again even as guilt bore down on him, he said, "I meant everything I said tonight."

She'd protected him from even one small lie, taking the weight of them all on her own shoulders. No one but his grandmother had ever protected him before. No one had ever cared enough to take a risk like that for him.

Her beautiful eyes swam with disbelief and confusion. "How could you possibly think I'm brave?"

It killed him that she didn't see it, that she didn't already know.

"Do you remember our first night together?"

She flushed, leaning her forehead into his chest. But he wouldn't let her hide from him, couldn't stand not to see the sweet heat in her eyes as she rewound back to their first time together.

"How could I ever forget?"

He grinned down at her. No one had ever made him feel this happy. This good. And not just in bed, where she kept blowing his mind. Just like this, talking, teasing.

"You could have told me to stop at any time." He brushed a lock of hair away from her sweet lips. "You were so brave. Not just that night, but every time we've been together."

She shook her head, protesting, "That was just sex."

"I've had plenty of sex, sweet girl. Trust me, what we've got going isn't even close to

'just sex.' But if that's not enough for you, I saw you with your mom. In the kitchen at her house."

Her eyes widened in alarm. "How much did you hear?"

"Enough to be proud of the way you stood up for yourself."

And for him. She might not have been telling the complete truth about their relationship to everyone that night, but she'd told her mother a truth she'd held inside for far too long--about how lonely she'd felt in her own big family, surrounded by loving parents and siblings.

As lonely as he'd felt in his family of two.

"There hasn't been a single situation where you haven't held your own, no matter how strange it all is for you, like the VIP box or dealing with the paparazzi. By the way, Julie and Melissa already told me that if I ever screw up and you leave me, they've chosen you over me."

He loved the small smile she gave him. "Hell, tonight during that interview, you were the calm one. The brave one protecting me." He tipped her chin up with a finger. "Do you believe me now?"

"It's just that no one has ever called me brave before."