Chapter Ten
Prior to meeting Kyle, Val couldn’t remember the last time she’d ever been this satisfied, but it seemed like every time with him topped the previous. If he was something she’d bought on Amazon, she’d give him five freaking stars. It was two in the morning, but she didn’t care. And, thankfully, the bakery didn’t open on Sundays.
She was currently lying on her stomach, her lower half pressed to the mattress, her upper half draped over him, her fist planted in the centre of his chest, her chin propped on top as she gazed down at him.
He was lying with one hand tucked behind his head, and Val sighed as his finger traced over her shoulder, up her neck, across her cheekbones and the bridge of her nose.
“Your freckles are sexy.”
His voice was all low and rumbly, and her belly twisted despite his absurd statement. She’d been told her freckles were cute before, but never sexy.
She snorted. “About as sexy as halitosis.”
His abs rippled as he laughed. “It’s true.”
“I hate them.”
He shook his head. “I want to kiss every one of them.”
“Well, settle in, then. It’ll take you a while.”
“And that’s a negative how?”
Val smiled as she thought about where those lips might end up. Yeah. She couldn’t see any negatives. If only she’d known at the age of eight they were going to bring her such pleasure one day, she might not have subjected herself to the toad therapy a kid called Brian Humphries had touted as a cure.
She still shuddered thinking about it, all these years later.
“And your hair.” His gaze roved around her head as his fingers played with the ends of a lock brushing her shoulder. God knew what it looked like after two hours of debauchery. “It’s glorious. The most stunning titian colour.”
Val blinked. “Titian?”
What the fuck? Her heart beat a crazy tango in her chest at Kyle’s self-deprecating smile. “He was a renaissance painter.”
“I know who he was.”
“Ah.” He smiled at her. “You’re surprised I know who he was?”
“Well yeah…a little.”
“Are you saying I’m some dumb jock?”
His voice was still deliciously rumbly, and his fingers drew lazy patterns along her collarbones, so she didn’t think he was too offended. “I’m saying I don’t know too many dudes who know their renaissance painters.”
He smiled. “My mother took all five of us kids to the national art gallery to get some culture when I was fourteen. Now, we were a bunch of bogans from the western suburbs, loud and uncouth, so I don’t really blame the people at the gallery for treating us like we were casing the joint, but they had a hard time removing me from the visiting Titian exhibition. I can still remember staring at all the glorious ranga chicks he’d painted.”
Val smiled at the affectionate Aussie term for a redhead. “Are you sure it was the hair and not their…how shall I put this…lack of clothing?”
He laughed, and the rumble vibrated through her hand. “He did like them naked.”
She rolled her eyes. “Oh, you noticed?”
“Are you kidding? I was a teenage boy.” He grinned as he rubbed the lock of her hair between his fingers. “I got a hard-on seeing the occasional flash of side boob. Those paintings were like a wet dream. But I remember the hair, too.”
Val laughed, not quite believing she was talking about Titian at two in the morning with a pro rugby player, although god knew, he could have easily been the subject of an artist’s brush. Or maybe a sculptor’s clay? The lights had been dimmed, but she could make out every sexy feature of his face. Not even the gap in his teeth or his crooked nose ruined its classic perfection.
His jaw had darkened with five o’clock shadow, and she stroked her finger along it, goose bumps spreading up her arm at the slight roughness there. “You don’t do stubble,” she murmured, watching the movement of her finger. “You’re always very clean-shaven.”
Beards and scruff were in—hadn’t he heard? It seemed every rugby payer she knew sported some kind of designer stubble or other. And she was quite partial to it herself. The way it rubbed in interesting places during the sexy times was a definite plus.
He lifted her finger from his jaw and kissed it before holding it against his chest. “Nope.”
“Because you like to shave?”
He stared at her for long moments, and Val thought he wasn’t going to answer for a while. “Because I grew up in a family of mullets and tats and bushranger beards and I’m reverse rebelling.”
His words were light, but there seemed to be a lot more behind that statement, and Val dithered a bit as to whether or not to push. An image of Kyle’s cokehead cousin who made all the headlines last year came to mind—shaggy hair, scruffy beard. But hell, it wasn’t like he hadn’t been privy to all her dirty baggage.
“Is this because of Danny?”
He didn’t freeze or shut down he just nodded slowly. “Partly. I love my family but they’re a big, loud, unruly bunch, and a handful of them do tend have a bad rep due to their…casual interpretation of the laws of the land.”
“And you need to prove you’re the clean skin?”
“Something like that.”
Val let that sink in. She knew there’d been stuff in the past to do with Kyle’s extended family that had put him on the front page, but she’d never been one much for gossip. She, more than anyone, knew what it felt like to be a public curiosity through no fault of your own.
Knew how mud stuck, and nothing was off-limits as far as the media was concerned.
“They’re not all bad,” he hastened to assure her. “Just—”
Val slid a finger to his mouth to stop him trying to justify things to her. It wasn’t any of her business. “Families are complicated.”
His eyes locked with hers as he said, “Amen to that.” His lips tickled her finger and she withdrew it, smiling at him, and they stared at each other for long moments. “I don’t want to give this up.” He raised his hand to push back the slice of hair that had fallen forward over her face. “Give you up.”
A flood of emotion flowed through Val’s chest, and she shut her eyes as it glowed hot and steady inside her. “I don’t want to give you up, either.”
She shouldn’t have said it. Not out loud. She should be sensible. For both of them. Reject the statement, point out the difficulties of a relationship. But it was the simple truth. She hadn’t felt this inexplicably drawn to a man—ever—and she was powerless in the face of it.
“That,” he said, pausing to raise his head and kiss her long and slow until her head was spinning, “is very good news.”
“So, let’s not.” She stroked her finger along his jaw again. “Give it up. Let’s keep doing this. Keep seeing each other.” She brushed her fingers along his lips. “But we keep it on the down low.”
He shook his head. “No.” But he smiled as he grasped her finger and caged it against his chest. “I don’t want you to be some kind of dirty secret, Val.”
She dismissed that statement with a flick of her head. “I don’t care. It’s not like we’re going to have much trouble concealing it, with my crazy bakery hours and your training schedule. It’s not like we have much of a social life anyway. And I don’t want you to hurt your career. Besides, I’m used to it, remember. I’m a secret agent.”
He gave a half laugh, but his amusement never quite reached the tawny hue of his eyes. “Who I see in my private life has nothing to do with my work. With the team. The sport. Or your father.”
“I agree. It shouldn’t. But we both know that’s not true. You know that thing I said about family being complicated? Well there’s a shit-ton of complicated between my dad and me, and that could impact you, too.”
He stared at her for long moments, his hand toying with hers, indecision turning his face serious. Val knew that face. She’d seen it many times. The kind of face people had when they wanted to ask about the tragedy that had torpedoed her family, but were either too afraid or didn’t know how.
“It’s okay.” She gave him a nod and smile. “You can ask.”
He raised her hand to his mouth and kissed her fingers before placing their locked hands back on his chest. “Has it always been like this? With your father?”
“Do you mean, has he always pushed me away?”
“Yeah.”
“I’m a reminder for him. Of her. Of Lauren. We were identical twins. My mother says every time he looks at me he sees her. He sees that whole day again. The moment he realised he’d run her over. That she was dead. My mother screaming. She said he lifted the car off her… But it was too late, it had crushed her chest.”
“That can’t be an easy thing to live with.”
“No.” Val shook her head, taking a deep breath past the thickening in her throat. “I understand why he pushes me away. But it doesn’t stop me from wanting him not to.”
“Of course not.”
“The crazy thing is, the harder he pushes, the more I want to cling.”
“It says a lot about you that you’ve persisted. A lot of people might have stopped trying.”
“How could I? When he’s already been through something so unimaginable? When he’s already lost one daughter? What kind of a person would I be to make his life any more difficult than it already has been?”
“But…it was an accident.”
“Yeah. Dad thought Lauren was in the house with me. So did my mum. They didn’t know she’d snuck out to go with him, that she was trying to open the back door when he started the car. He was in a high four-wheel drive, and she was two years old. He didn’t see her behind, and there weren’t any reversing cameras twenty-odd years ago. The coroner ruled it an accident, but Dad…well, he’s been punishing himself for it ever since.”
He squeezed her hand and kissed it again. “I’m sorry.”
Val shrugged—it was what it was.
“Has he had some counselling or something?”
“Mum said he went for a while, but he pretty much withdrew from everything afterward, including her and their marriage. He asked for a divorce within a year of Lauren’s death and signed over any custody rights to me to my mother. Then he essentially buried himself in rugby. Used it to block out the world. Block out the pain and the grief and anything that reminded him of what had happened.”
“Which included you and your mum.”
“Yes.” It hurt to even say it, despite the familiar lecture that rationalised his behaviours. It usually worked, but deep down she was still that little girl who adored her father as much as he had apparently adored her.
“Didn’t your mother have something to say about that?”
“There’s so much guilt for her in this, too. Why hadn’t she been keeping a closer eye on us? Why hadn’t she checked we were both still inside when she went out to wave him goodbye? She, more than anyone, understands the kind of demons that plague him. She might not have been driving that day, but she feels just as responsible.”
Much to Val’s surprise, her voice cracked, and Kyle’s hand slid onto her shoulder and squeezed. “You don’t have to talk about this,” he murmured.
She shook her head. She never talked about it, and it felt surprisingly good to do so. Or maybe it was just that Kyle was an exceptionally good listener.
“She blames herself?”
“In a way, yes.” Val sighed at the convoluted layers of guilt and blame that formed the barriers to a functional relationship. “So she’s always taken the path of least resistance with my father. Some would say she’s let him get away with abdicating his parental responsibilities, but as someone who went through that horrific incident with him, she understands his angst. She knows him, and how shut down he is. She knows that weeping and wailing won’t work. She told me a long time ago that the way to my father’s heart was through rugby, and she took me to as many games as possible, to the ones he played and the ones he coached, and made sure everyone knew who I was and that I wasn’t going anywhere.”
A well of hot tears pricked the backs of Val’s eyes. Her mother had led the charge in Val ingratiating herself with the Smoke, and for that she would be forever grateful. She’d been right, the way in to her father was rugby. It was the only language he spoke, and Val had spent a lot of years becoming fluent.
A tear spilled over, and Kyle swiped at it with his thumb before pulling her down onto his chest, his arms gathering her close. Val’s nose prickled as she squeezed her eyes shut and listened to the even thud of his heart just below her ear.
She didn’t cry about this. Not anymore. Well…not often, anyway. And not in front of a guy. But it felt safe here with him. Like she could tell him anything. Or ask for anything. Or burst into tears, and he wouldn’t judge her.
Or freak out.
His fingers drew light patterns up and down her arm, and her eyes drifted shut. “Do you remember her?” he asked after a while, his voice rumbling through the wall of his chest.
Val shook her head, her eyes fluttering open, a flat male nipple filling her vision. “Lauren? Not really. Kind of vague images that I’m never sure are remembered or just co-opted from photographs. But…I feel her.” She shifted, propping her chin on her fist again, her hair spilling across his chest. “You know that twin connection people always talk about?” He nodded. “I feel that. Or, at least, I feel like there’s part of me missing, like I’m not quite whole. If that makes any sense…”
“Sure.” His fingers slid into her hair, scraping deliciously against her scalp.
“It makes me…sad.” Her throat threatened to thicken again, and she swallowed it down as her gaze searched his. “I wish I’d known her.”
He nodded. “I guess that’s probably another thing that weighs heavily on your father, too? Maybe it’s not so much that you remind him of Lauren, but that you remind him of what he took from you?”
Val hadn’t thought of it like that before. Surprisingly, it helped. The thought her father might be prioritising her grief, her emotional scars over his own, did help. It seemed like something someone who cared deeply would do. “Maybe.”
“What do you want from Griff? If you could have anything? A relationship? An explanation? An apology?”
The question shredded Val’s usual bravado where her father was concerned.
Nobody had ever asked her that.
Given her permission to want anything of her father. Not even her mother, whose tactics had been patience and resilience.
She sure as shit deserved all three, but Val would give them all up in a heartbeat for the thing she wanted the most. “I just want to know he loves me.” Her mother had always insisted he did, but Val was very much afraid her father didn’t know how to love anymore. “He doesn’t have to publically announce it. I just want to hear him say the words. And know that he means it, that he feels it.”
“You think he doesn’t?”
“I honestly don’t know. I think in his head, I died that day, too.”
“Val…” His brow crinkled, his tawny eyes troubled as they searched hers. “Maybe I can talk to him.”
Val blinked and pushed herself up off his chest a little. Was he crazy? “Are you crazy?”
“No.”
Sincerity blazed from his eyes. He meant it. God—he was so damn perfect. But her father would not take kindly to anyone interfering in their dysfunction, especially not the guy Val had already announced, in rather spectacular fashion, she’d screwed.
“It’s fine.” She shook her head. “This isn’t your problem. Besides, it’d just make him suspicious about our relationship, and I don’t want that.”
“I really don’t think we should sneak around behind his back, Val.”
“I know.” It was good to know that Kyle wasn’t just in this for some horizontal action. That he actually cared. “But how about we just see how it goes for a while? A couple of weeks? A month? The finals season starts in a month, right?” She settled back down, resuming her chin on fist position. “Then it’s only another month until the season ends. We can reassess after that, if things are working out well between us?”
“Your father doesn’t scare me.”
Val’s heart squeezed. No one had ever said something so naively wonderful. Her father was a formidable man. An alpha of the worst kind—a wounded alpha. A man at the top of his game, but completely emotionally barren. There was his way or the highway. He didn’t let his emotions make the decisions. The fact Kyle knew it and was still prepared to take him on put a little kick in her pulse.
Val drew her finger along the cleft of his chin. “He should.”
His tawny gaze searched hers. “I think I’m falling in love with you, Valerie King.”
Her heart banged to a halt in her chest for one second. Two. She blinked. What? Maybe he really was crazy. It was utterly preposterous, and she refused to believe it was anything other than a product of high emotion and an honourable streak a mile wide.
“Don’t say that.”
“Why not?”
“It’s too soon.”
“My mum said she knew the second she laid eyes on my dad he was the one.”
Except Val didn’t believe in those kind of fairy tales. And she didn’t think Kyle did, either. “We’re not them. So just don’t, okay?”
He regarded her for long moments. “Okay. What should I say?”
Val relaxed at his easy capitulation, the jump in her pulse settling. He hadn’t pushed, insisted, or repeated the ridiculous statement. He’d let her talk him out of it with no protest. So he couldn’t have been serious. It must have just been a term of affection blurted out in the aftermath of her sob story.
She pushed away David Cassidy singing I think I love you in her head.
“Say yes. Let me be your dirty little secret.”
He smiled, but it didn’t quite reach his eyes. “Yes.”
And in the next second, she was flat on her back, his mouth kissing everything better.