"Then they're all wrong." He hadn't forgotten a word she'd said to him the previous night. And now, he was the one saying them all back to her. "They're all stupid. And blind. Crazy blind."

"Crazy," she echoed, the one word breathless with the same need that was killing him as they stood in the middle of his kitchen.

He needed to be closer to her, needed to know that she was right where she belonged...in his arms.

"I know I promised you crazy, sweetheart. I know you told me last night that you like it raw. Rough. And so do I. But right now all I want is to make love to my wife."

Her eyes widened at his choice of words. He'd never called it making love before, hadn't dared let himself go there.

"You make me a better man," he told her, his voice husky with need. And emotion.

"I love you, Cole."

He scooped her up in his arms, kissing her even as he walked across the room to the stairs, his heart pounding harder with every step. Not just because of how much he wanted the beautiful woman in his arms.

But because for the very first time in his life, he was going to make love to a woman he actually cared about.

Chapter Eighteen

No one but Cole had ever looked at her with such powerful desire. But she'd seen that desire before.

This time it was the emotion in his dark eyes that captured what was left of her heart.

He hadn't said the three words she'd said, hadn't gotten down on his knees to declare undying anything to her. But she didn't need him to.

Because she could see it in his eyes, could feel it in the press of his lips in a kiss that had nothing to do with sex...and everything to do with love.

Love.

"Sweet Anna." He laid her in the middle of his big bed, staring down at her with such heat. With such need.

With so much love.

Love.

"My sweet Anna."

Aching to feel him take her over the edge, she said, "I need to love you, Cole." She reached out for him, desperate for his touch. For his love. "Please let me love you."

And then he was right there, his deliciously hard weight on top of her. She kissed him with ravenous desire, wound her limbs around his to pull him even closer, bucked her h*ps up into the hard press of his erection.

"Slowly, baby," he said against her lips when he finally pulled free. His tongue slid teasingly along the seam of both lips and she had to lick against him. "That's how we're going to go this time. Nice and easy. So slow. So good."

She didn't know who he was trying to convince, her or himself. But she knew how close she was to losing it already, with nothing more than his kiss--and his soft, sweet words whispering straight into her heart.

"Tomorrow," she said, begging, bargaining. "We'll go slow tomorrow." She reached for his shaft, pressed her hand hard over his erection, felt an answering twitch as he grew even harder, even thicker beneath her grasping fingers.

Pure lust filled his eyes, the lines of his face a picture of a man barely holding onto his control. "Tomorrow I'll f*ck you rough. Raw. Tomorrow I'll take you so fast, be so deep inside you, make you come so many times that you won't know where one orgasm ends and the next begins. But right now--" He pulled her hands away from his belt. "--I'm going to love you right."

He nuzzled her neck, causing ripples of pleasure to move all across her sensitive skin.

"Promise you'll help me love you right."

"You've always loved me right," she gasped as his mouth found the swell of her br**sts over the neckline of her dress. But then, instead of moving lower, instead of lowering his sinful lips over her aching, swollen nipples, he shifted his weight off her.

"No," she moaned, missing his heat, wanting him closer, not farther away.

"Shh, baby," he crooned. "I'm right here. Loving you. No bondage. No toys. Just me.

And you. That's all we need."

Something inside her chest came undone at his soft words, a cold wall she'd built around her heart cracking in two. His fingers undid the top button on her dress. He stopped at the second.

"I can feel your heart beating, baby, so hard it's almost lifting my hands off you."

"I didn't know," she whispered, the adoration in his eyes making her braver than she'd ever thought she could be. "I didn't know I could ever love anyone this mu--"

He kissed her before she could finish her sentence, stealing not just her words, not just her breath, but her very soul. Her dress was open to her waist when he finally lifted his head.

"Let me look at you, baby. So beautiful." He reached out, his hand trembling as he brushed his knuckles over the swell of one breast and then the other. "So damn beautiful."

"You make me feel beautiful." No one ever had before, not until Cole.

"You make me lose my mind, my control." He tried to undo the clasp at the front of her bra. "My hands are shaking." He looked like he couldn't believe what he was seeing. "I've been ha**ng s*x since I was fourteen, but I've never been nervous before. Not until you."

She covered his hands with hers, smiling as she helped him undo the clasp. But then her smile fell away as she arched her back to force her br**sts closer to the heat of his mouth.

"I could just stop here," he said, between decadent slurps against the swelling flesh, the hard tips growing even tighter beneath his sultry tongue, "could just spend the rest of the night doing nothing but licking and sucking your tits."

Waves of pleasure shuddered through her pussy, her cl*t throbbing as if he was sucking there instead.

"I could just keep loving you like this until you come for me."

His sensual threat--or was it a promise?--sent another rush of arousal through her. His mouth burned hot across her breasts, laving her with his tongue, making her cry out with pleasure as his teeth scraped across her swollen flesh.

"That's it, sweet girl. That's how I want you to feel when I touch you. Now. Always."

His large hand flattened against her belly and she pressed her h*ps up into his fingers. He suckled her again, causing uncontrollable tremors to take over her muscles, her limbs. And then his hand was moving lower, beneath the lower part of her dress that was still covering her and she opened her thighs wide in a silent plea for him to touch her. Instead of sliding into her panties, he cupped her between her legs.

"I can feel how wet, how swollen you are for me even through the silk."

She was only just managing to take in his low words as he spoke against the curve of her breasts, when he nipped at her breast. Maybe it was the sweet flash of pain that cut the final thread that was holding her to reality. Or maybe it was the way he licked over the tiny abrasion so gently, so lovingly that had her crying out his name as the lowest part of her belly tightened, threatening to shatter. Or maybe it was looking down and seeing his dark head bent over her chest, that sent her orgasm slamming through her, from the apex of her thighs all the way down to her toes and fingertips and everywhere in between.

"Anna. Sweet Anna. I love hearing you come. Watching you come. Feeling you come."

Just the sound of his voice was enough to keep her orgasm spiraling on and on, until she was fighting for breath, praying for oxygen to fill her empty lungs.

"I thought you were joking," she admitted when she was finally able to speak again. "I didn't know I could come like that."

"It will happen again. I can promise you that. Only next time we'll get there with just these." He pressed soft kisses to her breasts, first one and then the other, and her low moan sounded in the room. "Let's get this all the way off you."

His words were steady, his face focused, but his hands gave him away, the slight tremble that she'd never thought to see in the incredibly strong man she'd married.

It shouldn't make sense that having him undress her was such a big deal. Not when he'd had her na*ed so many times before, not when he'd had her tied up, not when he'd played with sex toys with her, not when she'd taken him down her throat and swallowed his come. But he'd never looked at her like this. Even when lust was tearing them both apart, there'd always been a barrier. Not just his, she realized with surprise, but hers, too.

Because even as she'd been falling in love with him, she'd been scared. Holding back if not her heart, then the last piece of her soul.

Tonight, he was claiming every part of her, inside and out.

"All of me," she whispered as he gazed down at her na*ed skin. "I want you to have all of me."

A sound--half growl, half groan--rumbled out of his chest and over her, but before she could reach out for him and demand the kiss she was so desperate for, his face was between her legs, her thighs spread open over his shoulders.

"I haven't spent enough time here, haven't tasted your sweetness nearly enough," he lamented as he gazed at her wet folds with something akin to rapt wonder. "My damn dick is just going to have to learn to share."

She shouldn't be able to feel such deep emotion, such powerful desire, and still laugh.

None of those things had ever gone together before. But Cole tapped into every part of her: The part that wanted to laugh. The part that wanted to love. The part that wanted to f*ck like a wild woman.

"You laughing at me, sweet girl?"

His tongue curled around the tight bud of her cl*t before pushing between her labia, and then his fingers joined his tongue, plying her open, sliding into her aching core.

She arched into his mouth, his fingers, opening wider, taking him deeper. And through it all, she was smiling, was so happy she thought she might burst.

"You make me smile."

And then Cole was saying, "You're right," and he was up and over her so quick she barely had time to mourn the loss of his tongue against her clit. How could she miss that when he was pressing the thick head of his erection between her slick folds?

"Tomorrow." Propping himself up on his elbows, he cupped her face in his hands. His mouth a breath from hers, he said, "I'll love you slow and easy tomorrow."

He thrust all the way into her at the exact same moment that their lips touched. It didn't matter that she'd detonated just minutes ago, that she should have been sated. In fact, her previous orgasm only seemed to make her more sensitive, more responsive. And when his tongue found hers and he kissed her like he'd never get enough of her, she came undone. Again.

Only this time, it wasn't just her pleasure that she was getting lost in. She was right there with Cole for every stroke, every thrust, every groan, feeling his cl**ax as if it were her own.

Just as her love for him meant that she would willingly take on his pain, she now realized she would always share his pleasure, too.

Chapter Nineteen

Cole was a master at holding focus. Even as a little kid, he'd been able to forget everything but the game. Didn't matter what else was going on in his life, as long as he was on the field, he was good.

He'd been off all goddamned day.

So far off that the guys were not just giving him confused looks, he could see a couple of the rookies, hungry for the chance to shine on the team, talking about him. Like hell if they were going to take his position anytime soon.

He ran faster. Tackled harder. Physical pain meant nothing as he worked to recapture the one thing that he'd always taken as a given.

But it remained just out of his grasp.

The linebacker coach had to pull him off the field. "Quitting time."

Cole looked up, saw that the field was almost empty. Only Ty was still out there, practicing hitting his targets.

"But if you want to run some more formation reads, Cole, I'm happy to stay a little longer."

Fuck. He didn't want to go in now. But Joe had a new baby at home and Cole knew he wanted to be there with his family. Not out on the field with some messed-in-the-head linebacker who didn't know which way was up.

"No, I'm good." He couldn't miss the relief in the other man's eyes.

Ty walked into the locker room just as Cole stepped into the hot spray of the shower.

"You're not the only one, you know."

Cole slammed the nozzle shut. "Fuck off, Ty."

He'd spent some of his best nights with the guy, celebrating big wins with beautiful women, but that didn't mean he wanted to sit there in towels and share feelings.

"Planning on it tonight with my wife." Ty toweled off his hair, before twisting the towel around his waist. "Julie told me you met Anna in Vegas, but I told her you couldn't have found a nice girl like that in the middle of Sin City."

Cole turned to his ex-friend with murder in his eyes. "You won't be able to f*ck your wife any time soon if you're not careful."

Not looking the least bit scared, Ty reached into his locker, actually turning his back on Cole. "Julie also said you were with Anna for months. Dating in secret." He turned back around, pinned Cole with a knowing look. "You're a lying sack of shit, aren't you? Your game was different this Sunday. Not worse, just different. Like football isn't the only thing that matters to you anymore."

Cole's fists tightened as he got ready to punch Ty's smug face, just hard enough to make him a little less pretty. Not that Julie would care. She'd still love the bastard anyway.

Just like Anna loved him. And last night, instead of keeping his feelings locked up like he should have, he'd given in.

And loved her right back.

What the f*ck had he done?

He was a man with enough darkness in his soul to spill over onto her innocence. The thought of Anna waking up one day and wondering, "Why did I love him?" or realizing it was just great sex and the excitement of the situation that had her temporarily thinking she loved him, killed him.

Anna didn't care about his money, his fame. She cared about her family and her friends and her kids at school. Whereas, at his core, he knew he'd lived a totally selfish life--and enjoyed the hell out of it.

Odds were, one day he was going to wake up and feel trapped. And when he felt trapped, he acted stupid. He didn't want to promise her anything he couldn't deliver. Fidelity had never been his strong suit. Which was why he'd never limited himself to just one woman and had definitely never made love to one before. It was why he'd never, not once, let himself get involved with a good girl.

Not until Anna.

"Look, Cole, I know you were struggling out there today. Now you know love does that to you. Fucks you up for a little while. But then one day you realize you're actually better for it.