He’s just given me permission to put my hands all over him. I am not going to pass this up.
I run at him, yell some kind of warrior cry, and fling myself at his upper body. It really is like throwing yourself against a brick wall. I bounce off, my legs sliding back through the mud, and I grab on to his shirt for dear life as I fall to the ground.
Of course it doesn’t bring him down. All it does is stretch the neck of his shirt and I’m hanging off him like a monkey. But I refuse to let go.
“If you don’t let go, you’ll rip my shirt right off,” he says, staring down at me, rain pouring off his face.
“That’s the idea, isn’t it?” I yell back. “You gotta give me something here.”
He drops to his knees beside me in the mud, his thigh pressed against mine. I can feel the heat of his skin through my jeans which starts an inferno between my legs. I’ve never been so close to him. All his wet, glistening skin, close enough to lick. His immense size makes me feel so small and easily overtaken, and he smells like sweat and rain, a deadly cocktail.
I swallow hard, my breath heavy in my chest. He gazes at me through wet lashes, those eyes of his laced with intensity that I can feel deep inside.
I have to be professional. I have to hold it together. And the vow, think of the stupid vow. But damn, if he kissed me, that would unleash a beast of my own. There would be nothing stopping me from ripping off the rest of his clothes and fucking him here in this muddy field.
God, I pray, briefly closing my eyes, I know praying for dick isn’t a new thing for me, but if you could please make muddy field sex with Lachlan McGregor happen, I’ll erect a church in your name.
“Here,” Lachlan says, voice gruff. My eyes snap open as he pushes the ball out ahead of us. “You tackled me. This is me releasing the ball.”
No, no, no. Forget the game. Make a play on me.
But Lachlan hasn’t forgotten the game. He nudges me with his elbow. “Go get it.”
I toss my hormones aside for the moment, give him a brave nod, and reach for the ball.
The minute it’s in my grasp, feeling so large and heavy that it makes me want to come up with a million sexual innuendos, he bellows at me, “Now, run!”
Agh! Those are some powerful lungs. I scamper to my feet and immediately start running back down the field toward the goal. I slip a few times, my feet slapping the mud, but it’s basically like running on ice.
I fall backward, completely ungraceful.
Splat!
Mud flies everywhere.
“Are you okay?” I can hear Lachlan yelling in the distance.
Though I’m winded, I take a deep breath and quickly get to my feet. I’m not going to stop now, even when I can hear him approaching close behind me.
I start running again, my own muscles straining as I try and go as fast as I can without eating shit. I don’t care that I’m absolutely filthy, that I’m scampering like a colt, that I can barely see through the rain in my face. I’m going for the try and I am fucking loving it.
I’m only a few yards from the end. I know Lachlan is going slow, that he’s going to let me win, but it doesn’t matter because—
Splat.
I slip again and faceplant straight into the mud. I immediately try and get to my feet, but I feel Lachlan looming over me like a storm cloud. He steps on either side of my body, straddling me, then drops to his knees, so my sides are between his legs.
“Nice try,” he says gruffly.
“Is that a pun?” I say, spitting out grass. I attempt to turn over but his tree-trunk thighs grip me in place. I’m not complaining.
“It would have been a pun if you made the try,” he says. “You didn’t. I stopped you.”
“I fell,” I say through gritted teeth. “I was already down.”
I hear him grunt from behind me. “And I wasn’t about to tackle you. So let’s just pretend you didn’t fall, and I brought you down, like in a normal game. Now release the ball.”