Playing By Her Rules (Sydney Smoke Rugby Series) (17 page)

Matilda laughed, her heart about as full as it could possibly be. “I know how you feel.”

He nuzzled her neck for a moment, obviously needing some recovery time. “Why’d you change your mind?” he asked, his voice muffled.

Matilda stared into the water spurting out of the showerhead. “Because we were kids but now we’re adults, and it was well past time for me to get over it. Because your intentions were good, even if your execution sucked. And because as much as I didn’t still want to love you…I still did.”

He lifted his head from her neck. “I
am
sorry,” he murmured, his blue eyes earnest, despite the sexy cling of water droplets.

“I know.” She pressed a soft kiss to his mouth. “So am I.” And she kissed him again. “Are you sure about the getting married thing? I kind of put you on the spot a bit there. We don’t have to. We can take it slow, see how it goes.”

“No way.” Tanner shook his head emphatically, the water droplets flying from the ends of his hair and his eyelashes. “I’ve waited eight years for this, and I’m not wasting another minute. This isn’t maybe love or probably love or even definitely love anymore. This is
forever
love, and I want that to start right here, right now. Today.”

Matilda grinned at him. “Forever love?” Exactly what she wanted from him. “Can we hashtag that?”

“Sure.” He grinned back. “Later. Right now there’s another hashtag on my mind.” He unlocked her ankles from around his hips, eased her legs to the ground then dropped to his knees in front of her as she had done to him.

Matilda’s heart skipped a beat.

“Hold on, baby,” he said, gripping her right leg, bending it at the knee and urging it up and over his shoulder, splaying her wide open before him. “Captain Cunnilingus is in da house.”

Matilda gasped and shut her eyes as he put his mouth to her. She pushed a hand into his wet hair, her body coming alive, her heart glowing big and bright and full in her chest.

Forever love was going to be freaking awesome.

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Glossary

I’ve probably used some words in here that some readers may not know—both rugby ones and strange Aussie-isms alike. So I thought a handy dandy glossary might help. It is, of course, written entirely from my perspective so is heavily biased, female-centric, and quite possibly dodgy. It probably wouldn’t stand up to any kind of official scrutiny…

Footy
– We love this term in Australia. The confusing thing for most non-Aussies is they never know which game it refers to because we have three separate but distinct codes of football in Australia:

1. Rugby League (Jarryd Hayne played this code before he went and played Gridiron).

2. Rugby union – The code the Sydney Smoke play and the one this series is based upon (Jarryd Hayne now trying his hand at this code as well…).

3. Aussie rules football – Different altogether. Tall, fit guys in
really
tight shorts.

There is also soccer but we don’t really think of that as football in the traditional sense here in Australia.

The confusing thing is we refer to all of them as
the footy
e.g. “Wanna go to the footy, Davo?” And somehow we all seem to know which code is being referred to at any given time. Even more confusing, the ball that is used in each code is often also called the footy e.g. “Chuck me
the footy
, Gazza.”

Pitch
– Apparently the rugby field is called a pitch but colloquially here we just call it the footy (see, I told you we liked that term) field. A pitch is more a cricket term. No, don’t worry, I won’t ever try to explain a game that lasts five days to you…

Ruck
– No, not a typo. That’s ruck with an R, ladies! Happens after a tackle as each team tries to gain possession of the ball.

Line-out
– That weird thing they use to restart play where each team lines up side by side, vertical to the sideline, and one of the guys throws the ball to his team and a few of the guys from that team bodily lift one dude up to snatch the ball out of the air. It’s like rugby ballet. Minus the tutus. And usually with more blood.

Scrum
– Another way to gain possession of the ball. I’m going to paraphrase several definitions I’ve read: A scrum is when two groups of opposing players pack loosely together, arms interlocked, heads down, jockeying for the ball that is fed into the scrum along the ground. It’s like a tug of war with no rope and more body contact or, as I like to call it, a great big man hug with a lot of dudes lying on top of each other at the end of it all. Very homoerotic. Win/win.

Try
– A goal. Except in rugby union we don’t say someone scored a goal, we say someone scored a try after they’ve dived for the line and a bunch of other guys have jumped on top to try and stop it from happening. Very homoerotic. Win/win. A try is worth five points.

Haka
– A ceremonial dance performed by all Polynesian cultures but made famous by the New Zealand All Blacks rugby team who perform it before every match in an awesome, spine chilling display of power, passion, and identity. I’m sure it’s only coincidental that it’s also crap-your-pants scary. There are few things more fearsome than an advancing All Black haka!

WAG
– Wives and girlfriends. These are partners of the dudes that play rugby. Although we also use the term here in Oz to refer to partners of our cricket players. I think in the UK WAGS is also a term used for football (soccer) partners.

Pash
– Not a footy term but one I used a couple of times which confused the heck out of my editor. A pash is a kiss e.g. “Did you pash him, Shazza.” It’s the Aussie equivalent to the British term snog.

Acknowledgments

My thanks, as always must go to all the team at Entangled, particularly those who work on the Brazen imprint. You are all superstars.

Extra special thanks to two gorgeous men who are my rugby gurus and the guys I go to for much needed info as I write this series. To David Grice and Jon O’Brien who, between them, have answered my crazy queries via text day and night. Questions about rucks (
not
a typo), hooters (no, not
those
kind), blood rules, goals, tries, salaries, those weird line out thingies…the list goes on. These two men—husbands of dear friends—are on speed dial and will be for as long as this series continues. I’m not sure they fully knew what they got themselves into when they agreed to be my rugby guides…but I am forever grateful to both of them.

About the Author

Multi-award-winning and USA Today bestselling author
Amy Andrews
is an Aussie who has written fifty romances, from novellas to category to single-title in both the traditional and digital markets for a variety of publishers. Her first love is steamy contemporary romance that makes her readers tingle, laugh, and sigh. At the age of sixteen, she met a guy she instantly knew she was going to marry, so she just smiles when people tell her insta-love books are unrealistic because she did marry that man and, twenty-odd years later, they’re still living out their happily ever after.

She loves good books, fab food, great wine, and frequent travel—preferably all four together. She lives on acreage on the outskirts of Brisbane with a gorgeous mountain view but secretly wishes it were the hillsides of Tuscany.

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