Rock Hard (Rock Kiss #2)(51)

Esme and Emmaline immediately lost interest in their toys and went to their position at the front of the balcony again. “Go, Uncle Danny! Go! Go!”

“Goddammit!” Gabriel growled, up on his feet. “Pass!”

It was a sweetheart move. Danny swiveled just slightly on one foot, the oval of the ball gliding out of his hands to land safely in the hands of the teammate to his left and behind him, just as the defender tackled Danny, having committed to the attack. It left no one in front of Danny’s teammate.

Two seconds later, that teammate ran across the try line with enough breathing room to slam the ball down right behind the goal posts. He did so to the roar of every single person on the balcony—including Charlotte. Pumped, Gabriel grabbed her face in his hands and smacked a kiss on her lips.

Eyes wide, she kissed him back. “That pass was incredible!”

“The little shit’s learned something,” Gabriel said with a grin, having spent more evenings and weekends than he could count helping Danny fix the weakness in his game. He and his other brothers had played out situations just like this, and now their baby brother had aced it.

Three minutes later, the team’s fly-half converted the try, the kick sailing easily through the posts because of where the ball had been grounded during the try.




CHARLOTTE HADN’T HAD SO much fun in a long, long time. Everyone in Gabriel’s family was a furious supporter of Daniel Esera and his team and had an incredible love for the game. There was passionate yelling, groaning when passes were fumbled or penalty kicks sent wide of the goalposts, and rapid-fire exchanges of opinions on the rucks and lineouts.

“Fucking offside, ref! Are you blind?” Sailor yelled at one point, only for Esme to pipe up and say, “Swear jar, Uncle Sailor.”

Charlotte laughed as Sailor dug out a gold dollar coin and put it in the piggybank Emmaline had pulled out of the backpack that held the girls’ toys.

“You two are going to bankrupt me.” He jerked his thumb at Gabriel. “You missed him. He owes you two dollars.”

By Charlotte’s count, the girls made a total of twenty-seven dollars in the first half—including multiple contributions from Gabriel, Jake, and Sailor when the referee didn’t award a penalty for what had been a dangerously high tackle. Then there was the scrum that collapsed twice.

Charlotte loved every second of the experience.

Everyone calmed down close to halftime, with Danny’s team holding on to their lead. That was when Charlotte became aware of male fingers brushing gently over her nape.

The tiny hairs on her arms rose up, her response a mix of fear and arousal. It took conscious effort not to stiffen up under the lazy, absent caress. Gabriel wasn’t threatening her, wasn’t hurting her. He was… petting her. Thinking of it that way made it easier to focus on the pleasure rather than the pain.

But when he would’ve curved his fingers over her nape, she reached up and tugged his hand away. Giving her a measuring look, he put his arm back on the chair but didn’t touch her nape again. And though the possibility of a hold there had made nausea churn in her gut, she felt as if she’d lost something precious.




CHARLOTTE SAT FIDGETING WITH Gabriel’s scarf as he drove her home. “That was fun,” she blurted out when she couldn’t take the screaming tension anymore.

“Yeah. Danny’s over the moon at the win.”

Charlotte had only seen Gabriel’s youngest brother for a few minutes before he had to leave with the rest of his team for the after-match briefing, but though he was sporting a cut on his eyebrow and a bruise on his jaw from what had been a hard battle of a game, he’d been in high spirits. “Did you see that f*cking awesome pass?” had been his opening comment.

His family had all clapped, then hugged and kissed him. Charlotte had stayed out of the way, watching as Esme and Emmaline wriggled into the heavy mass of humanity without fear of being crushed or hurt. Danny had cuddled both girls and laughingly given them an IOU for the swear jar before heading back out, and Charlotte wasn’t sure he’d even seen her.

“I heard Danny was thinking of changing teams next season,” she said, wondering if the tension in the car was real or just a figment of her imagination. If Gabriel had already started to give up on her…

Ice picks stabbed at her heart.

“Charlotte, why are you determined to pick a hole in my scarf?”

She stopped her nervous motions. “Sorry.” Smoothing out the wool, she looked carefully at the nubby edges, the worn weave. “Is this from when you played?”

“Dad got it for me when I was selected. It became my pregame lucky charm.”

And he’d given it to her to wear. Teeth sinking into her lower lip, she stroked the weave of the scarf again, caught between hope and despair.

“You didn’t answer my question.”

“It was nothing.”

“Ms. Baird.”

She shivered. “Stop doing that.”




“WHY? IT GETS YOU hot.” Gabriel liked making Charlotte hot. “We’ll play boss and secretary in bed one day, and you can call me Mr. Bishop and say ‘yes, sir’ and ‘of course, sir.’” He also had a very dirty fantasy of hearing her say “f*ck me, Gabriel.”

“Stop putting those thoughts in my head,” she ordered, chest rising and falling in jerky breaths. “How am I supposed to act naturally at work when you call me Ms. Baird in that tone of voice?”