Page 3 of Just Come Over
“I like him fine,” she said. That was the problem. When he’d climbed up into the van and turned that fierce gaze on her, it was like all the air had been sucked out of the car. She’d had to remind herself to breathe. He might be coaching now instead of playing, but he still looked like all he wanted in the world was to lace up his rugby boots, run out there into the storm, and bring some men to the ground. With emphasis. It might be the black scruff and the too-long hair, it might be six-foot-three of hard muscle that hadn’t gone anywhere in the years since he’d finished playing, or it might just be the elemental essence of him. Rhys was twice as muchthereas everybody else. You knew it. You felt it.
She’d felt it the first night she’d met him. When Rhys’s Crusaders had played Dylan’s Blues in Auckland, and she’d gone out after the game with the two of them, and some of the rest of the Blues, too. Dylan had been the life of the party, as usual, laughing, joking, jumping up to dance between the tables. Rhys had been nearly silent, his forehead and cheekbone bruised red from the game, the lines of his jaw squared off almost aggressively, a day’s stubble covering the cleft in his chin. That, and his unexpectedly sensual mouth, were the only things about him that didn’t look tough, and she had a feeling that if he could have changed them to match the rest, he would have.
He was Dylan’s older brother, though, so she did her best. She wasn’t sure if she liked him, she was fairly sure he didn’t approve of her, and that flutter in her stomach when he looked at her had to be nerves. It was important that he likeher,though. However complicated the relationship was between the brothers, there was nobody Dylan looked up to more. So she asked, “Where did the nickname come from? Drago?”
He turned to look at her. He had to turn, because he’d been watching the three young women standing at the high-top next to them in an idle sort of way. Probably because they were flipping their hair back over their shoulders and casting glances over at the two rugby-intensive tables, especially this particular spot. Just before Rhys had turned away, one of them had touched her finger to her lower lip in a move that would have done justice to a schoolgirl. Or, rather, a porn star pretending to be a schoolgirl. It was so hard not to laugh.
When Rhys finally looked at Zora, his expression was amused. Not that he smiled. He just... expressed amusement. Around his eyes, maybe. They were a startling hazel-green, not what you’d expect with the swarthy skin, the black hair, or the Maori tattoo that ended just below his elbow. A single half-arm tattoo, instead of Dylan’s full sleeve, not to mention the ones on Dylan’s calf and his chest. She knew about Rhys’s unadorned arms and legs because she’d just seen him in a rugby uniform. She was guessing about the chest. The intricate black tattoo on his upper arm, with its emphatic pattern of chevrons, triangles, and the curve of koru, said, “I’m Maori, yeh, and I’m proud of it. But I don’t need to shout about it.” Actually, all of him said that.
“Does that work?” she asked him, then inclined her head toward the table of girls in a saucy way she was quite proud of. She got more amusement from him, and she had to smile back.
Dylan slid into the chair opposite her and asked, “What?”
“An invitation from across the way,” Rhys said. Even his voice was almost gravelly. How much testosterone did this man have in his body? He was very nearly frightening. Heshouldhave been frightening. Instead, he was just... something close.
“Don’t let us stop you, mate,” Dylan said. “I’ve got my girl.” Which made Zora feel fluttery again, for a different reason. Or the same one, probably. She was excited because Dylanwasexciting. Because over the past few months, her life had gone from black-and-white to full color, like she’d started taking some powerful drug, and now, she was addicted.
“It was this,” she said. She put her index finger on her lower lip, opened her mouth just a little, and widened her eyes at Dylan, who burst out laughing. She laughed herself and asked Rhys, “Did I do it right?”
He wasn’t laughing. His face had hardened instead. “Yeh,” he said. “That was it.” He took another sip of beer. He was still on his second. Dylan was putting away his fourth. But then, Dylan’s team had lost. “You asked about my nickname,” Rhys said. “Dunno. Got it a long time ago.”
“Drago?” Dylan said. “Because that’s what Rhys means, in Welsh. Dragon. Our Nan told us that when we were little kiddos. Well, I was a little kiddo. Rhys was all of ten or so, and already shaving.”
“Nah, mate,” Rhys said. “Eleven.”
“So I started calling him ‘Drago,’” Dylan said. “Thought it was cool as. Dangerous as. And it got picked up. Of course, I may have been a wee bit jealous of it, too.” He raised his pint glass at his brother. “Always, bro. Whatever I did, you were still older, you bugger. Bigger and stronger, too. Then Dad took you to Aussie, and I didn’t have to compare anymore. Good times.”
That last part had carried an edge. If Rhys was aware of it, he didn’t show it. His voice was calm when he asked Zora, “How old are you?”
“Mate,” Dylan protested as the player beside him put a palm to his face. “That work for you? You pull in the pub with that often, do you?”
Another slow look from the hazel eyes, and Dylan said, “You probably do. Still—no. Or, rather—yeh, you’re right, Zora’s the prettiest thing you ever saw.Andshe’s doing her degree in architecture. She’s not tall, that’s all. And then there’s that pretty bit, because that’s exactly what she is. A pretty bit.”
Rhys looked Zora over some more, and she could feel herself flushing. “I’m twenty,” she said, with a snap to her voice. “I’m five foot two, I weigh forty-nine kilos, this is as big as I’ll ever get, and I’ll have my degree in a year and a half. Does that answer your question?”
“Yes,” he said. Fifteen minutes later, he stood up to leave, still with only two beers under his belt. Dylan walked out with him, and when he came back, his brown eyes were sparkling more than ever. There was an edge to him when he said to Zora, “Let’s go. We’re still celebrating, eh.”
Another rush at the heat in his eyes, the faint roughness of his voice, and the fact that he’d said it in front of his mates. Something primitive about it. And when they got back to her flat and her roommate was out? They didn’t make it past the foyer. And she felt... claimed. Overwhelmed. Excited in a way that was almost too much to take, and completely and utterly sexual.
Later, lying in bed, her hand on Dylan’s chest, still giddy at the thought that somebody so beautiful and so exciting was hers, she asked, “What did Rhys say to you, earlier?”
“Said to get up faster from the tackle,” he said. “Bastard always thinks he’s a coach. He’s been doingthatall his life as well, with a notebook and all. Bloody annoying. ‘You won’t be playing any rugby from the ground.’ Like I need to hear it from him.”
“How much older is he?” Her heart was beating harder at what Dylan had shared with her tonight, and that he’d wanted her to meet his brother. Whatever she thought of his brother.
“Five years. Thinks it’s ten. Twenty-five and thirty isn’t much of a gap anymore, but try telling Rhys that. He was born old.” Suddenly, he laughed, his mood flipping back to ‘sunny’ in an instant. Dylan could never stay angry. “He also said you were too young, and it wasn’t right, so you can be narky along with me, if you like. I told him you were older than me in every way that counted, and he said, ‘Not old enough to make that choice. She’s blinded by it. The rugby. What she thinks is the glamour. She doesn’t know better yet.’ AndIsaid, “What do you want me to do about it, then? Tell her she’s too good for me and nobly let her go? Fat chance of that, mate. I get hard just looking at her.”
Zora sat up in bed. “You did not tell him that.”
Dylan laughed, pulled her down again, and kissed her. She was still outraged, and she was still so keyed up, too. Her body switched on again like it was in a perpetual state of need, which was pretty much true, and it was fifteen more gasping minutes before Dylan said, a laugh still in his voice, but tenderness, too, “Nah. I didn’t tell him that. I’m not going to talk about you, baby. Not when I’m this crazy in love with you.”
“You... are?”
“Yeh. I am. And if you feel half as much as I do...” His hand went out to brush down her cheek, and her heart melted. It wasn’t just that he wanted her. It was that heneededher. She was sure of it. “I think you should move in with me,” he said. “The flatmates aren’t bad blokes, just a couple fellas far from the whanau and missing home, and it would be sweet to have you there with me.”
The next day, he’d helped her move, and her life changed again, just like that. The next exhilarating downhill run on the roller coaster, your hands in the air, accepting the challenge and embracing the ride, so much more exciting than you’d imagined your life could ever be. Dylan had been selected for the All Blacks on the Northern Tour the season before. His brother was a perennial fixture. The two of them were New Zealand celebrity, manliness, and glamour personified, and if that excited her—what girl wouldn’t feel that way?
That eager, headstrong, heedless girl had left the building a long time ago, though, and they were nearly home. Rhys was following in his unfortunately dented SUV just behind her, and surely, Isaiah had asked her a question. “What did you say, love?” she asked.
