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 climax 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**k 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**k 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.

So, how about you tell me the truth about where you found your wife? Just between you and me, Scout's honor."

Ty had never been a Scout. Neither of them had. And his friend's easy talk about love made Cole's insides go still. Cold.

He and Anna weren't real. Not the marriage. Not her feelings for him. He'd let the great sex confuse him just like it had clearly confused Anna.

"My grandmother needed to think I was settled. That I'd found true love. It was her last wish." Ty knew about Cole's grandmother and his eyes darkened with sympathy. "So I called 1-800-Good-Girl and they sent her over."

"Holy shit, are you saying that you married Anna only because of your grandmother?"

"I found Anna in a club Friday night, looking like a doe caught in the headlights. I convinced her to marry me, then presented her to my grandmother on a silver platter at the hospital Saturday morning."

Cole's gut twisted tighter with each sentence. He'd thought laying it out in black and white would help set him straight, that he and Ty would laugh at another play pulled off to perfection.

But Ty wasn't laughing.

And neither was Cole. Hell, he felt like a bigger shit than he ever had before.

"Are you telling me that the nice girl I met Sunday let you buy her?"

"No." Fuck no. She wasn't a whore--wouldn't even take money or jewelry for her cooperation. "She won't take anything from me. Says she doesn't want it."

"I think I hear what you're saying, but this isn't adding up. Especially since Julie said Anna clearly doesn't know the first thing about football. She's not a groupie. She doesn't want your money. Why would she actually go through with marrying you?"

"She's got a soft heart." Cole had seen Anna with his grandmother, with her family, with the children in her class. "I didn't play fair. I wouldn't let her leave me until she met my grandmother."

And he'd promised her pleasure, thinking it was a fair trade.

What a f**ked-up ass**le he was.

Ty's frown lifted suddenly. Too suddenly. He shook his head slowly, whistled between his teeth. "You do realize that she's doing it because she's in love with you, don't you?"

"She's not in love with me," Cole countered. "She just thinks she is."

"Right." Ty sounded less than convinced, but he dropped it. "So we shouldn't get too used to seeing her around, then?"

"We'll stay together as long as we need to." It went unspoken, but understood by both men, that everything would change once his grandmother passed away.