and circling it. His chest hair tickled her skin, spreading goose bumps up her arm.
“Oh god.” He gave a low groan, the rumble tickling her ear. “I felt like I was herding cats all day.”
Jane laughed. “It can feel a bit like that.”
“Kids are not my forte, I’m afraid.”
Her finger stopped as his words sank in. Sometimes, without knowing it, people let themselves be seen, and a smart person understood it was a lesson. “You’re good with Finn.”
“One kid, sure. Kids plural?” He shuddered. “I don’t think that’s me.”
I don’t think that’s me. Listen, Jane. “You’ve never wanted any yourself?”
“Sure…I guess. It’s crossed my mind as a one-day kinda thing. In the context of a committed relationship. But I’ve never really been with a woman long term.”
“You haven’t?”
He shook his head. “Professional rugby demands a lot, which is hard on relationships, and I don’t suppose I’ve ever found someone I ultimately cared about more than my career.”
So basically, he’d never loved a woman more than he’d loved rugby. If Jane wasn’t lying in bed naked with him, she’d have admired his honesty, but right now, it was sobering. If she hadn’t known his priorities before tonight, she did now.
“Rugby was my only long-term goal, and there wasn’t room for anything else.”
“And now?”
Jane knew talking to a guy she’d just had sex with about having babies was a surefire way to scare the bejesus out of him. She seriously didn’t even know why she was pursuing the point. But Cole didn’t appear freaked out. If anything, he was settling in, his hand sliding from her arm to her bare hip, his fingers tracing patterns over the curve, spreading goose bumps down her leg and turning everything below her belly button into gelatinous goo.
“Now? There’s too much uncertainty about my future without adding in that kind of pressure.”
“They are a big responsibility.”
“Would you want another one? Another baby?”
Jane blinked at the unexpected question. “I…don’t know.” It felt like she’d been on a treadmill for years, and with her marriage breaking up and her business taking off, there hadn’t been a lot of focus on her and what she might want long term. But if neither of those things had happened? “Maybe. I’ve got a lot on my plate, and it’s easy to get caught up in all the things that overwhelm me, but the truth is…I love being a mommy. So…yeah, maybe. In the context of a committed relationship.”
“Finn would make an awesome big brother.”
“Yes.” Jane laughed, her heart giving a funny little wobble at the affection lacing Cole’s voice. At the way he’d come to know her son in such a short space of time. “He would.”
“If I ever become a father, I want to do it right. I want to be there for my kid, not be absent like…”
Her fingers stilled on his nipple. “Like Tad?”
“What?” His fingers stilled also, coming to a stop on the boniest part of her hip. He shifted a little, and Jane glanced up as he looked down at her with a frown. “No. I’m sorry… I didn’t mean Tad. I was going to say like my father, but I’ve got a nice buzz going on here.” His hand slid to her buttock, stroking the rounded flesh from where it rose to where it joined the back of her thigh. “And I didn’t want to kill it.”
He gave a squeeze and smiled, and she smiled back, and a hundred switches flicked on beneath his palm, lighting up the base of her spine and sparking through the muscles of her ass. “Well.” She dropped a kiss on his chest. “We can’t have that, can we?”
Sliding her leg over his and using his chest for purchase, she levered herself upright, settling herself until she was straddling his left thigh. Quickly, she divested herself of her shirt, pulling it over her head and tossing it to the bed.
“Mmm,” he murmured appreciatively, his gaze hot on her breasts, things obviously switching on for him, too, as his cock hardened.
“Mmm, yourself,” Jane said, trailing her fingers down the bony crest of his hip to the top of his thigh, the fine muscles beneath his skin twitching beneath the caress. His nostrils flared as she brushed close to his fully erect cock.
She dragged her gaze off that particular piece of his anatomy momentarily to inspect something just as fascinating. “This is an impressive scar,” she said, her voice low and husky as her fingers trailed down the thick ridge that bisected