Bottles & Blades (Eagles Hockey: Oak Ridge Vineyards #1)

Chapter 14

Fourteen

Jean-Michel

Her eyes flare wide, and she’s fucking beautiful.

But it’s almost eight and that means the guys who are going to fix her door are due any moment.

So, I tilt her head up and then I bend down, closing the distance between our mouths.

It’s…perfection.

She’s sweet and gentle and tentative, but one stroke of my tongue over her lips has them parting, allowing me inside.

I’m hard in an instant, and I want to dive my fingers into her hair, pull out the tie and scatter the strands of that tight ponytail. I want to have those deep brown strands spread out on my pillow while I’m naked and plunging into her. I want?—

Her hand settles on my biceps, nails biting lightly into my arm as she shifts closer, as her body comes flush against mine, her lips parting further, her soft moan vibrating up through her chest and along my tongue.

My dick aches.

I want?—

That thought disappears when I stop thinking all together.

Because her tongue dips ever so tentatively into my mouth, brushes along mine.

It’s the barest touch, the smallest movement.

But it’s courage and curiosity and it’s Tiff.

My control snaps, and I’m moving before I realize, wrapping my arm around her waist, bringing her flush against me. Christ, the soft press of her tits against my chest, the lush curve of her ass…

Heaven.

Her lips. Her body. This kiss.

Eventually, though, she draws back, and it takes everything in me to not taste her again. Her lips are swollen, her eyes closed, her cheeks flushed, her tits bounce from her breaths coming in rapid succession.

I should let her catch her breath, let her finish getting ready.

But then she shifts, nails digging into my skin, chin lifting, mouth coming close again.

“Fuck it,” I mutter.

I kiss her.

Not tentatively, not gently, not like I should kiss a virgin.

But wet and hot and deep and long, and it’s just going from incredible to fucking incredible because I’ve lifted her up and set her on the counter, stepped between those shapely legs, when there’s a knock at the door.

I still.

She takes a moment to do the same, so lost in our kiss that it takes her a bit to realize I’ve drawn to a halt.

“What is it?” she asks, slowly dragging her lips from mine.

Before I can reply, there’s another knock at the door.

She goes stiff.

“Easy, buttercup.” I help her down. “We’re expecting them.” I nod to her computer and the pile of books on the counter. “Why don’t you finish getting ready?”

I turn for the door, not aware that she’s followed me until she says, “Expecting them to do what?”

“Tiff,” I say, stopping her, nudging her toward the books. “It’s eight, baby. You’ve got to get packed up and ready so you can make your class on time.”

Her brows drag together, but the knocking comes again, and this time when I move to answer it, she doesn’t follow me. I let the guys in, make sure the shit they brought—a new door, a new camera doorbell, and a new set of locks—is the right shit, the good shit.

And since these are Pascal’s guys, they are.

I leave them to it, turn back.

Tiff is shrugging into her backpack, a giant hoodie dwarfing her frame, and the bolt of guilt—she’s so fucking young—jolts through me, only it’s quieter this time. Probably because she’s closing the distance between us, her voice hushed, her eyes flashing.

“What are you up to?”

“Your door isn’t safe.”

“It—”

I step closer, cup her cheek. “Let’s save us both the argument. Your door and lock were shit. I’m replacing it so no assholes like Dave will be able to get in. Okay?”

A taut moment of silence. “And if I say it’s not okay?”

“It’s still going in.”

Her lips press flat, her eyes flash again. Then she sighs and I know I’ve won. “Fine.”

“Good.”

She wrinkles her nose. “So what you’re telling me is that this” —she tosses her hand in the direction of the guys in the open doorway, toolboxes at their feet, drills in their hands—“is why we didn’t have time for you to kiss me properly?”

I tug at the end of her ponytail, miraculously intact despite that scorching hot kiss. “You’re saying you didn’t like what we just did?”

Red cheeks, eyes gone soft and warm…hopefully like other parts of her.

“You know I did,” she whispers. “I just…why are they really here, Jean-Mich— Jean-Mi?”

I stroke my knuckles along her jaw. “I told you—to make sure you’re safe, buttercup.”

“How’d you know what time my class was?”

Yeah, I don’t think telling her what really happened—that my security chief, who also works for her employer, has been spying on her—is going to go over well for me or for Pascal. “Come to dinner with me,” I say instead.

Emotion flickering across her face, and I brace, wondering if she’ll call me on my obvious diversion.

To my surprise—or maybe not to it—she doesn’t.

“I can’t,” she murmurs, regret traipsing across her pretty face. “I’m working after school and I won’t be back till around ten.”

“And now I’m wondering when you sleep, buttercup.”

More emotion across that pretty face. “No early classes for me tomorrow. Something I’m guessing doesn’t apply to you because I bet there are plenty of early meetings on your schedule for the week.”

“When you say work…” Yeah, I’m leading her to information I already know, thanks to Pascal. But although she’s told me she nannies, she hasn’t mentioned for whom, so I need her to tell me.

Her face softens. “I nanny for Brit Plantain and Stefan Barie. They’re?—”

“I know who they are, baby.”

“Right,” she whispers. “You’re all hockey bigshots.”

I chuckle. “They are,” I say. “I’m just the guy in the suit.”

Her eyes trail down my front, and I know she’s seeing my wrinkled button down, is likely thinking back to my dirty clothes yesterday at the grocery store, my jeans and tee last night.

“I wear them,” I tease. “Just not around you, apparently.”

She smiles.

I touch her cheek again, because I can’t seem to not touch her. “If you come to lunch with me tomorrow”—and not breakfast because she needs to get some freaking rest—“you’ll see me in one.”

Her kissable lips part on a shaky exhale. “Are you…” Her gaze slides to the side, the rest of her question left unsaid.

“Am I what, buttercup?”

She nibbles at the corner of her mouth. “This doesn’t make any sense.”

“No, it doesn’t.” Surprised brown eyes hit mine. “And I can’t say that I understand it either. But”—I crouch a little, catching her stare when she starts to look away again—“I don’t want it to end. The question is?—”

The drill goes and we both jerk, my eyes going to the door.

“What’s the question?” she asks, her fingers finding my arm, drawing my focus.

I turn back, slip my arm free, winding it around her waist and using it to bring her close again. “I’m too old for you.”

“That’s not a question,” she whispers.

“My life is complicated.”

“Also not a question,” she points out.

Funny.

Fucking funny and smart.

“But I like you, Tiff. You’re smart and funny and sweet and kind and sexy as hell. So maybe a lot of what we’re feeling doesn’t make sense, but the rest of it feels completely right. Unless, of course”—I lean back enough to meet her gaze again—“you’re not feeling it?—”

“I’m feeling it.” Bald words without hesitation.

My heart squeezes. “I like that, a whole lot. But I need you to know that you can tell me the truth. Always , buttercup.”

I won’t push.

Won’t push her to do something she’s uncomfortable with.

Fucking never.

“I can do that, Jean-Mi.”

“Good, baby,” I murmur.

I want to stay here, want to soak up her presence, to kiss her senseless, peel back the layers, learn every part of her, but my phone buzzes in my pocket, reminding me that she needs to go. “Now you need to take off so you’re not late to class.”

She pulls out her own phone, glances at the screen then the guys working on the door. “Crap,” she whispers, teeth pressing into her bottom lip.

“Go, buttercup. I’ll stay until they’re done. That lock has a keypad. I’ll text you the code so you can get in later and give you the physical backup keys tomorrow, okay?”

“At lunch?”

I nod, heart giving that squeeze again. “At lunch. I’ll text you the details for that too.”

“Do you have my number?”

“Not yet, but I can get it.”

She stills, studying me closely, then shakes her head, mouth curving into a rueful smile. “How about I save you the trouble and just give it to you?”

Easy.

It’s so easy with this woman.

“That’d be good, buttercup.”

She recites her digits. I plug it into my phone, hit the button to call her, and watch as she programs my name into her contacts.

“If you need anything, anytime just call, yeah?” I tell her.

“Okay.” More whispering. More teeth in that bottom lip. More shy brown eyes.

I tilt my head toward the door.

“Go now, baby. Learn a lot.”

She nods.

Then she’s slipping by the workers, disappearing out into the hall.

My phone keeps buzzing as I supervise the installation of the new door, the new lock, the camera. I handle emails and calls and one short meeting with Marie.

But it’s not until I’m locking up that one of the buzzes actually means anything.

TIFF: I forgot to tell you something.

JEAN-MICHEL: Anything, buttercup.

TIFF: I know you already know you didn’t need to do that stuff with my door, same as I know I probably couldn’t have talked you out of it anyway…so I just want to say thank you.

JEAN-MICHEL: No thanks needed, baby.

TIFF: There is, but I’m not going to argue because I need to go into class. So just…thank you.

JEAN-MICHEL: You’re welcome.

TIFF: There now, that wasn’t so hard was it?

JEAN-MICHEL: We’ll talk about that at lunch tomorrow, buttercup.

TIFF: I feel like I should argue, but I really have to go, so it’s lunch tomorrow.

JEAN-MICHEL: Bye, buttercup.

She sends back a heart, and I push out into the morning sunshine.

And I know I’m smiling as I climb into my car and drive away.

But what I don’t know until later is that Angela sees me smiling too.