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

Chapter 27

Twenty-Seven

Tiff

I wake up to fingers brushing lightly over my forehead.

When I peel back my lids, I see that the room is softly lit with morning sunlight.

Jean-Michel is sitting on the edge of the mattress, dressed in a suit, his face gentle. “Hey, buttercup.”

“Why are you dressed?” I ask blearily.

His mouth hitches up. “Duty calls.”

I shove my elbows under me, sitting back against the headboard, dragging the blankets up with me and tucking them around my naked chest. “You keep telling people that I need to rest”—I wrap my fingers around his, squeeze lightly—“but do you ever listen to your own advice?”

“I’m fine.”

“Yeah,” I say softly, “I’ve heard plenty of those ‘I’m fines’ in my life.” My lips tip up. “Given plenty too.”

“Baby.”

I don’t know where I find the courage.

Or maybe I do.

Maybe it’s always been there and now I feel safe enough to expose it.

“Don’t baby me. You’ve slept less than me over the last few days?—”

“I don’t need much sleep.”

“Bullshit,” I snap. “Your body needs rest too. You can’t keep going like this—staying up late, getting up early, answering phone calls in the middle of the night, then getting up early the next day and doing it all over again. That’s not good for you and I need you around…”

This is where I run out of steam.

Because…what am I doing? What am I saying?

Who the hell do I think I am to order him around?

“Buttercup, look at me.”

I freeze, realize that I’ve dropped my gaze to my hands without even knowing. And then I look up.

One side of his mouth is curved, humor radiating through his blue eyes.

“I like this.”

“Like what?”

“You throwing me attitude, even first thing in the morning.”

My eyes go wide. “I thought you liked me sweet.”

“I like you any which way.” He slips his hand from mine, uses one finger to tuck a strand of my hair behind my ear. “Sweet in the middle of the night. Full of fire in the morning. Sleepy and limp after you come apart on my fingers and tongue.”

Heat slides through my middle, twisting and twining and encouraging me to wrap my hand around his again, to tug hard enough to draw him over me.

To convince him to go further than last night?—

Or maybe to do to him what he did to me.

“Jean-Mi.”

He curses softly and bends, slanting his mouth over mine and kissing me as though he’s plucked those thoughts from my mind and loved every minute of them.

“Fuck, baby,” he mutters, drawing back. “I’ve never wanted anything more.”

I’m concentrating on sucking in air, but I manage to stay, “I’m glad.”

He grins. “Dangerous woman.”

But before I can reply to that, he’s kissing me again—wet and deep and long—and I find myself pressed back to the mattress, his hard body over mine, that need inside me ratcheted so tight my lungs protest and I’m slippery between my thighs.

“No,” I murmur when he pulls back, my hands buried in his hair.

His smirk is the sexiest thing I’ve ever seen. “Smart,” he whispers, extricating himself from my hold. “Sweet. Kind. Funny. Beautiful.” Each word is paired with a kiss. Each word settles deep in my belly. My heart. “Will you listen?” he asks. “Or do you want me to kiss you some more?”

“Kiss me,” I say without hesitation, loving the thread of need that whips across his face, the gorgeous way his mouth curves.

He drops his mouth to mine, dipping his tongue inside, stealing my breath and leaving me liquid and lax on the mattress when he pulls away long minutes later.

“Now,” he says softly, nuzzling my throat with his nose then pressing his lips there, “I have to go, buttercup. But I do want to talk to you before I leave, yeah?”

I nod.

He sits up, drawing me up too, and when I go to grab the sheet again, the combination of cool air and shyness wanting that cover, he reaches toward the floor and scoops up the T-shirt I slept in—for a couple of hours anyway. A tug has it over my head, another has it down around my hips.

“Your parents,” he says. “I know you need to call them, likely need to see them, but I don’t want you to do either of those without me.”

“Jean-Mi?—”

“Please, baby.” His eyes fix onto mine. “Please promise me that. I was pretty harsh with your mom last night, and I don’t want you to be the one in the crosshairs when that comes back up.”

“It’s not like that.”

“She called you at two-thirty in the morning to make her some food. Is their fridge empty?” he asks, those shrewd eyes knowing far too much. “Emptier than yours?”

I suck in a breath.

“I thought not.” He sighs. “I know you said your dad’s in a bad way. Is your mom so bad off that she can’t make herself a sandwich or pour herself a bowl of cereal?”

“No,” I admit. “She can do that much.”

“But she called you?”

My gaze slides away, and it’s my turn to sigh. “They did so much for me growing up?—”

“Baby.” His voice is gentle, and I can’t look away. “I get it, that sense of obligation. But they’re your parents. They’re supposed to take care of you .”

“I was so sick for so long,” I say. “It was really tough on them. Financially and otherwise.”

“And being sick wasn’t tough on you?”

I don’t have a reply to that, other than, “They’re sick now, honey.”

“I get that, and I get wanting to look after them. But you don’t do it sacrificing yourself, putting your life on hold, never having a full night’s sleep or a fridge that has plenty of food. And you especially don’t do it as penance for something that was never your fault.”

Say it like that and?—

“Exactly,” he mutters, clearly reading the thought on my face. “You went through hell and came out the other side, buttercup. That deserves accolades, not love with strings attached and sharp words and middle of the night phone calls that aren’t emergencies.” He sighs. “And I don’t know your dad, don’t know how cognizant of reality he is, but he’s not completely free of this either. He’s standing—or I’m guessing, he’s stood —by and let her treat you like shit for far longer than last night.”

“That’s not…”

“What it’s like?” he finishes when I can’t.

Because that is what it’s like.

I love my dad, but he never stood up to my mom. Not now. Not then.

It’s why I can’t live at home, why I needed to get out and find some distance.

Because my mom…well, she’s never let me forget how much she’s done for me.

“Just wait until I’m back to make your call,” he says. “I’ll only be a couple of hours because I had Marie free up the rest of my day. Take a long shower, raid the fridge, snoop to your heart’s content. Or go”—he presses a kiss to the top of my head and grins at me—“back to sleep and I’ll wake you up in the best possible way.”

“Honey.”

“Just give me this, buttercup.” His eyes are as soft as his words. “Please?”

How can I resist that?

I nod.

“Thank you, baby.” He kisses me again, doing it long enough that I turn into a pile of mush.

Then he’s pulling away, touching my cheek. “I’ll be back soon.”

“Okay,” I whisper.

He moves to the door, giving me the chance to appreciate the gorgeousness of him in that suit.

“Jean-Mi?” I call before he disappears into the hall.

He pauses, blue gaze hitting mine. “Yeah, baby?”

“Don’t work too hard.”

I hold the smile he gives me close.

Then I tug the covers a little higher.

Close my eyes.

And go back to sleep.

And later…he wakes me up in the best possible way.