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

Chapter 36

Thirty-Six

Jean-Michel

I hang up the phone and sigh.

“What is it?” Tiff asks.

It’s Friday night.

These last two weeks have been remarkably uneventful compared to the previous one.

I went to work. Tiff went to her classes and her nannying gig.

I went to her place.

She came to mine.

We ate meals together. We made out and messed around and spent every night in each other’s arms.

We saw her parents. We had dinner with Chrissy and Rory and their guys at Chrissy’s house where my daughter’s prissy cat showed that, once again, she is an excellent judge of character.

Joan of (freaking) Arc—the cat—had jumped into Tiff’s lap and hadn’t moved all night.

Damn feline took two years to trust me, but one look at my woman and she fell in love.

I know the feeling.

Smothering my grin—because I’ve spent these uneventful weeks making a plan—I turn to Tiff and adopt my best frustrated expression.

It’s a long weekend.

Tiff doesn’t have school on Monday.

Stefan and Brit have done me a favor and made other arrangements for their daughter.

All of which means that my woman is free until Wednesday.

And that means I have five days.

Not a lot of time in the grand scheme of things.

But it’s enough for one small thing—or rather, a big one.

Tiff comes over to me, settling her hand on my arm. “Jean-Mi,” she says, “is everything okay?”

I shake my head. “I need to get on a plane.”

Her brows drag together. “What’s going on?”

“There’s a crisis in one of the overseas offices,” I lie. “I’m going to have to fly out and handle it myself.”

“Oh,” she says softly, disappointment crawling across her face.

Does it make me an asshole that I enjoy that?

Probably.

But she’s sad about me leaving.

I like that.

“I’m flying out in two hours.”

“ Oh. ”

More disappointment. More of me enjoying it.

But only for a couple of seconds. Then I shove aside my inner asshole and turn to her. “You know,” I say softly. “You could always come with me.”

She has a passport—I know because she told me that she has one, when we shared secrets and hopes and dreams and I first learned she wanted to travel.

She also has a ticket—or rather, a seat on my jet. Something I know because I had Marie arrange it.

“I—” She blinks. Once. Twice. “I mean, I feel like this is the point I would normally be saying no, I couldn’t possibly, but…maybe…” She nibbles at her bottom lip. “I don’t have a ticket or a place to stay?—”

“I’m taking the company jet,” I tell her. “You don’t need a ticket. And we can stay in my apartment in Paris.”

“Paris?” she says softly, her tone dreamy.

“Paris,” I confirm.

“I have homework and my parents?—”

“Bring the homework,” I tell her. “Work on it while I’m working.”

“But my parents,” she says. “I couldn’t?—”

“Haley has them covered,” I remind her. “And if anything she can’t take care of comes up in the next couple of days, the jet can be ready in a couple of hours to bring you home.”

“You realize how ridiculous that sounds, right?”

“Maybe.” I touch her cheek. “But you don’t have school Monday and you told me that Stefan and Brit don’t need you till Wednesday. How often do you string together this many free days and a free trip to Paris on top of them?”

“Um...never?”

“Exactly.” I nod toward her dresser. “So…wanna pack a bag?”

She nibbles on her bottom lip.

Then she smiles and it’s so fucking beautiful, it takes my breath away.

“Squee!” It’s an adorable sound.

And it’s paired with an even more adorable dance before she dashes over to her dresser and starts pulling out clothes.

“I’m going to Paris! I’m going to Paris!”

“You do realize that you’ve ruined me for all normal travel experiences now, don’t you?”

I smirk as I nudge the door closed, shutting us in the back of the plane.

Early on in my building business days, I traveled so much that I had this space retrofitted into a bedroom. Now, I do less of the heavy-duty traveling, leaving that to the team I’ve built below me, but having an actual bed to sleep in while flying around the world is a perk that I’m not willing to give up.

And it’s an even bigger perk now, cruising at thirty-thousand feet, holding my woman’s hand as I draw her toward the bathroom.

“Shower if you want, buttercup, and slip into your pajamas.” I nudge her into the space, ornate with marble and a full-sized sink and a shower that doesn’t feel cramped. “I need to make a couple of calls and then I’ll join you.”

“In bed? Or in the shower?”

“Trouble,” I growl, wrapping my arm around her waist and drawing her against me. I taste her, deep and long and wet, knowing that’s what she wants, loving that she’s confident enough to tease me.

Case in point?

Her smile when I lift my head and she asks, “Well? Which is it?”

I tap her nose. “I’d rather our first shower together not come when we’re at risk of running out of hot water.” I swat her bottom lightly then nudge her toward the bathroom. “Shower, baby. Then bed.” And when I see that wicked gleam creep into her eyes, I tell her, “And no Mile High Club yet either.”

When I see the protest forming, I lean closer.

“Our first time isn’t going to be within earshot of anyone, buttercup. Especially not the people who are going to serve us breakfast in a few hours.”

Pink cheeks. “Oh,” she whispers. “Right.”

“Shower,” I say again. “I’ll be right back.”

“Okay, honey.”

Then I slip out of the room to make those calls.

But none of them have anything to do with business.

Unless I’m counting them as the business of wooing my woman.