Chapter 15 #2
“Ed, you look like you’ve got a very different plan in mind.” Pearce’s husky tone had my gaze snapping to his and away from his half-mast cock.
“Just wondering if my mouth on you would get you hard again.”
Before I could react, he was in my space, practically attached to my body as he pressed his dick against mine. Holy shit, he was getting hard.
“Just the thought of your mouth gets this reaction.”
“Damn. Probably something to do with being in your twenties too.”
Pearce’s grin turned salacious. “That sounds like a challenge to me. Give me five minutes, and I bet I can get you so fucking hard again, you’ll be desperate to fuck me.”
I groaned and pressed my forehead against his shoulder. “That sounds so perfect, but—”
“Yeah, yeah, we have a plan to make.”
I angled away from him with an arched brow. “You don’t want to know when you’re seeing me again?” Amusement came to life in my chest. Pearce was so easy to rile up.
“As if,” he shot back, holding my hand and tugging me toward his shower room. “If there was no technical plan, the plan will be for me to be in your bed as soon as humanly possible.”
Warmth fluttered to life right alongside my amusement.
Pearce wasn’t the only one easily distracted, apparently—the thought of sucking him off was proof of that.
Maybe I should be worried he was able to tease out this side of me, the one where I’d easily lose focus on the realities of my everyday life.
Rather than overthink and second-guess myself, however, I focused on his tight glutes and stepped into him under the warm spray.
While we didn’t manage to get a plan together in the shower, courtesy of Pearce making a spectacular effort at turning my cock to granite, we settled in bed together, both with our cells out and calendars open.
“Let’s plan for when you win the conference finals, then make it to the tournament finals,” I said, not willing to veer into the possibilities of what-ifs.
When he looked my way, Pearce’s smile was surprisingly shy. “Okay.”
I offered a firm nod, pleased he was on board. Despite only being six games in, the Eagles had as much of a shot as the remaining teams. “Lottie has school camp during the conference finals.”
“She’s super pissed she’s not getting to miss out on her camp.”
I smiled, loving again he was playing along, expecting to keep winning and get through the next games so he’d be playing in the third round.
“Yeah, she’s super cut up about that.” I shook my head.
“I’d like her to head back to school next week if she’s up for it.
Have a semblance of normality before camp so I know she’s going to be okay.
” While she’d been working on some schoolwork while convalescing, it would be good for her to catch up with her teachers and friends.
Plus, she was healing amazingly. After that mild panic when I’d suspected an infection, her health had leveled out, and now she was almost as good as new.
Admittedly, we’d stayed longer than the initial planned two weeks. But it hadn’t taken much for Lottie to convince me we may as well wait for round one to be over. Her argument being she’d be pretty much fully healed by then.
I had to hand it to medicine and the wonders of keyhole surgery. As well as Lottie’s ability to get what she wanted.
“Makes sense.”
“I won’t be able to make it to your next two games for sure, and I’m not sure about three or four either.” I watched Pearce’s face carefully, but rather than appearing even mildly pissed, he simply leaned over and kissed my shoulder.
“Stop looking at me as though I’m going to kick off and start making demands.” His gaze softened, and I kinda figured he was holding back and not mentioning Wayne’s name on purpose. We both knew Wayne would have had a hissy fit if I couldn’t attend some sort of event with him.
“Thanks.”
Pearce dotted another kiss on my shoulder, right over the love bite I needed to remember to hide from Lottie.
“You don’t need to thank me for understanding you have a life and commitments.
Sure, I know you’d love for me to be the center of your world and strapped to your bed, but all our wishes can’t come true, right? ” He bounced his brows and grinned.
“That does sound like a wish I would like to get on board with,” I teased. Before he could clamber on top of me and pin me down—from the look in his eyes, that was absolutely his intention—I lifted my phone up from where I’d been punching in the game dates.
His not-quite frustrated breath whooshed out of him. “Fine. Remember I’m Mr. Responsible.”
I snorted a little too hard at that.
“Hey, you don’t believe me?”
There was a touch of uncertainty in his tone that had me angling to see his face better. “Why’d you say it like that?”
Heat colored his cheeks and he shrugged, a gesture that was as alien to Pearce as him passing up the opportunity to pull a prank on one of his friends.
“I’m serious.” My brows dipped into a frown, and I danced my fingers down his arm. “Why’d you say it like that?”
He pursed his lips before huffing out a breath. “You said that one of the reasons you didn’t give me a chance when I first asked you was because I was immature.” He rolled his eyes and smiled, but I could tell he wasn’t feeling it.
Guilt sliced through me. The last thing I wanted was for him to feel like shit.
I loved that he was fun and playful. Loved that he teased and enjoyed time with his friends.
“You were twenty-four when we first met. Twenty-six when we were in Australia, right?” He bobbed his head.
“I thought you were too young for me—” I stopped him from responding with a squeeze to his forearm. “Please let me finish.”
“Okay.”
“Honestly, the thought that you’d be interested in settling down and want to be serious….” I trailed off, heat racing through me at putting this out there.
As if understanding the reason for my overheated skin, Pearce squeezed my waist. “We are serious.”
An embarrassed smile lifted my lips. “Well, back then, I just didn’t think you were ready. You’re so much younger than me. And then there’s Lottie—”
“And you know they’re all your concerns and issues, right? Not mine?”
I pinched my lips together as he spoke, not sure what he was getting at.
When I didn’t respond, he continued, “I have absolutely fuck-all cares about your age or mine, or the gap between us.”
While I knew that deep down, the relief of hearing it calmed a part of the concern that had been balled-up tightly in the pit of my stomach.
“And who knows… maybe you’re right. Maybe I hadn’t been ready. Not that I had wild oats to be sowing or anything.”
My lips twitched. “Wild oats?”
“Fuck off.” He grinned. “You know what I mean. You know I haven’t been celibate since you turned down my hot, young body.”
I snorted at his waggling brows, giving me a little distraction from the thought of him with other guys. I was the last person with the right to say anything considering I’d been with Wankface. I chuckled internally, refusing to let on that I’d adopted Pearce’s name for my ex.
“But I suppose the point is, I am absolutely ready for serious with a capital S.”
“Is that right?” This man was so fucking adorable. “The capital S is important…?”
“Because all important stuff has a capital letter.”
I couldn’t hold back my laughter at his ridiculousness and was grateful as hell he had the uncanny ability to make me feel better about my own grievances and issues.
“And Lottie adores me, almost as much as I adore her.”
Of that I was sure. I also expected, and hoped like hell, she’d be happy about Pearce and me together as a couple.
Based on her reaction to the news of me and Wayne splitting—a wide grin, followed up with a “He was the wrong kind of weird for us, Dad. Weird is awesome, but Wayne, not so much”—I expected she’d be supportive, especially knowing she’d get more time with Pearce.
“She does.” I also wanted to get back to his concern. “I know you can be responsible. You are responsible. Just because you have fun doesn’t mean you’re not those things.”
The way he stared at me, looking a mixed bag of relieved and happy, made my heart ache for this man.
Hell, ache for me too, as I so desperately wanted this to work.
The past two weeks or so had been a cyclone of fast, hot, and heady.
But I wouldn’t allow the intensity of this time together to stop me from embracing something amazing with Pearce.
“You really think that?” Question filled his brown eyes as he looked for reassurance I’d rarely had to offer.
“I absolutely know so.”
I lost sight of his face when he buried it against my neck. He inhaled and kissed my sensitive skin.
“Okay,” I said, squeezing him to me. “Let’s get these dates sorted so we can sleep.”