Chapter 16
Iblinked awake in a dimly lit room. Unlike so many other mornings when I woke up in a strange bed, I didn’t have a moment of confusion.
All it took was a simple inhale of breath and I could smell her all around me.
That sweet scent of honey and almond that had always surrounded Gracie now clung to her sheets, to the pillow below my head.
A crash of excitement hit me low in the belly as the events of the night before came rushing back to me.
Finally kissing her the way I had always wanted to.
My fingers inside her on the couch. Our first time here in this bed.
The shower we’d taken after to get cleaned up—and the way I’d made her dirty all over again against the tiles as the hot water pounded against us.
After the shower, our growling stomachs reminded us that our plans for dinner had been thwarted. Unwilling to let Gracie put on clothes, I’d ordered us a pizza, which we ate naked in her bed.
It was the best pizza I’d ever eaten. But that might have had more to do with the company. And the sex hormones.
We fell asleep wrapped up in each other’s arms, Gracie’s head fitting so perfectly just under my chin that I knew she’d been made for me.
I woke her up once in the night, barely awake myself but needing to assure us both that I was here with her, that this was real.
I didn’t think anything could compare to the explosion of passion that had been our first time, but slow and lazy middle-of-the-night-sex was a pretty close second.
Even after all that, my body was still humming for her. Neither of us had work today, Josie was with her grandparents, and I couldn’t think of any reason I couldn’t indulge in some morning sex with my favorite curvy redhead.
I turned over to face Gracie, who was curled up right next to me, her forehead resting against the corner of my pillow. There was something about the idea of her sharing my pillow that had my chest tightening. I liked that she had wanted to stay so close to me, even in her sleep.
I had imagined waking up next to Gracie countless times. Any time I pictured this, she’d had been angelic in her sleep. Gorgeous and feminine with softly curling hair and sweet sleep-pink cheeks.
The reality was…a little different. Gracie’s red hair was frizzy and knotted, so big and messy it covered half of her face.
The part of her that I could see—mostly her mouth and chin—was red and sort of blotchy.
Her perfect lips were turned down in a rare frown and I was pretty sure she was drooling.
I reached for her, grinning. This was so much better than the fantasy—because this was real.
Drool and all. Her mussed-up hair and deep sleep were both a testament to all the sex we’d had last night.
My Gracie was a bit of a mess and I felt a deep satisfaction in knowing I was the one who made her that way.
She groaned a little as I pulled her into my chest. I knew it would be shitty to intentionally wake her up, but I couldn’t help myself from pressing a kiss or two to the top of her head. Even in her sleep she came to me easily, melting against my body as if she had been doing it all her life.
I held her for a long moment, brushing my hand across her back, enjoying the feeling of her bare skin under my fingers. Eventually she made a little grunting noise, followed by a few unintelligible words.
“What was that?” I whispered.
“Unghmf,” she repeated, and I chuckled.
“Someone is not a morning person.”
She pulled her face away from my chest, blinking up at me, and practically growled out, “coffee.”
I pushed some of the red mess from her face so I could see her better. “Was that a question or…?”
“It was a desire,” she said, yawning. “I was just putting it out there, into the universe. My longing for coffee. That’s a thing, you know.
You’re supposed to be able to manifest your desires by speaking them into the universe.
” Another yawn. “Or something like that. There are like, a million books about it.”
I snickered, kissing her forehead. God, she was adorable in the morning. As grumpy and out of it as she was, she was still talking about books.
“I guess it worked,” I said, giving her one last squeeze before releasing her and rolling away.
“Where are you going?”
“To make you some coffee.”
“You don’t have to do that.” She sat up quickly, much more awake, and brought her hands up to smooth out her hair. When her fingers hit the curls, her eyes widened in what I was pretty sure was horror. “Oh my God,” she muttered. “I do not even want to know what my hair looks like right now.”
“It looks cute,” I assured her, leaning across the mattress to kiss her. “I’ll see you downstairs?”
She nodded, still looking concerned. I found my boxers on the floor and pulled them on before heading to the doorway. I was halfway down the stairs when I heard a little shriek, followed by a moan. I froze. “You okay?”
There was a pause and I began to turn, ready to go right back and see what was wrong. “Yeah,” she called finally, her voice morose. “I just caught sight of myself in the mirror.”
I laughed and continued down the stairs.
Though not as colorful as the rest of her house, Gracie’s kitchen still reminded me of her.
The colors in here were more calming, all creams and light yellows.
She had butcher block counters and the window curtains had tiny pink flowers all over them.
It reminded me of something you might find in a country cottage.
I could see us in this kitchen, cooking dinner together or eating breakfast on a lazy weekend morning. The image made me ridiculously happy.
One step at a time, I reminded myself. The last thing I wanted to do was overwhelm Gracie. “Just start with the coffee before you start planning the rest of your life,” I muttered, spotting a Keurig on the counter.
Gracie came down about ten minutes later, her wild hair now contained in a bun atop her head, a flannel robe wrapped around her. She gave me a sheepish smile, her cheeks flushed, and I grinned, loving how shy she was even after everything we had done the night before.
“You still like cream and sugar?” I asked, holding out the mug I had already prepared.
She froze in the act of reaching for it, her hand hanging in the air. “You remember how I like my coffee?”
I shrugged, holding it out a little further in encouragement. “We spent enough time studying in coffee houses together.”
She finally took the mug, giving me a bewildered little smile, and I turned away.
I should probably at least attempt to reign it in here. If I wasn’t careful, I was going to make it very obvious just how obsessed I had been with her back then. And how the feeling apparently hadn’t waned much over the years.
I busied myself with my own cup of coffee then joined her at the table. She kept shooting me confused little glances, like she wasn’t sure exactly how I had come to be in her kitchen bright and early on a Saturday morning.
“I think you owe me a dinner, Gracie,” I said, hoping to distract her from whatever thoughts were making her forehead scrunch up like that.
“I do?” she asked, raising an eyebrow.
I nodded before sipping my coffee. “Yeah. You promised to show me good Mexican food last night, and you didn’t follow through.”
The eyebrow rose even higher. “I was more than willing to take you out last night. You were the one who insisted on staying here.”
I shrugged. “That wasn’t my fault. You were naked, sweetheart. How in the hell do you expect me to concentrate in those conditions?”
A gorgeous flush of pink came to her cheeks and I grinned. I had always liked making her blush.
“So, what do you say?” I asked her, reaching across the table to pry her hand from the mug handle so I could take it in my own. Gracie intertwined our fingers without any hesitation. “Dinner this week?”
“Aren’t you on the road this week?” she asked.
“One away game,” I told her. “And two games at home.” That would wrap up our pre-season schedule and, frankly, I was more than ready for it to be finished. We still hadn’t won a game, and I could feel the team getting anxious about it. We needed a fresh start.
“That sounds like a pretty busy week.”
I shrugged. “I’d make time for you.”
There was that blush again. Fuck, I loved it.
And I loved it even more when she proved that she wasn’t so embarrassed that she couldn’t tease me. “I might be able to squeeze you into my very busy schedule. If you’re lucky.”
I grinned. “I’ve been feeling pretty lucky for the last sixteen hours or so.”
As soon as the words came out of my mouth, my stomach dipped. Because now I was thinking about just how lucky I hadn’t been feeling when I first saw Gracie in the parking lot. How my kid was so angry with me that she had pretended to be sick just to get out of spending time with me.
I had been eager to push all those worries aside last night, to take a vacation from the stressful situation with my daughter. But in the cold light of day, it was a lot harder to pretend that I wasn’t worried sick.
“Hey.” Gracie’s voice was soft as she squeezed my hand. “Josie is going to come around.”
I didn’t respond, because I wasn’t all that sure she was right and I couldn’t bring myself to say it out loud.
“Give her some time,” Gracie urged. “It’s a lot of changes in a short amount of time—new city, new house, new school.”
No mom, I added in my head, feeling tired.
“Let her get settled and see how she feels.” Gracie squeezed my hand again and I looked up at her face. Her expression was so warm and understanding that my breath caught. “If you’re still worried after she’s settled in, you can talk to someone about it.”
“Like a shrink?” The idea immediately soured my stomach. Every professional team I had ever worked for had employed a sports psychologist and all the athletes had to talk to them regularly. Apparently, the league’s owners wanted to make sure the pressure wasn’t getting to us.