Chapter 16 #2
I hated those sessions. It always felt like they were prying, like they were just hoping I would admit some underlying anxiety or juicy childhood trauma.
Gracie just smiled at my scowl. “There are counselors for kids, yes. The school can recommend a good one.”
I grimaced, but didn’t reply. I would do whatever Josie needed me to do. But I hated the idea of my kid talking to some stranger when she wouldn’t talk to me.
“You don’t have to decide on anything right now,” Gracie said, as if reading my mind. “I just want you to remember that there are resources out there.”
I nodded, grabbing my coffee cup for something to do with my hands. “So, what are you up to today?”
I was going to have to get back to the house for Josie before too much longer, but I had a few hours. Time enough for breakfast, at least. Maybe we could eat really fast and spend the rest of our time in bed.
Those pleasant images were disrupted when I realized that Gracie’s eyes had widened in horror. “Oh my God,” she whispered, craning her neck to look at something over my shoulder—apparently a clock because her next words were, “it’s already after eight!”
“Is that a problem?” Her reaction seemed a bit over the top. I knew Gracie usually got up early to teach, but eight in the morning wasn’t exactly late for a weekend.
She closed her eyes, taking a deep breath. “It’s Saturday.”
I was clearly missing something. I was about to ask what, when Gracie’s phone rang from somewhere in the house, the sound muffled. She jumped up, eyes scanning the kitchen. “Where the hell is my phone?”
“Did you bring it upstairs?” I was a little concerned by how panicky she still looked.
She moved as if to run her hands through her hair before remembering she had it pulled back. She settled for rubbing her forehead instead. “I don’t think so. I think…” she screwed up her face. “I must have left it in my purse.”
“I’m pretty sure you dropped your purse on the floor when we got in,” I told her, waggling my eyebrows, wanting to remind her of the exact circumstances that had made her forget everything else—namely, my tongue in her mouth.
She blushed a little and shot me a grateful smile before rushing from the kitchen. She managed to get to the phone before it stopped ringing and her house was small enough for me to hear her end of the conversation in the other room.
“Hey, what’s up?” she sounded breathless. A little uncertain. There was a pause, presumably while the caller spoke.
“You did? Sorry, I didn’t hear the phone.” Another pause. “Excuse me for still being in bed before nine on a Saturday, Andy.”
Andy. Her brother. My boss. The guy who had hated me pretty much from the day we met.
I wondered how much more intensely he might hate me if he knew what had gone down here last night.
“You’re coming early?” she practically yelped, and I sat up straighter. “We always meet up at nine.” She was quiet for a moment. “No, I mean, there’s no reason I can’t get together earlier, I just…”
Gracie was stammering. There was no way he wasn’t going to be able to figure out that something was up.
The two of them had always had that freaky twin read-each-other’s-mind thing.
Once, when we were fifteen, Andy took the edge of a skate blade to his cheek in a freak crash at practice.
Luckily it hadn’t done much real damage, but he’d needed a few stitches.
Even though Andy insisted no one call her, Gracie had shown up at the rink, breathless and scared, before the team trainer had even stopped the bleeding.
I heard her telling her brother that she’d had a bad feeling.
So her acting all weird right now? Yeah, he was going to be suspicious. Sure enough…
“Nothing is wrong. No, I’m not. You’re acting weird.”
I didn’t bother hiding my smile. She sounded like a whiney teenager. “Fine, Andy. No, I said it’s fine. I can be ready. Fine. See you then.”
She appeared in the doorway to the kitchen a few seconds later, phone clutched in her hands, eyes filled with the same panic I’d seen earlier.
“I take it that was your brother?”
She squeezed the phone tighter, her knuckles turning white. “We always get brunch on Saturdays,” she said. “At nine.”
“Ahh. And he wants to move it earlier today?”
She nodded, looking miserable. “Apparently, he has some emergency meeting in Hong Kong tomorrow so he’s flying out this afternoon.”
“Mmm,” I said seriously. “I know the feeling. If I had a dollar for every emergency meeting I’ve had to rush to in Hong Kong…”
That got a smile out of her, and some of the panic in her face seemed to retreat.
I got up from the table and went to her, wrapping her in my arms, relieved by how easily she melted into me.
Our first morning together hadn’t gone at all like how I planned, but I couldn’t call it a total loss so long as she still let me hold her like this.
“You need me to get lost?”
She sighed against my chest. “I don’t want you to feel like you’re getting kicked out.”
“Don’t worry.” I kissed the top of her head, breathing in that familiar scent. “I don’t particularly want my boss to find me in my boxers in his sister’s kitchen.”
She pulled back and grinned up at me. “But you look so nice in your boxers.”
The flash of heat in her eyes had me groaning. “How long until he gets here?”
She winced. “Twenty minutes.”
I released her, knowing that if I didn’t, I was going to end up with her thrown over my shoulder on the way back to her bed, Andrew Knight’s imminent arrival be damned. “Can I call you tonight?”
Her expression turned adorably shy. “I’d like that.”
She led me back to her room, rummaging through her closet while I pulled on my cargo shorts and now wrinkled T-shirt. “I need to jump in the shower,” she told me. “Do you mind seeing yourself out?”
“Not at all. So long as I get a kiss goodbye.”
She relaxed the moment I pulled her into my arms. I knew she was in a hurry, but I couldn’t help deepening the kiss, running my tongue against hers until she moaned into my mouth. Fuck. This woman was going to kill me.
“Wish I could stay,” I muttered against her lips.
“I’m really sorry,” she replied, her voice filled with regret. “I just think…Andy can be a little tricky and I don’t think right now is the best time to—”
I placed my thumb over her lips, stopping her babbling. “I get it. Your brother is protective of you and he owns my team.”
“There’s also the fact that I’m your daughter’s teacher.” Uncertainty was settling over her features and I hated the idea of her regretting what had happened.
“Things are a little complicated,” I admitted before brushing another light kiss on her mouth. “But we can make it work.”
She still didn’t look all that confident. “I think we need to keep this under wraps for a while,” she said. “Is that okay?”
Was that okay? Hell no. I had the best girl I’d ever met in my arms. I wanted to tell the whole damn world about it. But I understood Gracie was going to be a little more skittish about this than me. That was fine. I could wait.
“Sure,” I told her, bringing my face down to press my lips against the spot where her neck met her shoulder. She shivered in my arms and I grinned, sliding my hands down to squeeze her perfect ass. “Honestly, it’s kind of hot. Like you’re my dirty little secret.”
I expected her to shiver again at my tone. Or laugh at my ridiculousness. Maybe tease me about how I was her dirty secret, not the other way around. What I did not expect was for her to stiffen in my arms.
I lifted my head. “Gracie?”
She shook her head a bit, like she was shaking something off, and plastered a smile on her face. It looked strained to me. “I really need that shower. You’ll call later?”
Then she was ducking out of my arms and backing away from me.
I couldn’t shake the feeling that something had just gone wrong there, but I couldn’t force her to stand here and talk to me when she was already stressed out and running late.
“Of course,” I told her. “Feel free to text me any of the sexy thoughts you have throughout the day.”
She laughed and her face finally seemed to go back to normal. She looked happy, really happy, and I let out a relieved breath. Maybe I’d imagined the tension. “Talk to you soon.”
“Okay.” She turned and headed for the bathroom.
I waited until she was at the door. “Hey, Gracie?”
She turned back to me, those gorgeous green eyes clear and sparkling. “Thanks for the best night ever.”
I was rewarded by one last flush of color on her cheeks. I wanted nothing more than to follow her into that shower, but I forced myself to walk to the stairs instead, satisfying myself with the memories of all the other times I’d made her blush in the last sixteen hours.