Chapter 23 #2
I smacked her ass as I passed her on the way to get our food and her squeal made me want to do it again—and so much more. But first, I would feed her.
Continuing on with the theme, I arranged to have food brought in from one of my favorite restaurants in the city.
If I’d been free to take Gracie out, Vic’s is definitely what I would have picked.
“Josie and I would go to this place all the time,” I told her as we tucked into our pasta dishes.
“It’s this tiny brick building down in Little Italy, run by the same family that opened it seventy years ago.
The whole street looks run down and you would never guess how good the food is from the exterior. ”
“It better be good,” Gracie said. “Seeing as how you ordered enough for the entire Sting starting line.”
I shrugged. “I wanted you to have some options. Since you couldn’t order off the menu.”
Something pained flashed in her eyes, and when she whispered a thank you, it was spoken in the direction of the table.
Unsure what had brought on her sudden tension, I tried to make a joke. “If you want to see Josie throw a real temper tantrum, tell her you got gnocchi from Vic’s when you see her Monday.”
The smile returned to Gracie’s face and I exhaled in relief. “I would never.”
After dinner, we got our next delivery—gelato brought in from a place down the street from our old condo.
“Again with the over-ordering,” she said, looking at the different options.
“It won’t go to waste,” I told her. “That dry ice will keep it frozen for a while yet. I asked the concierge to send everything we don’t eat to Jay. Dude could live off ice cream.”
She took a bite of the pistachio gelato and her eyes closed, a sexy little moan escaping. “Oh my God,” she whispered. “Don’t you dare give this to Jay.”
I grinned at her. “Maybe we’ll save it for later.” I waggled my eyebrows. “We’ll probably need a snack in between bouts of hot sex.”
She snorted into her dessert. “Pretty sure of yourself there, mister. How do you know you’re going to get lucky?”
Please dear God let me get lucky. Being this close to her all night without sinking deep inside her body was fucking torture. And if she kept making those food moans I wasn’t going to last much longer.
“What can I say, Gracie? I’m a confident man.” I held out my hand to her. “Come on. One more thing I want you to see.”
Her eyebrows shot up even as she took my hand. “How is there more? Everything has been perfect so far.”
I scoffed as I led her into the bedroom. “Drinks, dinner and dessert is pretty basic. My first date game is better than that.”
I opened the bedroom door and allowed her to walk in ahead of me.
Here too there were dozens of LED candles.
There were also several potted plants—greenery and flowers.
The concierge had been most excited about this detail, giggling when she told me she was recruiting all the living plants from the lobby.
In the midst of the plants, in the spot where the room’s normal chaise lounge usually stood, there was a nest of blanket and pillows on the ground. And in front of that, a flat screen TV.
Gracie turned to me, eyes lit up with excitement and maybe a little exasperation. “What is this?”
I tucked a lock of her hair behind an ear. “You told me how much you enjoyed live music,” I said. “And since I’m a conscientious boyfriend who listens when you talk, I would definitely remember that when planning our date.”
Her eyes were wide as saucers now. “Boyfriend?” she squeaked. “Are you…are you my boyfriend?”
I watched her face for a long minute, wondering how on earth she still didn’t get it. “I sure as hell better be,” I finally said. “Because I definitely consider you my girlfriend.”
There was that blush I loved so much. It spread from her cheeks down her neck and I wanted to trace the path with my tongue.
The urge to brush aside the front of her dress to reveal her cleavage was overwhelming.
Just as I was about to do just that, the third part of the date be damned, Gracie took a deep breath. “What was that about live music?”
It took me a minute to drag my mind from the gutter.
“Right,” I said, giving my head a little shake to clear it of the dizzying lust. “One of my favorite things to do in New York is watch live music in Central Park. During the summer there are concerts all the time. I figured if I was taking you out, we would definitely do a concert in the park.”
“So you brought the park inside?” she said, eyeing the potted greenery and the blanket on the floor.
“I did.” I gestured to the TV. “I thought about getting a jazz quartet up here or something, but that seemed a little excessive.”
She laughed, tipping her head back to show off the long smooth column of her neck. A neck I desperately wanted to kiss.
“It’s good to know you draw the line somewhere,” she said.
“Mostly, I knew I wouldn’t be able to keep my hands off you once we were lying down,” I admitted. “And I figured that would be kind of awkward with a couple guys standing right there holding instruments.”
She laughed again, moving to the blanket. “So, the TV…?”
I grabbed the remote from the nightstand before I joined her on the blanket. “There’s an Adele concert on Netflix,” I said. “I know it’s not quite as good as live music—”
“It’s perfect,” she said.
Feeling incredibly pleased with myself, I stretched out on the blanket, pulling her against me before starting the program. She nestled into my shoulder and sighed happily as the music began.
“I can’t believe you did all of this. I feel so spoiled.”
Mission accomplished, I thought. I had wanted to spoil this girl for years.
There was nothing worse than seeing her on a cold Minnesota winter’s day in her old threadbare coat.
Or those terrible weeks when I’d notice her cheekbones getting more and more prominent in her normally cherubic face and knowing it must be a bad stretch at home, that she wasn’t getting enough to eat.
On those occasions I would always insist that she stay over for dinner.
Too often, she would decline. She admitted to me once that it felt wrong to enjoy a nice family meal in our warm house when she knew Andy wouldn’t be getting the same.
This woman was so good. Beautiful inside and out. Of course I wanted to spoil her.
“I didn’t need all of this, you know,” she whispered. “I would have been happy just to see you.”
I cupped the back of her head. “Maybe you didn’t need it,” I agreed. “But you sure as hell deserve it.”
Gracie turned on her side to face me.
“There is one advantage to not being able to go out.” She swung a leg up over my hips, straddling me and leaning down to take my lips in a feverish kiss.
I groaned, bringing my hands to the curve of her ass and pulling her body in closer. Tighter. It never seemed to be close enough with her.
Every other time we’d been together like this it had felt desperate.
Explosive. And while that had most definitely been fun, there was something special about being able to take my time.
To explore and treasure her. To peel off every layer of her clothing until she was naked and trembling below me.
To draw out each little gasp of her pleasure, to travel my lips and tongue across every inch of her sweet soft skin.
“Liam, please,” she moaned once I’d turned her into a panting, gasping puddle below me. I shifted to my knees so I could stand and she made an unhappy noise. “Where are you going?”
“I’m taking you to the bed,” I said, slipping my arms below her shoulders and knees.
She grasped my shoulders, digging in her fingernails hard enough to make me hiss in pleasure at the sting. “I don’t want to wait that long.”
I laughed, burying my face in her neck, letting myself fully enjoy the moment of levity. The comfort and ease I felt around this woman. The pure contentment in my body just from being this close to her.
“It’s three feet away, Gracie,” I finally said. “Pretty sure you can manage.”
But once I’d deposited her on the cloud-like mattress, it was my turn to groan.
“What is it?”
“Condoms are in my bag,” I muttered. And my bag was stashed in the closet—which, at the moment, felt like an insurmountable distance away. I reached for the nightstand. This was a pretty high-end hotel—maybe they stocked condoms in the bedroom.
But Gracie grasped my wrist, stopping me. “I have an IUD,” she whispered, and for once she didn’t blush. In fact, she held my gaze, expression sure and unembarrassed. “And I was tested after my last partner.”
“Me too,” I whispered, throat dry at the implication of what she was saying.
She held my gaze. “Then I want you like this. With nothing between us.”
If I thought the shy version of her was hot, this bold, asking for what she wanted version was a million times sexier.
“Fuck, Gracie,” I muttered, burying my head in her neck in a helpless effort to keep my shit together. The mere thought of being inside her, skin-to-skin, was enough to nearly make me embarrass myself right then and there by spilling into the sheets.
She gave me time to gather myself, running soft circles over the expanse of my back with her short fingernails. It felt insanely good, and part of me wanted to just stay there like that forever. But a bigger part of me was eager to get to the heaven I knew waited between her thighs.
I lifted my head, positioning my hips in the cradle of her legs, and held my breath as I slid inside with one, slow stroke.
Our deep moans were mirrors of each other, and I lowered myself to press my forehead against hers.
“You feel so fucking good like this,” I gasped. “Unbelievable.”
“You too,” she panted into my ear, then lifted her hips against mine, making me curse incoherently.
“This is not going to last as long as I want,” I warned her. Especially not if she kept doing things like that.
“We have all night, right?” she murmured, smiling against my skin.
I looked down at her as I started to move inside her body and I knew in that moment that all night would never be enough.
I wanted her tomorrow and the day after that, too.
I wanted to come back to this city someday with her and my daughter, to show her around with Josie at our side.
I wanted her to come back to Minnesota with me when I went to visit my parents, to make only good memories there so she could forget the bad.
I wanted to be there with her through every struggle and celebration of her life.
I wanted her forever.
Because I was in love with this woman. Pretty sure I always had been.
And I was damn sure not going to let her go.
The morning came too early. We had crashed hard after our first round, exhausted from the game and traveling, respectively. But I’d found a second wind after a few hours of rest and I kept her up for most of the night.
Absolutely worth it, I thought to myself as I tried to stretch my sore, tired muscles on the team jet.
The only way the night could have gone better was if we could have had the morning together.
Grace was flying back on Andrew’s personal jet, not the team plane, so I would have had to say goodbye to her at the airport regardless.
But God, what I wouldn’t have given to be able to sit with her in the waiting area of the charter terminal.
To walk her to the jetway and kiss her goodbye in front of everyone.
For the whole world to know that this amazing woman was mine.
Soon, I assured myself over and over as we headed home. I was going to convince Gracie that we could talk to Andy, that everything would work out fine if we went public. There might be some uncomfortable moments for her at school, and for me at the rink. But it was worth it. We were worth it.
I was still thinking about exactly what I would say to convince her when I pulled up in my driveway a few hours later. I was so lost in my own head that I didn’t notice the unfamiliar car in front of the house until I’d climbed out of my Range Rover.
My attention was torn from the car by the front door banging open and Josie’s excited voice ringing across the front lawn.
“Daddy!” she cried, beaming and bouncing on the balls of her bare feet on the front porch. “Daddy, guess what?”
I grinned at her automatically, happy because my little girl was happy.
The feeling didn’t last long.
“Daddy,” Josie yelled, clapping her hands. “Mommy is home!”