“Not possible. Let’s test it. What’s two times two?”
“Orange?” I giggled tiredly.
“Hmm, this is worse than I thought . . . let’s try another. What’s my name?”
“George?” I said, puzzled.
“George? Bloody George? Grace, I’m shocked.” He pressed harder into me as I laughed, and I could feel where this was going.
“Behave, George. There will be no more of that. My oonie can’t handle any more.” I protested on her behalf, though she was on a mission of her own. My silly body responded to him even when my brain was begging for rest.
“Settle, Sheridan. I am merely doing what all women seem to want. Spooning, is it?” He chuckled in my ear, raising the hairs on the back of my neck with his closeness.
“Well, then that’s fine. Quite nice, really,” I answered, giving a great yawn. “It’s sleepy time now, George, and then when we wake up, we will eat.” I started to drift off.
“And then . . . ?”
“Then we’ll see.”
He was quiet for a moment; then he laughed. “George and Gracie. It’s perfect.” He kissed me sweetly on the cheek, and with a final snuggle of that fine-ass body against mine, we fell asleep.
Eleven twenty-seven A.M.
When I woke up I was still exactly where I’d fallen asleep, with Jack snuggled persistently against me. I felt his strong arms around me, hands surrounding my breasts, and I never wanted to leave this exact spot. Nevertheless, nature called.
I rolled over gently, trying not to wake him. He stirred in his sleep and I watched him drift away again, marveling at the way the light from the window danced across his face, showing the different shades of blond and strawberry in his stubbly beard. I dusted my fingertips across his lips, and in his sleep, he kissed them. Not wanting to wake him further, I wrapped myself in the sheet that was on the floor and slipped from the bed, making my way to the bathroom. I nearly groaned as my legs protested. I could barely carry my own weight. I was sore, and frankly, I had every right to be.
I avoided my reflection, taking care of business first, and then brushed my teeth. After I splashed water on my face, I finally looked.
It was terrifying.
My hair was a nightmare and there was mascara raccooned under my eyes. My lips were incredibly swollen and puffy and the area around my mouth bore the battle scars of his scruff.
“Ridden hard and put away wet” sprang to mind.
Lowering the sheet, I examined myself further, each landmark bringing back a different memory. I saw nibbles on my breast where he had bitten down a little too hard and the redness below my nipples from his scruffy stubble.
Looking lower, there was my Hamilton Brand, the tiny, but quite deliberate, bite on the inside of my thigh. Seeing this brought back a wave that settled into the pit of my stomach. It had truly been unreal.
There had been none of the awkwardness that usually accompanied the first romp with someone new. Guys usually needed a little guidance on what felt good, at least the first few times.
Not our Mr. Hamilton.
He had known exactly what I needed and when I needed it. It was as if he was put on this earth for the sole purpose of giving me pleasure. Who am I to argue with intelligent design? Or the Big Bang. And speaking of bang . . .
We never actually had intercourse. And that was, kind of . . . well . . . nice. I loved that I still had so much to look forward to with him, so much we had yet to learn about each other. And if last night was any indication—
My tummy growled. I needed sustenance.
I attempted to brush out the sex hair on the back of my head, finally giving up and sweeping the whole mess into two pigtails. I washed my face again, removing the traces of mascara, and was debating on whether to shower now or after breakfast when I finally noticed the hickey.
A mother-loving hickey! I was thirty-three, for Christ’s sake!
Thirty-three and in pigtails . . .
Shut it.
The hickey on the side of my neck was the size of a quarter. I looked like I’d argued with a Hoover and the Hoover had won. Jesus. This is what you got for messing around with a twenty-four-year-old.
I opened the bathroom door, preparing to confront Jack and explain that a grown woman simply cannot go around with hickeys on her neck.
But I softened when I noticed that he was sound asleep in my bed, the sheets low on his torso, arms up behind his head, mouth slightly open.
Are they shooting an Abercrombie ad in your bedroom today?
He was so pretty.
I quickly scooped up his shirt from last night, which smelled divine, and buttoned it on. Then I grabbed a pair of panties from the dresser and quietly stepped out into the hall. I wanted to let him sleep a little longer, and I needed coffee.
Once in the hall, I was bending down to put on my panties when I heard Holly say from behind me, “That’s a view I never need to see again.”
I quickly pulled them on home and turned to face her with a sheepish grin. “Sorry.”
She pointed at the stairs. “Kitchen. Coffee’s made. I want the details that I didn’t already hear myself.”
You are in trouble.
I sat in the kitchen with my best friend, with the new “it boy” asleep in the room above me, and tried to explain the grand events that had taken place last night.
Holly listened as I recounted some of the sweeter moments, holding up her hand to stop me when I delved too deeply into details. She reminded me that she had heard the bulk of what had taken place, and I apologized repeatedly. She said not to worry, she and Nick had made popcorn and perched at the top of the stairs most of the night, listening.
I sat in one of her comfortable armchairs in the breakfast nook with my legs underneath me, drowning in Jack’s shirt and in his scent. I was nibbling a piece of toast and nursing a cup of coffee, when I heard stirring from above.
Holly heard him as well, and as his feet slapped on the stairs, she said, “Grace, I do believe you are blushing.” She smiled at me, grabbing her keys and leaving through the back door.
I sat up, then leaned back again, and then arranged myself in what felt like a natural pose. As I refined my cute sitting position, I heard, “Sheridan, do you have to pee?”
“Huh, wh-what?” I stammered, surprised to find he was already in the kitchen and looking at me strangely. He was dressed in his jeans, barefoot and bare-chested. His jeans were hanging low, and he looked like disheveled sex.
“Why are you wiggling about so?” he inquired, opening cupboards, looking for something. He picked up the coffeepot and gestured to my mug.
“Forget it,” I answered, flustered. I got up to get him a mug and I found that I was nervous all of a sudden.
Maybe this was it: one-night-stand time. This was when the awkward conversation would start, the promises to get together that would never take place. This was when the tension would begin. Damn it, I cared too much already. As I reached up to grab the mug, I felt his hand on my behind.
“Hurry up with that coffee, you little screamer, and then you can fix your man a proper breakfast,” he said, giving my ass a smack and then pressing his lips to my neck.
I smiled into the cupboard. We were good.
fourteen
I made him breakfast and he watched. Eggs, scrambled. Toast, slightly burned, the way he liked it—with marmalade, like Paddington Bear. Juice and coffee.
While I cooked, he snuck kisses every time I walked near him. He tried to peek beneath his shirt, which I was currently wearing. I kept him away, although the toast might have been a little more burned than he would have liked, as I was fighting him off over by the Mr. Coffee.
I was famished myself, and we ate at the breakfast bar on opposite sides. I felt it was necessary to keep two feet of granite between the Brit’s roving hands and me. When he finished, he groaned, patting his full belly and letting out a loud burp.
“Gross.” I grimaced, placing our plates in the sin
k.
“Get used to it, Sheridan. I am disgusting,” he said, crossing over to meet me by the dishwasher. “Piggy piggy piggy.” He laughed as he pointed at himself. He was looking devious again, his fingers reaching out to touch my bare legs and migrate north.
“Seriously, Hamilton, I can’t take any more. I need a shower, and I actually have things to do. Not all of us can slack full-time,” I said, scolding him, backing away and finding myself in a corner.
Trapped. Damn.
“Are you really telling me you want none of this?” he said teasingly, sticking his tongue out and wiggling it at me like a cheeky schoolboy. My stomach fell out of me and ran out the front door.
“What are you, thirteen? You’re disgusting.” I laughed in spite of myself. “And yes, I’m telling you exactly that,” I answered, my voice wavering. I was trying to put on a stern face, but he could tell I didn’t have the guts to back it up. My guts, you see, having just left through the front door.
“I didn’t hear you complaining last night or this morning about this very tongue,” he said mischievously, moving closer. I pulled myself up onto the counter behind me, the only place I could go.
Bad idea.
“What about these?” he asked, holding up his magic hands, waving his fingers at me. “Surely you wouldn’t object to these, would you?”
“Umm . . . I, hmm . . . what?” I was having trouble following the conversation.
Tell him not to call you Shirley . . .
He positioned himself between my legs and nudged them open. I stared at him. I do not have the vocabulary necessary to communicate how devastatingly handsome the man truly was. I had seen him in a suit and tie, with his scruffy hipster uniform complete, even in his own birthday suit—yet there was nothing in the world that was more excruciatingly, painfully, pinch-yourself-to-make-sure-you’re-not-dreaming beautiful than the sight of Jack Hamilton, hair standing on end, shirtless and shoeless, in jeans, between my legs.
My breath caught in my throat as he slid his hands up the outsides of my thighs and hooked his thumbs around the band of my panties.
I regained a little control. “No, no, Sweet Nuts. I can’t. I have calls to ret—”
His mouth interrupted me with a kiss.
“Mmm-hmm,” he responded, his mouth moving down my neck, his hands slowly tugging at my panties and sliding them over my knees.
“And I have a meeting this afternoon with my contractor . . .” I tried again, noticing that my panties were now on the floor.
“Mmm-hmm. Contractor. Got it,” he whispered, locking eyes with me as he spread my legs farther. He pulled me to the edge of the counter and quite deliberately bent one leg and hooked it around his waist, giving him better access to me. His fingers touched me and I struggled to keep my focus.
“And I also have to . . . oh, God . . . I have a project due that I need . . . oh, wow . . . a project that I . . . fuck, that’s good . . . Oh!” I cried out, abandoning all reason when his fingers slipped amazingly into me.
His thumb pressed against me, and I held on to his shoulders as I almost immediately climaxed and then began another. I had always been lucky enough to be a multiples kind of gal, but never like this. He kept me close, watching my face as I came again and again in rapid succession, that sexy half grin giving way to a furrowed brow as he worked harder to keep me where I needed to be.
“Right here, Grace. Keep your eyes on me.”
I came once more, our eyes locked as I screamed his name. Then I slumped over onto him, wrapping my arms around his neck and collapsing fully.
“You’re too good to me,” I whispered in his ear, kissing his neck.
“I think that goes both ways, Nuts Girl.”
I giggled at my nickname. “Why don’t we finish this in the shower, George?” I smiled, hooking my fingers through the waistband on his jeans, giving him a firm squeeze through the fabric and pulling him toward the stairs. He snarled and chased me into the living room. I started up the stairs before him, giving him a peek at my nakedness beneath his shirt.
“Grab my panties, will you? I don’t think we should push Holly any further than we already have,” I fired back over my shoulder on my way upstairs. “Meet you in the shower.”
I couldn’t wait to have my Brit naked and wet.
After the shower, I insisted that Jack leave me alone long enough to dry my hair. Holly had come home from the market and, after banging on the door for several minutes to no avail, finally shoved a note under it saying that I had an audition at four o’clock if I could make it. I was meeting with the contractor at my new house at five thirty, so it worked out perfectly.
It was an audition for a cop show, and I was reading for the part of a crooked lawyer. After finishing with my hair, I had to shoo Jack out of the bathroom and away from my flatiron. He had gotten it in his head that he should help me get ready and would be in charge of my hair. After I vetoed that idea, I printed off my sides and was busily making notes on the character when I noticed that he was making up the bed. He seemed to be having trouble with the bottom sheet. He couldn’t get it to lie smoothly.
“You never make your bed at home, do you?” I asked, watching him attempt this.
“No, no reason to. You just get back in it at the end of the day. Why bother?” He stared at the corners, trying to get them to match up.
“Take off all the pillows first, then you can see all the corners,” I said, admiring the way his ass looked in his jeans.
He began taking pillows off, and then it got much quieter in the room. “Grace, do you have something to tell me?”
“Hmm?” I looked up from my notes.
Shit.
He was holding one of the magazines with the Time stories. He’d found my hidden stash under my bed.
Shit. Shit.
“I can’t believe it. You fangirl!” he teased, pointing at me with a glint in his eye.
“No, no, I’m not really. Holly gave them to me. She made me read them! I didn’t want to . . . I . . . ,” I stammered, trying to figure a way out of this that wouldn’t leave me looking like a total stalker.
“Grace. Don’t lie to me,” he said, admonishing me, looking serious.
I walked over to the corner and stood in it, facing the wall, looking like the guy at the end of The Blair Witch Project. “Okay, I admit it. I started reading it because I promised Holly,” I said, feeling my cheeks flame.
“And then?” he asked, walking over to me.
“Ummm. Now I’m reading it because it’s interesting?” I asked more than answered.
“Grace . . .” He was warning me.
“I’m reading it because I like it. I more than like it, okay! I—I freaking love it!” I wailed, placing my head against the wall in shame. I waited for him to tease me, but there was only silence.
Uh-oh, now he thinks you’re only interested in him because he’s playing Joshua.
I spun around quickly and saw him sitting on the end of the bed, laughing.
“Why are you laughing?” I asked, walking over to where he sat.
“I love that you felt so guilty that you stood in the corner!” He laughed again. “But this does mean the tryst is officially off, Grace.”
“Well, technically, since I had yet to read anything when I met you, the tryst should still be on.”
“You got me on a technicality, huh? All right then, tryst on. Only if you agree to never call me Joshua when we’re in bed,” he said.
“Agreed. But could you do something for me?” I asked sweetly, moving closer to him. In my head, I was secretly rejoicing that he talked about us in bed like it was going to be something we did a lot.
His hands came up around my waist and I leaned closer to his right ear.
“Next time, ya know, when we’re together?” I whispered, planting a kiss on his neck below his ear. He smelled all soapy and warm.
“Mmm-hmm?” he answered back, his hands clutching my hips.
“And things are getting, ya
know, really hot?” I said, switching to the other ear, kissing his neck there as well.
“Mmm-hmm?” he said, his hands moving to the tie that held my robe closed, starting to pull it apart. His breathing was growing heavier by the second. I had him right where I wanted him.
“Could you maybe, possibly . . .”
“Yes?” he asked, pushing open my robe and planting his mouth between my breasts, beginning to kiss me.
“Call me Penelope? You know, your woman in the first story? I’ve always wanted to work in a hat store . . .” I finished, then closed my eyes and waited. I was sooo going to get it for that one.
He was still for exactly four seconds, and then he started blowing raspberries all over my chest. “Grace, that is rubbish! I knew you were as insane as all the rest! C’mere!”
I squealed as he picked me up and threw me over his shoulder. I was dying, I was laughing so hard. He carried me kicking, screaming, and laughing all the way downstairs and into the kitchen. I was shouting out ideas the whole time through my laughter.
“Maybe,” I wheezed, “you could be all Super-Sexy Scientist Guy. Wear a lab coat? Or maybe”—I choked—“you could explain the space-time continuum? Or maybe . . . oh, God, I am hilarious,” I said before screeching, “Maybe you could just take me away in your little time machine? Ha ha ha!”
I was laughing so hard I couldn’t see straight. This was fine, because I was upside down over the shoulder of an enraged Brit. But the way he was playing grab-ass the whole way down the stairs made me think he wasn’t too upset.
He carried me into the kitchen, still screaming in laughter. I didn’t even notice Holly sitting at the table with Nick. He went straight to the freezer, grabbed a bag of frozen Green Giant corn niblets, set me on the counter, ripped the bag open with his teeth, pulled my panties straight out like a cash drawer, and dumped them in.
The Redhead Series Page 11
