I wince. “Sorry. Still learning the ropes with this dating thing.”
Her pretty dark eyes roll up to the ceiling and she fights a smile. “Who offered me a place to stay so I didn’t have to sleep on the couch at my ex’s?”
I level her with a look. “That’s different.”
“Who’s there to give his friends a ride any time if they’re too drunk to drive home?”
I huff. I see what she’s doing. “That’s only if I’m not on the road, so it’s hardly all the time.”
“Still. Who can you find at every Sin Valley food drive? Every Christmas toy drive?”
I don’t answer.
“What do you do every Saturday afternoon during the off season?”
“Play ball at the community center,” I grumble, reluctant to concede to her on this.
Wait—is she the one giving me a pep talk now? This is supposed to be about her. Not me.
I don’t have a confidence problem. I have enough confidence to fill a room. Enough confidence to sink a ship. Enough confidence to fuel a rocket. She doesn’t need to give me a pep talk.
Or…does she? Do I need to know that my wife believes in me as much as I believe in her?
“Jace.” She squeezes my hand until I meet her bright gaze again. “Without a doubt, you are one of the best people I know. And it has nothing to do with football. You’re thoughtful. Caring. You’re there for your friends, even when it’s inconvenient for you. You haven’t forgotten where you come from. You donate shitloads of money to kids who have it tough, like we did. You make a difference to so many lives, and you don’t even realize it.”
Her words wrap around me like a fuzzy blanket. And for a moment, it’s just me and her in our room, in our bed, holding each other between the sheets. The way she looks at me...She thinks I’m good.
I want to argue with her. But I also want her to be right. I want to be a good person. I want to be good enough to deserve her.
I don’t know if I’ll ever meet the level I’m striving for, but dammit it feels good that my wife sees past my bullshit. She sees me.
Before I know what’s happening, Sera is on her feet, walking around the table. She drops softly into my lap, like she doesn’t care who’s watching. She beams at me and my walls come tumbling down. “I’ll work on my confidence, if you promise to start seeing yourself as a good guy, a role model.”
How can I argue with the woman I’m falling for?
I’m good. I’m a good person. At least that’s what she says. And fuck, I trust her.
When we leave the restaurant, I feel a sense of peace, a sense of belonging I don’t think I’ve ever felt. Sera and I spend hours strolling along the Strip. We pop into casinos and feed coins to ravenous slot machines. We buy food from street vendors and silly bobbleheads from hole-in-the-wall tourist shops. We share a fishbowl cocktail at Club Mermaid. We even pass by the Kissy Kissy Bang Bang Chapel trying in vain to piece together a few more memories from our wedding ceremony.
A fun night out in Sin Valley used to mean drinking with the guys, trying to get laid, generally acting a fool. But now, I’m seeing that I can have fun in an entirely new way.
Just the two of us. Me and my wife.
I shrug out of my jacket and slip it around her shoulders as we walk home.
“You’re such a gentleman.” Sera grins at me. “Let’s add that to your list of attributes.”
“Let’s do that.” I put an arm around her and kiss the top of her head.
She thinks I’m good.
Christ, I hope that when Wyatt finds out about us, he can see some of the good that Sera sees in me.
Thirty-Two
Sera
Despite the uptick at work, this week is still proving to be the longest. Jace was gone all weekend and all week for another round of back-to-back away games. He played in Tennessee Sunday afternoon and then traveled to Florida for a Thursday night game, putting the team on a five-game winning streak.
The sexy selfie he sent me with the southern Florida palm trees in the background made me wish I’d stowed away in his luggage. Nevertheless, his texts and the anticipation of him having this weekend off got me through the long, busy week.
The evenings and nights have been excruciating at Jace’s condo alone. It’s just too quiet when he’s away. Last night, I even fired up his favorite video game, just to listen to the opening music on repeat while I cooked dinner for myself. It helped some, but it was hardly the same.
I know he’ll be getting back tonight, so I’m rushing home from work in hopes of straightening up the bedroom and bathroom. I feel bad that I’ve sort of taken over his space in the last few weeks. The last thing he should come home to is a mess of beauty supplies littering his countertop.
When I get home to the apartment, I unlock the door, quickly toeing off my shoes and dashing toward the hall. A big, solid figure in the kitchen has me tripping over my feet.
“Why in such a hurry?” his voice vibrates through me.
“You’re home!” I say stupidly, dropping my purse and shoes by the couch and sprinting into the kitchen where a tall block of muscles and smugness is waiting for me with open arms.
“Our flight got in a little early. And all I could think about was getting home to you.” His hands land on my arms, gently pulling me to him. Like I could ever resist the chance to be close to him.
We decide to order dinner from the Italian restaurant where we ate last week, which is perfect, because the last thing I feel like doing is sitting in a restaurant, with a large table coming between us.
So we eat on the couch, with the TV muted in the background, trading bites of our meals and catching each other up on our week.
Nervousness flutters through me. I don’t even know why. He didn’t make me this nervous the night before he left for the road. There’s just something about him being away for too long that makes me excited and keyed up. Like we’re starting from scratch again.
“How was work today?” he asks.
“It’s been better actually,” I tell him when he asks me about my job. Sometimes he catches me off guard when he does stuff like that. Rocky never thought I should be working, so it became a touchy topic between us. But with Jace, he actually seems to care about what’s going on at my job. Even if it’s just asking me what I had for lunch. It makes me feel strange and warm and fuzzy all at once.
“Liam’s pulled me in to help him and Desiree more with this new Wild Garden Restaurant Group contract. I’m mostly just pulling numbers for them and handling their grunt work, but it’s better than being stuck on photocopy duty.” It’s a small step up but it definitely feels like progress.
Jace sets his empty plate on the coffee table and pulls my tired feet into his lap. I moan when his thumb presses into my arch.“Soon you’ll be running the place. You just keep showing them what you’re capable of.” He repeats his movements on the other foot.
I smile.
He scrapes his fingers down the soles of both my feet, and I yelp as he tickles me. I struggle to pull my feet away from his tortuous grip, giggling until I can’t breathe. When he finally stops tickling me, his hold shifts to my ankles. His eyes turn serious. “I really missed you this week.”
My throat closes.
“Me, too,” I answer, meeting his gaze.
It’s true. I feel like I’ve been holding my breath all week, and now that he’s home, I can inhale, exhale…breathe.
Before I can put any of that into words, Jace is prowling across the couch to loom over me. His mouth is on mine and he’s kissing me, his lips making poetry with mine.
My phone starts vibrating in the pocket of my skirt, sending uncomfortable jolts through my body. Absentmindedly, I pull the device out, to decline the call. I don’t realize that I’ve accidentally hit the ‘answer’ button until I hear a muffled voice filtering into the room. “Hello? Sera? Hello?”
Jace freezes.
I freeze, too.
Shit.
�
�Wyatt! Hi!” I say, wiggling out from beneath my man.
“Hey, there you are,” my brother says. “I’m just calling to check up on you. How are you doing?”
Jace collapses into the cushions next to me, his eyes staying on my face.
“Um, yeah…Great. I’m great.” I bounce up to my feet and pace the living room floor. “How about you?”
“I’m good. Working hard, as usual. You know how it goes on the base.”
I laugh awkwardly. “Yeah. Sure do.”
My brother and I chat a little bit more. Then he says, “I’ve been trying to get a hold of Jace. Is he with you right now, by chance.”
Suddenly, there’s a golf ball in my throat.“Jace?” My husband’s eyes shoot to mine. “No, uh. Jace is taking a nap, I think.” I flinch and mouth ‘sorry’ to him.
“All right,” Wyatt says. I can hear the disappointment in his voice. “I’ve been trying to reach him all evening. He’s not answering his phone.”
“Okay, I’ll make sure to tell him to call you…”
“Tell him it’s important.”
“Yes, I’ll tell him it’s important…”
My brother breathes out. “Awesome, thanks.”
“So, we’ll talk soon?” I ask.
“Yeah. We will.”
I hear a hint of suspicion creeping into his voice so I end the conversation before it goes any further. “Okay. Love you. Bye.”
I don’t even wait for him to respond. I end the call, feeling like crap.
I set my phone down on the couch and cover my face with both hands. “That was horrible. I’m so sorry.”
When I drop my hands, Jace is clenching his jaw. If I had to guess, I’d say he’s biting his tongue against the words that want to come flooding out.
Instead, he hooks an arm around my waist and pulls me close. “You know, we’re gonna need to talk to Wyatt,” he whispers when he presses his mouth to my forehead.
I lean back in his grasp and lick my lips. “Well, I was thinking we could wait.” My eyes stay down, unable to meet his.
“Wait until what, Sera?” His voice is soft but I can hear the impatience he’s trying to restrain. “Everybody in our lives knows about us. Your mom. Granny. Declan and Liam. Katrina and Minka. My teammates.” He lifts my chin and forces me to look at him. “Wyatt’s the only person in the dark. We need to just tell him. Control the story. Because if it gets back to him through someone else, that will only make his reaction worse.”
I bang my forehead on his chest and groan in agony. I know he’s right.
Jace gently eases me upright so he can look me in the face. He won’t let me hide. “Talk to me, Baby Girl. What are you so afraid of?”
I look at him and speak earnestly. “I’m afraid of how mad he’ll be with you,” I confess quietly. “Me, I’m his sister so he’ll have to tolerate me no matter what. But you…I don’t want this to ruin your relationship with him. He’s super protective of me and I don’t want him to think you took advantage of me especially so soon after I got jilted. I’m just trying to avoid the unnecessary drama.”
And what if Jace and I throw all caution to the wind now, only to realize in a few weeks that we’re better off proceeding with the annulment. What’s the sense in ruining Jace’s friendship with Wyatt if we’re only going to break up at the end of the day?
He strokes a palm down my arm. “Well guess what? I’m super protective of you, too. And as far as I’m concerned, at this point, I’m so far gone for you that I don’t give a fuck what Wyatt thinks about us. If he can’t be happy for us, then he’s not a good friend anyway.”
“You don’t mean that, Jace. I know you’d be devastated if you weren’t friends with Wyatt anymore. I know you’ve lost so many people in your life. I don’t want you to lose him, too.”
“It’s you I’m worried about losing, Sera.”
When he says that, my heart squeezes up like a dish sponge. Oh my god. This man always says the right thing…
He looks into my eyes, searching for the answer to a question he almost seems afraid to ask. “Do you…do you still have doubts about us?”
I want the answer to that question to be ‘no’. I want to say that we belong together with absolute certainty. But given all the events of the past few months, I’m still having a very hard time trusting my own judgment. These feelings I have for Jace, they’re so strong. But my track record when it comes to making romantic decisions is pretty shitty right about now.
I give an honest answer. “I just want to be sure…” I can’t make the same mistake again. My heart wouldn’t survive it.
Slowly, he nods. “I can respect that. If you need more time, I don’t want to pressure you.”
Worrisome thoughts try to take hold of my brain. But his mouth comes down on mine again and he’s doing that magic thing he does with his hands and a minute later, I lose my train of thought.
The only thing on my mind is screaming my husband’s name.
Thirty-Three
Jace
I wake to the smell of coffee. It’s the second best wake up call in the world.
Waking to Sera sitting on my face? Well, that would win every contest. Hands down. But coffee early in the morning isn’t bad either.
“I know you’re awake,” she teases. Her voice is close. I can feel the heat of her body.
I crack an eye open and find her beautiful form standing next to the bed, setting a steaming mug on my night table. The room is still shadowy, emphasizing the lines of her sexy silhouette.
“How do you know?” I rasp.
“You were smirking.” She perches on the edge of the mattress.
“Maybe I was dreaming of you.”
I was, too. But now that I’m awake, I’ll take the real life version of my fantasy instead.
“And you finally stopped snoring,” Sera continues, all snark. “So you’re either awake or you’re dead.”
I groan. Evil woman. It’s too early to keep up with her banter. Plus, I’m pretty sure I do not snore. Surely someone would have mentioned that to me by now.
“Come back to bed.” I tug on her hand. “It’s Saturday. No one should be up this early on a Saturday.”
She tumbles into my arms and her body feels like heaven against my chest. I bury my nose in her hair. “I missed this while I was on the road,” I confess.
Every second away from Sera was torture. I was so damn happy to get home, spend time with her, then slip beneath the covers with her when my plane landed yesterday evening.
“I missed you, too.” She kisses the center of my chest.
That’s all it takes to get me going.
My cock is perking up and I’m touching her. I love the way her body responds to my hands. When I pull her onto my lap, she doesn’t fight it. She rides my dick, pulling her hair and stroking her breasts and driving me crazy.
I grab her hips and thrust hard into her until she’s squirting and coming all over me. After an orgasm that nearly splits me in half, I take her into the shower and we do it all over again.
She’s wrapped in a towel, sorting and rearranging items on the vanity counter when I come up behind her and grab her by the hips. “What are you doing?” My hands wander up her arms, caressing her smooth skin.
She writhes at my touch. “Just trying to clean up.” She laughs softly when I nibble on her neck. “I’ve made a total mess out of your bathroom and I—”
Spinning her around, I slant my mouth over hers and kiss her breathless. I lean back to meet her eyes. “Leave your mess. I like it.”
She sags a little in my arms, dropping her weight against the sink. The way she’s looking at me right now—contented and enamored—makes me want to give her the whole wide world.
“Tell me you don’t have plans today,” I whisper against her lips.
Her arms come around my waist. “My day is wide open for you, baby.”
I grin. “Good girl.”
I have a surprise for her. She’s going to like th
is.
About two and a half hours later, I’m pulling into a parking space outside of a massive warehouse in an industrial-looking part of the backwoods of Illinois.
“The Reyfield Furniture Depot?” Sera reads the sign, confusion on her forehead.
I hop out on my side and round the car to open her door. “I’ve seen you looking at the catalogue,” I tell her as I guide her across the parking lot toward the huge automatic doors. “I even saw that you circled some of the bed linens with a marker.”
She blushes, flustered. “I did. But I wasn’t trying to send you some subliminal message to buy new linen. I was just daydreaming. Sometimes women fantasize about their dream house, Jace. It’s just what we do.”
I press my lips to her temple. “Well, lucky for you, I’m in the business of making your dreams come true.”
She can’t decide whether to protest or to swoon. I can see it in her expression. I shove her beautiful ass through the store’s entrance and I watch the way her eyes light up as we wander through the aisles.
Her lips hang open as she gapes around in awe at the store’s furniture selection. “Wow. This place is IKEA without the meatballs.” She grips my arm like she’s trying to contain herself.
I chuckle.
“What are we doing here anyway?”
My shoulder lifts then drops. “We’re here so you can get whatever you need.”
Her forehead knits in question.
“Whatever you need to feel comfortable at my place.”
After seeing the way she was living at Rocky’s house, I’m more determined than ever for things to be different in my home.
She smiles softly. “That’s really sweet of you, babe. Don’t worry—I feel comfortable there already.”
I pull in a breath. She doesn’t understand what I’m saying to her. “I want my house to feel like your home. I want it to be filled with things that you love…so you know that you belong.” So that you stay.
I want Sera to be mine. Out in the open. Where everyone can see. It’s time. I’m tired of hiding. Her hesitation is the one major obstacle in our way.
Playing House: A Small Town Brother’s Best Friend Romance (The Playboys of Sin Valley Book 1) Page 22
