by Kat Mizera
How much closer does he need to get?
The thought flitted through my subconscious as I stared from Gracie’s sweet face to his. He was already an important part of her life and that wasn’t going to change whether I got more involved with him or not. So why the hell was I depriving myself of something—and someone—who could make me happy?
I carefully leaned over Gracie, not touching her, and lightly pressed my lips to Tore’s.
His eyes opened and slowly focused on mine.
I put my finger to my lips and very gently crawled over Gracie.
“What are we doing?” he whispered as I straddled him.
“Cuddling.” I dropped down to rest my head on his chest, and his arms closed around me. We didn’t talk, didn’t make a big deal out of anything, but I knew he understood what I was trying to tell him. One of his hands skimmed my ass but that’s as far as it went. He just kept those strong, muscular arms around me and held me close, allowing us time to wake up together. Gracie would be up any minute, and he knew she was an early riser, so this was a stolen moment of intimacy—one of many things he’d have to get used to if we were going where I hoped we were.
As I’d suspected, Gracie turned over about five minutes later, eyeing us suspiciously.
“What are you doing?” she asked in a sleepy voice.
“Cuddling,” I responded. “Did you have a bad dream?”
She nodded. “And Uncle Tore came to get me. He told me green teeth are his specialty.”
“Green teeth and black eyes,” he corrected her. “They’re very specific monsters.”
She giggled. “I’m hungry.”
“Then let me go to the bathroom and I’ll make something.” I quickly got off the bed and went into the bathroom without looking back. I did my business and then washed up. I brushed my hair, putting it up like I usually did during the day. If Tore was interested in me, he was going to have to see me as I was.
I stared in the mirror thoughtfully. There was nothing wrong with me, but I wasn’t anything special either. Longish auburn hair, big dark eyes, red lips, and good cheekbones. My nose was a little bigger than I would have liked, but no one was perfect and I was far more concerned about the extra twenty pounds I hadn’t been able to lose since having Gracie. My body was okay, just not as firm as I would’ve liked. My stomach pooched a little and my thighs touched, but overall, I looked pretty good in clothes. Naked was another story, but Tore had already seen it all and didn’t seem to have an issue with it.
I pulled on clean clothes and headed downstairs. Ian and Everly were already there starting breakfast while Tore entertained Gracie.
“I’m making quiche,” Everly said to me. “I know Gracie won’t eat it but there will be plenty for us adults.”
“I’ll fry a couple of eggs for her,” I said. “Thanks.”
We worked in companionable silence, focused on cooking while Ian and Tore talked about the beginning of training camp and an upcoming round of golf.
“I’ve got a ton of photo-editing to do today,” Everly told me. “Are you done editing the Spinoza story?”
I shook my head. “No, I have to get on that this morning. Once we’re finished with breakfast, I’ll put Gracie in front of the TV so I can get it done.”
“You’re not taking her to school?”
I shook my head. “One more day off. I’ll take her tomorrow. There are so many germs at preschool; I’d like to give her a few more days off but I have to work.”
“I can watch her.” Tore looked over at me. “I don’t have anything else to do other than golf on Friday. But today and tomorrow, I can totally hang out with her.”
“Are you sure?” I frowned. “I can work at night to make up the time once she’s in bed. I’m used to rearranging my schedule.”
“I’m positive.” He winked at Gracie. “We have some serious Candy Land in our future. Right, Princess?”
She nodded. “Yup. And you’re going to lose.”
He grimaced. “Somehow, I don’t think she’s kidding.”
Having Tore around was nice but really distracting. He hadn’t spent the night again because we weren’t there yet as a couple, but he usually arrived around ten every morning, after he worked out, and watched Gracie for me so I could work. We’d have dinner with Ian and Everly, and then watch TV or play with Gracie until it was bath time. I’d give her a bath and Tore would read to her until she fell asleep. The first night, he’d left not long after that, but last night, he’d stayed and we’d watched a movie with Ian and Everly.
He and Ian were going golfing today, so I was doing a little work now while Gracie watched TV, and then we were going to the park. Mack had said it would be good for her to get outside and play, but to avoid the pool for now. Misty was going to bring J.J. and Simone so the three of them could play for an hour or two. If I was lucky, I would get some work done at the park since Misty would be there too.
“Why don’t you and Tore actually go out tonight?” Everly suggested once Gracie was in front of the TV. “Ian and I don’t have plans, so we can watch her.”
I looked up from my computer. “He hasn’t asked.”
“You were supposed to go out last week when Gracie got the fever. You should totally have a do-over.”
“We haven’t talked about anything; we’re kind of going with the flow. I’m afraid to say the words, like somehow they’ll make it official.”
“Aside from the fear of Gracie getting attached, and it’s way too late for that, what are you afraid of?” Everly turned to me and cocked her head. “Seriously. What is the biggest fear? Getting hurt?”
“Absolutely. After Greg left, I spent a long time wondering what was wrong with me that he didn’t want me or our baby. And now, while I don’t think there’s anything wrong with me, per se, it’s more about being damaged goods.”
“Damaged…” Everly narrowed her eyes. “What in holy hell are you talking about? You’re not damaged anything! Why? Because you had a baby?”
I shrugged. “I’m twenty-five and already have those extra pounds you can’t get rid of after having a baby. I have a kid that takes up all my time and most of my money. My car is stupid, I don’t own anything beyond some furniture and technology, and my own parents don’t have much to do with me. From the outside looking in, this isn’t a huge prize.” I motioned to myself.
Everly was scowling, though.
Uh-oh. This was her you’re-going-to-get-a-lecture look.
“I don’t know what the hell you’re talking about,” she said, hands on her hips. “You’re beautiful, smart, educated and hard-working. Yes, you have a kid, but so what? Tiff was a widowed single mom with two kids and she not only found a hockey hunk who wanted to marry her, he adopted her kids and hyphenated all their names so the boys could honor their late dad. Oh, and did I mention he’s five years younger than her?”
I frowned. “Tiff…?” I’d met a lot of the wives and girlfriends on the team but the games usually ran too late for Gracie, so I didn’t go to many. I’d been to a few parties, of course, but it was hard to remember who was who.
“Zakk Cloutier’s wife.”
“He’s younger than her?” Zakk was hot.
“Uh-huh.” Everly nodded. “And they’ve had two more babies since they got together, so they have four.”
“She’s the tall redhead, right?”
“Yup.” Everly turned, a faint smile on her face. “Look, I know it’s scary to trust your heart to someone again, but you have to, and deep down, Tore is such a good guy. He’s a little rough around the edges, but I think he just needs someone to love him. Kind of like you do.”
“We’re both a hot mess. He’s been burned too, but the difference is that he’s free to do what he wants while I have to be home with my kid.”
“You have babysitters at your disposal, and he knows you’re not free to do what you want when you want. If that was a problem, he wouldn’t have been chasing you all this time.”
I too
k a breath. Maybe she was right. Tore had just started hanging out and despite my job, my responsibilities with Gracie, and everything else, he was still here.
“Do you think I need to address the threesome thing?” I blurted out.
Everly’s eyes widened. “Um…what is there to address?”
“You’ve never done it and you were a lot more sexually active before Ian than I ever was. Do I need to explain that it’s not a thing for me, that it was just—”
“A fantasy?” she asked, interrupting. She was scowling again. “Margot, it was literally your fantasy. You won a contest. So did he. If Jamie hadn’t put the two of you together, he wouldn’t even know about it. You don’t owe him any explanations unless you want to discuss how hot it was and the potential for recreating it. Otherwise, no. There’s nothing to address.”
“But what about on his end? His ex left because she thought he was in the closet. And I watched him fool around with a guy.”
“Fantasy. Night.” She shook her head at me. “Are you truly going to try to sabotage this before it even happens?”
“I don’t know!” I threw up my hands. “I’m nervous. I don’t want to get hurt or have Gracie get hurt.”
“Then talk to him. Tell him how you’re feeling, what you’re feeling.”
I nodded, though I wasn’t sure that was the right thing to do. It might be better to wait until we were on more solid ground. We’d been friends who flirted for nearly a year. Then we essentially had a one-night stand. Now we were dating. We’d done everything out of order and now I had to pull up my big-girl pants if I wanted him. And I really did.
“You’re overthinking,” Everly called out, sitting down with her laptop.
“Shut up,” I muttered.
She laughed.
She was right, though. I had to stop doing this to myself. If he didn’t want us, why was he still here? I did need to talk to him, about a bunch of different things, but maybe we needed to get a little more comfortable together. We’d never gone out on that casual date he’d planned, and that was a good starting point. I was going to mention it tonight.
12
Tore
I spent another evening hanging out at Ian and Everly’s with Margot and Gracie, and while it had been nice and relaxing for a few nights, I was getting restless. I didn’t mind not going out drinking and stuff, but sitting home on the couch every night was getting old. I had no problem with Margot’s limitations because of Gracie, as long as we had a little time alone once in a while, but so far, we hadn’t. I planned to bring it up tonight, but she beat me to the punch, settling against me on the couch after she put Gracie to bed.
“So I was thinking,” she said, turning to wrap her arms around my neck.
“Yeah?” I palmed her ass, lifting her onto my lap. “What were you thinking?”
“You owe me a date.”
I chuckled. “I still have tickets to that escape room. Want me to call and see if we can go tomorrow or Sunday?”
“Everly said she can babysit either day. I already asked.” She gave me a little grin.
“How come?” I shifted our positions so she was fully straddling me.
“Well, because you’ve been incredible this week, but I think we both deserve a little time off. Alone.”
“You can say that again.” I tilted my head and watched her eyes flutter closed as I leaned in to kiss her. I hadn’t really tasted her since Fantasy Night, and I’d thought of little else. We’d kissed hello and goodbye all week, but it was like we were tiptoeing around each other when it came to intimacy, testing everything out. Tonight, she seemed ready for more. And I was going to take whatever she wanted to give me.
I stroked her lips with mine, teasing and exploring, coaxing out her tongue. Damn, I’d almost forgotten how sweet she was when she finally let her walls down and was just Margot, the woman. Margot-the-single-mom and Margot-the-struggling-editor-and-journalist were totally different people, but this one, well, I really liked this one. And not just because we were making out. She was freer here, a more relaxed version of the woman I’d started having feelings for. The rest of the time, she was all wound up, on alert, as if expecting something bad to happen every minute of the day. This Margot was soft and molded against me and completely focused on what we were doing.
I deepened the kiss, sliding a hand under her shirt to skim the soft skin of her back. She had a woman’s curves and they felt so nice beneath my hands. I’d liked having them under my mouth too, but that probably wasn’t an option here on the couch.
She shifted, subtly grinding against me, her crotch against mine. I was already hard as granite, and I reluctantly broke our kiss. Before I could say anything, though, she whispered, “Can we just do this tonight? Make out like horny teenagers whose parents might catch them?”
“Um…sure?” I cocked my head, reaching up to run the fingers of one hand through her silky hair. She was flushed and breathing a little heavily, but her eyes had a serious question in them, one I wasn’t sure I understood.
“You’ve already seen it all and we’ve already done it all,” she continued in a breathy whisper. “Can we go backwards a little? Not to be a tease, but to make it about what we have outside of sex, because we already know how good that part was.”
Okay, that made sense because Margot was still Margot. And that was okay. I liked all the different versions of Margot; I just liked the sexy, relaxed one a little better than the others.
“Sure, beautiful. We can do whatever you want. There’s no pressure involved. Ever. I want to get you naked again so bad I can taste it, but it doesn’t kill me to wait until tomorrow or next week or…” I paused. “It’s not going to be, like, another year, right?”
She laughed quietly, shaking her head. “Don’t be a dork. I want to put some romance into the sexual part of our relationship, but if you think I’m going to wait that long for you to make me come again, you’re nuts.”
“Honey, I’m going to make you come again in a few minutes. We don’t need to be naked for that.” I kissed her again before she could respond and this time, she slid her hands under my T-shirt, fingers digging into the hair on my chest. She wasn’t much of a screamer—she was more of a whimperer and we’d found that out on Fantasy Night—but that actually worked to our advantage tonight. In fact, her idea about going backwards sounded fun. I had all kinds of creative ways of making her come without ever taking our clothes off.
Ian and Everly were out, so we had plenty of time.
“So what grade are we in?” I asked her when we came up for air.
“Huh?” She turned confused, glassy eyes to me.
“We’re pretending to be teenagers hoping our parents don’t come home and catch us making out… How old are we?”
“Oh.” She blinked, a smile playing on her lips. “I’m thinking…seventeen? So senior year?”
“So we’re talking about third base, just shy of going all the way?”
“Mmm, maybe just getting to third base. This is our second date, mister, so I’m not putting out quite yet.”
I rumbled out a laugh. “Then Fantasy Night was definitely not our first date!”
“Our first date was the two nights at the hospital,” she teased.
“Cool. So now we’re here at your house and the goal is to make you come before your parents get home.” I slid my hand up her shirt again, this time in the front. “You think I can unsnap your bra with one hand on the first try?”
“I think twenty-four-year-old Tore can. But could seventeen-year-old Tore?”
“Technically, you’re a year older than me, so this is sixteen-year-old Tore, but yeah, I totally could.” I unsnapped her bra before she could comment and then bent my head, lifting both her shirt and the bra so I had access to her breasts. She liked having her breasts kissed and sucked, so I’d do that to get her worked up and then it wouldn’t take long for my fingers to finish the job.
Not that I was in a rush.
I took my time,
hopefully using a lot more finesse than sixteen-year-old me, but the fantasy was fun anyway, knowing there would be no intercourse and probably no oral either. I knew her well enough to understand she needed me to seduce her, to romance her, to give some illusion of building a relationship. This was the equivalent of dating your one-night stand. Something I’d never really done. So it would be interesting for both of us.
She squirmed on my lap, grinding against my erection now. She was worked up and her nails dug into my shoulders as I bit down on one nipple. I followed up by rubbing my tongue along the spot I’d just bit, and she moaned. Her head fell back and she arched her chest right into my face, which was spectacular. Her boobs were great, the perfect size for my hands and mouth. They were soft and responsive, her raspberry-colored nipples especially sensitive. She liked it a little rough, though, so I continued to nip, lick, and bite until she was breathing hard.
“God, you’re beautiful.” I lifted my head so I could kiss her again. Her mouth fastened to mine as if she was starved for my kisses, and I loved that feeling, knowing how much she wanted me. Lots of women wanted me, but they wanted Tore the hockey star, not Tore the man. And Margot truly didn’t give a rat’s ass that I was a famous hockey player—she liked me for me.
“We might have to rethink this teenage fantasy,” she panted.
“Uh-uh. I like this game.” I slid two fingers under the hem of her shorts, toying with the lacy rim of her panties. “You wanted to wait, so we’re gonna wait.”
“Tore…”
I slipped my fingers inside her panties and discovered she was soaked. “Been thinking about having my cock inside of you again?” I whispered. “Thinking about me fucking you real hard, making you come a few times in a row like last time?”
“God, yes.”
She also liked dirty talk.
“When the time is right, I’m going to fuck you so hard you won’t be able to walk for a week. Maybe a dildo in your pussy while I fuck your ass?” She clenched around my fingers and I curved them up a little. She was close and I lightened my touch, keeping her right on the brink.
