Home Ice (Portland Storm Book 11)

by Catherine Gayle

  I cut into my steak, searching my brain for any topic I could turn to in order to deflect the attention away from me, at least for long enough that I could refocus my thoughts. With Sophie on my mind, the first safe subject that came to me was Mattias’s sister.

  “So, does your sister ever come to visit you?” I asked, taking a large bite of steak so I wouldn’t have to talk too soon.

  A soft expression came into his eyes the second I mentioned his sister, but he shook his head. “Not often. Linnea lives in a group home in Stockholm, and our parents are close by. I spend as much time with her as I can when I’m home in the summers, but it never feels like enough.” He stopped there and shook his head, as if he didn’t want to go on.

  “What?” I asked.

  He shrugged. “I told you she has a boyfriend and she wants to live with him now, didn’t I?” When I nodded, he said, “His name’s Johan. He was the one who helped hold her together when her first boyfriend died about five years ago. I was here, coaching. I couldn’t be there to help out, and my parents were at a loss about how to help her understand and grieve. But Johan took Linnea under his wing. He brought a book to work one day. Adjö, herr Muffin, it was called. Good-bye, Mr. Muffin. It’s meant to help kids understand about death and grief. He took her aside on their break and read it to her, and he let her cry on his shoulder. That started a routine. Every day, he would bring some children’s book or another to read to her. They had been coworkers for a long time, and they’d been friendly before that, but they started getting a lot closer because he brought his books to read and share with her.”

  “And then he took her out for ice cream,” I said, smiling as his voice trailed off.

  “And then he took her out for ice cream,” Mattias repeated, nodding with a sheepish chuckle. “And now she wants to live with him.”

  “Sounds like he’s a good guy.” Maybe a lot like the man sitting next to me and staring at me like he never wanted to look anywhere else. My belly flipped at the unwavering look in his eyes.

  “He is. He’s a very good man.”

  “Does it ease your mind at all to know that?” I asked. “I mean, she could have fallen for someone who would have been the worst sort of influence on her, and then what?”

  “Is your mind ever going to be at ease when it comes to your girls?”

  “Good point. As boy crazy as they are…”

  “But they know a good man when they see one,” Mattias said emphatically. Like he knew them well enough to know that.

  I shook my head, my brows pinching together.

  “501’s a good man,” he explained. “Way too old for them, but he’s a good man. I think they can sense it. They’ve got good instincts when it comes to their hormonal crushes.” He reached across the table. I thought he was going for the saltshaker, but he took my hand instead, and he winked. “Like their mom.”

  My earlier belly flips couldn’t hold a candle to what was going on internally now. I was seriously melting. So were my panties. They were all, poof, gone. Just like that.

  Or they would be if we weren’t sitting in the middle of a crowded restaurant.

  After a dinner filled with the most intoxicating mix of heady flirtation, banter, and soul-baring conversation, Mattias took me to a play at Portland Center Stage. It was over, and we were on our way back to my house, but I honestly didn’t know if the play had been any good or not. The whole time we’d been there, I’d been so caught up in the sensation of Mattias’s arm draped casually over my shoulders and the heat of his body warming me down to my toes that I couldn’t pay attention to anything happening up on stage.

  In fact, even now as we made our way through Portland’s neighborhoods, I couldn’t make my brain cooperate. No matter how hard I tried to think like a rational adult, my recently acquired reverse-aging process was raging, and my hormones were in complete control. All I wanted to do was take him inside my house the second we got there and jump him. I couldn’t even remember the last time I’d been this out of control with lustful urges. Years. Maybe more than a decade.

  I couldn’t do a damn thing about it while he was still driving, though.

  My cell phone beeped with a text message. Probably Zoe. She was always good about checking in with me when the girls were with their father or otherwise not with me. I assumed it had something to do with her being the eldest.

  I dug around in my purse for my phone. It beeped again, and then a couple more times before I finally pulled it free. As soon as I wrapped my fingers around it, I unlocked the screen as I drew it out.

  Then I burst out snort-laughing at Zoe’s series of messages.

  Are you having a good time with Beefy? Getting kissy-faced yet? You should totally take him inside and make out with him on the couch like you’re a teenager. We promise we won’t walk in on you and ruin the fun, like you would do to us. We’re cooler than that.

  OMG. Beefy! Beefy. BEEFY.

  Stupid phone.

  B E R G Y. I meant Beefy.

  Gah! Autocorrect is killing me.

  Just make out with him, ’kay? You deserve a good make-out session. And pretend you never saw this. I’m going to go crawl under a rock and die now.

  Mattias angled his head toward me, attempting to hold back a laugh of his own. “That good? Do I want to know?”

  I shook my head and tried to stop laughing, but it was no use. Beefy. Every time I read it, my mind changed it to Beefcake, which was way too appropriate. Not to mention inappropriate. That wasn’t something anyone needed to know other than me, not even my girls. If I let it slip to one of them? They’d be chanting it every chance they got, and he would be bound to find out at some point. No chance I wanted him to see it because then I’d have to find a way to explain without putting my foot in my mouth, and that didn’t seem even remotely likely.

  “If it’s that funny, I need to know. Fair’s fair.”

  “Just a text from Zoe,” I forced out between snorts and guffaws.

  “Mm-hmm. Just a text. Your phone went off at least five times, and now you’re laughing so hard you can hardly breathe.”

  I needed to deflect him, and fast since he wasn’t giving up. “Autocorrect issues.”

  “Those are the best. Now you have to tell me.” He smiled, and my pulse kicked up a notch or two.

  “Just something that happened to her today at school,” I hedged, angling myself so he couldn’t accidentally read what was on my screen.

  He came to a red light and stopped the car, turning more fully to face me. Based on experience, the light at this intersection would be a long one, too. Crap.

  “If it’s something from school, why are you blushing so hard?”

  “I’m probably purple from laughing until I was out of breath.”

  He narrowed his eyes. “I think it’s about me.”

  “It’s not about you,” I lied, even though I knew I was a horrible liar. Always had been. I should have taken acting classes in school or something. Anything to help me put on a mask and convince him I was telling the truth.

  Not that I wanted to make a habit of lying, but it would be a good skill to have on occasion.

  “So it is about me, then.” He grinned, that sexy, panty-melting one again. It made me want to crawl back into his lap, and I didn’t want to stop with just a kiss this time. He looked like he knew exactly what I was thinking. In fact, he looked like he would be completely on board with doing exactly that if we weren’t sitting in the middle of an intersection. “I swear, I won’t let on that I know, whatever it is. I won’t ask you to take a screenshot so we can post it all over the Internet. I wouldn’t embarrass you or your girls like that…”

  “She would die if I let you see it. And then she’d murder me.”

  “If she was already dead, she couldn’t do anything to you,” he pointed out, invoking reason—something that had escaped me the second he’d walked into my life.

  “Then her sisters would kill me.”

  He shook his head, cl
early fighting back another laugh. “What did she say? You can’t keep it from me.”

  I was reaching for my purse to hide the evidence when he made a grab for my phone. He was lightning fast, snatching it out of my grip before I could rip it away from him.

  “Beefy? That’s…”

  “Awful,” I finished for him.

  “I was thinking more along the lines of hilarious, but we can go with awful if you want.”

  I pressed my eyes closed, sinking down in my seat. “If she finds out you’ve seen this…”

  “Our secret.” He tossed the phone back to me just as the light changed.

  I punched in a quick response for her and hit Send before shoving the phone back in my purse.

  “So what did you tell her about the whole getting kissy-faced on the sofa idea?” he asked, not even attempting to make the question casual. His words were heated. Needy. Somehow, there was still a hint of humor in it but not enough to outweigh the sensual quality it had taken on. The deep tone of his voice rumbled through my body, jump-starting my sex drive like nobody’s business.

  I couldn’t seem to catch my breath. For once in my life, I didn’t mind that I couldn’t. I nibbled on my lower lip. “I told her she needed to worry about herself and her sisters and leave me alone.”

  “You and Beefy, you mean. To leave us alone.”

  In my mind, I turned it to Beefcake again. I let out a nervous laugh and bit my tongue to keep from saying it aloud. “Yes, me and Beefy.”

  He turned onto my street and rolled into the driveway, but he didn’t turn off the engine. He put the car in park and turned in his seat to face me, that same panty-melting smile on his face, and he trailed the tips of his fingers up the back of my hand. Every touch, no matter how seemingly insignificant or barely there, had my body buzzing like an agitated beehive.

  “I’m not going to lie,” he said after a long minute. “I want you to ask me to come in. I like the idea of testing out Zoe’s suggestion. I think she’s onto something, and I think we should explore it. But if you aren’t on board with that or if you think we’d be rushing things, I’ll walk you to your door and then go.”

  “Without even a good-night kiss?”

  He winked. “I would hope you’d allow me that, at the very least, but I’d understand if you didn’t want it.”

  I wasn’t inclined to let things stop with a simple good-night kiss. I mean, how often would a chance like this present itself? I was almost forty, and most of my evenings were claimed by my daughters. They would be for a long time to come, too, even though they were growing up far faster than I would like sometimes. I probably wouldn’t have another kid-free night for at least a couple of months. It had been an eternity since I’d been with a man, and there was no telling how long it might be until the next opportunity presented itself.

  I screwed up my courage and decided to go for it. “I’m not sure I’ll be satisfied with just a kiss.”

  “No?”

  “No. Why don’t you shut off the ignition and come in with me?”

  “Oh, thank God.”

  We barely had the front door closed when Paige was practically climbing me, like she was trying to crawl inside my body. And damn if I didn’t want to let her. We both removed our coats, tossing them on the hall cabinet along with her purse to join the array I’d discovered earlier.

  I leaned back against the door and dragged her forward by her hips until she was nestled right up against me. I couldn’t get enough of her curves. Every time she’d allowed me to guide her with a hand on her back, I’d been dying to really touch her, to explore her body.

  Paige was petite and fit. Some women who worked hard to stay in shape lost most of their curves, toning until they were almost as straight and angular as me. Not Paige. She had the sexiest ass, one that her dress hugged and accented in a way that made my mouth water. I slipped my hands down and back, exploring how tight it was, its perfect shape, and she burrowed closer to me. My cock came to attention then, more urgently than it had been to that point, pressing into her belly. We fit together seamlessly, soft against hard, her curves molding to me in an addictive way. It was like we were made for each other.

  “I want to feel your hands on me,” she said, breathless, tugging my shirt up from my pants. “Everywhere. On my skin. And I want to touch you. I want to learn everything there is to know about your body, to memorize the feel of you.”

  When she freed my hem, I still hadn’t processed the fact that the very thing I’d been unable to stop thinking about for the last week was really happening. Her fingertips teased my abs as she slid them up my torso.

  “Weren’t we supposed to be taking this to the couch?” I asked.

  She popped open a couple of my buttons. “We could take it straight to the bedroom.”

  I fought down a groan. “No point wasting time?”

  In lieu of an answer, she took my hand and took charge, leading me up the stairs and down the hall. She didn’t leave me any time to take in my surroundings. She spun me around and pushed on my chest with both hands, and I fell back onto the bed. I reached for her as I collapsed, gripping her thighs and drawing her up so she straddled me. That forced her dress to inch upward. Starting at the backs of her knees, I teased her sensitive skin as I began my study of her—learning what she liked; discovering her erogenous zones; discerning if she preferred soft or hard, fast or slow, rough or gentle.

  As I trailed my fingers up the backs of her thighs, my eyes never leaving hers, she made short work of undoing my shirt and pushing it back over my shoulders. She raked her eyes over my chest, and then she followed the same path with her hands.

  When Paige touched me, it was unlike any other woman’s touch I’d ever experienced. It was as if her hands were an extension of her soul, and she was using them to find mine. I’d had plenty of massages in my day, but this was as different as night and day. She followed a path her hands knew well, even though she’d never had those hands on me before, exploring the way the various muscles came together.

  Then she dropped her head and used her tongue to follow the same trail her fingers had just blazed. I sucked in a sharp breath.

  Paige lifted her head enough that she could look in my eyes, her tongue on my skin. I propped myself up on my elbows so I could watch, content for now to let her do as she would.

  She traced the lines of my pecs with her tongue, lazily moving closer to my nipple and driving me out of my mind with need. When she reached it, she flicked her tongue a couple of times before taking it into her mouth and sucking, and my cock jerked as if that was where she had her mouth. With a lusty laugh, she wiggled her hips.

  That was enough to brush the heat of her center over the tip of my cock. Never mind the fact that we were both almost fully clothed. I was practically desperate to get inside her, but at the same time, I hated the thought of putting an end to her ministrations. Paige Calhoun was a woman who knew what she wanted, and I’d be damned if I didn’t let her have it.

  She inched upward, focusing her attention on the hollow at the base of my neck.

  “You’re killing me,” I ground out.

  “You want me to stop?”

  Hell no. But I wanted to give as good as I got. “Tell me what you want. Show me what you like.”

  “I want you. Naked. And I want to get my hands on every hard inch of your body.”

  “I think we can make that happen.” I put a hand on the small of her back to support her as I flipped our positions, momentarily crushing her to the mattress.

  She let out a sharp gasp, but a needy moan soon followed. I kissed her chin and straightened away from her so I could get up and strip. With her eyes taking in my every move, devouring me as I bared myself to her, she bit down on her lower lip. She was so fucking sexy when she did that. It made me think about her using those teeth to nip my flesh. With those thoughts racing through my head, I couldn’t get my clothes off fast enough.

  I tossed them all in a heap on the floor and craw
led back into the bed, supporting myself above her with my arms. She still had every stitch of her clothes on, right down to the slinky heels she’d worn tonight. My hands were itching to peel that dress off her body, but I was just as anxious to see what she would do next.

  Starting at my wrists, she slid her hands up my arms, a painstaking inch at a time. Good thing I still worked out as much as I had in my playing days, because she wasn’t in any rush to move on to the next bit. When she got to my shoulders, she put one hand on the back of my neck and drew me down to kiss her.

  As soon as our lips touched, her mouth was open and waiting. I slid my tongue inside to meet hers, and they tangled together the way we’d done that first time, both languid and urgent at once.

  She didn’t stop there, gliding her hands down the expanse of my back and opening her legs so I could settle between them. If not for her dress and panties, I could already be where I wanted to be—so deep inside her that her toes would curl. I groaned against her mouth when she reached my ass and gripped each cheek like she meant it, drawing me closer still to her heat. When she rolled her hips, I nearly lost it.

  I broke off the kiss and ground out, “I need to be inside you.” It had been too damn long since I’d been with a woman. I didn’t know how much longer I could hold out, especially with the sensual torment she was putting me through.

  She gave me a sultry, slinky grin. “Roll over.”

  It was about time. I did what she told me to, bringing her with me and trying to figure out how to get her dress off her as soon as she was no longer trapped beneath my weight. I tugged at the hem, attempting to peel it up and over her head, but that didn’t work very well. It only moved a bit.

  She shook her head, though, and slipped out of my grasp.

  I was a patient man, normally, but Paige was seriously trying it right now.