“I thought you left,” I admit, totally embarrassed.
“Really?” she questions with a soft smile on her perfect lips. “I hate to break it to you, but you can’t get rid of me that easily. Not this time.”
“Good,” I say, and reach for her.
She moves closer so I can grab her hand and pull her back down on the bed beside me. I lean over her, pushing her wet hair off her neck and kissing her gently on the mouth. Her tongue slips out and runs over my bottom lip teasingly. She tastes like my cinnamon mouthwash.
“I didn’t get to wake up beside you,” I complain, quietly nuzzling her neck. “It’s been over six fucking years and I still haven’t woken up with you.”
“Sorry. I didn’t want to wake you,” she says, running her fingers down my bare chest. “You look so pretty when you sleep.”
“Pretty?” I make a face at her choice of word.
She laughs. “Sorry. You look sexy when you sleep. Hot. Manly.”
Now I laugh. She kisses me quickly, but I lean in hungrily looking for more. She gives it to me, opening her mouth and deepening the kiss. My hand slides over the fuzzy blue towel and then starts to make its way under it, but she pushes me away and gets up off the bed.
“Jessssssie,” I hiss in protest.
“I’m sorry, but you have to get to practice and I have to get home.” She grins a little self-consciously. “Sunday is laundry day and if I don’t do it, I’m going to work underwear-less tomorrow.”
I watch her drop her towel and it makes my cock twitch under sheets.
“I like the idea of you underwear-less,” I tell her with a smile.
She laughs. “While I stand over my male clients and rub their aches and pains away?”
“Okay, now I don’t like it,” I reply quickly.
“Besides, you leave soon, don’t you?”
I glance at the clock. I have to be at the airport in less than two hours. I groan.
She leans over me again and kisses my forehead. “Don’t worry. I promise to let you wake up with me soon.”
She pulls on her clothes from last night, some of which she must have retrieved from the front hall.
“So, how attached are you to your apartment?” I ask casually as I sit up and push my pillow back against the headboard.
She stops what she’s doing and turns to me. “It’s a place to live.”
I smile shyly. “This is a place to live. A big place. With lots of room for you and your stuff. And free laundry!”
She blinks and looks stunned. Not scared, which is a good sign, just stunned.
“You want me to move in here?” she says, clarifying. “Already?”
Quietly I say, “Let’s be honest, you should have been here six years ago.”
She blinks and then smiles. “Yeah, I should have.”
“Basically, I want you around all the time. I don’t want to lose another second,” I confess, and twist my hands nervously in the sheet covering my waist. “So move in. Please.”
“So much for your mom’s old-fashioned values,” she says, and I laugh.
“My mother would throw her old-fashioned values out the window if it meant she could see her favorite son happy with her favorite pseudo-daughter.”
“She wants me with Cole?”
“You’re such a smartass,” I tell her but can’t help laughing at her joke.
I push back the covers and get out of bed, walking toward her. I’m still as naked as I was last night, and my morning wood is flying high. But I don’t care.
She giggles as I take her into a hug. “Does that thing ever go down?”
“Not with you around,” I admit, and lightly kiss her favorite spot just under her earlobe.
She lets me hold her, wrapping her arms around my neck and nuzzling my shoulder.
Earnestly I say “I’m serious, Jessie. I want you to live with me. If you think it’s too soon…”
“It’s not too soon,” she quickly replies. “Like you said, I should have been here years ago.”
My heart skips. “So, you’ll do it?”
She looks up and smiles her beautiful, perfect smile. “I’ll give my notice to my landlord today.”
I kiss her hard on the mouth, pushing my tongue through her lips. She tightens her grip on my neck and my hands cup her ass. I start to move her back toward the bed as one of her hands snakes between us and grazes the tip of my hard-on. Just when I’ve happily decided to skip practice, my cell phone starts to ring from the pocket of my jeans at the end of the bed.
I swear and march over and dig it out. I look at the call display and smirk.
“It’s Dev.”
Jessie laughs, walks over and takes the phone from my hand.
“Hi, Devin!” she sings into the phone. “Yeah, he’s here. He’s supposed to getting ready for practice but we got…distracted. How are you? How’s Ashleigh? Conner? That’s good. Tell them I said hi. Me? I’m good. I’m a little tired. Your brother is a freaking animal in bed. I don’t know if I’m even going to be able to walk in a straight line today.”
She laughs and I can actually hear Devin’s groan from a foot away.
“Oh, relax. At least now you won’t have to phone every Garrison or Caplan in North America to figure out what’s going on with us,” she says to him. “Anyway, talk soon. Here’s Jordy.”
She hands me the phone and I watch her bounce back into the bathroom. I smile so wide my face hurts.
“Hey, Dev,” I say brightly.
“Dude, tell her to stop messing with me!”
“She’s not. I totally am a freaking animal in bed.”
“Shut up,” my older brother groans. “Or I’m going to think twice before calling you from now on.”
I laugh at his dramatics. “You’re going to have to get over it. She’ll probably answer my phone a lot more now since she’s going to be living with me and everything.”
There’s an expected stunned pause and then I can actually hear the smile in my older brother’s voice. “Jordan, I’m so happy for you.”
“Yeah. Me too, Devin. Me too.”
Epilogue
Jordan
Rosie!” Jessie calls as we unlock the front door and walk inside, dragging our bags with us.
“She’s at work, remember?” I tell her, hauling our suitcases into the living room.
Jessie goes in the opposite direction, into the kitchen. She flips on the light and looks around. I come up behind her and survey the work myself.
Gone were all the flipping sunflowers. The torn beige linoleum floor is now a smooth gray slate. The appliances are no longer avocado green, they’re gleaming stainless steel. The walls are a warm gray blue.
The sink had been replaced with a large white sink similar to the one in our house in Seattle. The cabinets are now white, and the uppers have old-fashioned leaded glass doors. The countertops are beautiful granite in the same shade as the floors, except for the piece just right of the sink, closest to the entryway.
That is still the original sparkly, off-white Formica. Jessie doesn’t notice this yet, so I wait.
“You like it?” I ask hopefully.
“It’s gorgeous!” Jessie beams. “You did good, Garrison.”
“We did good,” I correct her.
I wrap my arms around her waist from behind and kiss the side of her neck. She giggles and pulls away.
“You need to get over your aversion to playoff beards,” I whisper in her ear, making a point of nuzzling my unruly facial hair against her cheek. “The whole point of playing hockey is to make it to playoffs every year, which means us having to grow one every year. It’s good luck.”
She chuckles again. “You look like an Amish person. And the playoffs are over now. You need to shave.”
And then she notices it. She turns in my arms.
“Did they run out of granite?” she says, pointing to the section of Formica countertop. I gave the contractors explicit instructions not to touch it.
&
nbsp; I glance at it now and a wave of nervous butterflies takes flight in my gut. Theoretically, I could do it right now. Right freaking now. But…I have a plan and I want to stick to it. So, I lie.
“I guess maybe they did.” I shrug. “I’ll call the contractor in the morning.”
She nods. It’s the first time I have lied to her since we got together, but I have a feeling she’ll forgive me.
“In the meantime…” I wrap my hands around her narrow hips and push her backward toward the countertop we just discussed. When her perky butt gently connects to it, I lift her up and set her down on it.
She smiles at me. God, she is fucking beautiful. I smile down at her—on this counter once again. Just like seven years ago, almost to the day.
Just like last time, she’s wearing a little sundress; only this one isn’t pink and frilly, it’s jersey material. The top of it kind of looks like a tank top. It’s clingy until just under her breasts, where it gets looser and it remains that way until it stops just above her pretty little knees. It’s olive green and it makes her eyes look a darker, deeper green than I’ve ever seen them.
“This brings back memories,” she whispers as she grabs the front of my T-shirt and tugs me closer. I put my hands on her knees, parting her legs slowly and stepping between them.
Our lips connect and she reaches up to hold the sides of my furry face in her hands. The kiss is slow and sensual, and I close my eyes to drown in the feel of her. Her soft, full lips on mine, our tongues touching, and her warm breath tickling my cheek.
“I’m so glad you bought this place,” she whispers against my ear.
“As soon as I knew you’d be living in it with me, it was a no-brainer,” I tell her honestly. “That was exactly why I wanted it in the first place.”
The sale had happened shortly after Jessie moved into my place in Seattle. Rose had finished her semester at college in Vermont in April, and I made a deal with her that she could live here all summer for free while she worked at Cole’s bar if she oversaw the renovations while I was in the playoffs.
Our playoff run had ended last night in the Western Conference finals. It sucked. I know that rationally, considering our injury-plagued season, we had nothing to be ashamed of—we almost made it all the way to the finals. One series away from a chance to play for the Cup. But that also made it even harder—because we pushed through adversity and were so freaking close. Another Cup would have been fan-fucking-tastic.
But, as soon as we lost, I knew I had her to console me. And because of her, it was less painful than it had been in the past. That was when I decided to act on this idea—one that I’d been thinking of almost nonstop since Jessie moved in with me in late March.
Hell, if I was honest with myself, it was an idea I had been thinking about way longer than that.
The end of our playoff run, the last day of May, felt like the universe telling me to go for it.
So, I had insisted we come back to Silver Bay right away. Jessie spent most of the day at her work rearranging her schedule for the early time off. I spent it booking our plane tickets and shopping. I had Dix and his wife, Maxine, come along to help me. My good, but single, friends like Seb, Chooch, Alex and Avery wouldn’t have been able to help with this purchase.
And now here we are. It’s a little after ten and she’s sitting in front of me on that old Formica countertop I refuse to get rid of.
“Should we call your parents and tell them we’re home?”
I shake my head and grin devilishly. “No,” I say softly, and my hands start sliding up under her dress.
“Your mom will be thrilled we’re back early,” she says, smiling, as my hands reach her upper thighs.
“Tell her later,” I whisper, kissing the side of her neck.
My hands are gliding over the front of the black cotton boy-shorts I saw her put on earlier. I hook my fingers under the front of them and she smiles.
“Shouldn’t we go upstairs?” Her lips brush mine.
“Nope. It’s my house now. I intend to have you naked in every room of it by the end of the summer.”
“Could be tricky with Rose living here,” she says, but she’s smiling.
My fingers start pulling her underwear off her body as my tongue finds its way back into her mouth. Her hands move up the sides of my face, and she pulls the hat off my head and runs her hands over my hair, tugging it gently as our kiss deepens.
Her underwear is halfway down her thighs, the fabric pulled to its limits. I step out of the space between her legs, allowing her knees to inch closer together and my hands to pull the underwear completely off. She leans over the counter and watches them fall to the floor. Her eyes find mine and she cocks an eyebrow but says nothing. I grin at her as I push her knees apart again and step back in between them.
My hands move to her lower back and I pull her body to the edge of the countertop. Her bare pussy bumps against the front of my shorts and she lets out a bit of a gasp. I nuzzle her neck and suck her earlobe into my mouth. She squeals.
“Damn beard!” She laughs as it tickles her.
I move my hands to her thighs and start sliding upward again. Her dress comes with me. I kiss her lips, hard, hot and needy. She stops giggling.
“I think I know how to make you love playoff beards,” I murmur against her mouth before I lower my head to kiss her collarbone, her bare shoulder and the fabric covering her breasts. I bend over and start kissing her thighs. Her dress is now bunched up around her waist. My eyes glance upward. She’s bare and exposed, her slick folds inches from where my lips are sucking on her skin.
“Jordan,” she says quietly.
She’s nervous. I can tell. I’ve done this before to her, countless times now. Just not on the kitchen counter and not with the beard. She’s says it’s scratchy and tickles. She’s refused this activity since I started the beard. But tonight she isn’t getting a choice in the matter.
I put a hand on her torso and gently push her back. Her shoulders rest against the wall behind her and her elbows are back on the counter supporting her weight. I push the dress farther up her body, slide my hands around her lower back, under her ass, and I lift her to meet my mouth. My tongue delves right into her essence. I don’t hesitate. I don’t tease. Her entire body shudders almost violently. I close my eyes and revel in the taste of her, the feel of her, the warmth of her. My tongue moves upward…
“Fuck. Jordan.”
I remove one of my hands from under her ass and bring it between her legs, slipping two fingers into her wet, warm center as my tongue continues to explore her. She whimpers. Loudly.
Her hand is behind my head, her fingers curled into my short hair. Her legs, now over my shoulders, tremble. She’s close. I can tell.
“Jord…” Her release rips the rest of my name from her lips as she shakes and her thighs quiver.
I let her ride it out, my face pressed into her, my tongue still lapping eagerly. When she’s done, I pull back. I can’t wait. My cock is throbbing so hard in my shorts I think it might explode. I drop my shorts and underwear.
She’s flushed and panting and beautiful. She reaches for me, her small hand wrapping around my neck while the other one grabs my shoulder. Her lips land on mine and I grab her hips, and as she hooks her legs behind my back, I push into her. She whimpers again. While one arm stays around my neck, the other reaches backward as she braces herself against the counter. She’s so unbelievably tight. And wet. It’s heaven. It’s honestly fucking heaven.
I start to move in and out in a fast and frenzied rhythm. She’s attacking me with her mouth, sucking on my neck, biting my collarbone, pulling my earlobe between her teeth.
“You’re making me so crazy,” she whispers in my ear.
I grunt and grin against her neck, pushing in deeper, harder. She reaches down and wraps her hand around my balls, rolling and tugging them until I feel a jolt of pleasure rush through me. Her lips find mine again and she sucks on my bottom lips greedily. I move one hand bet
ween us, my thumbing pressing down on her in just the right place…
“You’re going to make me…” Her words get lost in a pant.
“That’s the point,” I say, panting in return.
She arches her back and gets wetter and tighter around me. So tight. It’s too much.
“Jessie.”
I erupt inside her, my knees barely able to keep me upright. My upper body curls onto hers, my head dropping into the crook of her neck as I struggle to catch a full breath.
“Happy anniversary,” she whispers, running her fingertips down my back.
I pull back and catch her pretty eyes in shock.
“You thought I didn’t remember?” she asks with a sly smile.
I glance at the clock on the gleaming new stove.
“It’s not for another hour,” I remind her.
She smiles. “Well, that sure as hell felt like a celebration.”
I reluctantly slide out of her and pull her off the countertop.
She grabs her underwear off the floor and kisses my furry cheek.
I follow her out of the kitchen and grab our bags on the way up the stairs. The upstairs renovations haven’t started yet, but I had the contractor get rid of all the furniture in the master. That meant we were relegated to Jessie’s old bedroom again until the new master bath and the expanded closet was put in and the room could be furnished again with new furniture.
We drop our bags in there and then her cell phone starts to buzz. She pulls it out of her purse and smiles.
“Your mom,” she tells me. “It’s like she has ESP.”
“It’s the Bay, Jessie,” I say, rolling my eyes in mock disgust. “Someone probably saw us at the airport so now the whole town knows we’re back.”
“Hi, Donna! No, you didn’t wake us.” Jessie grins deviously. “Actually we’re back home. Yes! In Silver Bay. I know. Jordy really just wanted to get back. Are you free for brunch tomorrow?”
I head into the bathroom and start the shower. As the steam fills the room, I pull my electric razor out of my travel toiletry bag and start to shear off the beast on my face. Ten minutes later, I’ve got the regular razor out and I’m covered in shaving cream. I’m halfway back to my baby face when Jessie walks in, naked. I see her naked on a regular basis now—have for three months—but it still never ceases to take my breath away or make my dick throb.
One More Shot (Hometown Players #1) Page 26
