Grinder (Seattle Sharks 1)

I knew the truth was going to come out sooner than I was ready. I felt its approach like a fucking freight train. Because tonight I didn’t just make love to her, I’d done the unthinkable, most assholish thing I could have to her dreams.

I’d given her hope.

Chapter 14

Bailey

Somehow the house was a wreck despite the three of us having spent all of the last week experiencing the most magical place on earth—or so Lettie kept telling me. I couldn’t help but smile every time she darted through the place, still wearing her Minnie Mouse ears and singing the Hot Dog Dance song at the top of her lungs. It had been an amazing trip, and even though Gage had had to sit out in order to heal, he’d been able to make me sigh his name more than once. The red-hot memory of what he’d done to me in the oversized bathtub in the hotel, and then afterward in the bed, had my thighs clenching and begging for a repeat.

That man. He was unstoppable. And making love to him without anything between us? That was a kind of nirvana I hadn’t known existed. I’d let him—without hesitation or second thoughts. Even now, I didn’t regret it. It only reaffirmed the love I had for him, and seeing him with those twin babies had only made my heart swell more.

“Bailey is laundry so fun?” Lettie asked, bolting into the room, her long brown hair frizzing out around the mouse ears.

Gage was back on the ice again today, and I wanted the place to be spotless by the time he made it out of practice, which I knew would be grueling. I’d even picked up his favorite cut of meat for a steak dinner tonight.

I tilted my head, shifting the hamper under my arm as I went from room to room collecting dirty clothes. Some of the Sharks had slept over after Lettie’s birthday party that had turned into an adult one after she’d went to sleep—and good God, which Shark liked to wear bikini briefs?

“Why do you ask, pumpkin?” I asked her, timidly picking up the silky red men’s underwear, trying to picture Gage in them.

They would be like a second skin, showing off his ass and those gloriously huge thighs of his…not to mention the other deliciously large piece of him---

“You’re smiling so big,” Lettie said, pointing at the grin I donned as I tossed the briefs into the hamper.

Was I? I bent down to kiss her forehead. “I’m happy.”

“Doing laundry.” She looked at me like I was an alien, and not the super-cool-fun kind she liked to draw in her sketchbook.

I tickled her belly, getting the round of squeals I wanted. “Yes. And I’d be even happier if you showed me where you’re hiding all your matching socks.”

“I don’t hide them. They run away!” She laughed again and then took off toward her room.

I glanced around the guestroom one more time for any other mysterious pairs of undergarments and then shook my head. I was pretty sure Rory had slept in this room that night, but I couldn’t be certain. The thought made me blush and I quickly shut the door behind me, reminding myself to give Paige a call later and tease her about what her crush liked to sport underneath the tailored suits he wore off the ice.

“All right, Lettie. Let’s see what the damage is,” I said, pushing the door open to her room.

She dropped a handful of clothes in the middle of her bed. “These are from our trip.”

“Thanks. You’re such a great helper!” I patted her on the back and hefted the pile into the hamper, making my way around her room that was way too big for a four-year-old, and double checked her closet for good measure.

Clothes I’d never seen Lettie wear hung neatly on matching pink hangers, and I shifted them to get a good look at the toy-crowded floor beneath it. The tip of a pink sock stuck out from underneath a Little People Princess Castle and I bent down to grab it.

“Oh, I want to play Castle!” Lettie said, bounding over and dropping to her knees as she dragged the toy out.

“Okay. I’m going to throw these into the wash,” I said, closing her door behind me.

I stopped in the hallway, staring at the tiny pink sock that hadn’t fit Lettie in over three years. The small piece of soft, fuzzy fabric had to have been from when she was a newborn, its match no doubt lost to sock-purgatory long ago. The image of another little girl popped in my mind, one with my hazel eyes and Gage’s smile. Another princess for him to spoil. The final piece of my heart.

I held the sock between my fingers as gentle as I would my baby. Gage’s and my baby.

A wrench stung in the center of my chest and paired simultaneously with butterflies in my stomach. Fear and hope mixed until I felt nauseous. It was too soon to think about another type of life with Gage—or maybe, if I was honest, I’d been thinking about it long before he’d ever looked at me that way. And with what we’d did in the hotel room, without pause or thought on what we’d do if it ended up with me pregnant, made me think that perhaps one day we’d be ready.

It wasn’t like this was a brand-new relationship. We’d known each other almost our entire lives, and we’d been a “family” for almost a year now since I started taking care of Lettie. I’d always wanted a family of my own, something similar to what I already had with Lettie and Gage, and the second I’d fallen in love with him—full on head over heels in love—I realized I wanted it much sooner than I’d ever planned. That was how strongly I felt about Gage, I wanted him to claim me in every way possible—forever and with a baby of our own to love and for Lettie to be a big sister to.

Regardless of the hope pulsing hard with each beat of my heart, I knew where he stood on more babies—which was that he didn’t.

He couldn’t see past Lettie, or wouldn’t…but that was before me, before us.

Chills danced across my skin as I remembered the look in his eyes as he plunged inside me, bare and free, hard and strong. Did that mean he’d changed his mind? Or was he just in the heat of the moment?

Either way, I couldn’t ignore the hope. Maybe, someday he would want a family with me. The idea sent a giddy, bubbly sensation soaring through my veins, successfully crushing any doubt or fear I had. We had time for him to think about it, and really, it was too soon to broach the subject seriously.

I pocketed the sock and made my way to the laundry room, throwing the clothes in for a quick cycle before heading to the messiest room in the house—which you would think would be the toddler’s, but wasn’t.