Grace's Redemption, page 10
Very interesting.
I chuckled. “Really?”
“I also dream about chipmunks and tornadoes on a regular basis, so don’t get too cocky,” she said, but her head took on a flirty tilt. A flash of that same pose in Vegas filled my brain and heated my blood. “We can’t help what we dream.”
“True,” I said, running my fingertips along the skin of her folded arms and watching her breath catch. Fuck, if that wasn’t hot as hell. “But I’m betting the stormy chipmunks don’t undress you.”
She gave an adorable little scrunch of her nose. “That would be a whole new level of weird.”
“Running naked on a bridge?”
She shook her head. “Not that I can recall.”
“So . . .” I moved in so close that I could kiss her if I wanted to, and fuck, I wanted to. Her playful expression sobered. “Were there clothes in today’s dream? Did I take them off you?”
Her gaze dropped to my lips, then slow-strolled back up to my eyes. “Maybe,” she finally whispered, her voice low and husky.
“You can’t remember?”
She swallowed. “Maybe I don’t want to tell you. Maybe I want to keep it to myself.”
I needed to walk away, go home, go actually have that fucking coffee, but this woman was killing me. I brushed a fingertip down her jaw to her throat, watching the beat of her pulse beneath her pale skin. “Share with the class, Miss M.”
She smirked. “Maybe it’s personal.”
“Personal,” I echoed as I traced that finger along her full lower lip, and nearly groaned as she darted that sweet tongue out to taste it. Shit. Things could go off the rails really damn fast, and we were in a parking lot. I slid her glasses up on top of her head, and leaned to touch her lips with mine. “Well, we are married,” I breathed against them. “Mrs. B.”
Her eyes clashed with mine again. “So you keep telling me.”
“Did you forget?”
“Couldn’t possibly.” My lips trailed over her cheek, her eyelid, her forehead, as she slowly lowered her head to rest in the hollow of my throat. “But we both know that’s only a piece of paper. A drunk mistake.” She sighed slowly. “It means nothing.”
Nothing?
My heart rebelled at the very thought, even as my selfish brain shouted and fist-pumped in agreement. I knew, in the deepest parts of me, that not one thing about us was a waste. We may have collided together under the craziest of circumstances, and I may be way out of my element with her, but I’d never been one to deny the truth.
That truth was that Grace McMasters was no mistake, and the polar opposite of nothing. She was everything. Everything good, kind, sweet, sexy, funny, and infuriating all at the same time.
Nothing, my ass.
On a growl, I forked a hand through her hair and tugged her head back, making her gasp in surprise. I dropped my hungry gaze to her mouth. “Don’t ever call yourself a mistake, Grace,” I bit out just before I crashed my lips into hers, taking everything I’d been fantasizing about since the moment I saw her again in Redemption.
She melted into me instantly, giving as good as she got. Her hands slid up my chest and neck, to rake my hair and draw me closer, changing the angle of the kiss as her tongue danced with mine. Her kiss was uninhibited, wanton, as were her sexy little mewls of pleasure, and I loved every fucking second of it.
I pressed her back against her car, my hard body caging her in as I rocked my erection against her.
She moaned and pressed back, and I wanted nothing more than to fuck her right where she stood. Especially when her hands clawed desperately at my shirt, her hot little fingers sliding under the hem to my lower back, up my flanks, around to my abs.
Her touch triggered another memory of our first night together . . . her hands undressing me, her brand-new silver wedding band glinting when she went for my belt buckle . . .
I drew in a breath and pulled back as the memory washed over me, and her movements stilled.
“What?” she breathed, looking up at me for clues. “What’s wrong?” Her hands dropped. “Oh, God, what are we doing? What am I thinking?” she whispered as if to herself.
“Hey.” I grabbed her hands and kissed her knuckles, both of us still breathing heavily. “It’s okay, nothing’s wrong. I just . . .” I sighed and squeezed her fingers, careful to keep eye contact, lest my skittish little butterfly take flight. “I just had a déjà vu moment.”
“Of?”
“This same scenario,” I said, smirking. “Your hands on me. Bad wallpaper behind your head.”
She laughed softly. “I keep getting those, too.”
“Awake, even?”
She raised an eyebrow. “Ha.” Giving a tiny shrug, Grace tilted her head in that way of hers again, and I felt unfamiliar things tug. “I remembered something odd this morning. Did you—give me a piggyback ride down the strip? Or am I making that up?”
I pulled back to study her face as her words churned up that recollection. “Your feet.”
She laughed. “What?”
“Your feet,” I repeated. “They were sore from your shoes.”
She nodded. “Well, okay then.”
The pause between us was suddenly awkward, and I glanced around. “Probably should get out of this parking lot and go see about—”
“Coffee?”
I grinned at her smile and resisted the sudden overwhelming urge to take her lips again. “Yeah.” I couldn’t seem to pull away from her, or look away from that perfect mouth, all swollen from my kiss. “So, before we go . . . one more question, Grace. Who was your first kiss?”
Her dark eyes got wide and amused. “Oh, Lord. Wait—we’ve already had this conversation.”
“We did?”
Her gaze went far away like she was looking for something, before lighting up. “Yes! Oh, my God, yours was—Claudia?”
What the fuck?
“I—”
“You used to have a speech impediment!” she gushed like the memories were pouring in faster than she could spew them. “And a pet turtle named Harriett—”
“Henrietta,” I interrupted, my jaw tight.
“Right. Henrietta. And you wrecked your first car by driving too fast to impress a girl . . . not Claudia—”
“Okay, that’s enough,” I said with a grumpy growl. “It sounds like you need to ante up.”
It was unnerving to hear I’d been that chatty. I didn’t do that. Except for Maria, I hadn’t discussed personal shit with anyone in years. As a law enforcement officer, I didn’t want my business on the street, but also, I was a private person.
What the hell had Grace McMasters done to me, one night away from my normal life, that had me giving her everything? Even my damn name.
“Oh, I think I told you plenty,” she said wryly. “Evidently, we both said enough to want to put a ring on it.”
“Kinda crazy,” I said.
“Insane,” she agreed with a soft smile.
“Preposterous.”
“Absurd?”
I laughed. “Is that a question?”
Her own laugh lit up her whole face, and it about knocked the breath from me. She was stunning in moments like that. I reached up and tucked a strand of silky dark hair behind her ear, and heard her breath catch.
“Ready for coffee?” I asked, to get us back on track.
Her smile dropped just a fraction. “Sure. The diner?”
I shook my head. “Follow me.”
Grace didn’t ask any more questions, just hopped in her car to follow. When we pulled up in my driveway and she shot me a confused look as she got out, I only second-guessed myself for a second.
She lagged behind, following me to the door. “Is this your place?”
I slid my key in the lock. “Yup.” I opened the door and swung it wide, indicating for her to follow me in.
She stood on the porch, blinking at me for a moment, her gaze sliding to the living room behind me and the stack of cardboard boxes still lining one wall like a holding area. Random items spilled from a few. I hadn’t had much time to move in, much less unpack.
“We’re having coffee at your house.”
“Best in town. As far as I’m concerned, you can’t beat my Ninja coffee maker.” I tilted my head toward the kitchen. “Coming?”
She gave me a look that said she knew I was full of shit, but that she was more than willing to play along. “You have a Ninja?”
“I do. It’s one of the few things I’ve unpacked.”
“Well, why didn’t you say so?” She stepped inside and I closed the door behind her as she began to casually peruse my home, from the clutter of boxes, to the tumble of shoes on the floor, to my big screen TV and DVDs still in a temporary situation in the corner.
I made my way to the kitchen. “How do you take your coffee?”
“Hot,” she said with a smile.
“On it.”
I left her to relax while I started the coffee, but I watched her through the open entryway as she wandered over to study my movies, then bent to look at a stack of framed photos I hadn’t put up yet. She picked the top one up—a photo of me and my wife the day we’d brought Olivia home from the hospital.
She turned and caught my stare. “She was beautiful,” she said. “Olivia looks just like her.”
I refocused on setting up the Ninja to give myself something to do. “Yeah. Thanks.”
“What was her name?”
I swallowed hard. “Maria.”
Grace nodded and gazed back down at the photo in her hand, and I saw her lips silently form the name. “Were you married long?”
“Three years.”
She made a hum of sympathy as she continued to study the image I had burned into my brain.
I bit the bullet and decided to answer the question I was sure was on her mind. “Car accident.”
She glanced over and our eyes clashed, but she didn’t say a word.
I leaned on the counter, my fingers squeezing the edge so hard, I felt my knuckles losing blood flow. I was the one who’d come up with this whole getting to know you thing, after all. Plus, she deserved to know the truth about Maria—both as my current wife and as Olivia’s teacher. “Olivia was six months old. Teething. Keeping us up at night.” I blinked and looked away, then back. “I was pulling a lot of hours at the station back then, trying to make ends meet since Maria was staying home with her. That night . . .” I paused and swallowed as memories of the worst day of my life poked my heart like an old bruise. “That night, I’d picked us up some dinner and come home early. My plan was to watch Liv so she could take a bath and get some sleep.” I dropped my head as that bruise began to pulse painfully. “But I fucking forgot to stop and pick up the diapers she’d asked me to buy that morning.” I lifted my head and met Grace’s sweet, sympathetic gaze. “Simple mistake. I forgot. So Maria offered to go. She wanted to get out of the house for a little while.”
Silence descended as the memories got the best of me. How I’d fed the baby. Put her down. Waited. Waited. Waited while gray skies outside turned to a drizzle then a downpour. And still no Maria thirty minutes later. An hour. Two hours later, making my worry turn to flat-out panic.
Then one of my fellow officers rolled up outside our house and I knew.
I just knew.
I’d hit my knees right there on the front entryway before he could reach me, a sob caught in my throat at the wrecked look in his eyes.
I’d never told anybody about that. How I’d lost it. How he’d picked me up off the floor like the broken man I was.
“What happened?” Grace’s soft voice yanked me back.
I ran a hand over my head and faced her. “It was raining. She hydroplaned head-on into an eighteen-wheeler and was killed instantly.”
She gasped, her hand to her throat. “Oh, God. Mateo. I’m . . . I don’t know what to say. How awful.”
I nodded. I’d heard enough well-meaning platitudes and ‘I’m sorries’ to last me a lifetime. “Nothing to say.”
“Still—”
I shook my head, stopping whatever she was going to say and forced my body to relax as I let go of the countertop. “I’m sorry if I dampened the mood. I just figured . . . Thought you should know.”
Her expression was thoughtful as she studied me with those big brown eyes. “You didn’t dampen anything. Thank you for sharing that with me.”
“Yup.” I turned back to check on the coffee and took a breath.
She seemed to take a breath too, running her finger along my CD collection a moment later. “Funny. I would’ve pegged you as a classic rock guy.” She glanced up with a half grin. “Alternative and punk? Really?”
“Hey, blink-182 is highly underrated.”
She picked up one of the cases. “May I?”
I nodded. “Please.”
Something deep inside me began to uncoil and calm as “I Miss You” by blink-182 came on. She strolled my way as I pulled out mugs, spoons, cream, and sugar, silently offering her some as the song played on.
I poured, then we sipped and listened, leaning right there against my kitchen counter.
As the song ended and rolled to the next on the CD, she glanced over at me. “I feel like I’m learning so much about you today.”
“Besides Henrietta?” I quipped to keep from delving into the truth of what she’d learned.
She smiled and turned back to her coffee.
“So, if I were to come over to your place, what music would I find?” I studied her profile. “Classical? Jazz? Showtunes?”
She nearly spewed her drink. “God, no. It’s rock ’n’ roll for me. Some country, but mostly rock, especially the real stuff like the Rolling Stones or Boston. Oh, and The Doors.”
“Seriously?”
“Had a major crush on Jim Morrison.”
I chuckled. “Wouldn’t have guessed that.”
“Yeah, well, I might’ve grown up on hymns, but I managed to find the good stuff.”
“Duly noted.”
I opened my mouth to say something clever, or ask her one of the million things on my mind—how her dad was doing, how she was doing, what we were doing—but she cut me off, her eyes wide and serious as she put down her mug.
“I’m scared, Mateo.” It sounded like the words were literally painful for her to admit out loud, like they’d been festering and finally ripped their way out. That tore at something inside of me, making me want to fix it.
I set my own cup down next to hers. “Scared of what?”
Her head dropped, a curtain of hair sliding off her shoulders as she sighed. “My dad dying . . . my dad not dying . . . being pregnant by a total stranger . . . not—”
“Wait a minute.” I waited until she looked back up at me. “I know I can’t do much about your dad, but I thought we were making pretty good headway on that stranger business.”
“You know what I mean.” Her voice was soft. Emotional.
I just shrugged.
Her eyes searched mine for a long moment before she spoke. “Because of how I was raised—or maybe in spite of it—I’ve always wanted a family to love. A real one, without all the drama I had. Children on purpose. A husband that loved me.” Tears quivered in her voice, but she valiantly held them back, looking out the back window toward Olivia’s swing set. “In the right order,” she said softly, her breath hitching. “I wasn’t looking for a drunk, one-night hookup. I want a partner. A lover. A best friend. A soulmate.” Her gaze clashed with mine again. “I want it all.”
I had nothing. I opened my mouth to say something to that, but she lifted a hand to wave me off as she picked up her coffee mug again.
“Don’t. There’s nothing to say.” She studied my face over the rim of her cup. “What’s done is done, and if we’re having a baby, we are. If not . . .” She shrugged as if it didn’t matter, closing off her face, but I saw the emotion buried deep in there. She wanted this. She wanted a baby. Maybe not my baby, per se, but she wanted to be a mother, and had come to accept the way life may have handed her that opportunity.
But she also wanted love. A husband in every sense of the word. I’d been that once. I had no idea if I was capable, or even willing, to go there again. I certainly never thought I’d remarry after I lost Maria. I took those vows seriously, and when I said “till death do us part” all those years ago, I’d meant it . . . until my death. I was having one hell of a time wrapping my mind around the fact that I’d spoken the same words again to another woman. Especially after spilling the details of that horrendous day to Grace.
Still, when she looked at me with those big, wounded brown eyes, or when I scrolled through the photos of our time together in Vegas and caught glimpses of her carefree smile, and pieces of some foreign emotion tumbled through my chest—it didn’t feel wrong.
“Why are you looking at me like that?” she suddenly asked.
“Like what?”
“Like, I don’t know . . . like . . .” Her hand tightened on her mug as a soft blush crept up her cheeks.
We both knew exactly how I was looking at her. Like I had in Vegas. Like she was beautiful. Like she was perfect. Like she was mine.
I want it all.
Looking in those eyes and replaying her words, it hit me square in the gut. I’d had it all. I knew the feeling. And fuck if this insanity didn’t suddenly feel like another pathway to the same destination. Could it be possible that it found me again while I wasn’t looking for it? When I’d finally fully emerged from the fog of grief, and never wanted to chance that pain again, for myself or for Olivia?
I stepped into her space, my head spinning with all of it. With all of her. I needed to not be doing this right now. I needed to be by myself and think, clearly, without her dizzying scent pulling me in. Without those impossible eyes that looked straight through to my soul. Telling me I want it all.
Keeping my gaze pinned to hers, I brushed the hair from her shoulder and let my fingers brush her throat. Her eyes fluttered closed, and I dipped my head to run my nose along the sensitive skin behind her jaw, up to her ear, inhaling her.
“Mateo.” My name tumbled from her lips like a soft prayer, nearly making me groan.
Yeah, thinking wasn’t happening today.
