Beauty and the Beefcake

by Pippa Grant

Murphy snickers.

  Fuck, I’m snickering.

  Gracie’s stifling a giggle next to me too.

  “It’s not my head I’m worried about,” Thrusty says to Felicity. “You know what happens when I meet my favorite players.”

  “Right. The mustard.”

  “I just get so excited.”

  “I spill my mustard when I’m excited too,” Lavoie says.

  Murphy coughs and hides another snicker.

  Felicity’s cool though.

  Both she and Thrusty look at Lavoie like he’s just confessed to wetting his pants.

  “Have you talked to your doctor about that?” Felicity asks.

  Completely straight-faced.

  She was born to perform.

  “Felicity,” Thrusty hisses, “don’t embarrass him. And can you…”

  Thrusty trails off.

  Felicity leans closer to him. “Can I what, Thrusty?”

  They have a short, whispered conversation no one else can hear. After a few seconds, Felicity lifts her head. “Hey, Duncan, could I ask you for a favor?”

  “Sure,” Lavoie says.

  “Thrusty wants to know if you’ll take a picture with him.”

  “Anything for my biggest fan.”

  Felicity hands the puppet over and leans back, pulling her phone out of her pocket.

  “You want me in that picture?” Murphy asks while Felicity leans back, capturing Lavoie and Thrusty.

  Thrusty turns his head and looks at Murphy. “No thanks.”

  Lavoie drops the puppet, shrieks, and tips his chair over.

  Murphy shrieks and jumps out of his chair.

  Gasps go up from everyone in the green room. One of the cameramen shrieks.

  Felicity keeps a straight face.

  I’m choking back a laugh.

  Viktor’s moving in like he’s going to shield Gracie and her baby bump from the demon bratwurst.

  Demon bratwurst.

  Heh.

  Wonder what kind of gif that’ll pull up. Whatever it is, I’m sending it to Z.

  Murphy finally slows and looks at Felicity.

  Then at me.

  “Aw, fuck,” he says.

  Felicity dusts off Thrusty and props him back in her lap. “Nick Murphy, there are kids watching this video,” Thrusty chides.

  “Did you get a fucking remote control dummy?” he asks.

  Lavoie’s springing back up. “I was in on it,” he lies.

  I hit a button on my phone, and Thrusty’s head turns in a circle, his eyes rolling in opposite directions.

  “That’s fucking wrong,” Murphy says.

  “You say fuck too much,” Lucy answers, even though she’s tucked in a trunk on the side of the room. “Isn’t charm school working?”

  “Fuck off, Lucy,” Murphy mutters.

  “He says fuck too much,” Jaeger mutters on my other side. “Ruined a fucking perfect video.”

  “Can you go back to where Felicity’s handing Thrusty to Duncan?” Jenna asks.

  They shoot some more. Felicity’s on her game. She’s throwing Murphy and Lavoie off theirs.

  It’s perfect.

  Jenna finally lets them go after almost an hour. “Thanks, gentlemen. Ladies. Enjoy your afternoon.”

  Murphy gives me a good-natured punch in the arm on his way out. “Yeah, yeah, we’re even now.”

  “Nope.”

  “Bring it, Berger.”

  There’s no heat.

  He’s coming around.

  Helps that Felicity’s happy.

  Grounded.

  Got her dream job, with her dream team, with enough flexibility to handle her attention span.

  Her IQ’s so high, nobody ever asked about her attention span.

  I use my crutch—I’m down to one, following doctor’s orders, and my girlfriend’s orders, and some to be extra cautious—and cross the room to offer my help.

  She goes up on her tiptoes, and I lean down to trade cheek kisses with her.

  “You have perfect timing,” she tells me.

  No, she has perfect timing.

  She grins, then peeks around me.

  Looking to see how big our audience is.

  “You heading home?” she asks me.

  Which means we have a pretty big audience.

  I nod.

  Could go grab a beer with the guys. Invited to hang at Frey’s tonight for game night too.

  “Hey, Gracie, can we grab a lift?” she calls around me.

  “Do you even have to ask? Of course.”

  Twenty minutes later, we’re back at my place.

  Didn’t think I’d like it as much as I do when I picked it. Just wanted to be close to the arena. Close for practice. Close to friends.

  But Felicity’s made this apartment more than just a few rooms I sleep and eat in.

  There are pieces of her everywhere.

  Her puppets live in a corner of the guest room.

  Her coffee press is on the counter.

  Gammy’s last blanket is still gathering rows, but it’s here on my couch now.

  Felicity’s soap and shampoo bottles clutter my bathroom.

  And her scent lingers in my bedroom.

  She fixes us popcorn for an afternoon snack and snuggles up to me on the couch, tossing pieces to Loki on the coffee table while I flip through the sports channels, looking for highlights from Z’s game last night.

  “I told Nick we need to sell Gammy’s house,” she tells me.

  I hit the power button on the remote and look down at her.

  She hasn’t spent the night at Gammy’s house in three weeks.

  Last time she did was because the furnace was getting replaced early in the morning, and she didn’t want to have to get up and trek across town in rush hour traffic.

  But she’s kept a bunch of her stuff there.

  “You’re not crazy,” she says, ticking her fingers off like she has to justify wanting to move in. “I already basically live here. It’s really nice not feeling like there’s a ghost peeking over my shoulder all the time. And I love you.”

  “And you love his monkey, Felicity,” she chirps happily as Lucy. “You’re always talking about how much you love his monkey.”

  “That’s code for his penis, Lucy,” she answers herself as Tim.

  “Would you kids quit talking about penises and monkeys?” Harold grumps.

  “Okay! Let’s talk about bratwurst instead,” Lucy says. “I vote we let Thrusty into the club. All in favor?”

  I kiss her before her puppets can take a vote about a bratwurst.

  And kissing her turns into pulling her shirt off—as it frequently does—and sends the monkey into hiding.

  As it also frequently does.

  Soon we’re both naked on the floor. A mass of tangled limbs and joined body parts. She slides her pussy down my cock, takes me deep inside her, and fuck, I’m home.

  I’m just home.

  “I love you,” I grit out.

  So close.

  That’s all it takes. Just her body against mine, her inner walls gripping me tight, and she puts me on the edge every time.

  She pumps up and down on my cock, riding me, gasping, stroking, squeezing, kissing me, until we both spin out of control and explode in a joint shower of sparks and light and pure, unfiltered bliss.

  When the last of our climaxes fade away, she flops onto my chest, softly rubbing my pecs. “Thank you for pestering the team until they hired me,” she says on a yawn.

  She’s adorable.

  One orgasm, and she’s ready for sleep.

  I kiss her head.

  She’s perfect. Knows as much about hockey as I do. Hard to tell her no, so she’s spending a lot of time with the stubborn cases—like me—in the PT room. Bounces ideas around with the team marketing department.

  “Felicity,” I whisper.

  “Mm?”

  “Marry me?”

  She lifts her head.

  Meets my gaze with those bright
green eyes that aren’t sleepy anymore.

  They’re wide.

  Hopeful.

  Shiny.

  “Please,” I add.

  The smile starts slow but blossoms all over her face. She’s smiling so big the whole room’s smiling.

  I’m doing this wrong.

  Don’t have a ring.

  Nothing romantic.

  But I love her.

  I love her with everything in me. I want to be hers in every way I can. Forever.

  “Yes,” she whispers. “Ares…yes.”

  I roll us so I’m on top, kissing her. Her neck. Her jaw. Her nose. Her lips.

  Everything.

  She’s my everything.

  The last piece to my puzzle.

  I’ll love her always.

  POST-EPILOGUE

  Thanks for reading! Want some bonus epilogues, including Ares and Felicity getting some quality time with Zeus and Joey, and something to do with a Zamboni? Click here to register for the Pipster Report, a weekly dose of zaniness from the Pippaverse, and I’ll send you three! If you already subscribe to the Pipster Report, check your last email from me for the magic link!

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  And keep reading for a sneak peek at Rockaway Bride. Hugs and cookie kisses!!

  Pippa

  Books by Pippa Grant

  Mister McHottie (Chase & Ambrosia)

  Stud in the Stacks (Parker & Knox)

  The Pilot and the Puck-Up (Zeus and Joey)

  Royally Pucked (Manning and Gracie)

  Beauty and the Beefcake (Ares and Felicity)

  Rockaway Bride (Willow and…)

  Exes and Ho Ho Hos (Jake and Kaitlyn)

  And more…

  Keep in touch with Pippa Grant!

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  If you love rock stars, runaway brides, and hilarious adventures, read on for an excerpt of Rockaway Bride…

  Willow Honeycutt (aka a bride on the verge of a breakdown)

  When I was little and dreaming of my wedding day, I always pictured myself with a Mohawk, a tie-dyed fluffy wedding gown cut off at the knees, biker boots, and dashing out the back of a chapel in Vegas to peel off into the sunset on a Harley.

  Mostly because I was secretly in love with Davis Remington, the youngest member of the boy band Bro Code, who had tattoos and sometimes shaved parts of his head and made headlines once when he crashed a Harley, and he was just hot, and I assumed that’s what his wedding would be like, and also that I would be his bride, because he was only a few years older than me.

  Not that I ever told my mom that. As far as she knows, I always loved Tripp Wilson—you know, the big brother of the group, who was more years older than me and therefore only a silly girl crush—because that helped her sleep at night, and I knew how much she worried.

  About everything.

  Being a single mother in the city is hard. So I kept my dreams of marrying a boy band bad boy to myself, I got good grades, I got scholarships for an early childhood education degree and then a job teaching preschool, Mom married the king of a small Nordic country—yes, seriously—I stayed in New York and joined a band where we cover our favorite boy band songs and mostly play juice bars some nights and weekends, and tomorrow I’m having the fairytale princess wedding in a palace, exactly like every girl dreams of.

  Except me.

  And tonight, while I wander the stone hallways of Skyr Castle in my mom’s adopted home country of Stölland, where I’m supposed to be getting my beauty rest after watching my soon-to-be mother-in-law kiss up to the king so very blatantly during the rehearsal dinner that even the palace mice were embarrassed for her, I’m trying really, really hard to convince myself that my regrets and doubts are a result of this wedding’s lack of Mohawk, tattoos, biker boots, and getaway Harleys.

  And that my regrets and doubts have nothing to do with Martin.

  My fiancé.

  Whom I’m marrying.

  In eighteen hours.

  Eighteen.

  Hours.

  Eighteen hours until my life and my freedom and my future are forever sealed in the bonds of marriage.

  I’m going to throw up.

  I breathe through the nausea and turn a corner, passing one of those knight thingies that are in the corners of ancient stone castles everywhere, except this one is all suited up in Viking armor instead of metal armor, so it has a vicious looking helmet with horns on top and some weird protrusion covering where a person’s nose should be, a shield portraying the Frey family coat of arms, which has a killer sheep carrying a spear and an ax and eating a whale on it—royalty is so weird—and a bearskin rug where a breastplate should be.

  Bearskin coat?

  Whatever.

  The point is, I turn the corner on knees and legs which are rapidly melting to the consistency of slime, wishing I had a paper bag, and I find myself face-to-face with three real Viking princes.

  My stepbrothers. Who, thankfully, are all in jeans and casual dress shirts instead of Viking armor, because that truly would be the end of me for the night.

  “There’s the lovely blushing bride,” Gunnar, the oldest, says.

  “Blushing? I believe the more appropriate adjective would be hyperventilating,” replies Manning, the youngest.

  “You two fuckers are bloody useless,” grumbles Colden, the grumpy one.

  All three have this quasi-British accent that would be intriguing if any of them were tatted up, owned motorcycles, and not my stepbrothers.

  Colden shoves a wine bottle into my hand. “Drink.”

  Stölland’s national beverage is mead, and I learned the night before my mom’s wedding to the king several years back that I don’t tolerate it well.

  I take the bottle and glug off the top without asking for a glass, because he’s right. I need a drink. And I’ve known my stepbrothers long enough to know that when one is handed a bottle, one drinks off the bottle.

  Which is awesome tonight.

  Tonight, I need all the drinks.

  “Maybe this won’t be so bad,” Gunnar says to Manning, who nods his agreement while they both watch me swig.

  The two of them are nearly the same height, both with thick brown hair tinged with red in the sunlight, both with pale blue eyes, and both fathers now, though Gunnar—the crown prince—is always clean-shaven, whereas Manning, who’s so far down the line to inherit the crown that he’s been given permission to live in the States and play professional hockey basically until he’s too old to play anymore, almost perpetually sports a short beard around his never-ending smile.

  He’s madly in love with the perfect woman for him, and they have the most adorable baby together. Of course he’s smiling.

  Oh, god. Oh god oh god oh god.

  The possibility of having Martin’s babies is suddenly so real that my ovaries have just offered themselves as tribute to a cryogenics experiment. And possibly performed some sort of self-freeze.

  I take another fortifying gulp of honey wine and pray it stays down. “What won’t be so bad?” My voice comes out high and panicked like I’ve been sucking helium, only worse.

  Colden sighs. He’s shorter than his brothers by a couple inches, with hair much darker, almost the same shade as mine. I’m told he resembles their long-departed mother. And I know firsthand he prefers the company of sheep to the company of people.

  “The night before the wedding talk,” he answers.

  My face goes so hot my brains melt out my nose. Or so it feels. “Uh, guys, I don’t think—”

  Manning laughs. “Not that talk, dear Willow, though if you need pointers—”

  Gunnar silences him with a sneak attack headlock. “We w
ere referring to the if you need to run, we’ll make it happen talk. Family tradition. Though I do believe this is the first time we’ll actually mean it.”

  My heart skips a beat.

  Or maybe four beats. “I can’t run,” I object. Or try to. The words get stuck, and I have to swallow them down with another healthy swig of mead before I try again, when the words once again get stuck.

  “You can, you may, and you should,” Colden replies.

  Manning’s twisting and flailing and attempting to get out of Gunnar’s headlock, which would be way more entertaining if the mead in my belly wasn’t churning like a tsunami of bad idea bubbles and overwhelming doubts.

  “We’ve bought you a ticket,” Manning says between grunts and twists.

  “A ticket to where?”

  “New York, but we can change it to anywhere,” Gunnar replies. He’s grinning now, clearly enjoying the hell out of getting the upper hand on Manning, who should be the strongest of the bunch since he plays professional hockey for a living.

  My stepbrothers are all over-muscled Viking goobers.

  And I might possibly love them more than I love peanut butter cups right now.

  “Do you wish to marry Martin?” Colden asks.

  My tongue swells. I rub it over the roof of my mouth, and I gag.

  “Exactly as we suspected,” Gunnar declares. He releases Manning, who springs just out of reach of the eldest Frey brother. “Come, Willow. We’ve a plan.”

  I stomp a foot, and I sway. Whoa. That mead is yum. Am I supposed to be drunk this fast? I don’t remember getting drunk this fast last time. Although, I suppose not eating anything at the rehearsal dinner might’ve been part of the problem. I kept sneaking my food to the dog when my bridesmaids and mom weren’t looking.

  “I’m going to marrrrr—” I start, but I can’t finish. While my stepbrothers watch expectantly, I take another drink off the bottle, and I try again. “I want to marrrrr—”

  All three of them continue to stare at me.

  “Fudge you all!” I say.

  Gunnar and Manning smirk.

  Colden sighs again. “We can order him beheaded instead,” he offers.

  “And his mother too,” Manning agrees.

  “But not the dog,” Gunnar says. “Viggo’s rather taken with the dog. I dare say the dog may not make it back on the plane to the States.”