“Hey, you coming over this weekend?” Gage asked as I zipped up my bag.
“Barbecue at your place? We’ll be there,” I told him. Shit, we’d gone so damn domestic.
I exited the locker room and was immediately hounded by press. I took two questions, both of which revolved around our newest rookie, Gentry, and how he was fitting into the house as our goaltender. A glimpse of red from over the reporter’s shoulder was all I needed to wish them all a good night, and ditch the dog and pony show.
I pushed through the small crowd to see Paige leaned up against the wall, her hair piled on her head in some kind of knot, my jersey covering her gorgeous, swollen belly. Gone were the sexy pumps for the next—and last—couple months of her pregnancy, and in their place were adorable chucks that I tied every morning since she couldn’t reach her toes.
“Good evening, my ladies,” I said, kissing Paige’s stomach, and receiving a kick for my effort from our little girl, whom we’d just decided to name Daphne.
“Hiya, stranger,” Paige said with a smile.
I kissed her softly, cupping her face as I caressed her lips, gently tugging on the lower one. She whimpered slightly, arching up for a deeper kiss, and I briefly obliged. The press had long-since gotten over taking pictures of our PDA, and since I’d put a ring on her finger right after we’d won the Cup, we were old news to them.
That was me: Rory Jackson. Old, married, domestic, expectant father.
Never happier.
“You get everything done you wanted to at the office today?” I asked as I held her hand, leading her out to our car. She’d walked away from every job offer in order to run her own non-profit. Jackson Squared was her baby, now. We’d started it up with my signing bonus, funding not only the Seattle shelter but one in Oregon, too. Now Paige spent her days, and her energy doing what she loved—raising funds and making savvy decisions that made a difference in the lives of the homeless. I knew one day she’d want to return to corporate America, where she shone, but for now, she was happy and thriving while waiting for our daughter, for whom she’d already sworn off nannies.
“I looked at the plans for the new shelter in Portland, and the site for the prospective one in Sacramento. Ooh, and I took a phone call from Matt Donaldson, who wants to help out with sponsoring one in L.A.” A devilish gleam crossed her green eyes as she leaned back against my very new, very safe, very family-friendly Range Rover. It matched the garage of our very big, very appropriate new home in Gage’s neighborhood. Our kids would grow up together and have the kind of friendship and support I’d only ever dreamed of. “He told me that he couldn’t wait to see me next month when he flew in and that the pictures he’d seen of me showed that pregnancy made me glow—”
I claimed her mouth, careful with our daughter between us as I pinned my wife to my car. I laced our fingers, holding her hands against the glass as I took her mouth the way I couldn’t wait to take her body—with full, sweeping strokes of my tongue. Fuck, the woman drove me wild.
Months of anger management counseling had my temper firmly checked, but the jealousy always flared, and she knew it. She reveled in how much I loved her, worshipped her, and how much power it gave her over me. Since I maintained about ninety-five percent of the power in the bedroom—the way she liked it—I let her goad me whenever she wanted.
Hell, she could do whatever she wanted as long as she loved me.
“Tell Matt Donaldson that you’re married and heavily pregnant with my child. And once you’re healed, and strong, you’ll be back under me, over me, bent over in front of me, so our daughter has a sibling. There won’t be a day where I won’t be inside you in some way or another, so you really have no time for Hollywood do-gooders. Besides, you’re too busy doing good yourself.”
Her smile lit the night as she brushed her lips against mine. “I kinda like it when you go all caveman.”
“I’m well aware.”
Her arms wrapped around my neck, her scent and feel already making me harder than the car she leaned against. “I did something else today,” she said with a smirk.
“Oh? Do tell.”
“Number seventeen?” she asked coyly, biting her lip.
“The swing?” my voice nearly broke on the last word, but I hung onto my manhood by a thread.
“Installed in our bedroom today.”
“Holy. Shit.” A swing. In our bedroom. No pressure on her belly, no worries that my weight would crush her...just pure, simple access to my wife, and the ability to make her scream.
“How about you take me home, Mr. Jackson?”
“Anything for you, Mrs. Jackson.”
God, I loved this woman. Her mind, her heart, her soul. She’d be the mother to our daughter that I hadn’t had. I’d be the father who would crush anyone who looked at my baby girl sideways. We’d be a family—and we’d have forever.
The Seattle Sharks Have Bite!
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GRINDER, the first sexy standalone hockey romance in the Seattle Sharks series has been included below as an added bonus! Keep flipping the pages to read Gage’s story!
About the Author
Samantha Whiskey is a wife, mom, lover of her dogs and romance novels. No stranger to hockey, hot alpha males, and a high dose of awkwardness, she tucks herself away to write books her PTA will never know about.
Acknowledgments
Thank you to my incredible husband and my awesome kids without which I would live a super boring life!
Huge thanks must be paid to these amazing authors who have always offered epic advice and constant support! Not to mention creating insanely hot reads to pass the time with! Sosie Frost, Winter Renshaw, Gina L. Maxwell, and Heather Stone…there aren’t enough words for how much I adore each and every one of you!
GRINDER
A Seattle Shark’s Novel
Samantha Whiskey
Grinder
Samantha Whiskey
Copyright © 2016 by Samantha Whiskey All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review. This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental. This book is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This book may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person you’d like to share it with. Thank you for respecting the author’s work.
Created with Vellum
For anyone with a dream and the courage to fight for it.
Gage
Chapter 1
Getting a three year-old to sleep should be an olympic event.
“Is that better?” I asked Lettie, smoothing back her thick brown hair from those summer blue eyes as she drained the small glass of water. She nodded, her smile full of tiny, gapped teeth as she settled back against her pillow.
If hockey was my world, where I made my living breathing the game, the ice, the needs of my team, then Lettie was my sun—the only thing in this universe that thawed my heart.
She was also the only thing I’d ever be caught waxing poetic about. But I couldn’t help it, I was owned by a tiny three-year-old.
“Thank you, Daddy,” she said, but the way she plucked at her covers and wiggled her tiny feet told me there was something else on my daughter’s mind.
“What’s up, sunshine?” I asked.
She looked up with excited eyes. “I like that Bailey is here.”
“Me too,” I said, unable to stop the smile that spread across my face at her happiness.
“I like Bailey.”
A small chuckle rumbled through my chest. “Well, me too,” I said, ruffling her hair.
/> “And now she’s here all the time? Mornings and everything?”
“Yep,” I answered, reaching for her bedside table. Bringing Bailey to live with us as Lettie’s full-time nanny was a no-brainer. As often as I’d need her to travel with me for away games, and with the unpredictability of my schedule, it was really the only way for her to have a life...for either of us to. She’d been doing the job for six months already, but with the season starting up, it was the right time.
“So when I get up she’ll be here?”
I paused before turning out the light and took a deep breath. “Yes, but Lettie, let’s wait until the clock has a seven on it, okay? Not everyone likes to party at five a.m.”
She bounced slightly, her eyes lighting with mischief. “I just can’t wait to see her.”
“You just saw her, remember? She tucked you in,” I said bringing her covers back up to her chin and urging her to lay down.
“I know, wasn’t it amazing?”
I leaned forward, kissing her forehead. “Yes, it was amazing. And it will be amazing again tomorrow night.”
“She’s the best,” she said, her eyes as wide as her smile. “Maybe she wants to see me before the sun is up!”
I pursed my lips, fighting the laughter that came so easily around my daughter, but only her. “Scarlett McPherson, you leave Bailey alone until morning. Do you understand me?”
Her lower lip extended in the cutest damn pout. “Yes, Daddy.”
“Okay. I’m going to run for a little bit, so if you need me I’ll be in the gym, okay?”
She nodded and flung herself forward, hugging me tight.
I held her close, savoring the smell of her strawberry shampoo, and the simple joy she emanated. Everything was simple in her world—her daddy loved her and Bailey adored her.
For the first time since she was born, there was a sense of stability in this house, and by God, I was going to keep it that way.
“I love you more than the stars,” she said with a hard squeeze.
“I love you more than the moon.”
“The stars are prettier,” she argued.
“Well, the Earth needs the moon, so I love you more.”
Her face scrunched momentarily before she shrugged. “Okay. But only because you need a win.”
I hugged her again and put her to bed, silently cursing Rory for saying that yesterday when he was here, arguing to let Bailey move in.
I turned off Lettie’s light and shut her door softly behind me.
My watch read 8:15 p.m. I could get in a couple miles and then meet the guys for drinks. Or I could get a couple miles in and maybe chill for the night.
Yeah, the second was probably the more responsible of the choices.
The refrigerator shut as I passed the kitchen, and I turned to see Bailey unloading a bag full of groceries. Her top was perfectly respectable, but the slight dip in her neckline gave me a mouth-watering glimpse of her cleavage.
Don’t look at her like that, you asshat.
“Hey,” I said, instead, as smooth as a fucking seventh-grader.
“Hey,” she answered with a bright smile as I leaned across the island. “So I picked up some more of that Greek yogurt you like, and some stuff for cupcakes tomorrow. I figured I’d bake with Lettie to kind of celebrate our little…” she gestured around her “arrangement?”
A corner of my mouth lifted in a smile. “Bailey, you’re living with us. There’s nothing illicit going on.”
Pink stained her cheeks and damn if it didn’t make her even more beautiful. Not that Bailey needed the help. She was petite but packed a powerhouse body that had found itself under mine in a few of my more drunken fantasies. And that face? Damn, she was perfection—huge hazel eyes, thick lashes, and olive skin with the most kissable mouth I’d ever laid eyes on.
But that was all I was ever going to lay on her.
“Well, yeah,” she said, pulling her long, dark brown hair into some kind of knot on the top of her head. “It’s just a transition.”
“Hopefully a good one.” It had to be. Lettie adored Bailey, and we’d been friends since we were kids, so it wasn’t like I could afford to piss off Bailey...or our mothers.
“It will be,” she promised. “Besides, I was practically living here anyway. Now I don’t have to drive back to my place in the traffic.”
“Agreed.” Seattle traffic could be a nightmare.
She paused, leaning back against the opposite counter, inadvertently putting those lush curves on display.
Fuck my life, if I didn’t get out of here I was going to sport wood harder than the fucking floor.
“I’m going to go get a couple miles in,” I told her, pushing back from the island.
She reached over and into the fridge, then tossed a bottle of water my direction. “Have a good run. Oh, and I heard Rory and Warren talking today while we were moving in. If you want to grab a couple beers with the guys, I’m totally okay here with Lettie.”
“Thanks. I’ll think about it, but I’m pretty sure I’m just going to turn in.” And get the hell away from you before I lose my nanny to sexual harassment.
“Okay, well the offer always stands. I don’t mind.” She crossed her arms under those perfect breasts. “It’s not like I have a boyfriend or much of a social life outside Jeanine and Paige.”
I opened the water bottle and took a few quick chugs. “Yeah, and your friends are always welcome here. Seriously. This is your house now, too.”
Her smile was small but genuine. “That means a lot.”
I nodded awkwardly. “I’ll catch you later.”
“Later.”
I ran out of there so fast the room may as well have been on fire and headed down to the lowest level of the house until I got to my gym. The floor-to-ceiling windows opened up to a view of Lake Washington, where the sun was in that last moment of setting.
I powered on the treadmill, slipped my earbuds in, turned up the Eminem and hit it. My heartbeat was steady as my feet pounded at the machine beneath me, my breathing even. Maybe I wasn’t that badly out of shape after all.
After taking most of the last season off when I tore the fuck out of my shoulder, I wasn’t sure I’d ever get back to the Sharks, but the coach kept me on the roster, and I was still leading for my position if that baby of a rookie didn’t beat me out for it.
Fuck that, it’s mine.
Yeah, six months ago I couldn’t have run at this speed without screaming in agony. Six months ago I’d still been in a sling, still broken as fuck from the way Helen left us.
And then Bailey had walked back into my life, fresh out of her graduate degree at Cornell. It wasn’t fate, I wasn’t fucking stupid. It was our mothers pushing us together, not romantically—they weren’t stupid either—but I needed help, and Bailey needed a job until she figured out what the hell she was going to do with her life...and her double degree in Art and Philosophy.
It had been perfect until I’d seen her again. The girl she’d been while we grew up, while I went to college at U-Dub and she went Ivy...well, she was long gone. It wasn’t like she’d had one of those chick-flick makeovers, no, she’d always been pretty, doe-eyed, and just as beautiful inside than out. But now…
Fuck, now she was a knock-out and seemed unaware of it somehow.
And worse, it was like my body had fucking Bailey-radar. She came into a room, I got hard—even when I reminded my body that she was a no-go.
It wasn’t that I didn’t like sex.
Fuck, I loved sex.
I adored women.
I fucked a lot of women.
Then they left.
The first woman I’d ever loved had left while I begged her to stay…
Now they left because I told them to...Let’s be fair, it’s not like they didn’t know that was part of the package while I was dropping their panties.
I said I fucked women...I didn’t fuck over women.
There was a difference.
Of course, they we
re all blonde lately. Anyone blonde or red-haired, but never brunettes. Never anyone I could accidentally mistake for Bailey.
I was never going there, and it didn’t matter how badly my dick begged otherwise.
If she wasn’t off limits because we’d grown up together—our mothers were best friends—she was definitely unfuckable because at the heart of everything, she belonged to Lettie.
And I didn’t steal anything from my daughter.
Hell no, she deserved the world, and that was exactly what I was going to give her.
At mile number three, I ripped off my shirt, wiping the sweat off my forehead before tossing it and hitting two more miles. Nothing like a little run to get out some sexual frustration.
It would pass. I’d get used to having Bailey here. She’d become like a sister, and all these sexual urges would fade. It wasn’t like she had them. Fuck, then we’d both be in trouble.
But it was just horny-as-hell me, lusting after the girl I’d never had, and I wasn’t a little boy anymore. I was a full-grown man, a forward for the Seattle Sharks NHL team, and the best damned grinder in the league. More importantly, I was Lettie’s dad, and since her mother had about as much maternal instinct as a fucking rock, I was all Scarlett had.
I had to be enough.
Better than enough.
I had to be everything.
Mile six sounded, and I lowered the speed of the treadmill, rolling my shoulders and stretching out my muscles before I headed up to the shower.
That was exactly what I needed. I congratulated myself for running out my baser needs instead of jumping my nanny as I walked up the stairs. Look at me, all civilized and shit.
I was so focused on my feet that I didn’t realize Bailey was on the steps to the third floor until I nearly ran into her.
Enforcer (Seattle Sharks Book 2) Page 19