by Pippa Grant
But he’s worth the challenge.
He cradles me in his lap, touching, kissing, stroking, loving. “I love you,” I tell him between kisses. “I’ve tried so hard not to, but I love you. I can’t help myself.”
His fingers tangle in my hair and catch on something. We lock eyes, he smiles, and I break into giggles. “Do I have frosting in my hair?”
He slides his hand down my thigh. “I do believe you’re in need of a shower, my love.”
“I love it when you talk dirty.”
He lifts me easily and carries me to my dinky bathroom where we barely have space to tear each other’s clothes off. I clock an elbow onto my towel rack and the bar drops out of its holder. He almost falls in the toilet. We’re both laughing so hard by the time we step into the shower that I’m struggling to stay upright.
Manning has the perfect solution though.
He lifts me against the cool tile wall, nestling his thick length between my thighs. I wrap my legs around his hips, and his red-rimmed eyes glaze over as he studies my breasts pressed to his hard chest.
“This is somewhat familiar, love.”
I touch his injured lip. “You had a bloody nose,” I whisper.
“And you were quite determined to kiss it better, as I recall.”
This man. He’ll keep me on my toes. I laugh. “Is your memory going already? I think I know someone who can help with that.”
“Ah, score one for the lovely baker with the dirty cookies.”
He kisses me softly while he pulls his hips back and rubs my pussy with his cock. I let the sensations wash over me—the hot water, his lips, the hard muscle, his solid hold, the soft vanilla scent always lingering in my house, his earthy male scent adding perfection.
“I’m giving up dirty cookies,” I tell him.
He presses at my entrance. “Don’t sacrifice what you love on my account.”
I reach between us and squeeze the only manhood I want to see for the rest of my life. “I’m not.”
His eyes cross. “Heaven above, your touch is exquisite.”
“My pussy’s even better,” I whisper. Better, and aroused, and empty, and so very, very ready.
The only thing better than his smile is knowing I caused it. “Is that so?”
“It is.”
“Such bold claims warrant an examination.”
He tilts his hips, and I guide him to my entrance. “Gracie,” he whispers.
“Make love to me, Manning.”
He fills me slowly, carefully, tenderly, holding me captive with his unblinking gaze as my body welcomes him. We’ve always been so frenzied, but the emotional intensity of every whispered I love you and I want you and I need you as he fills me slowly, and withdraws, and so very purposefully fills me again, coaxes my body into a physical high so far beyond anything I’ve ever felt, even before the first strings of my orgasm begin to unravel.
“Manning,” I gasp as the threads of pleasure spiral out from within me. I jerk against him, unable to stop myself.
“That’s it, love,” he urges. “Let go, Gracie.”
I come in a blinding flash of Technicolor fireworks, the world a kaleidoscope of brilliant hues of pleasure radiating from my soul out to my fingers and toes. I cry out, curling my toes, tightening my legs hard and fast around his waist, and he moans my name as he pins me to the wall while his own release overtakes him.
We stay there, together, panting, and gasping, until the water runs cold.
We dig towels out from under my sink, dry each other off, and he carries me to bed where we wrap ourselves in my threadbare sheets and ancient quilt, whispering secrets and confessions until I drift off to sleep with his hand on my belly, right over our baby.
And I don’t care that he’s a prince, nor do I care that he’s a terror on the ice.
I just care that he’s mine.
And I’m his.
And we’re going to have the most amazing, fun, love-filled life.
Together.
Epilogue
Manning
There are moments a man remembers for a lifetime.
I always assumed winning a silver medal for ice hockey in the Olympics would be my crowning achievement.
But that was before I met Gracie Diamonte.
And before she gave me a gift more precious than my very life.
“All right, your royal pain-in-the-assness, I’ve been patient, and I’m about done with that,” Joey informs me as I sit on my sofa in my penthouse living room, the woman of my dreams beside me, and our baby girl—yes, that’s right, the first girl born to a Frey man in over two hundred years, because of course Gracie was right, she’s rather brilliant—cradled in my arms.
“Viktor,” I call to my loyal guard, “please escort the elder Miss Diamonte from the premises.”
Gracie laughs. Viktor ignores me. My father frowns, and the damned monkey throws a Facookie at the giant stuffed sheep Colden sent since he wasn’t able to make the trip to Copper Valley this time around.
“You’ll have her all night to yourself when she’s not sleeping,” Sylvie chastises. “Let her aunt hold her for a few minutes.”
“Yeah, you punk,” Zeus Berger chimes in. “Or I’ll flatten your ugly a—”
He’s unable to finish the single syllable before both Diamonte sisters attack him with looks that could skin a cat.
Though not my cat, who’s plastered himself to my side ever since Gracie moved to Copper Valley with me permanently right before Christmas.
“Come on, sweet girl.” Gracie turns her governess glare on me as she steals my daughter. “It’s Aunt Joey’s turn.”
I’d like to tell Joey not to give her any cooties, but aside from her questionable judgment in men, Joey has few personality traits I’d object to my daughter sharing.
Though considering Gracie’s questionable taste in men as well, I probably shouldn’t judge Joey either.
Gracie herself slides into my lap. Her belly is still pleasantly round and recovering from pregnancy and birth, and were it not for the championship cup now residing at Mink Arena, I daresay this introduction would be happening in Goat’s Tit instead of Copper Valley.
As it is, we’ve been video chatting with half the town every waking minute the last week.
For the first time in my life, I understand what people mean when they say they feel like a king.
Zeus bends over my daughter. “Dude. What’s wrong with her nose?”
Ares punches him in the arm, and Loki beans him with a binkie.
“What’s wrong with your nose?” Loki says. Courtesy of Felicity, of course.
“Ignore him,” Joey says to Sophie in the softest voice I’ve ever heard her use. Apparently she’s not immune to the power of a baby either. “He’s trying to insult your father.”
“Her nose is perfect,” Gracie whispers to me. She brushes a hand through my hair and presses a kiss to my temple. “Just like her daddy’s.”
“I’m fairly certain, my lady, that every perfection in our daughter comes from you.”
My father clears his throat.
It’s not escaped anyone’s notice that he’s none too pleased with me for having failed to take Gracie down the aisle just yet.
Because old habits die hard, I’m rather enjoying the hell out of irritating him.
Although it’s far from my primary goal.
Gracie’s still adjusting to the idea of being a princess. She’s also approaching the idea on her terms.
She’s given up her Dickookie business—her dear friend Nancy took it on for her—because apparently Murphy truly did break her with his massive order to his sister’s ex-boyfriend.
Since moving to Copper Valley, she’s been regularly attending classes at a tutoring center to master reading, and she’s enrolled in university for fall to see how nursing school fits.
She’s also insisted on being the one to read stories to Sophie every naptime and bedtime since we arrived home from the hospital.
; “I want her to know she can do it too, no matter what,” she whispered to me last night as I sat beside them in the small nursery off our bedchamber—my former office—and watched the two of them rock together after Gracie finished Goodnight Moon. “That there’s nothing she can’t do.”
Having watched Gracie grow and thrive in Copper Valley, I have no doubt our daughter will have the best example in the world.
Coach settles onto the couch beside us. Along with our families, half my team is here today as well to help us welcome our daughter. “So we’re keeping you,” he says to me.
“For four years.”
“Good. Bring me home another cup next year.”
“Fu—urckle that,” Zeus says. “New York’s gonna kick your aaaaashes next year.”
Ares punches him in the arm again. Loki throws a piece of cat food at him.
Mr. Beans yawns and puts a paw on my arm.
And I realize Gracie’s snoring.
She’s so bloody adorable.
“That’s right, my princess,” I whisper softly. “Sleep while you can.”
I should put her to bed. Sophie is the star of the afternoon.
Instead, I sink deeper into the sofa and shift her to make her more comfortable in my lap while her cat creeps onto the couch beside me.
I can’t help myself.
Love is something I never expected.
And now that Gracie’s shown me the way, I’m never letting go.
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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)
Exes and Ho Ho Hos (Jake and Kaitlyn)
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If you love hockey players, roommate romance, and opposites attract, read on for an excerpt of Beauty and the Beefcake…
Felicity (aka Ms. Bad Taste In Men)
It is a falsehood universally spread across the globe that a single woman in possession of a house, a job, and boobs must be in want of a dickhead to fuck with her brain.
Or possibly I just have terrible taste in men. And horrible luck in the genetic pool, because my brother is also currently ranking pretty high up there among the biggest assholes on the planet.
And that’s my official explanation for why there are currently several hundred—possibly thousand—pornographic sugar cookies piled all the fuck over my grandmother’s teeny strip of a front yard.
That’s right.
An entire mountain range of sugar cookies printed with dicks erupted on Gammy’s patch of dried-up lawn and are spilling over onto the cracked sidewalk and her beloved gardenia bushes.
And did I mention it’s raining?
Pouring.
Buckets.
In waves. With some gusts of wind that are spreading the wet sugar scent all up and down the street of attached 1960’s townhomes.
I’m going to be shoveling soggy-ass dick cookies from now until Christmas. And I don’t even want to contemplate what the sugar and dye in the frosting will do to Gammy’s grass. Never mind the gardenias.
“At least the rain’s washing the dicks off,” reasons Kami, ever the optimist in my group of friends.
“This is one of those times you should be offering to slip one of us a couple syringes of horse tranquilizer,” replies Alina, ever the pragmatic voice of reason.
Maren, ever the environmentalist who’s probably calculating the diabetic coma the worms in the ground will soon be suffering from, shakes her head. “You only need one to take out Doug.”
“And one more for Nick,” Alina adds.”
“Nick?” Kami says. “This isn’t Nick’s fault.”
As far as Kami’s concerned, nothing is ever my brother Nick’s fault.
In this case, she’s wrong. Which I know without a doubt because Doug Dobey, the last in my string of bad exes, texted me. You and your dickhead brother better watch your fucking backs.
And a picture of the dick cookies—pre-natural washing on Gammy’s patch of grass—accompanied the threat.
Not that I’ve shared that with my friends. They’d freak out. Honestly, a girl gets herself a harmless stalker once, and suddenly every ex-boyfriend and disgruntled coworker is something her friends flip over.
Alina waves her wine glass toward the soggy disaster. “This has Nick’s name all over it. Remember when Felicity broke up with The Churd and Nick…you know.”
Yes, yes I do know. So maybe they have a point when you put my brother into the equation. He does have a way of rubbing people wrong.
Specifically, my ex-boyfriends.
“Still, you take Nick out, the Thrusters suffer,” Maren says. “I’m all in favor of teaching him a lesson. After our boys bring home the cup.”
While my best friends argue over whether my brother—hometown hero goalie for Copper Valley’s pro hockey team—deserves punishment for his assumed role in the mountains of soggy dick cookies polluting Gammy’s lawn, I take another swig of cheap red wine from the bottle that didn’t explode all over the kitchen ten minutes ago. Fucking loose strap on my reusable grocery sack. Fucking weak bottle.
I didn’t even get to celebrate my own personal record in grocery-carrying on my way in from the detached carport off the alley—eight bags, stuffed full, thank you very much—because the bag holding the wine split, one bottle hit the floor so hard it dented the tile as it exploded, and the cork shot a hole through the window over Gammy’s sink.
And that was before my three friends arrived, traipsing into the house for Sunday afternoon cheese and wine and asking about the new decorations on the front lawn.
Where all the neighbors—and their children—can see.
“Gammy’s going to kill me,” I mutter.
Kami slips an arm through mine. “Oh, honey,” she whispers in that voice people use in funeral homes and psych wards.
“Ghosts can’t kill people,” Maren says in that voice people use when they’re talking to stupid people.
Alina grips her own wine glass tighter and lifts her eyes toward the ceiling. “If any ghost can, Gammy’s ghost could.”
I told you she was the pragmatic one.
A red, souped-up Jeep Cherokee squeals to a stop at the curb behind Maren’s Bolt, which means Nick himself has arrived.
“Oh, fuck,” I mutter. I’d lock the door, but it wouldn’t matter. Since Gammy left the house to both of us, he has his own key, and even if he didn’t, he could break the door down. And even if he couldn’t by himself, the overgrown ogre of a hockey player with him could.
Ares Berger. The Force. A tank on skates. Silent as a mime. Intimidating as hell. “Fuck on a fuck sandwich,” I amend.
“Fuck? No fuck,” Alina says. “It’s his fault. Let him clean up the dick cookie soup.”
Fantastic plan.
It ignores one small detail.
The part where Nick wasn’t supposed to know I moved into Gammy’s house. Because as soon as he figures that out, he’ll realize I’d moved in with Doug a few months back. Which wouldn’t be a big deal—he’s lived with girlfriends befo
re too and knows better than to go double-standard on me—except Doug still has a shit ton of my stuff that he won’t give back.
Which also wouldn’t be a big deal, because I have my own plan to get everything back, except again, as soon as Nick finds out—which will happen approximately three seconds after he smiles at Kami, because he’s such a dog and he totally uses her ridiculous crush on him against all of us all the time—he’ll go bang down Doug’s door and most likely make everything worse.
“Do not look at him, do not talk to him, do not so much as breathe in his presence,” I warn Kami.
Her eyebrows wrinkle and her cheeks go pink, which makes me feel like a heel, because these three women are the sisters I never had.
“I’m not that bad,” she whispers.
“You really are, sweetie.” Alina takes her by the shoulders. “And we love your honesty. It’s just that now isn’t exactly the time for it. Let’s go get another bottle of wine.”
“From the kitchen?”
“From the store.”
“Take my car,” I call to them.
“Already grabbed your keys,” Alina calls back from the kitchen.
Maren is frowning as Nick and Ares make their way around the obscene soggy mountain and climb the rickety steps in the rain. “He’s out for the rest of the season, isn’t he?”
I force myself to look at Ares. He shouldn’t be out in the rain in that air cast.
Also, his crutch is leaving holes in the dinky patch of yard. Aeration is good for grass, right? Seriously, Gammy, aeration is important. “That’s the speculation.”
“No insider information?”
I wish. “Not a word.”
Nick flings open the screen door. I take a wide-legged stance and refuse to let him in. The chill wind slices through my shirt and turns my nipples to ice cubes. Ares gives me a look that suggests he could pick me up with a single finger to move me if necessary, even while he’s injured, and I suppress a shiver.
Click here to get Beauty and the Beefcake!
If you love hot billionaire bosses, jilted heroines out for revenge, and horrifically mortifying situations, read on for an excerpt of Mister McHottie…