“Yeah, but the egg pie is sin on a plate.”
“Everything you make is sin on a plate,” she teased, eyeing him a little longer than necessary just for the sheer pleasure of it. “You, actually, are sin…in a chair.”
He sent back an evil, playful, flirtatious grin. “The tartlet wins. How about winter squash soup versus the sweet potato soup with turmeric?”
“Hmm. I think they’re too similar. Give me more of a choice. What about that chicken soup with lemon you made?”
“Chicken with tomato and caramelized lemon?” He nodded. “Yeah, excellent call.”
“Next?” She took a sip of wine, enjoying the game. The moment. The man.
“Braised lamb shank with peppers or ham steak in Madeira sauce?”
“The lamb, I think.”
“Then dessert. Nectarine pavlovas or banana and chocolate cream pie parfaits?”
“Uh, wedding cake? Cassie already ordered it from her favorite bakery in Chestnut Creek.”
“But there has to be a fruit option, too.”
She laughed. “No stone unturned, huh? I’ll go with the pavlovas because they sound so pretty, but did you make them? I don’t remember.”
“Not yet, but I will tomorrow. Actually, I can make them tomorrow morning for breakfast.”
She lifted a brow, aware of a low hum of heat in her blood. “Tomorrow…morning?”
He smiled and reached for her hand across the space that separated them. “Too soon?”
“Too…scary.”
He looked at her for a long time, that intensity in his eyes deepening with each passing heartbeat. “You’re still scared of me, Gracie?”
“No,” she whispered with complete honesty. “I’m not scared of you. I’m scared of…not you.”
He frowned. “Not following.”
“When it’s over. When you’re gone. When I’m alone in that bed again.”
“Such optimism.” He gave her fingers a slight squeeze.
“Optimism has never worked well for me.”
“We’re so close,” he whispered. “How can I get those last few bricks down from that wall you’ve built around yourself?”
“I don’t know,” she confessed. “They’re pretty sturdy and permanent.”
“But are they Alex-proof?”
She laughed softly. “So far.”
He was out of his chair in an instant, right onto his knees next to her, stunning her with the speed and grace of the move. “You can’t avoid something because you’re scared of it being over, Grace.”
“Can’t I?” She raised a brow. “I can and I have, ever since…” She dug through her memory and came up with… “The Sweetley house.”
“The whatly house?”
She closed her eyes and set her glass down. “Long story.”
“I have all night.”
She peeked at him from under her lids.
“At least, I hope I do. With nectarine pavlovas at sunrise.”
“Sunrise?”
“We have to be at the farmers’ market outside Holly Hills by seven a.m. They get the best food and produce on Wednesdays, but you have to be there early. The puppies will love it. So, it only makes sense for me to stay tonight. I’ll sleep right here under the stars…with you and Gertie and Jack and Crazy Ass. Yeah?”
She opened her eyes completely during his little speech, studying his face, memorizing every detail of his eyes and nose and mouth, already knowing how that beard felt against her cheeks and wondering about what it would feel like against her thighs.
“Oh, Hurricane Alex. I’m not sure even my brick walls can withstand you.”
“That sounds…promising.” He leaned in and kissed her. “But I don’t want to force those walls down, Gracie. I want you to…” He stood, easily bringing her with him. “Step out of that hiding place and into…” He folded her in a hug. “My arms.”
“Mmm.” She tilted her head back, melting into him. “That sounds nice.”
“It could be.” He kissed her, angling his head and running his hands up and down her back. “It would be.” She lifted her chin so he could press kisses along her jawline and throat, letting out a sigh of pleasure as he grazed and nibbled her collarbone.
So good. This would be so good.
“So…long hot kisses on my lap in that chair or…” He worked his way back to her mouth, sliding his hands into her hair. “Tell me about the Sweetley house?”
She drew back, a frown pulling. “Another game of choice?” she guessed.
“Yep. Essentially, make out or talk? Your call.”
As if there was any contest. She wanted to fall back into that chair with him, wrap her arms and legs around him, and let the clothes fall where they may.
“I’ll talk,” she said on a resigned sigh. “But let’s do it in the chair.”
He laughed and turned her around so he could sit first and bring her onto his lap, but just as he was going down, he jumped up again.
“Where’s Bitsy?”
She blinked into the dim light at the blanket where there were two sleeping dogs. “Bitsy?” She spun around. “She was just there.” Wasn’t she? How could she have walked away and they didn’t see?
“Bitsy?” she called again, grabbing her phone to shine the flashlight around the whole terrace.
“Where are you, doggo?” Alex’s words were drowned out by Jack’s barking, alerted to something exciting. Gertie just launched toward Grace’s leg, pawing to be picked up.
“C’mere, baby.” Gracie reached down and gathered the puppy in her arms, pressing her little body to her chest, getting as much comfort as she gave. “Could she have walked off the terrace?”
“I don’t know how we’d miss that.” Alex started toward the perimeter, shining the beam of his phone flashlight over every inch. “We gotta put a bell on that girl. Bitsy! Stay with those two,” he called to Grace as he headed toward the steps that led to the path and the vineyard. “I’ll look around here.”
“Maybe she went back to the cook’s cottage?” Grace suggested, hating the thought of the little puppy running through the dark. “Hush, Jack.” She dropped onto the chair, clinging to Gertie, worry crawling up her chest.
She could hear Alex calling for Bitsy, his voice taut with concern.
“Where did she go?” Grace whispered to the dogs, scanning with her flashlight again. Which landed on a slightly open French door leading into the reception area. “I thought I closed that.”
Hoping she’d find Bitsy inside, she urged Jack forward and carried Gertie, setting her down as they stepped inside. “Bitsy?” she called. “Come on, let’s look around.”
She couldn’t have gone up the stairs, so Grace headed down toward the kitchen, searching in all the puppies’ favorite places, near the treats and their water bowls, but there was no Bitsy.
So she went to the other side of the building, past the closed door to her office, into the conference room, checking under every table and chair.
“Grace?”
“Did you find her?” She ushered the dogs into the hall, heading back to meet Alex in the reception area, her heart dropping when she saw his empty hands. “Oh God.”
“Where could she have gone?”
Jack hustled to the curved stairs, one of his favorite play places, all wound up now for fun and games. Alex was on him in a second.
“Oh no you don’t, big guy.” He lifted Jack from the second step, then paused, looking up. “She can climb, you know.”
“No, she can’t.”
He turned and gave her a look. “Jelly Bean, the great and powerful wizard, taught her today.”
“Oh my God.” Each holding a dog, they tore up the twenty-five marble steps side by side to the second floor. Every door was closed up there, and the long hall that looked down into the reception area was empty.
“Third floor?”
“My apartment.” They went up the conventional flight of stairs to the third-floor landing, where the door to the liv
ing area of Grace’s apartment was open, as always. They stood in the entry vestibule for a moment, silent except for their breathing, when they heard the tiny mew.
With a quick look, they darted toward the dimly lit bedroom, and there was Bitsy, asleep in the crate, the door wide open.
“Bitsy!” Grace practically fell on her with a whimper of relief.
“She put herself to bed,” Alex said on a laugh, dropping onto the bed and letting Jack down. “I can’t believe she came all the way up here.”
The other two dogs were all over Bitsy, licking and sniffing and wagging their tails as if they’d been separated for a month instead of a few minutes. Grace honestly didn’t know whether to laugh or cry.
“You stay with them,” Alex said. “I’ll go get their blanket. They can’t sleep without it.”
She looked up at him, almost drowning in one of those waves of affection that washed over her. “Alex…”
“It’s okay.” He held up a hand. “I’ll be back. You promised me the Sweetley story.”
He touched the top of her head as he left, the gesture so gentle and tender, her heart felt like it might explode.
“Now there’s a good man,” she whispered to Gertie, who’d found her way onto Grace’s lap. “A very good man.”
He returned with the blanket and the promise that everything downstairs was locked tight.
“So, you’re staying?” she asked as she spread the purple blanket over the pillows in the bottom of the crate.
“I can sleep in another room, if you prefer.”
She straightened and turned to find him stretched out on top of her comforter, shoes off, his head cradled in strong arms. “I prefer you right there,” she said, latching the puppies in their crate. “And I will tell you the story, but I warn you…”
“One of us is going to cry?”
She laughed softly, climbing next to him on the bed. “The puppies will, at about two o’clock. And I let them sleep in the bed with me.”
“Then it’ll officially be a three-dog night.”
She wrapped her arms around him, slid her leg over his, and laid her head on his chest.
“Where should I start?”
“Wherever you want.”
She thought for a moment, about the homes before the Sweetleys’, but they all ran together. Until that one. “The Sweetley family was the first home that made me…hope. They made me believe I could have a family.”
“Tell me about them.” He stroked her hair, coaxing the story out of her with each gentle touch.
“They had an adopted son and a dog named Bailey. I was eleven when I got there, and my bedroom had butterfly wallpaper and butterflies on the bedspread. Oh, and a big butterfly-shaped rug on the floor.” She sighed at the memory of digging her toes into that rug and wanting to just…stay. “I thought I was in heaven.”
“And they were nice people?”
“As sweet as their name. I lived there for eleven and a half months.”
“What happened?”
“I don’t know,” she said honestly. “They talked about adoption, and my social worker was certain I was going to stay, but then one day, a new social worker came. A man with short hair and a black tie and a pinched face. He said I had to leave.”
“Why?”
She shook her head. “That’s what happened, Alex. Every single time. It was like a switch was thrown, and the possibility of adoption just fell apart, every time.”
“Tell me about the other ones. In fact, tell me everything you want from beginning to end.”
She took a deep breath, closed her eyes, and started from the earliest home she could remember, spilling out her story and her heart.
Eventually, she talked herself to sleep on Alex’s chest, somewhere long after the Sweetleys.
She woke once, in the middle of the night, to find him opening the crate to put the puppies on the bed. They all slept together, Grace and Alex still dressed and two little furballs tucked between them and another on her chest.
She couldn’t remember ever being quite so content in her whole life. Maybe once, with the butterfly carpet.
Chapter Eighteen
Alex opened his eyes just before dawn, torn between the pull of the kitchen and the thought of making a nectarine pavlova…and the woman sleeping next to him and the thought of making love.
He was ready in every way possible. His body screamed for her, his heart ached for her, and his passionate Greek soul just wanted to create glorious food and spoon-feed it to her to take away all that pain.
Grace sighed in her sleep, nestling closer, moving just enough to wake Gertie, who was tucked into Grace’s side. The little puppy pawed at the comforter, pressing down for a stretch. That woke Jack, then the maniac started prancing up and down Alex’s stomach.
So much for morning sex.
“Oh, hello.” Grace blinked her eyes open and laughed when Gertie licked her cheek. “Who is this?”
“Not me, I’m sorry to say.” Alex lifted Gertie’s little body so he could have access to that same cheek. “But I’m just as furry.”
Smiling, she put her hand on his beard, scratching her fingers. “Have you ever thought about shaving it?”
“John and I grew them when my dad died,” he told her. “Nico Santorini had a beard, and his father, my Papu, Nikodemus Santorini, had a beard.”
“And your other brothers?”
“They don’t work in the restaurant. But John and I decided it was a way to honor and remember him, and now?” He shrugged. “It’s been two years, and this beard is a part of me.” He frowned, holding her blue-green gaze. “You want me to shave it?”
“My opinion shouldn’t matter.”
“It does.” He moved a puppy aside and came closer to her. “I like you so much, Grace,” he whispered.
She held his gaze, her eyes moving over his face as the words sank in. “Even after you heard my sob story?”
“Your sob story just makes me understand—and like you more. It makes me want to…” He tugged at her shirt. “Tear down all the walls.”
“Yeah.” She let him lift the shirt and reveal some skin, holding his gaze as he placed a hand on the dip in her waist. “I like you, too, Alex,” she admitted. “I like you…a lot.”
Turned on by the tremble in her voice, he eased her closer, lining up their fully clothed bodies and forcing Gertie out of her hiding place between them.
He leaned in and kissed her lightly, gliding his hand a little higher. “So, we like each other.” He broke the kiss and closed all the space between them. “Now what?”
She gave a soft, throaty laugh. “We make like?”
He smiled at that, rocking just enough to let her know how badly he wanted her. “Is that sex, but with your clothes on?”
“That’s…” She moaned as he pressed some kisses into her throat and tugged the T-shirt higher. “Nice.”
So nice.
He kissed her again, letting their tongues tangle and taste, finally reaching the soft fabric of her bra, hungry to get it off and touch every inch. She rolled onto her back, inviting him on top of her, kissing and rocking as he slid his hand under the band and cupped her sweet, small breast.
“Alex.” She arched again, moving against him as need gripped her, too. “Wait.”
He stilled instantly, moving his hand away and bracing himself over her. “I’ll wait,” he said. “As long as you like.”
“I don’t want to wait,” she said roughly, the emotional battle she was fighting visible all over her pretty face. “I want you, but…”
“Listen to me,” he said. “People don’t automatically push you away just because you start to care about them.”
She closed her eyes. “Is that what you got out of my story?”
“Yeah,” he said without hesitation. “And that you blame yourself for that. And expect it from everyone.”
“How could I not?” she asked. “When the same thing happens to you six, eight, ten, twelve times, yo
u start to see a pattern in life. People don’t…want you.”
“Gracie.” He smoothed a lock of her fair hair, curling it behind her ear. “I want to change your mind and convince you that’s wrong.”
“Quite a risk, Alex. What if we try and…fail? Then you’ll just be another one.”
He wanted to say he didn’t fail, but there was no guarantee this would work out. They hadn’t known each other for long. “So you just…give up? Never take a chance? Is that how you want to live your life? Alone?”
“I don’t want to.”
He looked at her for a long time. “Then don’t.”
On a sigh, she eased him up, and he braced for the rejection, but then she grabbed the bottom of her T-shirt, yanked it up, and flipped it to the floor. Instantly, Jack pounced on it like he’d been given a new toy.
But Alex was the one who just got the prize.
“Oh.” The word slipped out as he looked down at a thin cotton bra that revealed the outlines of her breasts. “Then you made your decision.”
“Yup.” She laughed and pulled at his shirt, so he got rid of it, too, then fell back down to cover her in kisses and get that bra off.
Blood thrummed in his head, and her breath grew tight and a little frantic, and somewhere, in the distance, he heard Jack bark.
“Puppies,” she muttered, pushing him up a little to look around the bed and floor. “I see two.”
“Damn it.” He rolled over just in time to catch Bitsy flying out the door. “I’ll get her. Don’t you even think about moving.” As he climbed off the bed, his phone dinged from the night table with a call. At dawn? “Please don’t be a Santorini’s emergency.” Because that was the only thing that would make him walk away right now. Maybe. If it was burning down. He grabbed the phone and read the caller ID with a frown. “Huh? It’s Gramma Finnie.”
“Does she usually call you this early?”
“No. I hope Yiayia’s okay.”
“I’ll get Bitsy. You talk to Gramma.”
Swearing softly, he tapped the screen and put the phone to his ear as Grace took off after the wayward dog. “Hey, Gramma. What’s up?”
“Ruth Etheridge is up,” she said without preamble. “And posting on Facebook.”
Three Dog Night (The Dogmothers Book 2) Page 19