Page 100 of Center Ice
He lifts me by my hips and sets me on the counter, and when the cold marble meets the backs of my bare thighs, goosebumps erupt all over my skin. I’m wearing one of Drew’s Rebels t-shirts and nothing else. He steps up between my legs.
“You don’t have to talk about it,” I say, cupping his face in both my hands and kissing the flat bridge of his nose. “But if you want to, I’m always here.”
“That’s the thing,” he says, and I draw back to see him better. “I want you to always be here. I want you in my kitchen in the mornings, and in my bed at night. I want to eat dinner with you and Graham right there.” He nods his chin at the dining room table that runs parallel to the massive island I’m sitting on. “And I want to curl up on the couch with you and watch TV together after Graham goes to bed.”
My breath hitches. I spent the night for the first time last night, and he’s talking about me and Graham moving in?
“But there’s so much you don’t know about me and my life,” Drew continues, brow furrowing, “and so much I don’t know about you and your life. And I know it’ll take time to get to that point, for you to be ready—but I don’t want to hide things from you and slow-roll it just for the sake of taking it slow.”
“You don’t have to hide things, Drew.” I run my thumbs across his cheeks, loving the scratchiness of his early morning face. “And in case I didn’t make it clear before you left, I’m all in. Especially now that we’ve told Graham. I thought I’d want to take this slow for his sake, but he’s clearly on board with us being together, and…this is what I want. Am I ready to move in tomorrow? No. But do I see that in our future? Yes.”
He squeezes his fingertips into my hips and pulls me up against him. “I am so fucking impatient. I want you with me, always. I want to be the kind of man who deserves to marry you,and who deserves to be Graham’s dad. I wanteverythingwith you.”
How did I get so lucky with this man? How did I sleep with the irresponsible playboy he was six years ago, and wind up with the grown-up version of him who wants to be a husband and a father?
“You already are that kind of man, Drew. Every day, you’re showing me more and more who you really are.”
He trails kisses along my hairline, then past my ear and along my jaw. “And I’m going to keep showing you, until you let me put a ring on that finger. And then I’m going to start putting more babies in you, and showing you how good I am with the newborn stage too, until we’ve built our whole family.”
“Oh yeah?” I laugh, not hating the idea of giving Graham some siblings as long as Drew is the father. “And how many babies are you planning on giving me?”
“At least a hockey team’s worth.” He nips my neck playfully with his teeth.
“You want SIX kids? Like hell that’s happening.” I push his face away from my neck and give him a death glare as he laughs.
“Okay, maybe, one or two more?”
I smack his shoulder. “You said six just so that I’d say yes to fewer, didn’t you?”
“Guilty. But hey, I missed seeing you have our first child. I missed the baby and toddler years with Graham. I missed out on so much, and I want to be there for everything this time around—the ultrasounds, the baby shower, choosing baby names, the birth. And I want to watch Graham become the best big brother to those babies too…”
I want all of that too, and I want it with him. “Okay, one or two more, then. And, I’m looking forward to seeing you experience all of that, and getting to go through it with you.”
He wraps his arms around my lower back, holding me to him. “I fucking love you.”
I nuzzle my face into his neck, loving the closeness—not just physical, but the emotional connection we have, too. “Always the romantic.”
“I mean, I could have said ‘I love making you scream my name.’ Which is what I plan to do as soon as I tell you about these medical bills.” He pats his hand on the pile of papers beside me.
“Drew, I’m exhausted. Not only did you keep me up half the night?—”
“You didn’t seem to be complaining while I was giving you orgasm after orgasm.”
“—but then you woke me up early this morning formoresex!” Am I really complaining about this man taking care of me in ways I didn’t even know I needed to be taken care of?No.
I thought sex was an itch I needed to scratch every once in a while when I got tired of taking care of my own needs. I had no idea what it could be like when I was with a man who loved me and loved bringing me pleasure.
“Listen, we get Graham back in”—he glances at the clock on the oven—“like, two hours. And there’s no way I’m not coming inside you at least one more time before then. We can call it practice.”
I burst out laughing, and he looks at me like I’m crazy.
“Practice? Like, for what? Having more kids?”
“Yeah, because the minute you’re ready, we’re doing that again,” he says. My heart squeezes in my chest. He’s so ready for the next step that it makes me feel like I could be ready, too. “But stop trying to distract me with talk about sex, because I have important stuff to talk to you about regarding my mom’s health care.”
That blasts me right out of my love-infused stupor. Drew’s mom is wonderful, and the thought of her having a degenerative disease like Parkinson’s is heartbreaking—and I’ve only known her for a couple of weeks. I can’t imagine how it weighs on Drew, Missy, and Caitlyn.
“Okay. What’s going on?” I ask.
