Marek (Cold Fury Hockey #11)(14)

“Well, that’s something then,” she murmurs back to me as she pulls her hand free.

And then she’s gone, bounding up the stairs gracefully and just as quietly as when she came down. I watch her until she’s out of sight and then pick the glass back up off the counter.

I drain the bourbon from my glass and hope to God I’m drunk enough I can go to sleep without mulling over what just happened.





Chapter 6


    Gracen


Staring at the ceiling fan turning lazy circles above me, I consider getting out of bed. I’m craving coffee.

And more cherry pie.

Unfortunately, getting out of bed and starting my day means I’ll have to face Marek in the harsh light of day, and it won’t be awkward at all. No, not after last night when he almost kissed me and I almost let him.

Almost, and it was a struggle to remind him of his true feelings for me. Marek has always been a bigger-than-life presence. Big body, big personality. He exudes confidence and magnetism. I’ve been helplessly drawn to him since I met him my sophomore year of high school when my parents moved to Wilkie. He was a rising senior. I was fifteen and he’d just turned eighteen. I lost my virginity to him three months later when I’d turned sixteen and it was my birthday present to myself.

There was a time when he was helplessly drawn to me. For five beautiful years we were each other’s.

Last night, despite the fact he was drunk off his ass, I almost gave in. If I had let him kiss me, there’s no doubt we’d have probably had sex right there on the kitchen floor. It’s what he wanted, and I knew that because I saw his thick erection pressing against his jeans.

God I loved that cock like I loved him. It was huge, sometimes uncomfortable, but always devoted to me and my pleasure.

Marek used to be devoted to me.

So, so glad I didn’t give in. That would have been messy on a level I would not be able to handle.

It was difficult to keep myself distanced, because one night in bed with Marek again would almost be worth selling my soul to the devil for. No one has ever compared to him, and there have been a few since we broke up. About a year after Lilly was born, I got back into the dating scene at the urging of my parents. They wanted to see me settled and stable. They wanted me to find love again.

It’s not what I wanted, but I’d never tell them that. I only wanted no-strings companionship because it was too hard to trust again. But after a year of lukewarm orgasms, I knew that I’d be better off just staying single, because again, no one could compare to Marek.

Bastard had ruined me for any other man.

Owen was not one I could compare, though. Not in bed anyway, since we’d never had sex. Four months of dating and I never let him get past third base. I’m sure he wasn’t overly bothered by my unwillingness to give it up, since he was still openly fucking the town whore, Lisa Camaretti, the entire time we “dated.”

If you could call blackmail dating.

I’m not even ashamed to say I strung him along for as long as I could until I just couldn’t anymore. It came time when either I had to accept his marriage proposal and commit myself to him, or my parents would suffer. There was no more stringing him along. He held too much leverage and I had no fight left in me. My wedding night with Owen would have been our first time together, and the thought of it makes me sick. The ironic thing about Marek bursting in on me to stop the wedding is that he saved me from a really shitty situation but threw me right into another.

My bedroom door starts to slowly open, the slight squeak of the hinges causing my head to raise up off the pillow. Lilly pokes her head in and gives me a toothy grin.

Pulling my hands out from where they were supporting my head, I hold my arms out to her. “Morning, Lilly Bug.”

“Mommy!” she exclaims, and runs into my room, pulling herself up onto the bed and scrambling to get under the covers with me.

“Sleep good?” I ask her before pressing my lips to the top of her head.

She nods and burrows into me.

Lilly is so freaking affectionate, and she never holds back showing it to me. Her spontaneous hugs and unexpected declarations of “I love you so much, Mommy” are the true joys in my life. No matter how many times she tells me that, my heart melts a million times over, and I feel like there’s nothing I can’t conquer with my daughter by my side. She’s the absolute best thing to ever have happened to me.

“You hungry?” I ask her.

“Pancakes.”

“Pancakes it is,” I promise her as I sit up in the bed, pulling her up with me. I throw the covers back and roll with her out of bed, giving her a little tickle as I do. Her giggles are infectious and I can’t help but laugh.

Once she’s standing on the floor, I give her butt a little pat. “You know the morning drill. Get your Pull-Ups off, throw them away, and put on a pair of big-girl panties.”

“Okay, Mommy,” she says in that ever-agreeable voice of hers.

Lilly’s a fiercely independent girl, and one of the first things she mastered when she turned three was how to dress herself.

For the most part.

She can take her clothes off with some struggle, and put on her underwear, shirt, and pants with a fifty-fifty chance of the tag going in the back. She gets overly frustrated with her socks and shoes, but that kid will try and try until she gets it. I’ve been enjoying her taking over some of these responsibilities. She’s not fully potty trained, still needing to wear pull-up diapers at night. I figure we’ll be tackling that soon enough, but for now she takes a lot of pride in being able to help get herself dressed in the morning, and that’s cool by me. While my heart wants her to stay my baby forever, my soul wants her to conquer the world all on her own.