Page 260 of Cross Check

The rational part of my brain is screaming at me to keep my distance from him in a room crowded with our peers, but my heart tells the logical bitch to go to hell.

I grab the sheet he’s wearing and yank him toward the first room I can find. We stumble inside a small closet and I shut the door behind us. I kiss him, smiling when he chuckles at my urgency and palms my ass.

Grant bunches my dress at my hips and I lift a leg, wrapping it around his waist so he can have better access to whatever he wants to touch. He snaps the waistband of my lace underwear against my skin, and I drop my head to the wall behind me.

“I don’t know why I think that’s so hot.” I run my fingers through his hair, tugging on the strands when he groans. “Maybe because everyone can see the tattoos and no one will know what they represent?”

“There will be hundreds of photos of me on social media, and not a single person will know the tattoos are for the woman I sleep next to every night.” He moves his hand between my thighs, a thumb pressing to my clit. “The woman I love.” He circles me over my underwear, and I groan. “The woman I want to get off while my clueless friends are ten feet away. Fuck, baby.” Grant rocks his hips forward, and I feel him hard and thick through the sheet he’s wearing. “You’re my favorite person in the world.”

“I need to figure out what tattoo I want.” I close my eyes, my breath stuttering out in a quick exhale as Grant continues to touch me. His mouth finds the spot below my ear and he sucks on the skin there. I swear I see gold flecks of stars, and an epiphany comes to me. “That’s it!”

“Damn, really?” His laugh is muffled in the curve of my shoulder. “I’m on my way toward drunk, so I thought I was an inch or two off.”

“No. That is perfect. You are perfect. I think I know what I want to do, and I got excited.”

“Tell me.” Grant pushes his thick fingers inside me. He only uses two, but it’s enough to make me roll my hips and grind down on his hand. “What pretty mark are you going to put on your beautiful body?”

“Seven stars on the inside of my wrist,” I whisper, my eyes fluttering closed as he fucks me. “One for all the seasons I’ve known you. And I’ll get a new one every year. We can go together.”

“Every year? It’s a date.” He kisses my cheek. His breath is warm on my skin when he leans in close and whispers, “Let me get you off first, baby.”

“I’m going to have a hard time being quiet.”

“Good thing I have two hands.”

Grant places his free palm over my mouth, a question in his eyes when he looks up at me. I give him a silent nod and melt into the wall as I enjoy the surprise orgasm that starts swirling in my stomach. I lick his hand and he grins. He keeps his fingers inside me, slow and methodical as he stretches me out in the way that I love.

It might be the alcohol or the fact that we’re separated from partygoers by only a thin door. Maybe it’s the idea of a tattoo waiting for me or Grant’s assuredness in how he wants to decorate his body in honor of me. It’s probably the gentle way he whispers in my ear, his murmured praise and his thumb back on my clit.

With a second thought, the reason I’m so alight with nerves, so close to coming undone so quickly, is because I get to be here with the man I love. I get to touch him and stand next to him and laugh with him out in public, and it’s a fantasy I never knew I had.

Desire curls at the base of my spine. It spreads like wildfire when a couple passes on the other side of the door, the pair laughing mere inches away from where Grant’s telling me I can take everything he gives me. Where he’s murmuring all the things he wants to do to me when we get home, and I explode into a million pieces.

I groan, but his large hand swallows up the noise. I buck my hips, glad when he steals a second orgasm from me before I understand it’s even happening. Grant slows, his fingers stilling to gentle strokes he finishes up with a kiss to my nose.

He lowers his palm, and a delighted sigh whispers out of me. My head lolls to the side, sated and happy and drenched in bliss.

“That was unexpected,” I say, needing a glass of water. “And new. And fun.”

“Can’t keep my hands off you.” Grant smiles in that brilliant, beautiful way he always does. It’s infectious, perfect, and he fixes my underwear. Lowers my dress and smooths his hands over the skirt to try and work out some of the wrinkles. “Ready to make this relationship really serious?”

“Yeah, lover boy.” I smile back, locking our fingers together. “I am.”

Back at the party, we chat with Maverick and Emmy while we wait for the tattoo table. A line of Grant’s teammates come by, and I wave to Lexi and Piper. By the time it’s our turn, I’ve had another drink. I’m loose and relaxed and at ease when the tattoo artist cleans my wrist. Grant sits next to me, our thighs perfectly aligned, and he squeezes my knee.

“Who’s going first?” The tattoo artist looks between us, and I point at Grant. “And what are we doing?”

Grant explains the designs and barely flinches when the needle touches his skin. He keeps his eyes on me, focused and sharp.

I love you, he mouths when the artist finishes the first tattoo.

I love you too, I say when his second tattoo is complete.

Thirty minutes later, he shows off the additions to anyone who walks past, and I giggle when he shoves his arm in Liam’s face.

“What do you think, Goalie Daddy?” Grant says, jumping up and down. “Do you like them?”

“I don’t know why you think I’d care about what sorts of tattoos you’re getting. Talk to me when you have a whole sleeve done.” He scratches at the black dot on his nose, and when I realize he’s a cat, I can’t help but burst out laughing. His eyes slide over to me, and there’s a flicker of amusement in the tug of his lips. “Something funny?”