Grinder (Seattle Sharks Book 1)

G
rinder

S
amantha
Whiskey

C
opyright
© 2016 by Samantha Whiskey All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review. This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental. This book is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This book may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person you’d like to share it with. Thank you for respecting the author’s work.

Cover Design: Mayhem Creations

ISBN# eBook:

978-0-9973464-4-2

I
SBN
# Paperback:

978-0-9973464-5-9

G
etting
a three year-old to sleep should be an olympic event.

“Is that better?” I asked Lettie, smoothing back her thick brown hair from those summer blue eyes as she drained the small glass of water. She nodded, her smile full of tiny, gapped teeth as she settled back against her pillow.

If hockey was my world, where I made my living breathing the game, the ice, the needs of my team, then Lettie was my sun—the only thing in this universe that thawed my heart.

She was also the only thing I’d ever be caught waxing poetic about. But I couldn’t help it, I was owned by a tiny three-year-old.

“Thank you, Daddy,” she said, but the way she plucked at her covers and wiggled her tiny feet told me there was something else on my daughter’s mind.

“What’s up, sunshine?” I asked.

She looked up with excited eyes. “I like that Bailey is here.”

“Me too,” I said, unable to stop the smile that spread across my face at her happiness.

“I like Bailey.”

A small chuckle rumbled through my chest. “Well, me too,” I said, ruffling her hair.

“And now she’s here all the time? Mornings and everything?”

“Yep,” I answered, reaching for her bedside table. Bringing Bailey to live with us as Lettie’s full-time nanny was a no-brainer. As often as I’d need her to travel with me for away games, and with the unpredictability of my schedule, it was really the only way for her to have a life...for either of us to. She’d been doing the job for six months already, but with the season starting up, it was the right time.

“So when I get up she’ll be here?”

I paused before turning out the light and took a deep breath. “Yes, but Lettie, let’s wait until the clock has a seven on it, okay? Not everyone likes to party at five a.m.”

She bounced slightly, her eyes lighting with mischief. “I just can’t wait to see her.”

“You just saw her, remember? She tucked you in,” I said bringing her covers back up to her chin and urging her to lay down.

“I know, wasn’t it amazing?”

I leaned forward, kissing her forehead. “Yes, it was amazing. And it will be amazing again tomorrow night.”

“She’s the best,” she said, her eyes as wide as her smile. “Maybe she wants to see me before the sun is up!”

I pursed my lips, fighting the laughter that came so easily around my daughter, but only her. “Scarlett McPherson, you leave Bailey alone until morning. Do you understand me?”

Her lower lip extended in the cutest damn pout. “Yes, Daddy.”

“Okay. I’m going to run for a little bit, so if you need me I’ll be in the gym, okay?”

She nodded and flung herself forward, hugging me tight.

I held her close, savoring the smell of her strawberry shampoo, and the simple joy she emanated. Everything was simple in her world—her daddy loved her and Bailey adored her.

For the first time since she was born, there was a sense of stability in this house, and by God, I was going to keep it that way.

“I love you more than the stars,” she said with a hard squeeze.

“I love you more than the moon.”

“The stars are prettier,” she argued.

“Well, the Earth needs the moon, so I love you more.”

Her face scrunched momentarily before she shrugged. “Okay. But only because you need a win.”

I hugged her again and put her to bed, silently cursing Rory for saying that yesterday when he was here, arguing to let Bailey move in.

I turned off Lettie’s light and shut her door softly behind me.

My watch read 8:15 p.m. I could get in a couple miles and then meet the guys for drinks. Or I could get a couple miles in and maybe chill for the night.

Yeah, the second was probably the more responsible of the choices.

The refrigerator shut as I passed the kitchen, and I turned to see Bailey unloading a bag full of groceries. Her top was perfectly respectable, but the slight dip in her neckline gave me a mouth-watering glimpse of her cleavage.

Don’t look at her like that, you asshat.

“Hey,” I said, instead, as smooth as a fucking seventh-grader.

“Hey,” she answered with a bright smile as I leaned across the island. “So I picked up some more of that Greek yogurt you like, and some stuff for cupcakes tomorrow. I figured I’d bake with Lettie to kind of celebrate our little…” she gestured around her “arrangement?”

A corner of my mouth lifted in a smile. “Bailey, you’re living with us. There’s nothing illicit going on.”

Pink stained her cheeks and damn if it didn’t make her even more beautiful. Not that Bailey needed the help. She was petite but packed a powerhouse body that had found itself under mine in a few of my more drunken fantasies. And that face? Damn, she was perfection—huge hazel eyes, thick lashes, and olive skin with the most kissable mouth I’d ever laid eyes on.

But that was all I was ever going to lay on her.

“Well, yeah,” she said, pulling her long, dark brown hair into some kind of knot on the top of her head. “It’s just a transition.”

“Hopefully a good one.” It had to be. Lettie adored Bailey, and we’d been friends since we were kids, so it wasn’t like I could afford to piss off Bailey...or our mothers.

“It will be,” she promised. “Besides, I was practically living here anyway. Now I don’t have to drive back to my place in the traffic.”

“Agreed.” Seattle traffic could be a nightmare.

She paused, leaning back against the opposite counter, inadvertently putting those lush curves on display.

Fuck my life, if I didn’t get out of here I was going to sport wood harder than the fucking floor.

“I’m going to go get a couple miles in,” I told her, pushing back from the island.

She reached over and into the fridge, then tossed a bottle of water my direction. “Have a good run. Oh, and I heard Rory and Warren talking today while we were moving in. If you want to grab a couple beers with the guys, I’m totally okay here with Lettie.”

“Thanks. I’ll think about it, but I’m pretty sure I’m just going to turn in.”
And get the hell away from you before I lose my nanny to sexual harassment.

“Okay, well the offer always stands. I don’t mind.” She crossed her arms under those perfect breasts. “It’s not like I have a boyfriend or much of a social life outside Jeanine and Paige.”

I opened the water bottle and took a few quick chugs. “Yeah, and your friends are always welcome here. Seriously. This is your house now, too.”

Her smile was small but genuine. “That means a lot.”

I nodded awkwardly. “I’ll catch you later.”

“Later.”

I ran out of there so fast the room may as well have been on fire and headed down to the lowest level of the house until I got to my gym. The floor-to-ceiling windows opened up to a view of Lake Washington, where the sun was in that last moment of setting.

I powered on the treadmill, slipped my earbuds in, turned up the Eminem and hit it. My heartbeat was steady as my feet pounded at the machine beneath me, my breathing even. Maybe I wasn’t that badly out of shape after all.

After taking most of the last season off when I tore the fuck out of my shoulder, I wasn’t sure I’d ever get back to the Sharks, but the coach kept me on the roster, and I was still leading for my position if that baby of a rookie didn’t beat me out for it.

Fuck that, it’s mine.

Yeah, six months ago I couldn’t have run at this speed without screaming in agony. Six months ago I’d still been in a sling, still broken as fuck from the way Helen left us.

And then Bailey had walked back into my life, fresh out of her graduate degree at Cornell. It wasn’t fate, I wasn’t fucking stupid. It was our mothers pushing us together, not romantically—they weren’t stupid either—but I needed help, and Bailey needed a job until she figured out what the hell she was going to do with her life...and her double degree in Art and Philosophy.

It had been perfect until I’d seen her again. The girl she’d been while we grew up, while I went to college at U-Dub and she went Ivy...well, she was long gone. It wasn’t like she’d had one of those chick-flick makeovers, no, she’d always been pretty, doe-eyed, and just as beautiful inside than out. But now…

Fuck, now she was a knock-out and seemed unaware of it somehow.

And worse, it was like my body had fucking Bailey-radar. She came into a room, I got hard—even when I reminded my body that she was a no-go.

It wasn’t that I didn’t like sex.

Fuck, I loved sex.

I adored women.

I fucked a lot of women.

Then they left.

The first woman I’d ever loved had left while I begged her to stay…

Now they left because I told them to...Let’s be fair, it’s not like they didn’t know that was part of the package while I was dropping their panties.

I said I fucked women...I didn’t fuck
over
women.

There was a difference.

Of course, they were all blonde lately. Anyone blonde or red-haired, but never brunettes. Never anyone I could accidentally mistake for Bailey.

I was never going
there,
and it didn’t matter how badly my dick begged otherwise.

If she wasn’t off limits because we’d grown up together—our mothers were best friends—she was definitely unfuckable because at the heart of everything, she belonged to Lettie.

And I didn’t steal anything from my daughter.

Hell no, she deserved the world, and that was exactly what I was going to give her.

At mile number three, I ripped off my shirt, wiping the sweat off my forehead before tossing it and hitting two more miles. Nothing like a little run to get out some sexual frustration.

It would pass. I’d get used to having Bailey here. She’d become like a sister, and all these sexual urges would fade. It wasn’t like she had them. Fuck, then we’d both be in trouble.

But it was just horny-as-hell me, lusting after the girl I’d never had, and I wasn’t a little boy anymore. I was a full-grown man, a forward for the Seattle Sharks NHL team, and the best damned grinder in the league. More importantly, I was Lettie’s dad, and since her mother had about as much maternal instinct as a fucking rock, I was all Scarlett had.

I had to be enough.

Better than enough.

I had to be everything.

Mile six sounded, and I lowered the speed of the treadmill, rolling my shoulders and stretching out my muscles before I headed up to the shower.

That was exactly what I needed. I congratulated myself for running out my baser needs instead of jumping my nanny as I walked up the stairs. Look at me, all civilized and shit.

I was so focused on my feet that I didn’t realize Bailey was on the steps to the third floor until I nearly ran into her.

“Shit, I’m sorry,” I said, catching her very smooth, very bare shoulders.

“Oh, my fault! Lettie asked for more water, so I took her up a glass,” she said, but I barely heard her.

Fuck my life. Is that what she slept in? The light purple silk shorts barely covered her thighs and the spaghetti straps on the matching top looked flimsy enough to break. With my teeth.

One. Good. Bite.

“Gage?”

My eyes slid shut. Why did my name sound so damn good coming from her mouth?

I felt her fingers softly graze my sweat-dampened skin.

“Hey, are you okay? Is it your shoulder?”

I swallowed and opened my eyes, shaking my head with a forced smile. “Nawh, I’m okay.”

Her eyes were wide, flecks of gold among the swirls of green as she examined my chest, tugging her on lower lip with her teeth. “Are you sure? I mean...I could ice it for you, or rub it down?”

Her forehead puckered at the same moment my dick hardened at the thought of her gorgeous, talented hands on me—hands that created masterpieces of abstract art. God, the last thing I needed was having those hands on my skin.

Apparently the run hadn’t worked as well as I’d thought.

I needed to fuck her out of my head before I screwed up the one good thing I had going.

“You know, I think I will head out for a little bit. You okay with Lettie?” I asked, looking anywhere but the braless breasts that rose and fell in my face with her breaths.

“Yeah, of course. No rush. Try to relax, okay?”

I nodded, then nearly cursed as a thought came to me. “Shit, sometimes I bring women home…”

She laughed slightly. “I’m well aware of your nocturnal activities. This is your home, Gage. Feel free to…”—she flung her hands out— “do whatever it is you do. Seriously, no judgment.”

I nodded again—like an idiot—and retreated up the stairs before I could further make an ass out of myself, or tell her why I really needed to get out.

A shower and a fresh change of clothes later, I was speeding away from my house in the Aston Martin toward my best friends and women who wanted the one thing I was capable of giving: my body.

No judgment,
she’d said.

Hell if I wasn’t judging myself for this one, though.