Stirring Up Trouble (21 page)

Chapter Twenty-One

Gavin had been a man of his word when he’d said he was going to make love to her in every room of the house, a fact that Sloane didn’t find herself bemoaning in the least. After all, honest men weren’t exactly a dime a dozen.

And neither were men who made her feel that good, that many times. As a matter of fact, Gavin bypassed being a rarity in that department and went straight for being the one and only. He was as incredible out of bed as he’d been in it, as if he could bypass the layers of her tough exterior and see right through to who she really was. Not only had he unearthed her, but he’d polished what he found to a flawless shine.

Sloane knew she should run, but it felt too damned good not to.

“I’m pretty sure these are yours.” Gavin arched a brow at her from the side of the couch, where he lay breathlessly sprawled, holding her red satin panties in his hand. Late-morning sunlight streamed in through the foyer windows, illuminating the living room with a soft glow that made what they’d just done on the couch all the more naughty.

“Mmm. I’m starting to think there’s not much point in putting them back on,” she speculated on a blissfully sated sigh. Gavin had been all too happy to prove over and again that he was a quick study when it came to learning every curve of her by heart, and she’d never felt so brand-new in her life.

He placed a soft kiss on her mouth, holding the garment in question just out of reach. “Are you sure? Because I was kind of looking for an excuse to remove them with my teeth later. But if you want to go without . . .”

“Fork ’em over.” Sloane popped up from the cushions, her movements suddenly quick and agile. Proper motivation was
everything
.

Gavin chuckled, and the sound beat a nonstop path to her chest. “I thought you said you weren’t easy.”

“I’m also not stupid.” She slid into her unmentionables while he pulled a pair of sweatpants over his boxers. He looked just as comfortable and composed after a night full of passionate sex as he did walking out the door to go to work, but it only ratcheted her desire to ruffle him even higher.

“You want some coffee?” He inclined his head toward the kitchen, and she jumped on the chance for both the pick-me-up and the distraction.

“Oh, God, yes.” Sloane let a good-natured laugh fall from her lips as she buttoned her shirt, letting it fall over the tops of her bare legs as she padded behind him to the kitchen. She watched carefully as Gavin put some water on to boil. God, it was so like him to be meticulous about something as simple as morning caffeination.

She grinned, gesturing to the French press on the counter. “So what’s with the fancy coffee thing? You can’t brew java like the rest of us?”

“It tastes better this way,” he said. Even though he measured the coffee beans by sight as he poured them into the grinder in front of him, Sloane was willing to bet there was a very precise method going on in his head. She waited out the metallic buzz of the bean grinder before answering.

“I’m all for a great cup of coffee, but this is pretty time-consuming. You really think it’s worth it?” she asked, propping her elbows over the cold, sleek granite of the breakfast bar.

A lopsided smile tugged at the corners of his mouth. “And here I thought I might’ve changed your mind a little on the whole slowing down thing.”

Her cheeks heated, along with a few of her other, more delicate parts. “Sorry.” She shifted her weight against the stool and willed her bits into submission. At least he wasn’t wrong about the quality of the coffee. She’d noticed the difference between the ho-hum, standard brew she brought with her in the mornings and the rich, lovely blend of flavors he coaxed into perfection every time she refilled her travel mug with the coffee he made each morning.

“I guess you’re right about the coffee tasting better,” Sloane conceded, although giving in entirely wasn’t on her agenda. “But don’t you ever get impatient with the process? I mean, it’s not always bad to go the instant gratification route.”

“Maybe not for some people. But I’m a think-it-through kind of guy. I like to take my time.”

Did he ever. Good Lord, the man’s restraint bordered on legendary. Sloane cleared her throat. “So you don’t ever just do something without thinking?”

“No.” He filled the French press with coffee grounds and jiggled the handle on the saucepan, moving through the kitchen like water.

“Never?” The concept was totally foreign to her, and the idea of being so calculated piqued the hell out of her curiosity. “Like never ever, in the history of ever?”

“Still no.” His laughter filtered softly between them, and he poured the perfect amount of steaming water over the grounds without measuring.

Sloane’s curiosity amped even higher. There had to be
some
thing that would set him off. She frowned and hooked her toes over the bottom rung on the bar stool where she sat. “So if I said I’d take you to Fiji, all-expenses-paid, but we had to leave right this second, you wouldn’t go?”

“Sloane, I’m not even wearing real pants right now. Come on.”

“Are you kidding? I’m not wearing
any
pants and I’d go,” she said, only half-jokingly. After all, she’d never been to Fiji, and swimming naked in the South Pacific was number sixteen on her bucket list.

“You would seriously walk out of this cottage right now, without clothes on, just to go to Fiji on a whim?” The sinewy muscles in Gavin’s forearms flexed slightly as he manipulated the French press to create a pot of perfectly brewed coffee, and the aroma steeped through Sloane’s senses with a relaxing, earthy scent.

“Sure. Why not?”

“Uh, because it’s crazy?”

She bit her lip, thinking. “Okay, so you might have a point about the no-pants part. It is kind of winter here, and let’s face it. I’d need pants eventually. But otherwise, who knows when—or if—I’d get another chance to go to Fiji?”

“You sure do go against the grain, don’t you?” He turned to grab a pair of plain white coffee cups from the cupboard, and Sloane laughed.

“Yeah, that’s me. Irresponsible and loving it.”

But rather than agree just like everyone else on the planet, Gavin thunked the mugs to the counter, pinning her with a look that was impossible to decipher. “You’re not irresponsible.”

His quiet tone threw her off-kilter in the face of all the joking they’d just been doing, and she blinked for a second, mired in shock. “Oh, it’s okay. I mean, I’m used to it.”

“Let me ask you something. Do you think I’m stupid?”

The question was so unexpected that she coughed out an involuntary laugh, even though his face suggested he was as serious as a heart attack. Not that
that
was anything new.

“Of course not,” she said, eyeing him carefully. “Why would I think that?”

“Because only an idiot would hire an irresponsible babysitter.” He poured two cups of coffee with efficient movements, sliding one in her direction as if they were discussing something as irrefutable as the color of the sky.

But Sloane shrugged. It wasn’t like this was shocking territory, after all. “It’s not exactly a secret that I’m pretty flighty. I’m just used to being labeled the black sheep, I guess.”

“That’s different than being irresponsible.” Gavin paused before turning to cull a couple of spoons from the drawer in front of him. “Just because you don’t do things like everyone else doesn’t mean there’s anything wrong with you.”

“Remind me never to take you to a Russo family reunion,” she said, leaning forward to reach for the sugar. “That’s not exactly popular opinion among my family.”

“So you’ve mentioned. Care to elaborate? I’m not sure I quite understand the Russo logic here.”

Something about the easy way Gavin moved around the kitchen, sauntering to the refrigerator for the milk and treating the topic like it was no great shakes, put her at ease rather than on guard. The answer tumbled from her lips.

“From the time I was little, I always did everything a little off-center. Not like anybody else. Which might’ve been okay if I didn’t have a mother, two sisters, and a family tree loaded with cousins who all did things the ‘normal’ way.” She paused just long enough to hook air quotes around the word. “So marching to your own drummer isn’t exactly an endearing trait where I come from. At least, not to anyone but my father.”

“You two were close, then?” The steady calm in Gavin’s words was catching, and it loosened more thoughts like a torrent.

“Yes. I mean, don’t get me wrong, I love my
mama
and my sisters.” Sloane’s face flamed with guilt, just like it always did at the implication that she and her father were closer than the rest of her family. “But my
papa
was different. He didn’t push me to do things like anyone else unless I wanted to. Even when it turned out that I never wanted to.”

“I don’t have trouble seeing that,” Gavin said over a wry smile. “But isn’t it just a question of individuality?”

“Not when you buck tradition as hard and as often as I do.” A nagging voice deep in the folds of her brain whispered at her to shut up, that if she pinpointed all the ways she was different from everybody else, it would hammer home the fact that he should find someone better to take care of Bree. Not to mention someone better to spend the morning making love with.

But all it took was one look into those melty brown eyes, and Sloane’s resolve was toast.

“It’s not just the little stuff. My career, my lifestyle, my personality, all of it is wildly different from everyone else’s in my family. It’s not that I don’t want to be like my sisters. They’re both smart and successful and happy. But what everyone in my family sees as the natural order of things, the way things
should
be, just feels stifling to me.”

“You’re smart and successful and happy too. I still don’t see how you’re so different. Not in that regard, anyway.” Gavin palmed his coffee cup to take a sip, the action so normal and soothing that she didn’t think twice about spilling her innermost vulnerabilities like water all over the floor.

“It took me ages to choose a career, and believe me when I tell you, I tried some doozies while I was figuring it out. The fact that I settled on something my mother finds socially unacceptable doesn’t exactly add to my blend-in factor. Never mind that it’s the only thing that I’ve ever really had a passion for.” Well, until lately, anyway. The idea of leaving for Greece twanged a path of unease up her spine, but she thrust it aside. She’d figure out a way to deal with the book she couldn’t write later.

Right now she had bigger fish to fry. Namely airing her emotional laundry in front of a man who had already coaxed something physically astounding out of her and discovering it felt better than it should.

It felt safe.

Gavin reached out to touch the hand she’d wrapped around her otherwise untouched coffee mug, skimming her knuckles with his thumb. “Your mother doesn’t approve of you being a writer?”

She lifted an eyebrow. “Neither did you when I first told you, remember?”

His hand froze on hers. “I was wrong.”

God, he was too good to be real. Sloane gave a sardonic smile. “Don’t be sorry for your gut reaction. Reality is, some people don’t take what I do seriously.”

“They’ve never seen your Post-it collection. You work really hard, Sloane. You deserve credit for that.”

An ache migrated up from deep in her belly, lodging itself beneath her sternum. “Thanks. But the truth is, I could probably be president of the United States and my
mama
would still think it’s a phase. She’s insistent that all I need is to get married and raise a handful of babies in the suburbs like my sisters, and that’ll cure me of my crazy lifestyle like it’s a disease. Marrying my father is what made her happiest in life. From the day I turned eighteen, the pressure’s been on for me to follow in the family footsteps.”

A look of shock splashed over Gavin’s face. “That’s kind of young, huh?”

Sloane shrugged. She was so used to the Russo legacy of getting married and having scads of babies that she was no longer fazed at how antiquated the notion was. “My oldest sister Rosie got married on her twenty-third birthday, and my other sister Angela wasn’t that far behind. It’s not like they had to or anything. But they both knew, beyond a doubt, that it was right for them, just like it had been for my parents. It only made me all the stranger for not doing the same.”

“The black sheep of the family,” Gavin murmured.

“Exactly. And no matter what I say, my mother doesn’t get that it’s not ever going to happen her way.”

“So you don’t
ever
want to get married and have kids?” The tiny crease that emerged between Gavin’s eyes belied his calm tone, and Sloane had no choice but to lay out the rest of the truth.

“How could I ever have kids? I’m not even good daughter material, Gavin. Chances are pretty slim that I’d make anything other than a disastrous parent.” Sadness welled up from the dark folds of her chest, filling the fresh space her words had just carved on their melancholy exit path, and she put her hand over her breastbone as if it could cover the surprise.

It wasn’t that she didn’t want a family. But she was a complete disappointment as a daughter, and she couldn’t even hold on to her beloved career with both hands.

Holding on to a husband and kids would be impossible.

“None of this makes you a bad daughter. Or a potentially disastrous parent,” Gavin said, and his eyes flashed as if he was poised to argue.

But there was no point in arguing something she knew down to her marrow. “It doesn’t matter. I’m not cut out for that anyway. Like you said, I’m happy the way I am, even if I have to take flak for it.”

“It
does
matter,” he challenged. He pushed back from the counter so fast that she didn’t have time to react until he was right next to her on the other side of the breakfast bar, but by then it was too late for shock. “You’ve spent all this time believing something that’s just not true, and someone’s got to set you straight. You’re not unworthy just because you do things your own way. In fact, it’s the most beautiful thing about you. I just wish you knew it.”