Page 37 of Snow Bound (Odyssey #1)

FIVE MONTHS LATER

G rant unlocked his apartment door and sighed with relief. He’d been in an airport or on a plane for the last thirteen hours, his eyes were gritty with fatigue, and his clothes felt like he’d slept in them. Which he had.

All he wanted was a shower, eight hours of sleep, and his woman, not necessarily in that order.

So the music and jeering laughter that greeted him as he shut the door was less than welcome.

Dropping his bags by the door, he walked into the living room.

The sound system was playing an ABBA song, and a half-eaten tray of pigs in blankets sat on a side table.

Of the four people gathered around his portable poker table, the three men were talking over one another with various expressions of disbelief, disgust, and annoyance.

The lone woman was laughing as she raked in a pile of chips.

“That’s what you get for trying to draw to an inside straight,” she told Michael with a sneer.

Grant had to swallow a laugh at the insult on Michael’s face.

No matter how much deference Anna showed him at the club as both the owner and a dominant, she was a brat to the core.

And here, in his living room, she had no problem letting her sassy side loose.

“Fuck, that last hand nearly finished me,” Simon muttered in disgust and was drawing a slim cigar from his breast pocket when he caught Anna’s frown.

“No smoking in the apartment. Grant’s rules.”

Simon narrowed his eyes at her. “ I outrank him, you know.”

She snorted. “ Not with me, you don’t.”

The hoots and hollers that erupted around the table made Grant grin.

His girl was glowing as she stacked her chips.

Her hair danced over her shoulders, a bright contrast to the soft blue sweater she wore.

His sweater, he realized with a start. The one he thought the dry cleaners had lost last month.

He shook his head. She’d helped him look for it, for God’s sake.

Clearly, she was getting too big for her britches again.

He stepped further into the room, and her head came up.

Delight lit her face and she jumped up with a cry. “ You’re home!”

She flew around the table to leap at him, her arms going around his neck and her legs around his waist. He braced himself for the impact, catching her easily, and sank into the kiss.

He growled and tangled a hand in her hair, tilting her head so he could dive in deep. Her delighted moan went straight to his dick, which after two and a half weeks away, had risen to the occasion the moment her sweet heat pressed against him.

“Jesus, you two. Get a room.”

Grant broke the kiss to send Zack , one of his co-workers, an amused look. “ This is my room.”

“Well, then go ahead and give us a show,” Zach invited with a grin. “ Michael’s seen it, but the rest of us haven’t. Maybe it’ll make up for losing my damn shirt.”

Anna smiled into his eyes. “ I missed you.”

“I missed you too, baby.” He ignored their audience and pressed her hard against him. Her lips parted and her cheeks flushed as the hard length of his dick slid against her pussy. He could feel the wet heat of her through the yoga pants she wore, and she could certainly feel him.

He put a stern look on his face and shifted his grip to give her a stinging slap on her ass. She gasped and grew even wetter.

“I come home from a business trip and find you entertaining three men in my house?” he growled, loving the sparkle in her eyes.

She grinned. “ They didn’t want to miss the regular poker game, so I volunteered to sit in for you.”

He laughed, turning to eye his friends sitting sullenly around the table, and the small scattering of poker chips in front of each of them. Anna’s place at the table, however, held a veritable mountain.

“She’s a fucking shark,” Michael muttered. “ You might have warned us.”

“I didn’t know you’d invite her to play,” Grant protested, still grinning. “ She suckered you right in with that innocent face, didn’t she?”

Simon narrowed his gaze and clamped his teeth on his unlit cigar. “ I’m pretty sure she’s cheating.”

Anna was giggling so hard she could barely breathe. “ Why don’t you prove it, Big Dick Hastings ?”

The table erupted in guffaws as Simon’s face went stony. Lola’s nickname for him had caught on among those who’d heard it, and he wasn’t happy about it.

Grant chuckled and hitched her higher. “ Come on, babe. You haven’t welcomed me home properly yet.”

“Yeah, take her somewhere else,” Zach chimed in and began to shuffle the cards. “ We’ll just play her hand for a while.”

“Hey!” Anna protested, but Grant was already carrying her out of the room. She frowned at him. “ They’re going to take all my winnings.”

“You’ll win it back,” he pointed out, then paused in the hallway to give her a narrow-eyed look. “ Were you cheating?”

“Nah. They’re just terrible poker players.”

“We heard that!” Michael shouted, and Grant laughed.

“I better give you something productive to do with your time,” he told her, striding down the hall to his bedroom, “or you’ll fleece all my friends.”

She wiggled against him as he lowered her to the bed, eyes gleaming. “ What’d you have in mind?”

“You’re a smart girl,” he mumbled into her neck, loving the way she shivered when he scraped his teeth over her warm, fragrant skin. “ I bet you can figure it out.”

“Mmm,” she sighed and tilted her pelvis up so the thick ridge of his cock was cradled against her pussy. The yoga pants were thin, the cotton getting wetter by the second as her arousal grew.

Which reminded him.

He lifted his head with a mock frown. “ You’re not following the rules of the house.”

Her cheeks flushed. “ Yes , I am. Sir . No panties.”

“The rules are no pants, no panties.”

“Unless there are guests,” she finished and gave him a cheeky smile. “ Then I get to wear pants.”

He quirked a brow. “ There are no guests in this room.” He smacked her ass, loving the resulting squeal.

Her flush darkened, and need began to edge out the laughter in her eyes. “ I should probably take them off, then.”

“Don’t bother,” he told her, and grasping the waistband just below her belly button, shredded the pants with one hard yank.

Her eyes widened with shock. “ Those were my favorites!” she squeaked as he drew the ruined pants down each leg and tossed them aside.

“Shouldn’t have been wearing them, then.” The only reason he’d been able to shred them so easily is because they were so old they were practically paper-thin.

He bent to kiss the frown off her face. “ I’ll buy you a dozen more.”

“It won’t be the same,” she grumbled. “ Those were my favorite.”

“Oh, really?” He reached out to finger the hem of her sweater. His sweater. “ Like this sweater was my favorite?”

Her eyes widened, and he realized she hadn’t remembered she was wearing it. “ You helped me look for it when I thought the cleaners had lost it,” he told her. “ You lying little slut.”

Her teeth came out to nibble on her lower lip as her color rose. “ Um . I needed something to keep me warm while you were gone?”

“Was that a question?” he asked, stifling a laugh. He tugged at the hem. “ Off .”

She raised her arms obediently over her head, though her mouth still held a pretty pout. “ I’m serious. It helps when you’re gone, and I’m missing you.”

“Aw.” He flicked a finger down her nose. “ Why didn’t you just ask me? I’d have given it to you.”

“It’s more fun this way?” she ventured.

He pushed himself to his knees and, kneeling between her thighs, raised a brow at the offending garment. “ Take it off.”

He watched her work it over her head, mouth going dry when he saw she wasn’t wearing a bra. Her breasts bounced when she tossed the sweater aside, then she lay back on the bed with a mischievous smile.

“Now what?”

“I think you earned yourself a punishment for stealing my sweater. Two , actually.”

“Two?” Outrage colored her voice. “ How do you figure two?”

“One for the stealing, and one for the lying.”

“Yeah, but I only lied because I stole it,” she pointed out. “ So really, it’s the same crime.”

Laughter and lust were a tangled mess inside him. God , he loved this woman. “ You’re pulling the tiger’s tail, woman.”

She sniffed. “ Tabby’s tail, maybe.”

He chuckled darkly, loving the way her eyes sparkled with mirth even as she chewed her lower lip. Happy and nervous. Perfect .

He started to lean down, intending to show her exactly how wrong she was to compare him to a housecat when something above the bed caught his eye. He glanced up, blinking in surprise.

“What’s that?”

She twisted her head to see what he was looking at, and her cheeks went pink. “ I made it. For you.” Her teeth sunk into her bottom lip again. “ What do you think?”

He stared at the wall hanging, momentarily speechless. The old-fashioned sampler had a border of flowers in bright hues of pinks and purples, a green vine linking them all together to form the frame for three words done in flowing script in graduating shades of pink.

He stared down at her. “‘ Live , love, lube’?” he asked, incredulous.

She smiled sheepishly. “ I thought it was an appropriate thing to hang over your bed.”

“Our bed.”

She blinked. “ What ?”

“Our bed,” he repeated, leaning down to brush her lips with his. “ Move in with me, Anna . Live with me.” He kissed her again. “ Love with me.” And again, his eyes gleaming wickedly. “ Lube with me.”

She choked out a laugh, her hands on his chest. “ You really want me to move in?”

“I was going to wait until we’d been together six months to ask you,” he confessed, “but I don’t want to wait. I love you, and I want you with me.”

She smiled mistily. “ Okay .”

He raised a brow. “ Okay , what?”

“Okay, Sir .”

He rewarded her with a deeper kiss that had her writhing in his arms. “ Now .” He reached for the bedside table, digging around in the drawer until he found what he was looking for. “ I think we should live up to the billing, don’t you?”

She looked up at the tube of lubricant he held in front of her and laughed. Happiness shone in her eyes as she wiggled beneath him. “ Make me, Sir .”

“That’s my bad girl,” he said and smothered her laugh with a kiss.

~ The End ~