Page 30 of Just for Him
Chapter Fourteen: Vinnie
“Heads-up!” my brotherDom yelled a split-second before the racquetball connected with the back of my head.
“What’s with you today, man?” he asked, stalking over to the corner to grab a towel and toss one to me.
Our weekly court times were a way to blow off steam and engage in some brotherly competition, but my mind wasn’t into it. I kept thinking of Haven and how she had looked the night before. We’d been on her couch, television forgotten, making out like teenagers. I had slipped my hand under her shirt, her skin so soft, so silky, and all I could think about was tasting every single inch. She had been just as lost. Her quiet moans, those little movements where she pressed herself against me—those were brutal. It nearly killed me to get up and say goodnight, especially when I saw the question in her eyes. The doubt. It had cut me to the core.
Not to put too fine a point on it, but I wanted her like I had never wanted another woman before. Like, I might just wind up a pile of ash the next time she rubbed that curvy little body against me. She had to have felt the proof of what she did to me. It wasn’t like I could hide that, not when she was nestled in my lap.
Which meant that doubt came from something else.
Now that I wasn’t thinking through a red haze of Haven-induced desire, the answer seemed clear enough. Haven knew—I hoped—that I wasn’t the type of guy to engage in casual, meaningless hookups. That correct assumption might then lead her to believe that my kiss and run strategy meant I wasn’t willing or interested to take our relationship beyond casual and into meaningful.
She was so,sowrong about that. As far as I was concerned, our relationship was already meaningful. It was exactly because Ididwant to take things to a serious level that I had the reins pulled so tight. As much as I wanted to make her scream in ecstasy, I wanted more than that.
All indications were that she was everything I wanted in a woman. She was smart and funny, and she appreciated the important things in life. She worked hard and was fiercely protective of those special few she cared for. She embodied all the qualities of someone who could handle being a cop’s wife.
Yeah, wife. I was that far gone. And clearly, she hadn’t the slightest clue.
“Vinnie!”
I looked up just in time to see the water bottle hurtling toward me. Luckily, this time I caught it before it made contact.
“Dickhead,” I said simply.
He laughed. “Looks likeCupidostruck again, eh?”
“Yeah.” There was no use denying it. Dom played the role of horndog quite well, but I knew my brother was a closet romantic. It was my opinion that Dom went through so many females precisely because he was looking for the right one. When we were young, my sisters used to laugh and say kissing a lot of frogs was necessary to find a prince. I was thinking Dom took that to heart, but with a princess in his case.
“So, when are you going to bring her to Sunday dinner? Everyone wants to meet her.”
“After.”
Bringing a woman to Sunday dinner was serious business. In our family, it was essentially declaring an engagement. I was okay with that, because in my mind, that was where Haven and I were heading. However, I had some surprises planned first. Surprises I hoped would make everything clear to her. If all went as planned, we would be making the next family feast.
Dom dropped his hand on my shoulder. “You just better hope they don’t spill the beans. I overheard Val and Gina goading Ramona into pumping the kid for info last night.”
“What kind of info?”
“Like what hours she works at the bookstore,” he said meaningfully.
I groaned. I loved my sisters and my cousins, but they could be a meddlesome bunch, especially when they got together. Sending my seventeen-year-old cousin in to talk to—code forflirt with—Haven’s brother sounded exactly like something they would do. Poor Joel wouldn’t even know what hit him.
“Thanks for the heads-up.”
