Chapter 22

Isabella

DAY 16

The hospital wasn’t the lynch mob I expected, but I still feel sapped of energy. I don’t like hospitals as it is. That was the very same hospital I held my father’s gnarled old hand in as he passed to the other side. In any case, neither of these reasons is any excuse for flopping into bed as I want to and denying my responsibility.

I leaf through papers, desperately hoping to find something that explains it all, and desperately hoping not to at the same time. Electrical wiring sheets. Codes. Plans. I picked them all up from the office on the way back to my apartment. I want answers to give these people. But I dread finding some tiny detail I’ve overlooked. If there’s a loophole for them to sue, I know the business will never recover. Never.

Gray and I picked up Indian takeout, but we haven’t touched it. It’s sitting on the kitchen counter, looking sadder and sadder by the minute. But I don’t care. I have to get through all these papers for the third time. There must be something I’ve missed. There must be. I don’t know if I want there to be or not. This feels like torture.

“Come on, babe,” Gray says. He comes over from the couch and touches me gently on the back. “You’ve done enough. Try to relax.”

“How can I relax?” I rifle through the papers still. “I need to know how much of a mistake I made here. What the future of everything is.”

“We can’t tell the future,” he says. “You’ve looked through all of that already. You know you have. The food’s getting cold.”

That sounds so trivial. “Who cares about food?”

“You haven’t barely eaten since we left England. The plane food wasn’t good, and what have you had since?”

I think. “Nothing.” But I don’t even feel hungry. Adrenaline has rushed through me the whole time, pumping me with overanxious energy. Food seems so overindulgent. “I don’t want anything.”

“Please,” he says. “I’m starting to worry about you. When are you going to stop beating yourself up?”

“Never,” I say. “It was my responsibility. And people got hurt.” I feel this horrible lurch in the pit of my stomach, like I want to throw up, but there’s nothing inside except emptiness. “It’s all my fault, and it always will be.” I flop down on the chair. “I feel… so hopeless.”

“You’re not hopeless.” He takes my face in his hands and looks dead into my eyes. They’re so piercing and strong I have to avert them. “You’re the least hopeless person I know, in fact.”

I laugh insincerely. It feels like I’m choking. “Yeah, right.”

“No, really.”

“I’m a total screw-up.”

“You are not.” His voice is so stern, like he’s telling me off. “Don’t ever say that again.”

“I am though.”

He kneels down in front of me, and even though he’s the one looking up at me, he’s very much the one in control. “All right. Let’s say you’re a total screw-up. What does that make me?”

I pause and look into his eyes. “A man who realizes his priorities have been a little skewed. A man who wants to come out from under his father’s shadow. A man who’s… realizing a lot.”

“Yes,” he says. “Now, my turn. What I see when I look at you.”

Anxiety buzzes through me. I make a joke out of it. “A frizzy-haired girl who pretends to be an Ice Queen on the outside while being nothing more than useless mush on the inside. Who pretends like she knows what she’s doing but doesn’t have a clue.”

“No.” His face floods with concern, then a passion leaps into his eyes. “I see a fearless woman.”

“Well, you’re wrong about that. I have plenty of fears.”

“OK,” he says with a nod. “A woman who has plenty of fears but goes ahead anyway. She doesn’t let them dictate her life. A woman who walks into fire when other people would run the other way. A woman who holds her head high and carries on, no matter what. A woman who’s learning that…” He looks into my eyes like he’s searching for something. “That… trying to be perfect is too stressful.”

My chest, sinks but not in a bad way. Like I’m sinking into the most comfortable bed in the world after the longest journey.

“A woman who looks at herself and sees mistakes and failures,” he continues. “But let me tell you something about what I am.”

“What?”

“A man who looks at her and sees something he’s never seen before. A type of woman who’s so rare she’s the first he’s come across. He doesn’t see the mistakes and failures she does in herself.”

There’s a lump in my throat. “What does he see?”

He takes my left hand and kisses my little finger. “Beauty.” Then my ring finger. “Loveliness.” Then my middle finger. “Strength.” Then my index. “Dignity.” My thumb. “Integrity.”

I want to believe this is some Grayson Fairfax II game, so I can run away and not feel the rip that’s being torn in my heart. I always thought if someone would tell me these things, it would feel like floating on clouds. But this is a strange pleasure-pain that tears at the seams of my being. I can’t say anything. But I can’t pull away either.

He kisses the thumb of my right hand. “Independence.” Then my index finger. “Did I say strength already? Well, I’ll say it again.” Then my middle finger. “Gorgeousness.” Then my ring finger. “Grace.” Then my little finger. “And complete and utter, dripping-with-it, oozing-with-it, sexiness.”

“Gray,” I breathe. I can’t find anything else to think, let alone say.

He puts his strong hands on my knees then runs them up my thighs under my skirt, his dark eyes glued to mine. I shiver, wanting him.

“Isabella,” he whispers. “What do you want?”

I feel my clit pulsing. “You.”

He takes the hem of my skirt and pushes the front of it up around my waist. My sensible blue panties don’t look all that sexy to me.

He runs his finger over my panties, down from my pussy lips and up to my clit. “You’re getting those wet,” he whispers.

Before I can reply, he reaches behind my back, grabs the panties, and pulls them down. I have to shift on the chair a little for them to slide over my buttocks. He takes advantage of my position and shoves my legs up in the air, pushing my ankles toward my head. My panties stretch between my thighs, and my pussy’s exposed to the air, right in front of his face.

“Mmm,” he says, watching with enchanted eyes. He leans forward and kisses my clit. He looks up to see me shiver, and even though his mouth’s on my cunt, I can see the smile in his eyes.

“Now, tell me, Isabella,” he says. “What do you like best? Do you want me to lick your clit? Or bite those gorgeous lips of yours? Or take your clit hood in my mouth and suck until you come?”

“Oh, fuck, Gray,” I moan.

“That’s not an answer,” he says in a commanding tone. “Tell me what you want.”

I know what I want. Shivers went up my spine when he said it. “The last one.”

He looks up at me, a glimmer in his eye. “I’ve forgotten which that one was. Tell me again.”

Oh god. My nipples are on fire. My pussy’s pulsing. “Take my clit in your mouth,” I say, trembling.

“And…?”

Ohhh. “Suck until I come.”

“Good,” he says slowly. He’s so in control.

I feel the firm wetness of his tongue on my clit. He flicks his tongue up, and I feel such extreme heat and wetness in my cunt. He does it so slowly. So, so slowly. I desperately want him to suck on my clit and the hood. To take it all in his mouth and suck and nibble and suck. I moan. He laughs softly.

“All right. I’m teasing you,” he says. “I’ve forgotten what you want. Tell me again.”

“Suck my clit, Gray,” I say. “Please.”

He pulls back and watches me. He’s fully clothed. My skirt’s up around my waist. My trembling pussy’s open, my legs spread so far they’re stretching my panties around my ankles.

“You really want it, don’t you?”

I nod, and a little whimper escapes my lips.

With one swift motion, he dives into my pussy. He takes my clit in his mouth. The stubble of his beard feels so manly against my bare cunt. And then he does what I’ve been desperately wishing for. He sucks on my clit. The hot sweet rush in my pussy brings a moan to my lips and my back arches in ecstasy. “Oh, Gray!”

He lets it go, then pulls it back, then lets it go, then pulls it back. Oh god, this is so amazing. I’ve never felt anything like this. The heat and the overwhelming, pulsating pleasure in my clit.

Then, with my clit still in his mouth, he maneuvers my leg and pulls my panties down around my ankle and off that leg, so they’re hanging off my other thigh. All the while he’s sucking, then nibbling, sucking, then nibbling, on my clit, sending waves of pleasure soaring through my body, over and over again. I sense one of the hottest, hardest orgasms of my life is going to come and steal me away. He’s going to take me to realms I’ve never gone before. I can feel it in the tips of my hard nipples. In the depths of my cunt.

Then he takes his mouth off my pussy. “Come, darling,” he says. “Come down here.” He takes me by my hands and helps me up off the chair. “Lie down.” He’s gentle with me as he maneuvers me down onto the carpeted floor. Then he goes around to my right side, facing down toward my pussy. He pulls back my thighs until my cunt faces the ceiling and spreads my legs wide. I feel so exposed. So vulnerable. But so, so good. “Ready, sweetheart?” he says.

I have no idea what he’s going to do, but my whole body cries out, Yes! Yes! Yes! “Yes, Gray.”

“Tell me you’re ready.”

“I’m ready.”

“You might have to scream.”

I think of the neighbors. “I won’t scream.”

He gives a soft, little laugh. “All right.”

Then, without warning, he pushes his face into my cunt and grabs my clit with his teeth. Then he sucks, like before, but with a vengeance. He plunges two fingers into my pussy and pumps them in and out, in and out, as he sucks on my clit hood. Oh, fuck!

Before I know it, Gray’s prophecy has come true. The heat, the gorgeous, beautiful, tantalizing heat, is too much for me to bear. It mounts and mounts and mounts in glorious pleasure until I can’t keep any semblance of control. I have to let go. I have no choice.

I come.

Waves and waves of heat and pleasure. I scream. I scream out in ecstasy. “Gray! Gray! Gray!”

His mouth stays firmly on my clit, sucking and biting. His fingers pump in and out of my cunt just the same. I feel myself flooding over his fingers, and my clit pulses and trembles in his mouth.

“Gray!” I scream, forgetting who I am and where I am and that neighbors exist at all. “Yes! Yes, yes, yeaaaaaas!”