Chapter 20
Feelings ~ Gray
Lying in the bed I stared once again at Phoebe as she slept beside me, her beautiful features only inches from mine. I half expected to feel some shame, awkward denial or some sense that I’d taken advantage of her, but I felt none of those things. All I felt was peace; a calmness in my soul because for the first time my actions toward her weren’t entirely selfish. We were right where we needed to be and my heart felt light, unburdened.
Somehow between rescuing her from Harry, and watching the back of her heading out my front door this morning, my heart had shifted to a place I didn’t recognize. I couldn’t let her walk out of my life again. The girl had gotten under my skin. She’d been there for a while, in my thoughts at least, and it was only when my heart sank like a stone in my chest the moment she said, “Take care,” that I knew I didn’t want her to go.
I’d made that mistake with Hettie and it was probably too late to go back. I didn’t know exactly what I felt about Phoebe, all I knew was I didn’t want to make another wrong decision by letting her go too. Looking back, the way I had behaved with both women was despicable, even if the arrangement Phoebe and I had was loose. In fact, it was probably one of the shittiest things I’d ever done to her. Yet, she forgave me.
Perhaps it was a moment of weakness when I pulled her back toward me and carried her to my bed, but my lungs had felt clear, able to expand deeply for the first time in a long time, and my gut was twisted in knots as I watched her go. Phoebe showed me how strong she was when she’d been willing to walk away, her courage forcing me to admit that I liked her more than I had been prepared to accept until that point.
I even tried to speak openly with her about my feelings for her. I had tried to quantify them, but I couldn’t, yet she was still with me. She still cared. I cared about her, that much I knew at least.
The few hours Phoebe and I spent in my bed had made me feel satisfied. Good inside. I felt a clarity of mind after sex with Phoebe. It had always been different from the feelings I had when I had sex with Hettie. It was like Hettie got inside my head and stayed there, whereas, Phoebe’s connection wasn’t as complicated to deal with.
I thought my feelings for Hettie were more than I’d felt at any other time, but over the years I had put that down to the knowledge I knew our time was short from the moment I met her, and perhaps it was that knowledge that made what we had more intense. Also, I’d felt nostalgic about the times we’d shared, and the promise of what may have been if we had allowed our feelings to develop would always be an issue that I’d never know the answer to. And of course, there was how I’d ended things between us.
The combination of those four things may well have taken what were feelings of lust and desire and turned them into deeper feelings, or made me feel like they were because we had never had the opportunity to wear our relationship out like most young couples at college did. Who knows, given another few weeks I may well have moved on to another girl or she another man.
Love and emotion made men do fucked-up things, or so my dad had taught me. “Never rely on a woman for anything, take what you need and move on.” That was my dad’s motto after my mother skipped out on us. From that day forward she ceased to exist in our household.
A few times over the years I had tried to probe, pressing my dad for information. I told him it was my right to know why I had grown up without her, but each opening I saw for that conversation was quickly quashed by my dad’s angry, hurt tone. He told me more than once he saw no sense in dragging up the past when it did us no good.
After a while, I guess it became the one topic that was off the agenda. All I knew, was when she’d gone the only thing I had to remind me of her was a family heirloom she’d left behind. A simple wooden beaded necklace and cross she used to wear was stuffed in an envelope and left on my bed. It was her father’s before hers and a sign of her family’s faith. When I picked it up and slipped it over my head I wondered if she’d lost her belief in God when she left it to me.
Maybe I saw how my mother’s decision had wrecked my dad’s life, and it had affected me. Perhaps it was the reason I’d never gotten attached or been able to make a proper commitment to any woman, although I guessed I felt more for Hettie than I knew at the time and if I hadn’t gone home to the UK, who knows what would have happened.
Looking back, my lack of commitment was the cause of most arguments between Lizzie and me. She wanted a ring, and I didn’t feel in a place where I would even consider spending the rest of my life with one woman. Even when she asked me for a promise ring, I had joked about that. My stubbornness wasn’t totally without reason because I didn’t feel as strongly for Lizzie as I had for Hettie. She seemed to be the benchmark I judged all other women by.
Watching Phoebe wince as she turned on her side after having sex, reminded me I wasn’t as gentle as I’d tried to be after our year apart. We definitely had passion and carnal lust when we connected. I’d kissed every square inch of her deliciously toned body, licked every tiny crease, and bitten her ass, neck, and thighs.
She was marked, but then again so was I. A love bite over my pec had been visible in my long, wall mirror opposite my bed the instant she took her mouth away. My fingers teased her pussy and when I glanced up I saw the purple bruise on my chest.
“Are we okay, Gray?” When she sounded unsure, my heart squeezed, and a sinking feeling hit me in the gut. I frowned in frustration at myself, wondering if she reckoned I’d say anything to fuck her. I wouldn’t have done that.
“Sure, babe. Are you feeling okay? Did I hurt you?”
“Not hurt, you’re just a little bigger than I remember,” she said, a little smirk tweaking at the corners of her mouth.
“You never used to complain,” I replied with a playful smirk.
“It used to be a regular thing…I got used to your size,” she replied and blinked with a straight face. I couldn’t help my laugh.
“So what you’re saying is…me fucking you regularly, it’s like wearing in a pair of new shoes until they don’t hurt anymore?” Phoebe giggled, and fuck if it didn’t make my dick twitch, even after all we’d just done. I found the sound of it infectious and cute.
“I guess, although I think it would take a lot longer to wear my parts out.”
“Your parts? What the fuck are you, a car exhaust? I could say a lot about your pussy, sweetheart, and let me tell you it should never be referred to as your parts. It makes it sound like you have spares. Nothing spare about your pussy, doll.”
“And here was I worried about opening my eyes because I didn’t want to face the awkward after sex conversation I thought we may have.” Phoebe’s dry sarcasm was one of my favorite things about her, and I grinned cheekily.
She rewarded me with a wide smile. It pushed her cheeks up to her eyes and the way heat flushed them tickled me. I’d never seen Phoebe blush before, or maybe it was the first time I’d noticed. Usually, I had taken how beautiful she was for granted—objectified her, but as I lay beside her after the emotional shunt I had taken, I viewed her differently.
“What now?” The uncertainty in her voice was jarring. She stared, questioning as the pulse in her neck throbbed. Turning on my side to look directly at her, I leaned on my elbow and perched my head on my hand. Tenderly, I swept some hair covering her breast to the side and gently dropped a small kiss to it. I looked up to see her frowning with concern, sadness, as doubt flickered in her eyes. She searched my face then dropped her gaze to my bare chest. My heart squeezed tight at her uncertainty.
“Now? You mean now that we did the awkward morning after no sex in the bed, the breakfast I cooked by way of an apology, and your dramatic non-exit when I dragged you in here, and fucked your brains out? I guess we get up and shower one at a time so we don’t end up back in here, because I’m fucking hungry.”
It was meant to lighten her mood, but from the reaction on her face I could see Phoebe thought it was business as usual between us. “After we’ve dressed I’m going to drive you over to your place and you can pick up some of your shit to save you going back and forth.”
Repositioning herself, Phoebe perched herself up on her elbow, one hand holding her head while her elbow dug into the mattress next to me. “I’m sorry, Gray, you need to clarify this for me. I’m not being dense when I asked that.”
Watching how insecure she was about me, I did what I’d never done with any woman before, not even Lizzie. Rolling away from her I got up out of my bed and wandered along the hall. In the small box by the door, I lifted a spare set of keys and padded back to the bedroom. Climbing back into bed, I pulled her into my arms and lay with her nestled between my left arm and my chest. “I want you to have these,” I murmured and kissed her temple as I held my hand out with two small silver keys and a red plastic garage remote for her to take.
Phoebe squinted at what I was holding toward her and her body instantly stiffened. With the dejected look on her face changing to a wide-eyed stare, she reacted badly.
“I’m not taking those, Gray. This morning you shunned me and now you hand me your keys for me to move in? Hell, for all I know next week you’ll be texting me to hand them back.”
She was right of course; my behavior had been contradictory at best when I’d pushed her away only hours before. “I don’t mean they’re for moving in, I just wanted to show you I want you around. You were here more often than not before, so I figured you should have keys. That way you can be here when you want and go home when you don’t.”
“So these are some kind of a commitment?”
“That word scares the shit out of me, but they’re…something. Look it would be wrong of me to expect anything from you, but after this morning, and my admission about these feelings I have, I have to be honest and say I don’t fully understand what they are…or what they mean—if you can accept that poor excuse…”
“So they’re booty call keys? You call me from wherever you are and tell me to meet you at home?”
“Fuck, no. They are my way of saying I’d like you to be around me. I really like your company. And I don’t want to let you down.”
“And by giving me keys, telling me I can come here if I want or I can decide to go home is your way of making me feel like we’re going somewhere?” Phoebe pulled away from me, tension rolling off her as she slid out of the bed and began pulling her clothes on. I could see how pissed off I’d made her by the forced jerky movements she made as she pulled at her clothing and shook her head in defiance.
“We got along fine without keys before, Gray. If you have to call me over, then you don’t intend to have me around.” Her voice was an octave higher, alarmed at the stupid gesture I thought would let her know we meant something. My shit for brains was useless at relationships.
Seconds later, I was out of the bed and rushed to stand in front of her. Sticking out an arm I effectively blocked the doorway which had become a familiar move that morning.
“Stop, Phoebe. Please. I never said I’d call you over. You’ve got it all wrong. See, I fucked up straight away. I should have asked you what you thought before just handing you the keys. What I thought when I gave you them…it was my way of saying that while we’re figuring this out I want us to be exclusive. The thought of you with another guy fucks with my head. I know I have no right to say that, but it does.”
Watching me with narrowed eyes, Phoebe assessed my conversation with the suspicion I deserved, there had been nothing chivalrous about how I’d treated her in the past, and even though I could see she had deep feelings for me, I was glad she had respected herself enough not to put up with my shit.
After this morning, I thought I’d explained what was going on, but I figure I needed to expand on that. “The thought that you could be with anyone else right now, fucks with my head. It gives me a tight, gripping pain around my heart, and my guts feel like someone’s splicing those fuckers together. When I saw how Harry was handling you yesterday, I wanted nothing more than to kick the shit out of that guy…teach him a lesson on how to behave around you. I was about to do it too, except Surge reminded me you weren’t with me anymore.”
Phoebe’s eyes softened and she reached out to grab a hold of my arm. “Gray, I have never been with you. I think you had the right intention with the keys, but I’m going to decline if that’s all right by you. Giving someone the key to your home is a big step, it’s not something to do out of desperation when you want to impress a woman.”
Giving her a sheepish smile, I listened while she educated me about how not to behave. I folded my arms protectively over my chest because if I hadn’t have done that I’d have pulled her back into my arms and demeaned the seriousness of our conversation.
“Actions speak louder than words, and the last two days have taught me you think there is more to us than just some fuck buddy relationship. I like the sound of exclusive, Gray. It means that you’re actually giving us some thought. Right now, I feel after all this time apart, I can’t ask for more than that.”
Nodding my head I gave her a wry smirk of embarrassment. “Duly noted, Pheebs, and you’re absolutely right. You’re a smart woman, I’m glad you set me straight. Can I take you to dinner? Eating is always a great way to apologize, right?”
Phoebe smiled, all the previous tension sliding from her face. She dug into her bag and pulled out a small hairbrush. Brushing vigorously at her long, flaxen locks she giggled softly, letting her anger slide.
“Yep, but I get to choose the restaurant and you’re paying,” she said assertively. I laughed because it was the Phoebe I’d missed: the ballsy, no nonsense, take no shit version that had attracted me to her in the first place.