CHAPTER TWELVE
Mia
My reasons for not wanting to be in this bed fade with his declaration that it’s ours, and that he wants me in it for the rest of our lives. “The only problem I have right this minute is that you aren’t kissing me.”
He leans in, his lips a breath from mine, but he doesn’t kiss me. “Why didn’t you want to be here with me?”
“Ask me later. Kiss me now.”
“No. You think I’ve had someone else here, in our bed.” It’s not a question.
“I don’t have the right to ask.”
“Is that why you didn’t want to be here?”
“Yes,” I whisper, my hand settling on his cheek. “But I know—”
“I never brought a woman here or to my place in the city. Just you, Mia. But I can’t tell you that I didn’t try to fuck you out of my system. I needed to fuck the images of you with Ri out of my head.”
“I wasn’t with Ri.”
“I know that now, but I didn’t then. It doesn’t matter who it was. The idea of you with someone else drove me crazy. It still does.”
“I wasn’t with anyone else,” I dare to confess, when a part of me doesn’t believe he deserves that confession and another feels I owe it to him.
He pulls back to study me. “What?”
“Never. I didn’t. Not once. And I told myself that it was because I was busy, trying to build my career, but—”
“But what, Mia?”
“I just wasn’t ever ready to let go. I didn’t want to leave you. But I had to.”
“No, baby. You didn’t, but I get that you really felt that you did. It hurts, but I get it.” His mouth comes down on mine, and I feel as if he’s breathing me in. I know I am with him. No. I’m drinking him in, arching into the sweet weight of him on top of me. We kiss with desperation, like two people who need each other to survive, and right now, I don’t know how I have survived without him. He rolls us to our sides facing each other, his fingers catching the hook of my bra and just that fast, he’s pulling it away, and his hand replaces the silk. His mouth is back on mine and sensations consume me, so many sensations colliding with emotion and need.
“Are you still on the pill?” he asks.
“Yes. I just—I am.”
“Good. For now.” He kisses me, a quick brush of lips over lips. “I need you naked. I need to feel you next to me.” He rolls me to my back and with that “for now” in the air, he moves and resettles with his lips to my stomach and this is not an accidental connection. My heart squeezes with the certainty that he’s reminding me of how many times he told me he wanted a little girl just like me. It affects me. We had so many plans. We were best friends. We were so many things that happened so very quickly and easily, and then it was gone.
He pulls down my pants, and all too quickly my sneakers and everything else is gone. I’m naked and not just my body. I am so very naked with this man and always have been. But as for my body, I’m not alone for long. He strips away his clothes, and I lift to my elbows to admire all that sinewy, perfect muscle before he reaches down, grabs my legs and pulls me to him. The minute my backside is on the edge of the bed, he goes down on a knee. I sit up and cup his face. “Not now. Now I need—I need—”
He cups my head and pulls my mouth to his, kissing me with a long stroke of his tongue before he says, “And I need to taste you.”
“Not now. I’m not leaving. We have time. I need—you. Here with me.”
His eyes soften but he still leans in and licks my clit, and then suckles. I’m all but undone by the sensation because one thing I know and know well is how good this man is with his tongue. But he doesn’t ignore my request. He pushes off the floor, and in a heartbeat, he’s kissing me and I don’t even know how we end up in the center of the bed, our naked bodies entwined. We just are and it’s wonderful and right in ways nothing has been in so very long.
He lifts my leg to his thigh and presses his thick erection inside me, filling me in ways that go beyond our bodies; driving deep, his hand on my backside, pulling me into him, pushing into me, but then we don’t move. Then we just lay there, intimately connected, lost in the moment and each other. “Is this what you wanted?”
“Yes,” I say. “This is what I wanted.”
“I didn’t think I’d ever have you here, like this, with me again.”
“Me either,” I whisper, my fingers curling on his jaw. “Grayson,” I say for no reason other than I need his name on my lips. I need everything with this man.
He kisses me, a fast, deep, passionate kiss. “I missed the hell out of you, Mia. So fucking much. I don’t think you really understand how much.”
This moment, right here, right now, is one of our raw, honest, perfect moments that has always made his betrayal hard to accept. I need that honesty in my life and with him and I don’t even think about denying him my truth. “I missed you, too. More than you know, Grayson.”
He squeezes my backside and drives into me again. I pant with the sensations that rip through my body, my hand going to his shoulder. “Nothing was right without you,” he says. “Nothing, Mia.” He kisses me, and I sink into the connection, pressing into him, into his thrust, into the hard warmth of his entire body. Needing to be close. Needing the things that separated us not to exist.
Our lips part and his mouth is on my breast, lips suckling my nipple, my sex clenching around his shaft with the sensation, a soft whimper escaping my lips. And then he’s kissing my neck and whispering in my ear, “I love you, Mia.”
And I say it. I have to say it. “I love you, too.”
He pulls back to look at me. “Say it again.”
“I love you.”
He cups my face and forces my gaze to his. “Don’t forget that. I’m not going to this time.” He doesn’t give me time to respond. His mouth crashes down on mine and in a fury of heat, we snap and tumble into that wild, animalistic place that allows nothing but give and take. We’re all over each other. We’re saying, grinding, pumping, touching, kissing. I don’t want it to end and yet I need that next place we’re trying to find, I need all that I can take and give with this man, and there is no holding back. I am there, on the edge, and tumbling right over, far too quickly. I stiffen and then my body quakes, arching into Grayson’s, my fingers digging into his back. A low guttural sound escapes his lips as he buries his face in my neck and shudders into release right along with me. Because that’s just one of the things about us I remember. We’re really good at doing things together.
We collapse into the mattress, into each other and for a long time we just hold each other. I’m not sure how long we stay like this. I just know that it can’t be long enough. Finally, though, Grayson rolls me to my back and grabs tissues that he offers me, but he when he pulls out, he doesn’t move. He stays right there with me, his elbows planted on either side of me.
“We need to have a serious conversation, Mia,” he says softly.
“I know. I know we do.”
“Good. So which will it be? Pizza or Chinese?”
Tension uncoils in my belly and becomes laughter. “Pizza. I haven’t had this pizza in—”
“Too long,” he says softly, brushing his thumb down my cheek. “Too long, Mia.” He kisses me. “I’ll order.” He lifts away from me and I am instantly cold where I was hot moments before. He sits down beside me and grabs his phone from the nightstand.
I listen as he orders our usual, remembering my preferences like I’d never left him. When he’s done, he sits his phone on the nightstand and leans over me. “I’ll be right back.” He kisses me and then in all his beautiful nakedness, he stands up and walks to the bathroom.
I sit up and take in the room that I haven’t really looked at in years, finding it as remarkable and unchanged as the chemistry between me and Grayson. It’s a traditional room, the bed an oversized king in black, with thick posts on each corner, and furnishings to match. A sitting room to the left with black leather furnishings and—
Grayson’s phone buzzes with a text and my stomach clenches. I throw away the blanket and sit up, staring at it on the nightstand. This is where it ended last time. In this bed, in this room, with a text message I’d accidentally read, but I don’t want it to end again, not this time.
I don’t want it to end.
I don’t want to say goodbye to Grayson.