CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

Mia

Grayson settles me on one of the soft navy-blue couches, the cushion absorbing my weight, while Grayson’s big body frames mine, even as he pulls his shirt over his head and tosses it. “You,” he says, “will listen to me.” He doesn’t give me time to reply, by obvious intent. He kisses me, licking me into that submission we both know he can get from me if he so pleases because Grayson’s subtle demand for power is not so subtle when we’re naked.

One of his hand slides under my backside, while the other covers my breast. He’s not even undressed yet and I’m wet, wanting, and in need of him, but I know him. I know I will not be easily sated. I know the darker side of Grayson that no one else does, and in his present mood, he’ll deny me until I’m downright desperate. “Don’t move,” he orders when his mouth parts from mine, but he moves. He lifts his body off of mine and then suddenly I’m on my stomach. He’s turned me over and before I can even gasp, I’m not just on my stomach, he’s dragging me to my elbows and knees. “Down,” he says, his hand on my back and I get it and him. He needs control right now. He feels like I’m taking it. I have taken it.

I sink as low as this position allows me.

He’s on his knees beside me, his hand caressing a slow path up and down my spine. “God, I missed you, Mia,” he says, but there’s a vibration in his tone I do not like.

“Why do you say that like it pisses you off?”

“Wanting you isn’t what pisses me off and you know it.” He stands up and I can hear him begin to undress, while he’s left me here submissive, vulnerable, and willing. Because I do know why he’s angry. He’s angry that I left. He’s mad that I misjudged him and while he’d denied those feelings back in the Hamptons, he’s not denying them now. He needs my submission now and I’ll give it to him, but I always did. He has always been the one person that I would dare to do anything with. He’s always been that man for me, the only man for me.

I trust him.

I trust him completely.

My God, how did I let myself forget that? But I know in this moment exactly how. I know the flaw, my flaw, maybe our flaw. He sits down behind me on the couch, but I don’t wait for what comes next. I need to talk to him, I need to touch him. I sit up and twist around to straddle him and all his hard, naked perfection, his erection thick at my bottom. “I know what you wanted and needed right now, but I need to say something to you. I trust you,” I say, my hands on his shoulders but he doesn’t touch me.

“Are you sure about that, Mia? Because you’re on my lap right now. You don’t seem to even trust me like this, naked.”

“No, that’s what I’m telling you. When I was laying there I thought: I trust him. How did this happen? How did we get here? And then it hit me. I trust you completely. I trusted you completely and the idea that I could trust that much, and find that woman pressed against you, I just—that was such a deep wound. Don’t you see?”

“No, Mia, I don’t. Because what happened didn’t feel like trust.”

My lashes lower with his anger and I force aside a moment when I want to shut down, which was exactly where I went wrong with our breakup and exactly why I admit, “I shut down. It was the only way to protect myself. That was the flaw that was really perfection. I trusted you so completely that I didn’t know how to survive the wound.”

“You didn’t fully trust me or you wouldn’t have needed to shut down.”

“I did. I swear to you, Grayson. I did.”

“I don’t know what to do with that, Mia. You want a reason to distrust me?”

“I loved you to the point that your betrayal felt like it would end me. I can’t be with you if you’re going to resent me. I can’t be with you if you don’t think I deserve everything again. You just—I just need you to know that maybe I loved too much.” I try to move away but he catches me, his hand on my hip and the back of my head.

“Maybe you didn’t love me enough,” he says. “Maybe you didn’t love me like I did you because I couldn’t have left you.”

“Loved?”

“You know I still love you.”

“Maybe not enough.” I try to move again and suddenly my stomach is not feeling well but Grayson holds me. “Let go. I feel sick. I need up.”

“Stop, baby. Stop pulling away.” He rests his forehead against mine. “I love you more than I love life itself. I’d say you know that, but obviously, you don’t. Obviously, you didn’t.”

“I did. It was my own insecurity that got us here. I told you that back in the Hamptons.”

“How do we fix that? Did I do something to create it? Because if anyone knows I’m not perfect, it’s you. I let you see everything. You made me be real, remember?”

“Real is good and I don’t want you to stop being real even if that means being angry, but forgive me, okay? Because we can’t do this if you can’t.”

“I’m angry at us both for letting it happen,” he says, “not just you.”

“Well then, yell at me, fuck me, do whatever it takes, but stop being angry.”

“No yelling,” he says, dragging my mouth to his. “Lots of fucking.”

Our mouths collide and our tongues stroke long and deep, a frenzied rush of kissing, touching, and him lifting me to press the soft tip of his thick erection inside me. I gasp as he pulls me down and drives into me. We stay there, connected in the most intimate of ways, breathing together, wanting together, savoring each other until a crackle of electricity seems to snap between us and we’re kissing again, our bodies swaying, grinding, swaying some more.

At some point, we move from that seductive emotional bond to one that borders on pure physicality. I lean back into his thrusts while his gaze rakes over my breasts, a hungry look on his handsome face. His fingers clamp down on my nipples, and with each push and pull of my body, sensations ripple along my nerve endings, tightening my sex, and I just need to be closer to him. I lean in again and our kisses become desperate. His hand squeezes my backside and then he gives me a hard smack that has me gasping and arching into his thrust.

“Oh, God,” I breathe out because the man rocks my entire world in every way.

He reacts by rolling me to my back, and thrusts and pumps, his hand under my backside, lifting me into a deeper, harder, spot that has me shattering with no warning. I am just there, right there, in that perfect place, and my sex clenches around him. Grayson buries his face in my neck and he groans, this deep, sexy, groan and shudders into release.

For just a moment, he all but flattens on top of me, but then he rolls us to our sides, facing each other, fingers tenderly stroking my brow. “Don’t leave again,” he says. “You stay. We fight. We fuck.”

“Yes,” I whisper. “I stay. We fight. We fuck.”

“Good. Then we need to talk, and we might need to fuck again when it’s over.”

“About Ri?”

“Yes, baby, about Ri.”