Chapter Twenty

Confessions

Mandee

How many times did you come? is a question most boys asked me when I was going through my “experimental stage” in college. All damn near demanded an answer. So, I gave them one.

Lying here, spread wide, Grayson’s still-clothed length against me as he sucks on one breast while kneading the other, and then switching, I try to figure out what to tell him when he asks. All I can think about is the others and what I thought was coming was like a pebble in the calm lake, a ripple of disturbance to the norm that fades out quickly. Whereas, Grayson...Well, Grayson was a landslide of boulders.

I cover my face and smile when my boob falls from his mouth.

“What?” he asks.

I know my smile is getting bigger when he grabs my hand, uncovers my face, and asks again, “What?” He looks pensive now, and I certainly don’t want that.

“Fuck them.” I smile when I say it, because I honestly hope that explains it all.

When he scowls and almost immediately cocks his eyebrow, he looks a little...

“Are you mad?”

He shakes his head, his face now expressionless as he starts unbuckling his black leather belt, then unbuttons his pants and shoves them down.

He’s huge. No, not huge. His enormous erection springs out, and instead of pointing straight out, it hangs a bit.

I smile and say it again, hoping he gets it. “Fuck them.”

I reach out to grab him, but he grabs my wrists, stopping me then pulling me closer to the edge.

My heartbeat accelerates as he takes my arm and draws it across my body as if we are dancing and trying to make me turn in a circle, which is exactly what I do.

Lying on my stomach, my toes barely touching the ground, I look over my shoulders, wanting to see that look on his face as he enters me.

He presses against the middle of my shoulders so I’m lying flush against the counter.

“Gra—” I start to ask him if everything’s okay, when he shoves into me fully.

I feel that feeling again. Pain, pleasure, the inability to breathe out.

He stills, and I remember what comes next.

He will tell me, “breathe, sweetheart,” and right now, I need him to.

With one hand, he grips my hip, while he wraps the other around my hair. He starts rocking in and out, fast, hard. If he wasn’t hitting every nerve in my body designed for pleasure, I’m sure the pressure of being so full would cause me to burst. But he is, and I am not going to.

“Fucking tight, little cunt,” he hisses as he pulls nearly all the way out then slams into me. “Squeezing the life out of me,” he stammers as he fucks me faster and faster. “Fucking loosen up.” He rolls his hips, trying to make it fit better?

When he smacks my ass once, twice, then three times, I wait for something. I wait for him to squeeze me roughly because I learned it’s what he does out of need and desire, and I like it. When it doesn’t happen, I wait for something...more. His lips on my back—something.

Something that doesn’t come.

At this moment, I know that something has shifted.

Something isn’t right or good. This isn’t like last night, or even five minutes ago.

This isn’t sex. This isn’t the Grayson I felt comfortable with exploring and keeping secrets with. This is Grayson from the parking lot at the bar, and this is me...getting fucked.

“Fuck it. Where do you want me to finish?”

I hold my face in my hands, wishing I could disappear right now.

“Come on; answer me,” he demands.

“Fuck you.” I push back against him and bat his hands away from me. “Fuck you and fuck them, Grayson Falcon!”

I cringe when I feel empty, because that loss, that emptiness, that feeling, it sucks. My body wants him. It wants him badly. But no...Fuck him.

“What the fuck was that?” he snaps as he grabs my sweater and holds it over his cock.

I grab my tank and pull it on over my bra that is still hanging off my shoulders and look at him. His eyes are clenched tight, as are his teeth, and his nostrils flare as his body jerks slightly then trembles. Then he sighs, and his body loses all tension.

I cover my mouth and gasp when I realize what just actually happened as his eyes flutter open.

“What?” he asks.

“Did you just come...on that?” I point to my freaking sweater.

“You didn’t answer me,” he says, looking at it, then around as if has no idea what to do with it. For some reason, that flips a switch, too.

“Well, by all means.” I bend down, grab his shirt, and shake it at him.

“Don’t,” he says, reaching out to me.

Don’t what?

I want to scream, because I have no clue what he thinks I’m going to do...until his eyes travel down to my bare and now battered, and worse, empty nether regions.

Ha, fuck him, I think as I step back and hold up his shirt.

“No?”

“Mandee, I swear to God...” He pauses when I take it and drag it between my legs. “Do you know how fucked up that is?” he snaps.

“I suppose I do.” And I do it again.

“Mandee! I have to wear that when I leave. You’re fucking...” He stops and starts again, his voice rising. He sounds like a little boy being told no. “That’s fucked up, and you know it.”

I shrug and toss him his shirt. On the inside, I’m patting myself on the back for standing up to a man. On the inside, I want to call Phoenix and tell her, because yes, I’m proud of myself. On the outside, I really hope I am hiding all that, because yes, I just wiped my wet crotch with his shirt and it is possibly the most immature yet badass thing I have ever done in my entire twenty-three years.

He looks at it, then back at me a good three of four times before I see yet another side of Grayson Falcon. He’s pouting.

I can’t help smiling now.

“Oh, real funny, Mandee,” he grumbles in that same much-younger sounding voice as he puts it on.

“You’re an ass, Grayson, a total ass for what you just pulled on me. But right now, you’re kind of adorable.”

“I’m an ass? Well, you’re fucking confused.” His voice is nearly at squeak level now, a far cry from that deep baritone he sings in, or that gravelly voice when he’s doing things to my body.

I turn and put my pants back on. “You’re an ass because you just fucked me like I’m no different than...one of them. We were supposed to be friends. But hey, it is what it is, right?”

“Yeah, it is what it fucking is,” he says, fully pissed off now.

“Well, see you next time,” I say, hoping that pisses him off, too.

“If you’re fucking lucky,” he says as the door swings open.

I wait for it to close behind him, and when it does, my chest squeezes my heart, and it hurts a little, but I was prepared for this feeling before last night.

I was prepared to say goodbye.

It just sucks that if that was our goodbye, I never really got to say it at all. And I am not okay with not saying goodbye.

Not with him.

I walk to the kitchen window and look out to see him trying the doorknob. I laugh to myself when big, bad Gray Falcon slaps his hands to his hips then shakes his head. He starts to turn around, and I hide so he won’t see me.

Then I hear a boom and look back out as rain starts to fall. Not just fall. It’s pouring.

He looks up at the sky and raises his hands. I wish I could hear what he is shouting, but then thunder rolls through the night air again.

I wait, expecting him to walk back in. Clearly, the door is locked and it’s raining.

I walk over to open it, but decide to be the little less hospitable Mandee and a little more of the Mandee I am starting to like, the one who just told a man like Gray, “See you next time.”

I try to forget the next part, the part where he said, “If you’re lucky,” because that part didn’t make me feel badass, not at all.

I wait for what seems like ever then look back out the window. I don’t see him at all.

I wait to see if he found the hide-a-key and expect the garage door to open. Then I wait longer because I assume he’s in the garage, waiting out the rain.

After a while, I realize he has no problem walking miles to get wherever he wants, like when I left him at the Landing, and then he was several miles away at the edge of the woods.

I walk toward the front of the house, knowing I left my wine out there, and I need it right now. If I don’t get a few glasses more in me, I know the Mandee I am fighting will win out, and then I will drive until I see him. I can’t do that. Not with him. He’s Phoenix’s soon-to-be family. I just can’t be that Mandee. So, I will be the me that I can be with him for some reason.

I open the door and walk out to grab my glass, but it’s missing.

I look around, expecting the wind to have taken it and smashed it all over, when I see him sitting against the house, my glass in his hand and the bottle in the other.

He takes a drink then swallows. “I’ll leave when it lets up.”

He’s soaked.

“Fine. Do you want a shirt?” I wish I could gobble up the niceties, but that’s impossible.

“No.” He pouts again then takes another drink.

“Think you should be drinking if you’re gonna be driving?”

“Think you should be talking to me when the intention was to spend the night fucking?” He looks up and points to himself. “Fucking me, not them.”

“I was fucking you, but then I became one of them,” I smart back.

“My mouth was on your tits when you got all fucking smiles, Mandee.” He says my name in a way that elongated the E. “And you were thinking about them. So, what the fuck does it matter?”

“I certainly was not,” I defend.

“Fuck them,” he says in what I assume is his version of my voice. “I asked what, and you said fuck them! So yes, you did, too. Never lied to you. Never thought you were capable, so Mandeeee...” He holds up his middle finger as he takes a drink.

I am on the verge of laughing, but then I would have to explain myself, which would make me look completely ridiculous.

He swallows down his drink, finger still in the air. “So, fuck you.”

When I hear Tritt scratch at the door, I open it and he comes out. Knowing that it’s raining, he won’t take off.

He rubs against my leg, and I start to bend to pet him, when he prances over and rubs against Grayson.

Grayson pets him. “And you stole my cat, so fuck you again. Didn’t say shit about it before, but I’d like to point out that you also stole his balls.” He looks up. “You don’t steal a man’s balls, especially when they’re about to be bouncing off your ass.”

Unable to hold it back anymore, I laugh.

He shakes his head and looks at Tritt. “Took your name away, too, and she thinks it’s funny.”

“It kind of is, Grayson,” I say, walking over, grabbing the bottle out of his hand, and taking a drink.

“No, it’s really not fucking funny.”

I suck in my laugh as I squat down and pet Tritt between his ears. “What was his name?”

Gray’s eyes slowly shift to me, then back to the cat. “Doesn’t matter anymore, now does it?”

“Just wanted to know, is all.” I hold the bottle of wine as I stand.

“Orange Cat,” he says.

“His name was Orange Cat?” I ask.

“Name made sense. He liked it.” He nods.

“Orange Cat?” I ask again, and he looks up.

“Emasculate me any further, and I—”

“I did not emasculate you!” I interrupt him.

“Thinking of other fucks, after a man comes to your place and gets you off four fucking times in less than thirty minutes, then don’t even let him finish, and...and...” He stands, his chest puffed out. “And bitch when he can’t stop and comes in your fucking little sweater, because it’s been your fucking face, your body, your...lake therapy that he’s been getting off to for years.” He looks down. “There, balls taken. Put ’em in a jar with Orange Cat’s, and I’ll see you next trip. Grayson’s out.”

I point to his shirt and try not to smile. “You can’t say all that with my...stuff on your shirt.”

“Unbelievable,” he huffs as he walks to the stairs, grumbling as he looks at the rain coming down. “Un-fucking-believable.”

Unable to stop myself, I hurry over and put my arms around his sides, running my hands up his rock-hard body and stop at his chest.

“Five times,” I say, pressing my face into his back.

“What?”

“I came five times, not four, Gray. Five.”

“Great, and I ended in a sweater instead of on your ass.”

“Ask me again, Gray. Ask me what again,” I say, face still buried in his back.

“Hell no.” He stiffens and starts to pull my hands away.

I grab his nipple piercings and hold on. “Ask. Me.”

“You let go of the bars if I do?”

“Maybe.” I tug them a little.

“Fine, what?”

“Every other person I had sex with—”

“Fuck that,” he sneers. “I don’t want to know.” Again, he grabs my hands.

This time, I pull a little harder on the bars.

“You wanna take it easy?”

“Every other person I had sex with...”

He stiffens again.

“… asked me how many times I came.”

“So now you’re telling me you get off easy with everyone, thanks—”

“You hadn’t even been inside of me, and had gotten me off more times in those thirty minutes—with you, Gray—than everyone combined. I was smiling because of you. Because, if you asked, I knew the number and wouldn’t have to lie to stroke your ego.”

“More times with me than in your whole life?” His voice is husky again, and I relax my grip on the barbells.

“More times with you tonight than my whole entire life,” I say quieter.

He takes his hands off mine and shoves them in his pockets. “Go on.”

I can’t help smiling because he’s just so...so Gray.

“When you were sucking my...” I pause.

“Nipples?”

“Yeah. I was thinking it’s possible that I have never had an...” Why is it so hard to say things to him?

“Orgasm.”

“Yeah. Honestly, if what you do to me and how hard I fall apart...and can actually feel my body...Oh God, this is so awkward.” I groan.

“I came on your sweater, you fucking wiped with my shirt, and this is awkward?” he asks, taking my wrists again and holding my hands in the air as he turns and faces me.

He puts my hands back on him. “Hi.”

Smiling, I say it back. “Hi.”

“Now go ahead and finish,” he says, his hands now on my waist.

I glance down and see...me on his shirt then look back up.

He’s got a small smile on his face. “That’s awkward.”

“Deserved,” I correct.

“Misunderstood,” he counters. “Now seriously, keep going.”

“I know I’ve never had one of those”—I point to his shirt—“ever before.”

“No?” he asks, looking from my eyes to my lips and back again.

“Awkward,” I whisper.

“No, Mandee, it’s fucking perfect.”

He reaches back and pulls his shirt off, tossing it on the porch swing. Then he takes my big, old butt with his big, old hands and lifts me up. “Wrap ’em around.”

I do, and then he walks us to the door, and I reach back and open it as he walks us through then stops.

“Come on, Orange Cat.”

I smile then laugh. He does the same.

“That’s awkward, right?” I ask.

“That you stole my cat?” He smiles bigger.

“That you named him Orange Cat,” I say, kicking the door shut behind him.

“Nice move,” he says when it slams shut. “And the cat is orange, so no.”

“It’s called Tabby,” I correct, leaning in because I want to kiss him.

“And while I’m here, in this fucking town”—he squeezes my ass the way I like him to—“those lips and every fucking orgasm is called mine. Awkward?”

“No, Gray, it’s perfect.” I grab his face and pull him toward me. I kiss him until he takes over.

Perfect.

In my head, I say a prayer that he never leaves this town.

Not ever.