I take a deep breath and stare at the front door. Nothing has changed in the few days since I’ve been gone, and yet, nothing feels the same.
The time away. The time with Jett. The clarity I gained with distance. I’m in more than like with Grady Malone.
It’s a confession I’ve refused to acknowledge, but now I’m standing at his front door, summoning the courage to open it, I can’t refute it.
How did I not see this coming? How have I lived here with him, shared his space, and convinced myself that roomies with romp time would be okay?
The worst part about recognizing it is knowing it can’t go anywhere. We can’t go anywhere. If I let myself fall for him, the love won’t be returned and I’ll be left brokenhearted again. Although, I suspect it will take my heart longer to recover from Grady Malone.
So I lie, and tell myself the here and now is exactly what I need. Grady is in fact a rebound and that is all it will be. I’m about to walk into this house and pretend as if we are still enjoying each other and that’s enough for me.
I take a deep, fortifying breath, shove my heart down as deep as it can go beneath the scarred layers of hurt, and enter the house.
The television’s on, and I can hear Petunia rooting around. I find Grady passed out on the couch, uniform on, belt unbuckled, arm hanging over the edge.
Every part of me that said I needed to keep my emotions at bay falls completely and utterly silent when I see him. I want to reach out and touch him. I want to curl up beside him. I just want to be with him.
Instead, I walk to the side of the couch with my bag in my hand and my heart in my throat and acknowledge this is going to be so much harder than I thought it was going to be. Uncertain of why I’m doing it, but doing it nonetheless, I sit on the edge of the cushion and reach out to touch his cheek, the urge too hard to fight.
“Hey, you,” he murmurs in his sleep-drugged voice, a lopsided smile on his lips. “Long shift.” His eyes flutter open briefly and then close at the same time he reaches out and pulls me into him. I’m part on his chest, part on the cushions, and when his arms wrap around me and he presses my face to nestle in the crook of his neck, all resistance leaves me.
Before I can sink into the feel of him—the warmth of his body, the scent of his cologne—his soft snore fills the room. I snuggle against him, breathe him in, and realize how much I missed him in the short time I was gone.
Sure, I used to miss Jett when he was touring. Of course I enjoyed the crazy, frantic sex we’d have the minute we’d see each other again. Hell, I even loved the way we’d rip our clothes off, as if we would die if we weren’t skin to skin, but this feels different. This isn’t only about the physical. This is about comfort, about feeling wanted here. About feeling like I belong here in this life. With him.
Grady mumbles something in his sleep and presses a kiss to the top of my head as if it’s the most normal thing to him.
And as I lie there with him and slowly drift off to sleep, one thought is heavy in my mind: how will I walk away from this?
Grady’s kissing me.
We’re on the shoreline at the lake house, the sand is beneath my back, the sun’s heat is on my skin, and Grady’s lips are on mine.
It’s a dizzying, mind-numbing kiss that feels as if it could go on forever without me tiring of it.
Grady.
He’s my only thought. The only thing I want. The only thing I need.
His hand slides up my torso and over my arms and then cups the side of my neck. He deepens the soft sigh of a kiss. It’s lazy but thorough. It’s passive but desperate. It’s greedy but generous.
And then I startle awake. The room is dark, the scanner is faint in the background, but Grady’s lips are on mine. Still kissing me. Still letting me dream even now that I’m fully awake.
I sink into the kiss, the possessive feel of his hand on my neck, and the hard and ready length of him against my thigh. Into the simmering ache I’ve had since I left that he’s now throwing kerosene on.
“Grady.” His name is a moan on my lips as his other hand slips beneath the waist of my shorts and cups me. I hitch my leg up and crook it over his hips to grant him better access. He wastes no time parting me and slipping a finger into the well of my body.
His hand on my neck tightens, and he groans when he finds me already wet for him. He begins to work me over. One finger. Out and up and over the top of my slit and then back down. Two fingers in and out, rubbing my nerves within and drawing every sensation out of me before sliding back up and using my own arousal to rub circles over my clit.
His lips tease and taunt me just as thoroughly as his fingers do. There is no need to draw this out. There is no need to suspend the pleasure that is a forgone conclusion based on how responsive my body is to his touch.
Is it the few days apart that has made me this way? Or are my emotions telling me they can no longer separate enjoying each other from feeling for him? Either way, I know I’m going to come, and I’m going to come fast.
I grind my pelvis against his hand, which has my leg shifting, rubbing against his dick and eliciting a groan from him that I swallow. His fingers continue their torment of building me up and then letting me fall back down so I don’t hit my peak. I start the one-handed process of unzipping his pants. Of wrapping my hand around his cock and pulling it free. Of stroking it until Grady’s fingers tense within me because I’m returning the pleasurable favor.
And as if choreographed without words, the next few seconds are a clumsy dance of intimacy as I stand and discard my clothes while he shoves his pants down to his knees and protects us.
I climb back onto the couch and sit astride his hips. His hand slides between my thighs and holds his dick in place as I position myself over him and slide inch by pleasurable inch onto him.
Our collective moan fills the room as he stretches me, fills me completely. My head rolls back as his hands find their way to dig into my hips and hold me there so he’s sheathed fully inside me. Every part of his body tenses as he tries to hold on to his own control. “Oh my God,” falls from his lips in a long, drawn-out groan that sounds just like how I feel—desperate.
I hold his gaze through the dimly lit room as I begin to move, grinding circles at first that cause his head to fall back and the tendons in his neck to strain. Then on to rocking back and forth over his cock so his crest hits my G-spot as I slide one hand between my thighs to try to help it along.
A moan falls from my lips as the combination hits every zone it needs to and Grady’s patience snaps. His hands guide my hips up, and he thrusts at the same time as he pulls me back down. There’s no other name for the sound I make than pure pleasure.
And it is.
As Grady pistons his hips up and I grind my hips down, the heat within me builds to a fire. The ache starts to burn. And then, every nerve combusts in an array of sensations I couldn’t describe if I tried.
All I can do is feel.
All I want to do is succumb to every ounce of bliss they evoke and allow Grady to take me there and then some.
Because it seems like no matter how much he gives me, I still want more.
And he does. He gives me more until my head grows light and my muscles turn tense. I’m so spent by the time he climaxes that my only option is to collapse on top of him. So I do. I press my lips to the underside of his jaw and rest my hand over his heart so I can feel it jumping against his ribcage.
I try to find solace in the now. In appreciating the moment.
Eventually, when he catches his breath and his fingertips dance up and down the line of my spine, he murmurs, “Welcome home.”