The room is bright, and the ray of sun slicing between the blinds hits me perfectly in the eyes. I snuggle deeper into the comforter, and then awareness hits.
My eyes flash open.
I’m not home. In my loft. In my bed.
I’m in Grant’s bed. A bed that is way more comfortable than mine. And it’s way past my typical six thirty wake-up time.
Grant’s also nowhere to be found.
It takes a moment before it ghosts through my mind. “Em. I have to go to work.” The gravel in his voice as he presses a kiss against my temple. The sound of his duty belt clinking. The metallic sound of the gun safe closing. The rumble of his chuckle as he runs a hand down my bare spine and makes me snuggle deeper into the bed that smells like him and is just as warm. “Stay as long as you like. Just lock the door on the way out.”
Then falling back into an oblivious sleep.
I broke one of my rules.
Shit.
I’m here when I should be at work. I’m wrapped in the scent of him when I should be in my flight suit and focused on this afternoon’s clients. Instead, I want to nestle back into this softness and remember every delicious thing he did to me last night.
No.
Get up.
I shouldn’t do this. I don’t get to throw my rules out the window for one man. One hotter than hell and more than skilled man named Grant Malone, but a man nonetheless.
I make myself sit up in his bed, the comforter held beneath my armpits to cover my nakedness, and take a look around. The room is classic and clean, light walls with dark gray and blue accents. Very male, but not in the bachelor monochromatic way. It’s tidy and there aren’t any clothes strewn about. He even took the time to fold my clothes on the chair in the far corner.
The walls hold a few black-and-white photographs of the ocean and cliffs—stoic, powerful, and moving. There are very few personal effects in his bedroom, but it’s cozy and inviting.
Determined not to want to know more, I force myself from the bed. My debate whether to take a shower is short lived. One, it isn’t my bathroom and that might be a little awkward just making myself at home. And two, I can still smell his cologne on my skin and I’m not certain I want to wash him away just yet.
If per my rules, I only get one night with Grant Malone, I ridiculously want to make it last a little longer. So, instead of thinking too much about how this is so unlike me, I force myself to get dressed in last night’s jean shorts, tank top, and unbuttoned overshirt.
It’s just when I finish making the bed—because as messy as I am, there’s no way I can leave an unmade bed for Mr. Nice and Tidy—that I hear voices.
At first, I think maybe they are from next door and Grant left a window open, but after a few more seconds, I know for certain there are at least two other men in Grant’s house.
“Dude, check it out,” the first voice says. It’s followed by a low hum of a chuckle.
“Looks like someone got lucky last night.” There’s a low whistle.
“Well, it looks like whoever it was, didn’t want this nice setup of coffee he left for her. So, I don’t mind if I do.”
Coffee? Did he just say coffee? My ears perk up and my mouth waters at the thought of it. Did Grant really leave me a coffee cup and all the fixings? There is a God.
I just need to figure out how to walk out of this bedroom, surprise whoever the two guys are in the family room, and retain my dignity. But, then again, there is no dignity lost considering we were two consenting adults. Plus, who cares what they think?
My shoes. I don’t have my sandals. They are most likely in the living room where I kicked them off last night. I look around Grant’s spotless bedroom and change my mind. They are probably sitting side by side by the front door.
“Hey, Grady,” the one voice says to the other.
It’s the same time the voice says those two words that I know who is on the other side of the wall. It may have been a long time, but I would know that voice anywhere. Grant’s brothers, Grayson and Grady, are in the other room.
“Shoes.”
Crap. They noticed them.
Cue the panic. And not the run-of-the-mill, walk of shame type of panic, either. More like these men used to run around in their underwear with me in their sprinklers when we were little. We share a history of getting sticky from eating Big Stick popsicles that we bought from the ice cream man.
I snicker at the thought of Big Sticks and how that has a whole different connotation now.
Should I just stay here and wait them out instead of face them? But then what? They walk in here, find me, and I end up looking like a damn heel?
The longer I stand here and listen to the two of them bicker like kids, the worse my nerves hum with the thought of what they’re going to think when they see me—little Emmy who suddenly up and disappeared years ago. That’s the kind of attention I don’t want or like.
So I react.
With a glance in the bathroom mirror, I grab some lipstick from my purse, do a quick fluff of my hair so I don’t look like a complete disaster, and then suck in my breath. When I’m fairly certain I don’t look like a hot mess anymore, I waltz out of the bedroom with my head held high and a smile on my face.
“I knew he was hiding something when I called him this morning. The son of a bitch.”
“Hey, that’s mom you’re talking about,” the other says.
“Whatever, dude. You know what I mean. Grant went and got himself laid last night. I wonder—”
“Actually, I was the one who got laid last night,” I say as I enter the room and draw two pairs of eyes my way. I love the shocked O’s their mouths fall into. Slack jaws on hot men are always a good thing—whether it’s from some lacy lingerie or from putting them in their place. I walk right up to one of them—because they look too damn similar for me to venture which one is who after all these years—and grab the piping cup of coffee from his hand. “Thanks for making this for me. I appreciate it.”
His eyes widen, and his lips sputter into a shit-eating grin as I take a tentative sip of the steaming heaven without breaking eye contact. “Hello, Emerson.”
“Hi. And you are . . .” I feign ignorance to set the precedence that I have no past with them. It’s hard enough as it is with Grant, so I need to make sure we start this off on the right foot.
“Grady Malone,” he says and then lifts his chin toward Hot Malone number three. “And that’s Grayson.”
“Ah, the infamous Malone boys. Now, I’ve met you all again.” I narrow my eyes and study both of them in the same way they are studying me. I can see the similarities. The little boys they were beneath the men they have become. “Thanks for the coffee. A little light on the creamer for my liking, but now you know for next time.”
I flash a dazzling smile as they laugh. “He was right,” Grayson says to Grady as if I’m not in the room. “She is feisty as hell.”
“Always.” I wink and walk over to where my sandals are perfectly lined up side by side near the front door. “I need to run so I’m not late for work. Grant asked me to lock up. Since you obviously have the keys to help yourselves as you please, can I trust that you can handle that instead?”
“We’ll lock up. No worries,” Grady says and then smirks. “It’s the least we can do.”
“Thanks. I’m tired.” I turn the handle on the front door before adding, “Your brother really knows how to keep a girl up all night.”
With that, I walk out the front door, shut it behind me, and don’t spare a look back as I stroll down the street toward the bar where my car is still parked.
The ringer of my phone comes through my speaker on my car, and I know who it is before I even glance at the screen. I contemplate not answering. If I pick up, it will sound as if I want to go back on the rules I made last night. We shouldn’t feel as if we need to do the obligatory morning-after call to make sure things aren’t awkward.
Then again, if I avoid him, doesn’t that just prove to him—and me—that I can’t handle what happened when following my own rules.
“Get a grip, Em,” I mutter as I jab my finger at the car’s display and answer the call.
“Hello?” I say as if I can’t already see it’s him on the Caller ID.
“Good morning.” I’m not sure why I expected there to be a smug sound in his voice, but there isn’t. “Hey, I know you’re probably on your way to work, but I just wanted to apologize for my brothers. Sometimes they come over and steal my coffee. Other times they just want to harass me for no reason. I didn’t expect them to stop in this morning.”
“It’s okay,” I say with a smile, remembering their shocked faces.
His chuckle fills the line. “I don’t know what you told them, but somehow you managed the impossible.”
“What do you mean?” I make a right turn onto the highway and smile when a police cruiser passes me. It isn’t Grant, but it still feels like it is since his voice is in my car.
“The two of them can never agree on a single thing, and yet, when I talked to them earlier, they both decided they are head over heels when it comes to you.”
“What?” I laugh.
“Yep. I believe gutsy was their word of choice.”
“That’s a good word.” I let the word roll over my tongue and gladly own it.
“It is, and it suits you to a T.”
“I may have played them a little bit.” I chuckle.
“Oh really?” he murmurs. “I wouldn’t know anything about that.”
And there’s something in the way that Grant makes the statement that catches my ear and puts my mind into overdrive. “What’s the supposed to mean?”
“Nothing.” I can hear the smile in his voice. “Break’s over. I have to get back to work. Bye, Emerson.”