Chapter Thirteen
GRAYSON HAD ALWAYS been an early riser. Like his brothers, he enjoyed morning runs to clear his mind. He’d been doing it so long that the habit had become as much of an addiction for him as coffee was to others. But this morning, going running—and getting out of Parker’s bed—had been the last thing on his mind. Of course Christmas had other ideas, so Grayson had gotten up long enough to feed him and put him out before returning to Parker—and loving her thoroughly. Several times. In the bed, the shower, and later, on the couch. She made him want in ways he’d never wanted before, and crave so much more than sex. He wanted today, tomorrow, and even though it might be crazy, he wanted every day thereafter.
He looked up from the railing designs he was working on and admired her as she read her script, which had been delivered when he’d gone home to pick up clean clothes and toiletries. She’d had a bout of sadness over missing Bert when they were eating lunch. She’d shared a few memories of their visits to the Cape. Talking about him had helped her feel better, and they made plans to visit Abe again Saturday morning. He thought that visit would help, too. Grayson knew grief was like a cloud, appearing unexpectedly and stealing your light. A person could try to outrun it, but grief was a very patient competitor, and eventually it always caught up. Dealing with it, accepting the pain and anguish and figuring out how to survive with a different kind of light was the only way to truly move past it. Parker was walking down a rocky road, but she wasn’t running from her grief, and Grayson welcomed the chance to help her find her way.
Now she sat sideways on the couch, her bare feet tucked beneath the cushion. She vacillated between scribbling notes, twisting the pen between her finger and thumb, and holding the pen between her teeth. Everything she did was enticingly adorable, but he especially liked when the pen was in her mouth and she twisted her hair around her finger as she read. Her brows knitted, and every once in a while she’d laugh, gasp, or smile. He could see that no matter how much she disliked the media attention that came with her job, acting was as much a part of her as metalwork was to him. If he wanted Parker in his life, he had to get over his dislike of the lifestyle her career demanded.
“I can feel you staring,” she said with a mischievous smile. Her eyes were still trained on the script.
“You’re distracting, sitting over there with your tank top slipping off your shoulder. You know how much I love kissing that particular body part.” He could still feel her silky skin against his tongue—among other delicious parts.
She met his gaze. “You like kissing all of me.”
“Fishing for more?” He cocked a brow, loving when she fished for more.
Her cheeks flushed.
He rose from the chair and took the script from her hands.
“Hey, I’m working.” A smile accompanied her complaint as he parted her knees and lay between them, resting his chest on her belly so they were eye to eye.
“Grayson…”
Breathless. I love that. “How can I work with you looking so cute and sexy?”
She ran her fingers through his hair. He loved that, too. There wasn’t anything about Parker he didn’t love, and that was the other thing making it hard for him to concentrate. He’d fallen for her, overnight it seemed. He was completely and utterly taken with her, and as he gazed into her beautiful eyes, fear tiptoed in and her words came back to him. This feels very far away from my real life.
He’d spent time working in the foundation’s Beverly Hills site, and he’d gotten his fill of the elitist personalities and materialistic lifestyles that seemed to go hand in hand with the wealthy in that part of the world.
“Are you even listening to me?” She tugged his ear.
He pushed his thoughts aside and focused on Parker. “I was thinking. Sorry. What did you say?”
She rolled her eyes. “You came over here and then ignored me? Hm? Honeymoon’s over, huh?”
He pressed his lips to hers. “Never, sweetheart. I was thinking about you. I’m sorry. Tell me again. You’ve got my full attention.”
“I have a confession to make, and I should have told you a few days ago, but it’s embarrassing.” She twisted her hair around her finger.
“After last night, how can anything possibly embarrass you?” He’d loved her body so thoroughly, he could still feel her in his arms.
“Not that kind of embarrassing.” She paused, as if she was remembering their intimacy, too. “You know how I always asked you to make changes to your designs?”
“Do I remember?” He laughed. “Baby, I spent more hours on your designs, and the emails explaining why I chose to take the avenues I did, than I would have spent with six other clients over the same time period.”
Her lips curved up in a gratified smile. “Yeah, I know. That’s kind of why I did it.”
“Huh?”
“I loved reading the whys and hows of your design process. I’d get back to my trailer after hours of acting, exhausted, with more hours of studying ahead of me, and totally unmotivated to dive back in. And your emails were like rejuvenating treats. I’d stare at my laptop, wondering if you’d sent an email. My heart would go crazy, and then I’d be afraid to look. Because if you didn’t send one, it made me sad, and if you did, I sometimes felt guilty knowing I’d made more work for you just to fill my empty spots.”
“So, your changes weren’t because you were overthinking every little detail?”
She shrugged. “Isn’t that overthinking? Only it wasn’t the designs I was overthinking. It was you.”
He rose onto his palms and pressed his lips to hers again.
“Then by all means, overthink me, baby. Overthink me all you want. That’s the very best news you could give me.”
“Why?”
“Because I thought I’d misinterpreted the tone of your emails, that you hadn’t meant them to feel as personal as I took them. The only thing that held me back from asking you to video chat with me, like I would have done with any other client who requested a million changes, was the feeling that if we did, we’d have a hard time keeping our relationship professional. And I’m not sure why I worried about keeping our relationship professional, but I did.”
Wonder filled her eyes. “All that time, you were feeling something for me?”
“Feeling the possibility of something and wanting there to be something more. Yes.”
“I was feeling that way, too. But you were stronger than me. I gave in to my feelings when I sent you the email about building the railing. I had planned to see Bert, then come here for a few weeks after filming. I wanted to see if…to spend time getting to know you in person. I didn’t expect to lose Bert, or to go into radio silence for two weeks. I’m sorry about that.”
“Don’t be sorry, baby. I just wish I had done something sooner, asked you to video chat, or told you what I was feeling, because I could have been there with you when you found out about Bert. I could have gone to the funeral with you, been there when you went to the bank, when you needed someone to hold you and tell you everything would be okay.”
“Grayson,” she whispered.
She did that a lot, said his name like it contained all her thoughts. And he had a feeling that in those moments, it did.
“I know, baby. We’ve got a lot of time to make up for.” He sat up and pulled her into his arms, where she belonged. “You’re an incredibly capable and strong person, and you were blessed with Bert for a long time, but in a sense, you’ve been on your own your whole life, finding your way to a great career and hoping for more. I’m here now, and I want to be your more.”
GRAYSON’S EYES WERE so full of emotions Parker thought he’d named them perfectly. More.
“You already are,” she said, leaning in for a kiss. Her phone rang beneath Grayson’s leg.
“Oh, baby, you make my whole body sing.”
She laughed and shoved her hand beneath his leg to retrieve her phone. “It’s Luce.” She moved from his lap and answered. “Hi, Luce.”
“I thought you were lying low?”
“I am,” Parker said, confused by her comment. Grayson blew her a kiss and went back to the drawings. “I’m at the beach house reading the script Phillipa sent.”
“And who is the stunning creature kissing you in the elevator?”
Parker’s jaw gaped. “What?” Ohmygosh, the elevator! Her mind whizzed through the possibility of hidden cameras, and panic spread through her chest.
Grayson launched to his feet at her shriek and came to her side, eyes narrowed, worried. Possessive. She loved that.
“Seriously, woman,” Luce said. “We’re friends. If you’ve got that artist, or any other hot and hard man for that matter, holing up with you, the least you can do is give me the juicy details so I don’t have to see it on the front of Us Weekly first.”
Parker covered her face with her hand. “Oh no, Luce. How bad is it?”
“Bad?” Luce scoffed. “Are you kidding? It’s smokin’ hot. I’m surprised you didn’t short-circuit the elevator.”
“Are we…? Where are his hands?” She closed her eyes against the fierceness of Grayson’s stare, hoping Luce didn’t say, Beneath your dress.
“Where were they is a better question,” Luce asked.
“Luce! Hands! Where are they in the picture?” She held up a finger to Grayson, who was practically breathing down her neck. She wanted to know what she was dealing with before saying anything. He sank down on the couch a few inches away, giving her a little more space to breathe. She needed to stand in the middle of a deserted island to have enough air right now.
Luce sighed the universal dreamy sigh that women used when something was overtly cute or romantic, and Parker breathed a little easier. She wouldn’t have sighed if his hand was somewhere they shouldn’t have been. Her public-relations damage-control claws would have sprung out.
“His hands, which are absolutely enormous, by the way, and which we’re definitely going to revisit, are on your neck. His thumbs are resting on your jaw, and the kiss is…intense. It’s perfect. It’s the kind of kiss that will have women yelling at their husbands for not kissing them like that.”
Parker reached for Grayson’s hand. “I know that kiss well. So, give me the bad news. The caption?”
“How could they write anything bad? You look like a couple in love. The caption reads, ‘Parker Collins Comes Out of Hiding with Hot New Man,’ and then it goes on to talk about Grayson winning the award for the foundation, and they speculate about this and that.”
Parker was still stuck on looking like a couple in love, and Grayson was still watching her like a hawk. “Hold on, Luce.” She lowered the phone and said to Grayson, “Someone took a picture of us kissing in the elevator. It’s in Us Weekly.”
“Uh oh. I already messed things up for you?” He scrubbed a hand down his face.
“No. Not at all. Let me find out more from Luce, but don’t worry. It’s fine.” She was surprisingly not as worried as she had been initially. It was a perfect kiss, and she could kiss anyone she wanted to. It wasn’t like they’d caught her with her Mustache Rides shirt, her butt hanging out of her shorts, and looking like she’d just crawled out from under a night of boozing it up.
Grayson didn’t move. He stared straight ahead, a rigid statue of concern. Over me. An unfamiliar, safe feeling moved through her. Where had he been all her life?
She lifted the phone to her ear, smiling as she hashed out the situation with Luce.
“This is not a situation, Parker. This makes you normal.” Luce paused long enough for Parker to agree. “Now, let’s talk about where you thought his hands were. And is it true, the bigger the hands—”
“Luce!” Parker laughed, and Grayson lifted his eyes. She mouthed, It’s fine. I promise. He rested his head on the back of the couch and sighed, like she’d just told him he didn’t have cancer. And she fell even harder because of it.
She watched as he went back to the table and leaned over the drawings. A moment later she realized Luce was still talking.
She’d completely lost track of their conversation and caught up as Luce warned her to expect more pictures to pop up. Not that Luce thought she’d be hounded there on the Cape. Luce said it was too far from the real gossip and not controversial enough of a story to warrant the paparazzi’s travel expenses. But now that they had the scent of something, they’d want to blow it up to sell magazines. She told Parker to expect random photos of her with other guys to pop up, claiming to threaten her relationship with Grayson.
After the call, she joined Grayson at the table. He set his pencil down and opened his arms, and she settled onto his lap.
“I’m sorry, sweetheart. I never would have kissed you in the elevator if I’d thought it would cause trouble for you.”
She touched her forehead to his shoulder. “Yes, you would have.”
He smiled and framed her face with his hands. Oh yeah, Luce, it’s true. Big hands, big everything. Heart, mind, and body.
“Yeah, you’re probably right.” He pressed his warm lips to hers. “So what happens now?”
“Nothing. All they did was speculate that you were my new man, which is true. I mean, it puts us in the spotlight, and Luce said the photogs will probably try to take pictures of me with other guys to stir up trouble—and sales. But you know I’m not like that, so I’m not worried.”
“That’s a relief. We’ll be more careful from now on.” His eyes shifted away, the muscles in his jaw suddenly tense.
“I don’t want to be more careful, Grayson.” His expression remained tense. “What is it?”
“Who was your old man?” he asked in a low voice.
“You’re jealous.” She poked his chest. “You! The most confident guy I have ever met is jealous? Over me?” She laughed, and he cracked a smile.
“I’m not jealous. I’m curious.”
Oh, this was going to be too much fun. “Well, there was Bradley Cooper, but we only dated for a few weeks because he sucked in bed and, well, who wants to deal with that? And Liam Hemsworth, but he was on the rebound from Miley, so I don’t count him.”
Grayson ground his teeth together, and she couldn’t resist saying, “I guess you could call Christian Bale my old man, because he was the last one I slept with, but only to bide my time as I waited for—”
“Parker? What the heck are you doing with me?”
Taken aback, she pressed her hands to his cheeks and, in her most serious voice, she said, “You didn’t let me finish.”
“Do I really need to hear who you were waiting for? I’m not anything like those Hollywood guys, Parker. This is me. This is my life. Going out to shabby bars with friends who don’t care about what they wear, not caring who sees me because I’m happy as me, and…” He shook his head, and her stomach sank.
“I was teasing, Grayson. I haven’t dated any of those guys, and I was going to say that I was waiting for you, but you’re really worried about this, aren’t you?” He’d knocked her completely off-balance, and she didn’t know how to right herself again. “What happened to all that stuff about this is our reality and dealing with things as they come up? I thought we were growing legs? I want legs!”
Great, now she was on the verge of tears. She snapped her mouth closed and fought against the torrent. Grayson’s lips split into a wide grin, and understanding dawned on her, bringing with it a flash of anger.
“You jerk!” She smacked his chest, and he laughed, which only made her angrier. “You scared the bejeezus out of me! Stop laughing!”
He grabbed her face and kissed her right through her mini tantrum, until she was moaning and laughing intermittently right along with him.
“Your pretty-boy actors have nothing on me, baby.”
“I hate you a little right now,” she said. “And I’m concerned that you really are worried about those things.”
His eyes turned serious again. “Not the men, baby. Never the men. But the other stuff? I think we both are, but as you said, we’re growing legs. And boy do I love these legs.” He slid his hand up her thigh.
“But maybe we should figure it out,” she said. He kissed her again. “You’re really good at distracting us,” she said.
“We’ll figure it out,” he promised, and brought his mouth to her neck—he knew just how to make her brain stop working.
“I want…Oh, that feels good.” She struggled for focus. “I want you to come spend time with me next month in LA, after you’re done with the railing and before you go to Texas, and…” Ohmygosh that feels so good.
“Whatever you want.” His breath slid over her skin.
Eyes closed, reveling in the feel of his lips on her neck, a memory of something he’d said in one of his emails came back to her. “But you hate LA.”
“But I would do anything for you.” His tongue slicked over her bottom lip.
“Me too,” she said breathlessly.
He took her face in his hands and his eyes turned coal black. “Good, baby. Now stop overthinking. There’s nothing we can’t handle. We’ve got this.”
He kissed her again, and she closed her eyes, trusting his promise and soaking up his confidence—and his glorious kisses—as the next one extinguished her worries, replacing them with something much sweeter.