Chapter 24
Grayson
I’m not thinking about the almost-kiss.
That is the lie I tell myself all morning because the alternative is admitting I had her under me in the snow, laughing, looking at me like that, and I almost kissed her anyway. I barely even believe my own bullshit.
I didn't stop because of the bet. Cole can go to hell if he thinks that had anything to do with me pulling back.
We laid lines down. We made rules. Complicated, messy, already broken rules, but rules all the same. We made it through the first night without tearing each other’s clothes off. We can make it through one more.
That’s all this is. A weekend, a room we didn’t mean to share, a near miss on a bunny slope because Carly doesn't know how to stop saying my name like it belongs in her mouth.
Gray.
Christ.
I spend the rest of the day proving to myself that I’m in control, which would be far easier if I didn't stay with her for all of it, but I can't bring myself to peel away when I saw her go down so hard.
Wade and the others peel off for the better runs while I stay with Carly on the bunny hill, then the green circles after she gets bold enough to graduate from looking at a slope like it might kill her.
She learns fast. Faster than she should, honestly.
By midday, she’s gone from panicking at the sight of skis to talking shit every time she makes it down a run without wiping out.
I should find that annoying. But instead, I spend hours watching her laugh into the cold, watching her look over at me after every decent stop like she wants me to approve of it, watching her push hair out of her face with clumsy gloves and a grin when I tell her she did well.
I keep correcting her stance, keep reaching for her elbows, her hips, her shoulders. I keep guiding her down easy runs while telling myself none of it means a goddamn thing.
By mid-afternoon, she can turn without looking terrified and stop without nearly taking us both out, and she throws both arms in the air at the bottom of one run like she just won Olympic gold.
“You’re welcome,” I tell her.
She skids to a stop in front of me, cheeks flushed pink from the cold, eyes bright behind her goggles. “You are so obsessed with taking credit for my natural talent.”
By the time she heads in to shower and change and grab drinks with the girls, my restraint is hanging on by its fingernails.
I force myself to ski two of the blue squares just for something a little more challenging to take my mind off her and keep me from marching right up to that room while she's bare in the shower.
* * *
The restaurant is louder tonight than it was the evening before. Live music this time, some local jazz band with a good vocalist playing through covers by the bar. The whole place glows from the lighting and the fire reflecting off the windows, everyone warm and tipsy and loose.
We eat first, drink after.
Well. Everyone but Cole drinks.
Wade orders whiskey. Jackson follows suit. Mandy’s halfway to drunk before the appetizers are cleared. Dana gets rosy-cheeked and affectionate. I'm three whiskeys in, and Carly takes her time with a mojito, but she's already past tipsy.
And that turns out to be a different kind of fucking problem.
I’m sitting with the guys when the music shifts from background noise to something people can actually move to. Not slow now, but something with a beat, something meant for bad decisions.
Unsurprisingly, Mandy’s the first one up. She drags Dana with her. Carly resists for maybe three seconds before the two of them pull her out onto the small cleared space near the stage.
I immediately start digging my own grave.
I’ve seen Carly laugh. I’ve seen her flustered, seen her pissed off, trying to look unaffected, trying not to melt when I get too close to her.
But I have not seen her like this.
Loose, warm from the day and the drinks and the fire, moving entirely without self-consciousness.
She throws her head back laughing at something Mandy says, her sweater slipping off one shoulder, hair messy from the day, hips swaying to the music while Dana spins her in a clumsy circle.
She’s not dancing for attention. That’s the worst part. She’s not putting on a show. Carly just looks like she’s having fun, and somehow that’s hotter than if she were trying to kill me on purpose.
Jackson says something beside me that I don’t catch. Wade laughs. Cole, ever the smug bastard, follows my line of sight and makes a low sound in his throat like he knows exactly how fucked I am. I set my drink down.
“Don’t,” Cole lilts, taunting me.
I don’t look at him. “I didn’t say anything.”
“You didn’t have to.”
I get up anyway.
I feel their eyes on me crossing the room, but I don’t care enough to stop. Carly's eyes lock on mine just before I get to her, and there’s that half-second where her expression shifts — her brows go up, her body pauses mid-movement. But then she almost relaxes.
I stop in front of her.
“Dance with me.”
She blinks, her eyes dragging down my body before flicking quickly back up to mine. “Okay,” she says, the word so simple, so easy, like it's not an active choice she's making but doesn't care regardless.
She takes a step toward me, entering my space, but doesn't quite touch me. Mandy and Dana pause beside us, and if they say anything, I don't hear it — just see their bodies move somewhere else, disappearing from my peripherals.
“You sure?” she asks, her teeth worrying her lower lip just enough to leave a tiny red mark beneath the gloss.
No. Not even a little. But I put my hands on her waist anyway. “Yeah.”
The song isn’t slow enough to middle-school sway to. It has rhythm to it, a dirty pulse under the guitar that gets into the air and under my skin.
Her hands slide up my arms before they settle on either side of my neck, and we begin to move, close enough to be dangerous, close enough to make my pulse throb.
Her cheeks are pink from the drinks and the warmth and the day, her lips parted, and I can't stop looking at them as her body folds into mine, hips pressing against my own, her head so close I could rest my forehead on hers if I wanted.
Christ.
My hand slides from her waist around the small of her back, pulling her middle closer, and the little breathy sound she makes causes my fingers to squeeze tighter, makes the urge to lean down and kiss her right in the middle of the room nearly overwhelming.
I know it would be a terrible idea, know it would be crossing the line, but it's like my brain creates webs over where that line should be, obscuring it beyond comprehension.
I force myself to make a different choice and hook my hand more firmly over her hip, squeezing hard before turning her around in my arms.
She goes with it easily, and my hands stay around her middle, her back to my chest now. The second I step in behind her and press my front to her rear, I know I’ve made a catastrophic mistake.
Her ass brushes me once. Then again, with the beat.
I shut my eyes for half a second. This is worse than having her face me. Far worse. “Jesus,” I mutter, my mouth brushing the side of her head, just above her ear.
She laughs softly, turning her head just enough that I catch the little grin. “Problem?”
“Yes.”
“Mmm.”
My fingers trace across her stomach in circles, then tighten in her sweater, pulling it down just a little more where it’s hanging off her shoulder. “You grinding your ass on me feels like a war crime.”
Her laugh turns wicked at the edges. “You asked me to dance.”
“I did.”
She shifts again, slower this time, dragging against me with enough intent that there is no fucking way she doesn’t know what she’s doing. Heat punches through me so hard I grit my teeth.
I bend my head, my lips and nose dragging against her cheek. “You trying to kill me, sweetheart?”
“A little,” she admits. “Seemed to work last night.”
I let out a short, disbelieving laugh. “Knew you dressed like that on purpose.”
She rolls her hips again and I nearly lose my goddamn mind, my breath punching out of me. My fingers tighten, and I pull her back harder against me, hearing the little hitch in her breath when she feels exactly how much of a mistake this is.
This is worse than kissing her in my home or on the practice field, worse than fucking her senseless in her room, worse than seeing her in that pool last night and struggling to hide the discomfort in my slacks.
This is public and reckless and impossible to hide, and I know damn well that the rest of them can see us.
But fuck, I don’t want to hide it. And that’s how I know I’m in real trouble.
The song changes, and another starts. I should step back.
I don’t.
Instead, I nip at her earlobe, gently catching the latch of her earring before letting go. “Come back to the room with me,” I murmur.
Her body stills in my hands. I can hear her breath, can feel the slight shift beneath her ribs as she inhales, likely thinking over the exact same things I'd thrown out the window moments ago.
Her face turns just enough that I can see her from the side, her eyes dropping to my mouth.
“Okay,” she breathes.
No toying with me. No hesitation. Just okay.
We separate enough to walk, but not enough for it to feel innocent. I take her hand because I want to and simply don't care anymore, leading her toward the door with half the room probably watching, trying not to concern myself with the idea of passing the guys.
Cole leans back in his chair and catches my wrist as I pass, pulling me down toward him. “Good luck, Gray,” he taunts, keeping his voice low. Jackson snorts beside him, and Wade shoots me a glare that says, You better not be about to lose me one grand.
I don’t care.
“Fuck off,” I mutter, pulling myself from Cole's grip and leading Carly forward.
I don’t care about the bet. I don’t care about consequences. I don’t care that this is a bad idea or that I’m falling deeper into a hole I know too well.