Chapter Twenty-Nine
Twenty-Nine
CHARLIE PRIDED HERSELF ON KEEPING her emotions in check.
As someone who spent so much of her life deep in the feelings of others, it mattered to her that she could regulate her energy.
It hadn’t been an easy thing to learn, growing up in a home where her mother’s emotions swung like a pendulum.
It was a necessity, though, in her personal and professional life.
She couldn’t very well bring the weight of every client home with her.
Not being able to find the impartial line in the sand between the Keller family and the community drama of Smile was shaking her belief in her own strength.
In little to no time, she felt like a part of so much more.
An important part. Gray kept sending her glances as he drove out to Mackinaw City, where they would spend the night.
She wasn’t thinking too much about that part so nerves didn’t wreck their day.
The silence between them was unexpectedly comfortable.
Her mother texted shortly after they got off the ferry and Charlie decided it was time, at least partially, to come out of hiding.
She’d told her where she was and asked her to respect her continued need for space but promised to call the next day.
Gray seemed to know where he was going even without help from Google Maps.
He’d been quiet but attentive and she wondered if he was thinking about the brothers.
Giving them an intense incentive to at least talk was a risk, but it’d been too long now, from what Charlie had heard.
They needed something drastic to turn the tide one way or the other.
They passed a sign for Pleasant View. She smiled.
“There are some interesting names for towns around here. Have you been to Pleasant View?” Resting her head against the seat, she turned her head to see his profile.
“There aren’t many little spots in Northern Michigan that we haven’t been.
Either with our family or with friends. Smile is great in the summer, but when you live there as a teen, it can get boring.
We did a lot of exploring.” He took her hands, rested them both on his thigh.
“How about you? Did your family travel much?”
Her dad did. Vivi often went with him and Charlie knew she’d tagged along as a toddler.
There were plenty of pictures of the three of them in her dad’s tour bus and on the road.
By the time Charlie started school, her mom stuck closer to home and her dad focused more on studio recordings and small venues.
“A bit, when I was younger. But after my dad died, we stuck pretty close to home.” The partial truth scratched at her moral code.
She wanted to be intimate with this man.
She wanted his hand and mouth all over her and vice versa.
Was it fair to let things go that far if she couldn’t be completely honest?
You tried that route before. It didn’t go well.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to bring up something sad,” he said, turning right.
“It’s okay. It’s one of those bittersweet things. I like talking about him, but it’s hard to know there’s so much he missed.”
They held hands as he drove and she was content to just be.
Something she hadn’t allowed for herself no matter how much she suggested it for others.
This break from Vivi made her wonder if she’d foisted herself upon her mother in order to feel like she was needed.
Vivi was making out fine without her, for the most part.
The space was doing them both some good, and when she returned home, the spectacle her life had turned into for a brief moment in time would be behind them.
Gray pulled into the parking lot of a multistory hotel overlooking the water. The sign welcomed them to Enchanted at Harbor Ridge.
“This looks a little more upscale than the place we met,” Charlie said, anticipation simmering low in her stomach.
Gray glanced over, a soft, intimate smile on his kissable lips. “I wanted to pamper you a bit. You don’t say much about your life in California, but something tells me it’s a little more sophisticated than my lodge.”
She couldn’t help but laugh. “You’re not wrong, but I have to tell you, Grayson, your lodge and your family, along with Bernie, have been just what I needed.”
They parked and he carried both of the overnight bags, even though she insisted she could manage her own.
“Pampering you, remember?” He whispered it right before he kissed her cheek and shut the trunk of his vehicle.
The lobby was lovely, far more welcoming and upscale than the hotel she’d stayed in all those nights ago. It still wasn’t her mother’s level of comfort, but for Charlie, the fact that Gray thought to do this for her at all was beyond her expectations.
The front desk reminded her a little of the lodge with its rustic wood and size.
Staff dressed in professional attire and wearing genuine smiles greeted them.
Large windows overlooked the water and a marina.
Gray led them to the elevator and they took it up to the third floor.
It only took a few seconds after she entered to realize he must have called ahead.
There were flowers—beautiful bright-colored carnations—around the room.
At least three vases that she could see from the entrance.
A little living area with a couch, a chair, and a television was on one side of the room with a massive bed taking up the other side.
A closed door by the bed led to, presumably, the bathroom.
There was a little balcony off the other side of the bed.
“Gray,” she said when he put the bags down. “This is lovely.”
He pulled her into his arms and kissed her slow and soft and sweet, like he was easing her in. She felt languid and excited in the same breath and it was like her body didn’t know what to do with all of it. With him.
“You haven’t seen the best part,” he said, sliding his hands down her arms to link their fingers.
“I think you’re the best part,” she whispered.
She’d surprised herself when the words slipped off her tongue, but she could tell he was even more shocked.
“It’s hard not to fall for you when you say something like that.”
She understood that more than he knew. “Let’s make the most of what we have.”
He pulled her to the closed door, set her in front of him before opening it, and nudged her inside.
The bathroom was top-tier luxury. A huge glassed-in shower with multiple showerheads took up one corner. A pocket door was pulled shut.
But it was the other half of the bathroom that dropped her jaw.
A gorgeous, free-standing oval bathtub with a faucet coming from the ceiling sat in front of a wall of windows.
They were tinted, but still allowed for a view of the water activity below.
In the distance, she saw mountains set against gorgeous streaks coloring the sky.
“This is stunning.”
“Our reservation for dinner isn’t until seven. If you’d like to have a bath or lie down, there’s time.”
She turned in his arms. Any other man she knew would have been leading her toward the bed, not self-care. She wrapped her arms around his neck.
“Both of those things sound lovely. We could do them together.”
Gray’s eyes lit with fire and one of his hands curled around her waist, pulled her closer as he slid it down her behind. “You haven’t had any time to yourself. To decompress or be alone with your thoughts. Something tells me both of those things are a huge part of your regular routine.”
Had she read him wrong? Did he not want—
He tapped her nose with his index finger. “We have all night, Charlie. I’m in no rush. I want you to have some time to relax and forget about everything else. I just don’t want you to feel pressure of any kind.”
She grinned, energy of a different kind humming in her veins. She lowered her hands, slid them across his pecs. Back and forth, listening to the sound of his breathing change.
Moving her hands down to the hem of his shirt, she slipped them under, finding warm skin. She trailed her fingers along the narrow strip of hair leading down from his belly button. He sucked in a sharp breath.
“Some pressure is okay,” she said, digging her fingers into his hips, pleased when he hissed out a breath of air this time.
“Charlie,” Gray said, almost like a plea.
“Why don’t we both enjoy the tub, then we can both lie down before dinner. After all, we came here to spend some quality alone time together, right?”
He nodded and it created a surge of power in her chest to think she’d left him speechless.
There was something incredibly invigorating about taking charge of the moment.
This, the look in his eyes, was the kind of spotlight she could thrive in.
It gave her the strength and confidence to step back and pull her shirt over her head, leaving her standing in a pale pink bra that drew his gaze immediately.
“Does that sound okay?” She spoke low.
His gaze flashed up to hers. “It sounds perfect. I can … wash your back.”
She laughed. He was like no other man she’d ever met. “And then I can return the favor.”
Grayson shook his head and walked to the tub, played with the knobs to get the water running. “I might not survive the preshow.”
Delight filled Charlie, and everything else that wasn’t this man, this moment, this place, drifted away.
Her worries that it wasn’t fair to him, to take this step while harboring secrets, were buried under the weight of her wanting him. Needing him. Here and now; that’s what they’d agreed to.
They stood there, facing each other, both of them breathing heavily, the water splashing into the tub and filling the room with more heat.
Gray stepped closer, trailed his fingertip over the curve of her breast, then brushed the backs of his fingers up the center, stopping when he cupped her cheek. “You’re the prettiest woman I’ve ever known. When you smile, really smile, your eyes sparkle like stars.”
Oh boy. She reached out, tucked her fingers into the waistband of his jeans.
He reached behind him and pulled his shirt off over his head and dropped it to the floor.
Charlie had a close-up view of Grayson’s chest and it was spectacular.
The softest dusting of brown chest hair covered his pecs.
He had the kind of muscles and hard planes that came from being naturally active.
The trail of hair narrowed down the center of his abs, not a perfect six-pack, which was somehow comforting.
Oh, he still had definition and gentle ridges that made her want to trace her tongue or her hands along them, but, again, his body was sculpted by living his life, not ego.
He leaned in and pressed a kiss to her shoulder, slipping the bra strap down her arm in such an unhurried way, it filled her with more anticipation.
“Your skin is perfect,” he whispered, kissing along her collarbone from one side to the other.
Her own hands wandered around to the muscles of his back, feeling him twist as he bent to take her in a kiss that pushed the nerves from her head and left only room for wanting him.
When his hands found the front of her jeans, stopped on the button, her breath hitched.
Gray lifted his head. “It’s okay if you want to enjoy the bath alone, Charlie. It won’t change how perfect tonight already is.”
She smiled at him, comforted and turned on.
He brought out such a duality of feelings inside of her.
Moving his hands from her button, she undid the jeans herself, slowly released the zipper, and stepped out of them when they pooled on the floor.
Grayson stared, heat no longer simmering in his gaze but boiling over.
Holding her stare, he undid his own jeans, lowered them, and kicked them off, leaving him in only a pair of black boxer briefs that did very little to conceal him.
She walked closer to the tub and Gray came up behind her, slipping one hand over her stomach, using the other to pull her hair away from her neck so he could kiss it, driving her wild.
She arched against him, reveling in the sound of his rumbled groan.
His hand roamed up, cupped one of her breasts even as he sucked gently at the spot where her neck met her shoulder.
It was like she had entered a dreamlike state where time and reality vanished and all she knew was Grayson’s mouth. His hands. Their combined breathing sawing in and out as the last of their clothes disappeared and urgency built between them. Yes, there were good kinds of pressure.
They slipped into the water, her first, then him behind her, and she leaned back against him, their bodies flush, his strong legs surrounding her, his arms wrapped around her body.
She’d been with a few men. None of them were the kind who would live in her heart forever.
She’d spent some time wondering if that was a defect in her; maybe she couldn’t open herself up enough to let someone become important to her in a meaningful way.
She hadn’t seen Grayson coming, but even if she had, she wasn’t sure she could have stopped him from claiming a piece of her heart as his, even if she wanted to.
And he was the kind of man who would hold that piece of her forever.
No matter what happened in the end. But as she let her body completely relax into his, water lapping at the edges of the tub, Charlie didn’t want to think about endings or reality or what might happen next.
For as long as possible, she just wanted to stay in this moment. With this man.