Chapter Thirty-One
Thirty-One
HEADING BACK TO THE HOTEL felt almost dreamlike, ripe with anticipation and wonder.
It was a slippery slope, full of potholes to open herself up to this man in so many different ways.
Even without him knowing the entire truth about who she was and why she was here, Grayson made her feel seen in a way she never had.
In fact, he made her see herself differently. Through another lens.
With their hands linked, her body warm from the wine and being with Grayson, her smile came easily. Until it flatlined at the glimpse of someone familiar. But then he was gone. She blinked rapidly. There was no way Isaiah was in Michigan, never mind some off-the-map hotel.
“Hey, you okay?” Grayson squeezed her hand, stopped them in their journey to the elevator.
It wasn’t Isaiah. She’d let herself relax so completely that her brain was playing tricks on her.
It was a glitch. Whoever she just saw had similar features.
In the most relaxed of moments, the subconscious could throw up all sorts of caution signs.
She was probably just anxious, despite being incredibly excited, about where the night was heading.
Charlie looked up at the man who’d pulled her out of a storm, offered her a shelter she hadn’t known she craved.
She’d been standing in her perfect life, every box checked, working her way to the exact pinnacle she’d always planned to reach.
And the blocks had been kicked out from under her with no warning.
It had changed her; made her realize that no matter how carefully a life was planned, how meticulously something was organized, any number of factors could pull an invisible thread, unraveling it all.
She wanted … she needed whatever this was burning between her and Grayson.
It would be the memory blanket of warmth and sweetness she’d wrap herself up in when other blocks tumbled in the future.
When she tripped over the ones that she didn’t even see in her path.
Between wearing heels and him lowering his chin, she didn’t have to reach very far to find his mouth and press hers against it.
“I’m perfect. And so are you,” she whispered against his lips. “Let’s go upstairs.”
When they walked into the room, there was no way for Charlie to hold on to her heart. The lights were low, creating a romantic haven with the glowing flames of candles and subtle scents of the flowers.
“When did you do this? How?” She stared at him as they stood inside the door, the room welcoming them.
He gazed down into her eyes, mischief and affection shining. “Magic.”
She laughed, content to believe it. He was magic.
The bed had been turned down and a crescent moon smiled through the window.
Grayson shut the door behind them. Charlie turned, awe rendering her speechless.
Setting her small purse on the entryway table, she stood in front of him, not touching but drinking him in.
“You know when pretty little flowers somehow make it through the cracks in the cement?”
He gave her a funny look, still leaning on the door in that unhurried, gentle way he had. “Sure. We get them at the lodge all the time. It’s like they spring up from nowhere.”
She nodded. “Yes. They show up in a place where you wouldn’t have thought they could grow, never mind flourish.”
Her heartbeat raced, and their eyes held like there was nowhere else to look. She rushed toward him, then pulled him with her toward the bed. “You’re like those flowers,” she whispered, gesturing to the room around them. “This. You. All of it. I never would have expected it.”
Understanding dawned in his gaze, and she knew, for the rest of her days, she’d be able to remember his smile and how she felt when he used it.
Reaching up, she set her hands on his shoulders. “Like those flowers, you’re my reminder that beauty can blossom in the worst of places or times. I’m not sure how I’ll ever thank you.”
He cupped her cheek, moving his body so it was flush against her own. “You don’t have to thank me.”
Gray reached up and stroked her hair back from her face like he had earlier—like he hadn’t been able to see enough of her and really needed to.
“That is probably one of the nicest things anyone has ever said to me. That I could make you feel that way, in the middle of your own personal storm, means something to me. You mean something to me, Charlie.”
She slipped out of her heels, one at a time, took the tiniest step back from him.
With their eyes locked, she reached behind herself and pulled the zipper down on her dress, slowly removing it.
He’d already seen every inch of her, but they’d done nothing more in the bathtub than kiss and luxuriate in each other.
This, somehow, even with her strapless bra and underwear on, felt more intimate.
“Show me,” she whispered.
He reached for her immediately, using one hand on the small of her back to bring their bodies together, his other hand going into her hair, using his grip to tilt her head for better access to her mouth.
The kiss he gave her was more than any of the others, like he’d been saving this one in his back pocket to show her how much he really wanted her.
His entire body was part of this kiss. His hands held her, the length of his body making room for hers to fit like a specialized puzzle piece against him.
His tongue traced over the seam of her lips and then she was opening for him; they were kissing each other with an intensity that would have overwhelmed her if she didn’t want it so very badly.
He lifted her onto the bed so she was sitting on the edge of it. Their breaths were jagged and rough, like they’d been holding it underwater and, in those seconds when he rid himself of his clothes, they were gasping for enough air to dive deeper.
Charlie used her hands to lean back on the bed, put her feet up to walk herself closer to the headboard. Grayson’s smile was ridiculously sexy. It bordered on cocky as he put his hands and knees onto the mattress and followed her, covering her and finding her mouth again.
The only things separating them were thin undergarments and an impressive restraint on both their parts.
His hips pressed into hers, her hands stroked up and down his back.
The feel of his heated skin on her own was almost too much.
She was restless with pent-up energy and desire.
And he was right there with her, for every kiss, every touch, every nip and lingering look.
The rest of their clothes fell away and once he’d grabbed a condom, he slid into her and Charlie’s whole world stopped. And started completely anew.
GRAY RETURNED FROM THE BATHROOM and slipped between the sheets, curling up to Charlie, who was still lost in a dreamlike aftermath she never wanted to leave. She burrowed into his strong, warm body, rested her head on his chest, wrapped her arm around his waist.
This was the elusive feeling people searched the world over for, the thing people waged battles over, changed their lives for, and became better versions of themselves to have.
This was what her mother had felt for her father, what she’d believed she felt for Eddie.
There was a rightness to being with Gray that she’d never known before and would never know again.
There was no replacement or follow-up to this kind of connection.
Charlie held tighter. She wasn’t sure how someone ever let this go. Willingly.
Grayson stroked his hand along her arm from wrist to elbow and back. He turned his head toward her and kissed her temple.
“I’d say something romantic, but I don’t have your way with words, and I’m not entirely sure my brain is fully functioning again yet,” he said, his other arm squeezing her close.
She laughed, tipping her head back to see him. To stare at him, really, because part of her felt like she was outside of herself, that this moment couldn’t be real. That what they’d experienced couldn’t be real.
“You’ve given me more romance tonight than I’ve had in a lifetime,” she admitted.
“I hate to think you haven’t been given all of the things you deserve, but there’s a piece of me that’s grateful I’m the one who gave it to you.”
She cupped his cheek, ran her fingers over the bit of stubble on his face. “Me, too.”
“Part of me wishes we could just stay here. Take a time-out from real life and all of the things that we have to do.”
“Like pressing pause,” she said, turning her face into him to kiss his chest.
“Exactly. Everything can just wait until we’re ready to pick up where we left off,” he said. He linked their fingers on top of his stomach.
“I think, up until now, I’ve been wanting to fast-forward, to get past the moment, to put everything behind me.
But now I’m so glad that wasn’t possible.
This is what my mom meant when she said the only way to make your way through the wind is to protect yourself as best you can and keep moving forward. ”
“She sounds smart.”
“She is.”
“Do you miss her? Or home? Your friends and your life?”
Charlie lowered her head so she could stare at his chest instead of holding his gaze.
“I miss her and my apartment a little, I guess. My friends turned out to be not who I thought they were. Or maybe I wasn’t who they thought I was.
And I realized, maybe we were never really that close.
Maybe I focused too much on work and reaching the next goal.
I think, when I go, I’ll miss the people here much more than I miss anyone other than my mom back home. ”
Grayson turned onto his side, so she did as well. They held hands, each of them curved toward each other, their heads on their pillows but close enough that their noses almost touched.
“I’m going to give you so many romantic moments, you won’t want to leave.”
Her chest constricted around her heart, the muscles spasming painfully.
Viscerally. That’s what she was scared of.
It was one thing to figure out new things about herself, to step back and gain some perspective, but to transplant herself …
it was like becoming someone new. And what would she do with the old her?
Gray pulled back just a little, like his words had registered in his own head. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean that to sound like pressure. Of course you can’t stay and that’s not what this is. What either of us wanted or intended it to be.”
Why did those words feel worse? He was one hundred percent right. More was never what this was supposed to be. But saying it aloud was almost like declaring that it couldn’t be.
Reaching out, she shuffled her way closer. “While I’m here, this can be anything and everything we want.”
It was the best she could offer even though it was on the tip of her tongue to tell him that he made her never want to leave.
She liked this version of herself. The one with plans and a life and happiness that came from having a circle of people who mattered to her instead of just one person who stood alongside her.
One person who often required more than Charlie sometimes had to give.
A circle of people who gave back tenfold and made it look effortless.
“I want you, Charlie. That’s all I want.”
“You have me,” she whispered, initiating the kiss. The words for now whispered in her head. That was okay. Sometimes all a person had was now.