CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Jovana
“Mmm,”I moaned as I began to roll over in bed, the warmth of the morning sunshine hitting my face, the movement a reminder of what had gone down last night. My muscles were sore and there was a tenderness between my legs. My God, that man knew just how to treat my body. My eyes flicked open as I faced his side of the bed and I uttered, “Good morning—”
But my voice cut off as soon as I saw the dent in the comforter where he’d lain in a towel last night after our shower. There was also a dent in his pillow where his head had been.
Except he was gone.
I reached for my phone on the nightstand, checking the time.
I was normally an early riser, where I’d get in a three- to four-mile walk before I started filming content for the day, but it was almost eight thirty.
That was extremely late for me.
And by the explosion of notifications, I knew the picture I’d taken of us in Grayson’s bed had posted to my Instagram just like I’d scheduled it to.
As of thirty minutes ago, our fake relationship was out in the open.
I wondered how Grayson was reacting to that.
How he was processing this.
What his mood was like this morning.
I opened the app and immediately saw that he’d accepted my request to collaborate on the post, which meant the picture of us also appeared on his profile. That his forty-eight thousand followers were now mingled with mine.
And all of them were hit with the same bomb.
I was dating Grayson Tanner.
Boston’s Biggest Bachelor.
I couldn’t help but wonder if this, along with last night, was the start of something new.
Something wonderful.
Something I’d been wanting.
Was that how Grayson was feeling?
Or was this burst of attention setting him off?
My teeth bit into my bottom lip, and with oh God, oh God repeating in my head, I hurried into the en suite to use the restroom and brush my teeth. Since I’d fallen asleep in just a towel, I put on the shorts and tank I had on last night and rushed into the living room.
Once I got past the couch, I saw him in the kitchen, gripping the door to the fridge, peering inside, like he was scanning the shelves for something.
I didn’t hesitate.
I didn’t even say anything.
I just sprinted the remaining steps that separated us and wrapped my arms around his stomach, pressing my face into his back. I took a solo second to breathe him in before I asked, “Are you doing all right?”
I wasn’t sure if it was the feel of me behind him or the words I’d chosen to speak, but he froze.
Stiffened.
He turned into a block of ice.
The door to the fridge closed, and with his hands empty, he clasped them on my arms and pulled them off his body. Once my arms fell to my sides, he reopened the fridge and removed the orange juice, sidestepping away from me to get a glass. “I’m fine.”
His voice was sharp.
It bit me straight through the air while his eyes avoided me.
And where his limbs had unthawed, taking him to the other side of the kitchen, mine had turned to stone.
All I could do was watch him pour the juice to the halfway point in the glass and fill the rest with vodka that he’d gotten from the bar. He carried the bottle and juice container to the island, sitting in front of his tablet, which he swiped while he sipped.
He was either extremely mad at me for something or he didn’t want to be touched.
I’d get to the bottom of that.
First, I needed to understand what kind of emotional state he was in and why he was going for the vodka this early in the day.
“Fine?” I said softly. “That’s all you’re going to say to me?” I walked a few steps closer. “No ‘good morning’? Or, ‘How does breakfast sound?’ Or, ‘How about a cup of coffee, Jovana? I learned during our Italian dinner date that you can’t function without it, so I brewed a fresh pot.’”
He slowly looked up. “Coffee’s over there.” He nodded toward his fancy machine, which I didn’t dare touch, it was so intimidating. “Help yourself.”
When he attempted to glance down again, I replied, “Come on, Grayson. You’ve got to give me more than that. Talk to me. Tell me what you’re thinking.”
“What I’m thinking?” He laughed, a sound that told me he didn’t find this funny at all. “I’m thinking my personal business is once again splattered all over social fucking media. I’m thinking the whole world is going to have a comment about our relationship and I don’t want to know what they have to say—the good, the bad, or the goddamn ugly. I’m thinking I’m already over this and it’s just started.” He swished the contents around in his glass. “How’s that for a little truth?”
Grayson was a private person. Sloane was too.
I could respect that.
Not everyone chose a career like I had that required so much transparency online. So I could understand why he wouldn’t want his tea aired or to read the opinions of our followers.
The positive could be as heavy as the negative sometimes, and it was a lot to bear.
Maybe I needed to shift topics and discuss something that didn’t make him want to drink so early in the morning.
Like addressing what had happened between us last night.
I moved to the island, stopping directly across from him, and poured myself a glass of juice. I was close enough that I could rest my hand on his shoulder, and after debating it for a few seconds, I decided that was the best way to enter this conversation and draped my wrist across his bulging muscle. “Want a little of my truth? I haven’t slept that good or that late in years. That has everything to do with you. What time did you get up?”
“From your bed or mine?”
Huh?
“Mine,” I replied.
“A few minutes after you fell asleep.”
But I was positive he’d spent the whole night with me.
Of course, there was no way to know that—I’d been dead to the world—but I couldn’t figure out why he wouldn’t stay with me.
“Why did you leave?”
He shrugged my hand off, my fingers suspended in the air before I pulled them down to my side. “Because I shouldn’t have even lain there after our shower.”
Even though he looked away, I still searched his eyes, waiting for the answer to hit me.
And when he finally looked back at me, I saw the coldness.
The irritation.
The vulnerability that he showed last night was gone, and the side of Grayson that was completely shut off to everything except for the glass of vodka in his hand was back.
“I don’t get why you’d say that.”
He shook his head, sighing as if the conversation were wearing his patience down to the bone. “When I told you that you can’t get emotionally attached to me, I couldn’t have been any clearer. If you want incredible sex over the next year, I’m your guy. But, Jovana, I’m not someone you should fall in love with. I’m not built that way, and the second you climbed on that bed last night and wrapped your arms around me to cuddle—” He wiped some invisible wetness off his lips. “Shit, that’s not me. That’s not what I want.” His eyes narrowed. “And that’s not what this is ever going to turn into.”
Each syllable he spoke caused my throat to tighten.
They caused my hands to shake.
They caused my feet to turn numb. I wasn’t even sure how much longer they would hold my weight.
As much as it killed me to admit, he had been clear.
He had given me that warning.
But for some reason, I’d thought last night had changed things between us. I’d thought it was a new beginning.
I’d thought that he’d come into my room because he wanted more.
That the moments we’d shared when he’d opened up about his mom were the first step of him letting me in.
And maybe in that moment, that had been true.
But in this moment, he was deflecting. He was attempting to push me away because he couldn’t deal with the way he was feeling.
Was it due to the conversation we’d had about his mom and the rawness he’d shown?
Or that he’d come into my room and we’d shared such a deep level of intimacy?
I didn’t know.
But what I did know was that I was human. I had feelings. I was sensitive to words when they were spoken by someone I cared about.
And Grayson’s hurt.
Especially since they were phrased to make me believe that I’d read the situation all wrong.
That he just wanted to fuck me.
That he wanted me to accept his proposition to keep this a no-strings-attached relationship, so he’d have someone to sleep with over the next year instead of jerking off.
That I meant absolutely nothing to him.
And as much as I tried, I couldn’t hide the fact that his words were still affecting me. That they caused my stomach to churn as I whispered, “I wasn’t trying to cuddle you.”
“No? Then what were you doing?”
“I was trying to get warm. You wouldn’t know this about me, since you know nothing about me, but I’m always cold.”
“The guest wing has its own thermostat. Turn it up as high as you want.”
God. He was such a dick.
“Noted.” I smiled even though it took every ounce of strength out of me. And because I hadn’t been emotionally tortured enough, I asked the question that wouldn’t stop haunting me: “You’re really going to walk away once the year is up ... aren’t you?”
Even with a low voice, the question dripped with angst.
“Yes. I am.” He downed half his drink and reconnected our stares. “I’m Mr. Wicked. Mr. Good Time. Mr. I’ll Fuck Your Brains Out. I’m not capable of love, and you can’t change that about me. Don’t even try, you’ll just be wasting your time.” He left his glass and clutched my rib cage, high enough that his palm pressed against the side of my breast. “But if you want to get naughty this morning, I’m fucking game.”
I knew this was an act of masking his feelings. I knew that because there was absolutely no way he could look at me like this and feel nothing. That he could make love to me, like he had last night, and not care about me.
But if I knew this, then why was this conversation still stabbing at my heart?
Why had I woken up this morning with hopes that everything was going to be different?
That today would be the day he was going to drop his shield and toss it off the balcony of his penthouse?
Did I want to keep setting myself up to hurt like this?
Did I want to give my body to someone who admitted out loud—whether it was a lie or not—that we were having meaningless sex?
When I knew that after a year’s time, I would ache even harder than I was right now?
Still, there was a chance things could go the way I wanted, that the risk would pay off, and Grayson would come around and choose us.
If that happened, if this man finally loved me, it would be the best thing I’d ever experienced in my life.
He grazed my nipple, rubbing the hard peak. “Feels like you are game.” When he pinched it, the tiniest moan accidentally escaped my lips. “Sounds like you are too.”
A wave of emotion catapulted through my chest.
He was seeking a reaction.
If I showed him how much this conversation hurt, he would know what kind of control he had over me.
Therefore, I couldn’t react the way I wanted to, but I could give him all the sass.
“If you hadn’t fucked me so hard last night, that answer would probably be yes.” I lifted his hand off my body, the same way he’d done to my arms in front of the fridge, and placed it on his crotch. “This girl needs a little time-out, so you and Mr. Wicked down there can get well acquainted today.”
“Too bad. Morning sex is my favorite.” He refilled his glass. “I’m assuming you get what I’m telling you? That you’re not going to get attached to me and you can handle that this is just sex?”
He couldn’t help himself, he just had to keep digging.
But I still had yet to answer his question.
“Or should I stay far away from you?” he asked after a long pause.
No strings was impossible. So was unemotional.
Two parallel lives with no physical intersection. That was what I should have wanted.
But I wanted Grayson.
My body wanted him.
And I wanted him any way I could have him.
Because I knew, I felt, I was positive that at some point, that shield would drop.
No matter how many times he warned how our story was going to end, I wanted an epilogue.
One that I’d written.
One that I’d fantasized about.
And I wouldn’t give up.
I wouldn’t quit on him the way his mother had. He needed to know, to feel, to see that I wasn’t going anywhere.
“Depends how nice you are to me,” I told him. “If you’re a dick, Mr. Good Time will have to keep it in his pants. But if you play nice, then maybe I will too.”
This wasn’t going to be easy.
Maybe I’d regret my decision when I was constantly searching for signs and gestures, my romantic mind turning them into moments of meaning when that simply wasn’t the case.
Or maybe we’d become everything I’d ever wanted.
But I had to be realistic. There was no way I could stop myself from having sex with him.
Not when I wanted him this badly.
When we’d be together for twelve months.
When I’d be living in his condo, seeing him every day.
“It’s funny ... you didn’t want a nice guy when I was licking your pussy. In fact, when I was doing it in the shower, I’m pretty sure you were telling me how dirty I was.”
My cheeks flushed from the memory. “I like the balance.”
“I’ll remember that.” He got up from his seat and headed toward his wing. After a few paces, he pulled his phone from his back pocket, stopping to read what was on the screen. He turned toward me. “Did you see Laura’s text?”
I shook my head, not even remembering where I’d placed my phone.
“I guess a Celebrity Alert went out a few minutes ago. Hell, I know you subscribe to that shit, so you’ll see it.”
“What did it say?”
A smile tugged at his beautiful lips. “Looks like they found your post on Instagram and shared it with the headline, ‘Hook, line, and locked down. It appears like Boston’s Biggest Bachelor has gone from six to one.’”
I wished more than anything that were true.
But at least my post was believable.
“Laura must be ecstatic,” I replied. “Everything she planned is coming true.”
“We’ll see how it affects our memberships.” He took a sip, holding some in his throat before he swallowed. “You know, that’s the real testament.”
I knew the way my followers responded to my endorsements.
Grayson and I were a product of Hooked.
Memberships were going to soar. I felt that in my gut.
“The numbers will increase. Trust me,” I said with confidence.
He brushed his fingers over his beard after putting his phone away. “Maybe that means we can cut our contract down to nine months.”
Asshole.
“I’d prefer six if I’m being honest.”
“Even better.” He resumed walking toward his room, and when he neared the entrance, he said over his shoulder, “Don’t bother me unless you’ve changed your mind about this morning.”
“I haven’t.”
“Then go put on a fucking bra.”