25. Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Five
Maggie
I paced from the living room to the kitchen and back again. Ginger wound herself between my feet every time I stood still long enough for her to try to claim my attention. Lila and Emily had left almost an hour ago. Grady’s house was across town, but it wouldn’t have taken long for him to come over after Trent left— if he was coming.
I checked the clock. Tomorrow was another workday. Staying awake until two-thirty on the chance he might appear was ridiculous. With a sigh, I flipped the lock on the front door and turned out the porch light. As I turned away, a knock sounded.
Grady?
Heart pounding, I checked the peephole and then tried to center myself. My blood seemed to have rushed out of my vital organs, and I felt like I was going to faint. One way or another, things would change when I opened the door.
Either he wouldn’t be able to forgive me for the lies, or we’d move past what happened to something else. The something else catapulted my pulse. I wanted him, even if the wanting made me uneasy. He was a gamble, a wild card.
I smoothed my T-shirt and skirt and took a deep breath. When I swung back the door, our gazes connected. My stomach fluttered.
“I am so fucking sorry,” he said, his tone anguished. “I was so completely and utterly wrong.”
The sincerity in his gaze mixed with his words was enough for the last film of my protective shell to disintegrate. All rational thought vanished, and I launched myself at him, throwing my arms around his neck. He stumbled back, chuckling as our lips connected. I wound my legs around his waist, and he carried me into the house, our lips in constant contact. One of his hands cupped my ass while his other hand buried into my loose hair, keeping it off my face as our kiss deepened. With impressive balance, he kicked the door closed.
My stomach kept dropping and recovering as though I was riding big roller-coaster hills. Maybe I was finally safe to want these things, to feel these things.
He set me on the kitchen counter and wrapped his arms around my back. Our tongues slid over each other, dueling and retreating. I’d spar like this forever. Kissing, kissing, more kissing. Nothing would ever be enough. Years, lifetimes, that’s what I needed to come close to getting my fill.
His hand slid up my inner thigh, and a shiver raced through, goose bumps rising. I snuck my hands under his shirt, gliding up his back, taking his T-shirt with me. He helped me get it over his head, his lips only leaving mine long enough for the shirt to fly through the air and land with a soft thud by the fridge. I loved the firmness of his muscles flexing under my hands as they kissed. How had I resisted this long? From now on, I’d touch him at every opportunity, for any reason.
He tugged me closer to the edge of the counter, my skirt riding up. He slid it farther up my thighs, and I shivered, awareness humming. He groaned into my mouth when his fingers skimmed my most sensitive place. By now he’d know how much I wanted this, how eager I’d been for this to happen. I squirmed, keen for his hand to explore, to feel his calloused fingers rubbing against the building ache.
Lifting me off the counter, his hands spanned my ass as he walked us toward the hallway, my legs around his waist, clinging on.
“Left,” I said, guiding him to my room between kisses.
He tossed me onto the bed, and the plush white duvet enveloped me. I laughed until he followed me down, his lips back, each part he touched catching fire, burning down all my defenses. I never wanted this feeling to end. Happiness and desire were the most potent combination. His hands traced my rib cage while his lips trailed along my neck. In one quick movement, he had my shirt over my head.
When I landed back on the pillow, he searched my expression for a beat. “All signs point to a ‘yes.’ But I wanna be sure. I need to be sure. I don’t ever want to do anything to hurt you again.”
“That’s a pretty high bar,” I whispered, tracing his face with my fingertips. There’d always been something in his eyes which had drawn me in. The light in them felt like it shone just for me. Beyond the brown eyes, he was my idea of perfect. Would I really get to keep him for more than one night?
A half smile touched his lips. “It’s good to have a goal.” A crease formed between his eyebrows. “I don’t want you to regret this. Ever. And I’m so fucking sorry that might have been what happened last time.”
I lifted my hips to meet him, and I drew his mouth toward mine. “I want you. I want this. No regrets. I promise.” I’d spent all night after I parted with Trent thinking about the ways this night could go once Grady knew the truth. Having him pressed up against me, as tight as two bodies could be, had been the best- case scenario. I wanted him maybe even more than I’d wanted him thirteen years ago.
“I was hoping you’d say that,” he said against her lips. “Considering you’re not wearing any underwear.”
I laughed. “Did you like that?” I ran my hands to the edge of his jeans, my fingers tracing the waistband, dancing along his abs. “I wasn’t sure if I’d need to win you over.”
He sucked in a sharp breath before burying his head in my neck. “Consider me won. This is quite possibly the best apology accepted I’ve ever received.”
“I’ll keep that in mind,” I breathed as I arched against him. I unsnapped the button on his jeans, pulled down the zipper, and pushed them off his hips. It had been far too long since he’d been as close as I wanted.
He drew back from me enough to let his jeans fall to the floor before crawling across the bed. I loved the mix of tenderness and desire I saw on his face just before our lips met. When I rose up to deepen the kiss, he unsnapped my bra, drawing it down my arms before tossing it aside. His hand massaged my breast, and then his thumb teased my taut nipple.
I ran my hands through his brown hair and then along his biceps. Nothing about this felt quite real yet, but the longer I touched him, the more he was coming into focus, embedding in my consciousness.
He kissed his way down my body, stopping to worship each breast, swirling his tongue across each mound before grazing the nipple with his teeth. Each time he did it, a shock wave surged through me.
After Grady, every other guy had paled in comparison. My sister had been right—I’d test-driven a few makes and models of men, longing for whatever I’d felt with Grady. I’d never found the same level of attraction, of desperation, as if it was impossible to be close enough.
If being with Grady was what drowning felt like, I never wanted to breathe again.
My body was reaching full volume, and I wasn’t sure I’d last to the main event. I was tuned, one plucked string away from crying out, begging him to take me. He slid my skirt down, and it landed on the wood floor with a soft thump. With my legs spread, his fingers slid along my folds, and I clutched onto his shoulders. God, why did this feel so good? When his fingers eased inside, we sighed into each other’s mouths. Desire surged through me.
“Fuck, Maggie,” he groaned, his fingers sliding in and out of me while his thumb massaged my clit. Bending his head, his teeth grazed my nipple. Fireworks went off behind my eyelids, and it was impossible to focus on anything but the sensations he was creating. My hands tangled in his hair, and my breathing was so labored I felt like I was running a marathon.
Reaching between us, I slipped my hand into his boxer briefs and gripped his shaft, stroking over the tip and back to the base. I wanted him to need this release as much as I did. He sucked in a sharp breath, and when he breathed out, hot beside my ear, I moaned.
“Please, Grady.” I wiggled and panted, not even sure what I needed. How long could I go without losing myself completely? Each stroke of his fingers, each circle of his thumb drove me closer to the edge. “I want you. I want to feel you inside me.”
His lips returned to mine, and he settled between my legs. Deepening the kiss, his hips rocked against me, his underwear the only barrier between us. When he slid along, I gripped his ass.
“Please.” I kept him tight. The friction was delicious, maddening.
When he moved back, I tried to grab for him. He chuckled and reached over the bed for his pants, extracting a foil wrapper.
“Gotta look after you.” He planted a quick kiss on my lips.
“Can I?” I nodded to the wrapper and rose on my knees.
His gaze connected with mine, and he handed the condom over.
I pushed down his boxers and stroked the length of him while our tongues tangled. I ripped open the package and rolled the condom on, savoring the long, hard feel of him under my fingers. Lightly, I pushed on his chest, and he fell back, pulling me with him, our lips connecting as I straddled him.
His hands were on my hips, guiding me, until his tip was poised at my entrance. My hands were splayed on his chest as I eased over him. Mentally, I traced his face, one which had haunted my dreams for years, one I never thought I’d see filled with desire for me again. He’d always been the one, or at least the idea of him had held me back, stopped me from giving myself to anyone else. Scary and thrilling in equal measure.
His eyes were so dark with desire they almost looked black. He drew me to him, so our foreheads touched. I rocked back, loving the connection, the skin-to-skin contact.
“God, you feel so fucking good,” he whispered, his voice strained.
I’d dreamed about doing this, gotten off at the memory of him saying those words. No one else had inspired the emotion threatening to burst forth. I was close to coming apart, but whatever was swelling in my chest was so much bigger, scarier, and all-consuming than an orgasm. Instead of examining the feeling, I ground down on him, and he steadied my hips, helping me to get the resistance I needed.
“Say it again,” I whispered before kissing him.
“You feel so fucking good,” his voice was raspy with need as he arched his back, plunging in deeper, securing me tighter.
It didn’t take long for us to get into a rhythm, and each movement took us both closer to the edge.
“Oh God. Grady.” I braced against his chest, so close my arms quivered.
One of his hands drew me to him, our tongues intertwining as I ground down on him one last time before toppling over the edge. His name was a moan on my lips. His arms circled my back, keeping me pressed tightly to him while he maintained the rhythm, seeking his own release.
“Fuck, Maggie. I’m coming.” As he let out a long groan of satisfaction, I kissed him, swallowing his cries of pleasure while he pulsed inside me.
I yawned into his neck as I snuggled into his side. The words which had threatened to burst out of me while we’d been locked together were circling. I needed to talk about something else before they snuck out. “So, you and Trent are okay?”
“We’re working on okay.” He smoothed down my hair. “I made a lot of mistakes.”
“We all did.”
“I’m not sure you did.” He kissed the top of my head.
“Uh, how about how I inadvertently made Trent’s drug operation bigger and better?” My role in his drug empire and his subsequent arrest had bothered me for a long time. Would Trent have gotten far enough to interest the police without me?
“It’s that bigger, better brain of yours.”
I pinched his nipple, and he laughed, stilling my hand. The sound warmed my heart. Grady had felt like a lost cause, someone who would never bother to discover the truth, content to think the worst. He was starting to prove me wrong.
“Honestly, if I think about what he did, it’ll piss me off. You could have gotten arrested because of him,” Grady said, an edge to his voice.
“There were lots of people in town who did get arrested.” I sometimes saw a few of them who’d come back to town after they’d been released from jail. Or I’d run into their parents at functions. I’d never asked any of them to vote for me for mayor. My involvement hadn’t been intentional, but I had been involved.
Since I’d become mayor, I’d been trying my best to find sustainable employment for the residents of Little Falls. Maybe if Trent and his friends had better choices in high school, they wouldn’t have turned to making and selling drugs.
“Yeah, I remember,” Grady said, his tone quiet. “That whole thing is part of the reason I bailed from the town when I could. First my dad died when I was a kid, then my brother operates a meth ring. People don’t get over that shit.”
I traced patterns on his chest and considered his words. “Should they?”
“Trent couldn’t read. The system failed him. I—” Grady’s voice cracked, and he cleared his throat. “I failed him.”
“I didn’t fare much better. I taught him to read, but I also helped him build a meth empire.” I took a deep breath. After years of analyzing the situation, I didn’t have an easy answer to the guilt—mine or his. My solution had been to repay the community I’d let down through ignorance. Trent had served his time, and now he was trying to help rebuild the town through this fundraiser.
Grady squeezed me tighter and sighed into my hair. “He made his choices.” He kissed my temple. “And I made mine. None of them were good. I don’t know how we’re here right now after the way I treated you.”
I didn’t want the heaviness of the past weighing down our whole night. We’d found our way to this moment. For years, I’d wished for a moment like this with him—no secrets, no more anger. “I find you irresistible,” I said in a teasing tone. “It must be a pheromone thing.”
That wasn’t exactly a joke. There had to be something chemical in the connection, a reason we were so drawn to each other. My first time with him had resulted in my first orgasm. Imagine my surprise when I figured out orgasms didn’t happen every time or with every guy.
Eventually, I’d discovered the thought of Grady could get the job done whether I was with a partner or I was solo.
Inevitably, once the orgasm passed, shame would settle in its place. Why did it need to be him, his image, when he’d treated me so unjustly? My desire for him wasn’t normal.
“You like the way I smell?”
“Basically, yeah. There are worse things.”
He laughed, the sound rumbling through his chest to my ear. I draped across him more fully, staking my claim. Part of me still couldn’t believe we were together like this. I’d wanted him—at one time more than I’d wanted anything else in the world—but I hadn’t allowed myself to dwell on desire once he turned on me. Wishing he’d come to believe me had been on the same level as reversing time to see the first moon landing in person. Impossible.
“And the smell is linked to what?” he asked.
“Genetics.”
“Meaning?” He ran his hand up and down my arm which was laid across his chest. “We’d have exceptional children?”
My breath caught in my throat. “Something like that.”
“Hmm…” he murmured, kissing the top of my head. “Wanna play a game with me?”
Relaxing at the change in subject, I grinned. “Hide the sausage again?”
“Oh, I’m sure we’ll be hiding that again. Maybe in a few different places.”
A laugh escaped at his implication, and I hit his chest. He rolled us so he stared down at me. The depth of tenderness in his face surprised me.
How had I gotten lucky enough to have this moment? My insides unfurled and bloomed, reaching for the sunlight in his gaze.
“That’s not the game I want to play right now.” His lips brushed mine. I wrapped my arms around his neck and yanked him closer.
“All right, player,” I said when we broke apart. “How do we play?”
“It’s called This or That. I give you two scenarios, and you tell me your preference.”
“How do you win?”
He laughed and braced himself on his forearms above me. “There’s no winning. It’s a getting-to-know-you game. I used to play it all the time when I was traveling.”
I rolled my eyes. “Oh, please, play it with me too.”
With his fingers, he pushed a few strands of my hair back and shook his head. “So many assumptions in your response.”
When I made a grumbling noise, he kissed both of my cheeks before brushing his lips across mine again. “I played it on buses, trains, airplanes, in bars… not in beds. Feel better?”
I framed his face, and I stared into his deep brown eyes. “I don’t ever want to feel like just some girl again.” The pain I’d felt when I was younger wasn’t something I could relive. No one had known about what had happened, my feelings, the way he’d treated me with such indifference. I wouldn’t be that girl again. Above all else, I needed to be important this time.
His expression softened, and he nuzzled the hollow of my neck. “You were never just some girl,” his rough voice whispered in my ear.
My stomach fluttered, back on the roller coaster at the crest of a hill. “I wish I’d known.” My heart ached for the seventeen-year-old girl who’d cried herself to sleep over Grady, who’d thought maybe she’d gotten the connection between them all wrong. I’d pushed all those memories down, buried them as deep as the experience itself, told myself nothing with him had been as good as I remembered. Instead, I poisoned my thoughts until any reminder of him made me angry, not sad.
“I swear to you I’ll never make you feel that way again.”
His clear gaze said he meant it, and I wanted to believe him. At the back of my mind, Trent’s words about Grady getting an offer he couldn’t refuse, a better offer, played. The reminder wasn’t loud enough to make me regret what just happened, but I couldn’t let the words welling up inside out. Last time I’d laid myself bare, I’d been burned. Once was a mistake, twice was foolishness. And this time there’d be more witnesses to any foolish mistakes.
“This or That,” I whispered. “I’m going to win.”
He placed a quick kiss on my lips. I loved that he couldn’t stop doing it, that it seemed instinctual. How many times had I wished for this when I was a kid?
He rolled to his side, and he cradled his head with his palm. “Always so competitive.”
“Give it to me,” I said with a wicked grin.
“Oh, I’ll give it to you. But first we play.” He kissed my shoulder. “Big house or nice car?”
“House.” I narrowed my eyes. “Please tell me you’re not a car guy in this scenario?”
“I think I might be a ‘neither.’ You’ve seen my house and truck, right?”
I laughed and leaned over for another kiss. “Okay, again.”
“Cat or dog?”
With a grimace, I admitted, “Dog.”
“Poor Ginger.” He shook his head in mock horror. “Are you serious?”
“I work long hours at the pharmacy. I couldn’t handle a dog.” I shrugged. “I’d never get rid of Ginger, but I would love a dog.” I flopped back onto the pillow.
“How about two?”
“I don’t know how to answer that question.” I grinned. “Would I have to pick which of your beasts I like better?” Tapping my lips with my finger, I pretended to think.
“Let’s not get carried away.” His lips twitched. The amusement left his face, and he propped himself onto his elbow before leaning down to kiss me.
“One more,” I murmured against his lips. “And then I propose we race to a different kind of finish.”
He kissed me deeply, his hand running up my side, and I turned to face him, putting us chest to chest. When he drew back, he said, “Travel the world or live in Little Falls forever?”
I frowned and hesitated. “Is there a fence in this scenario? Kinda both?”
He traced my face with his finger. “You gotta choose.”
I searched for the right answer in his posture. The truth was neither, and it was both. “Travel the world. You?”
A hint of a smile touched his face. “I’d travel the world with you. Or I’d stay in Little Falls with you.”
With my index finger, I poked him in the ribs. “I had to choose. You have to choose.” I held my breath while he seemed to think, our gazes locked.
“I choose you. Wherever you are, that’s where I want to be.”
A fizzy sensation ran through my veins at the sincerity in his expression. My words, three of them, were stuck in the back of my throat. I shoved them deeper, trying to pretend they didn’t exist, afraid that they did. Saying anything close to what I thought I might feel was reckless. After how badly things ended last time, it was hard to fully trust him, trust us.
I wiped my negative thoughts from my head. I had lots of time later to stew about things I couldn’t predict or change. Grady Castillo was in my bed, and I didn’t want to waste a moment. Last time, I didn’t know it would be years and so many hurt feelings before I got this again.
I slid my hand into his hair and tugged him closer. “The next time you say that,” I whispered in his ear, “I want you inside me.”
He drew my leg over his and kissed my neck. “As far as requests go, that one might be my favorite.”
This time, we went slower, discovering each other all over again, in ways we hadn’t ever done before. Later, when I came apart in his arms, I was sure I’d never loved anyone more.