27. Chapter Twenty-Seven
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Maggie
S undays were my favorite. It was the only day of the week when the pharmacy was closed, and I didn’t work a twelve-to-fourteen-hour day. Rolling onto my side, I plucked a berry from the bowl balanced on Grady’s taut stomach. His arm was behind his head, and he was chewing, contemplating something, grabbing berries from the bowl at regular intervals.
He’d made me pancakes and brought them to bed. Waking up with him and not having to rush out of the house was an added bonus. Next Saturday was the Small Town Saviors extravaganza, and I had to meet Lila later to go over what still needed to be done. Despite all the extra work, I felt good about how much money we were projected to raise.
“What are you thinking about?” I ran my hand through his hair, toying with the ends, twisting them between my fingers.
He grinned but didn’t look at me. “You. Always you. You in this bed. You on the kitchen counter. You on the floor. You on a table. Want me to keep going?”
I laughed and kissed his cheek. He wrapped one arm around me, popped the last berry into his mouth, and slid the bowl onto the nightstand. Having him here made me giddy. Champagne in my veins.
All these intense emotions scared the shit out of me.
When I let myself dwell on the fear, it doused all joy, so I covered my anxiety, shoved it down, pretended the fear wasn’t there. Everything bubbling up made me realize how much I’d kept other men at arm’s length. Emily had been right in that regard. Grady got under my skin, burrowed deep, and nestled next to my heart, stopping anyone else from getting too close.
Grady rolled us so he was propped above. He scanned my face and seemed to debate something.
“Out with it,” I said with a grin.
“I get why Trent wanted your help, but I’m not too clear on what you got out of the deal. A bunch of lies. Almost dragged into a court case. I guess it just hasn’t quite added up.”
Uneasiness settled over me at his questions. I should have expected it. I squirmed under him and pushed his shoulder, so he shifted to the side. He propped his head on his hand while he looked down at me. I could feel his eyes on me, but I couldn’t return the contact.
“You were so loyal to him, even when it might have been better to walk away.”
“What did Trent tell you?” Trent guarded my heart and secrets in the same way he guarded his own.
Grady narrowed his eyes and brushed a strand of hair out of my face. “Why does that matter?”
“No point in repeating things you already know.” I glanced at him before looking at the ceiling. “What’d he tell you?”
He stroked my cheek with his thumb. “Maggie May, you’re being evasive. I’m an open book, and you’re still shut tight.”
Was he an open book? I hadn’t pushed him on anything he’d said or done the last few days. As far as I knew, he’d spent time at his house writing. I didn’t know who he was writing for since he’d told me he couldn’t write for himself anymore.
“Are you an open book, Grady? There’s nothing going on I should know about?” Our first night together he’d been open and honest, but the next day there’d been a crack, a fracture. He’d brought me the coffee at the pharmacy and then when he’d stayed over that night, a piece of him had seemed like it had been somewhere else, already drifting away.
He collapsed onto his back. “I want to know about your side of the deal with Trent. After, you can ask me whatever you want, and I’ll answer.”
“Not exactly a comforting response.”
“I don’t know what you want to know.” He rolled again to face me. “You’re avoiding my question. I want to know why.”
“None of it is particularly flattering.”
“You think I give a shit about what’s flattering after the way I behaved? Nothing you say will change how I perceive you. You’re smart and funny and when you’re in a room, you’re the only woman I see. If you were in my head, it would probably freak you the fuck out how much I think about you.”
My stomach swooped, back on the roller coaster. Sometimes, the things he said made me think my fears were unjustified. Nothing spoken had passed between us the first time. We’d been closed off from each other, cautious, protecting ourselves from whatever had been building between us. Neither of us had understood what to do with how we felt.
After him, I’d spent a lot of time inching into emotional water with men, but I’d never gotten too deep. How did I know the deep end was safe this time, especially with Grady, the one who’d made me afraid in the first place?
“I don’t want something to come up ten years from now, and I look like an ass for not asking these questions,” he said. “I don’t want secrets.”
Ten years from now . My thoughts stuttered. That was a long time. Was he really looking so far into the future? Any other guy who’d brought up the future in such a concrete way, I’d become distant immediately. I could never seem to cope with long term. But my feelings for him had lingered for so long, and they’d exploded in the last few days. When I took a beat to examine how the claim made me feel, I realized his timeline didn’t scare me. What scared me was that I might not get those years.
I swallowed down my fear. “There were two reasons I agreed to help Trent. Well, three. But you probably won’t like the third one.”
“Okay,” he said carefully, “consider me prepared.”
“The first reason is probably the one Trent told you. I’d been having some problems with other juniors in my class. They were being awful to me. I hadn’t told anyone the things they’d been doing. Stupid, I know. Someone would have helped me, but I just… I couldn’t seem to ask. Maybe because I’d always been so self-sufficient, and asking for help was a weakness I couldn’t tolerate. Trent was two years older, and let’s be honest, kinda intimidating. He said he could get them off my back.” I tried to gauge whether I guessed right about what Trent told him based on Grady’s expression. Trent and I protected each other, always had.
“Did he?”
“He did. I never asked how, but as soon as Trent made our involvement clear, they disappeared.”
He raised his eyebrows.
“Not literally.” I laughed. “He’s not some mafia boss. I still saw them around, but from a distance. They never did anything to hurt me again.”
“And the second reason?”
Taking a deep breath, I let it out slowly. “I’ve always been a bit competitive.”
“You don’t say.”
I shoved his shoulder, and he kissed my temple.
“I wanted, more than anything, to get voted in as student body president for my senior year. But I had an image problem. I guess. I don’t know. I thought I was likable enough. But I’d overheard some things.” I twisted the covers in my fingers. “Trent taught me how to network. How to make people think I cared about them even if I didn’t know them that well. At every party we attended before senior year, he introduced me to people I didn’t normally talk to, had already coached me on things they were interested in.” Heat crept into my face. Who needed to be taught how to interact with people? Trent had been a natural, never at a loss for something to say to someone. Even now, he made friends naturally, effortlessly, but because of him, I did too.
“That’s a useful skill. I don’t know why you’re embarrassed. I wish he’d taught me how to do it before I went to LA. I was so fucking awkward all the time.”
Trent’s tips had saved me at more than one party in college, and once I’d come back to Little Falls, those skills had won me the mayor’s job. But I’d hated needing his help to find authentic ways to connect with people. My father and mother had always been good at it, and even Emily and Tyler didn’t seem to struggle. Reading books appealed to me more than reading people, and I’d had to force myself out of my shell.
“I detest the speaking part of performing,” Grady says, giving me a gentle nudge. “It’s why I had Kelvin on the mic during the Fourth of July. I hate having to entertain a crowd. A falseness to the performance, like I’m being someone I’m not.”
“Always?” I turned on my side to face him. I loved looking at him, and I wondered how he’d changed in those ten years he talked about.
“So far. I haven’t been ‘me’ on stage. I’m trying to win the crowd over. Buy my album. Pick me. I fucking hate pimping myself.” He gave me the side-eye and took a deep breath. “And the other reason you didn’t mind helping Trent?”
I gave him a sheepish smile. “He was nice to look at and fun to be around.”
He winced and collapsed onto his pillow. I followed him, curling up against his side. He wrapped his arm around me. “But you and he were never together?”
I hesitated. I’d been hoping he wouldn’t ask. How would he take this? But honesty was important. If the ten-year thing proved true, I didn’t want him to find out by accident from Lila or Trent or anyone else. “Not like you and I were, no.”
“Maggie,” his voice was tight with tension.
“Before I even met you, before the first Sunday dinner, Trent and I sort of made out once. But it didn’t go very far before I realized as much as I liked him, I didn’t like him like that, and I was worried we’d ruin our arrangement if I let our friendship go in that direction.” I rushed through the words. With a nervous laugh, I could see that I’d always felt the way about Trent I’d desperately wanted to feel about Grady. Trent was attractive, yes, but not to me. “Being with him didn’t feel right.” I ran my hand along his cheek and jaw, trying to ease the tension. Inching up, I feathered kisses along his jawline.
“That all?”
“You do realize I haven’t been celibate since we were together, right?”
“Yep.”
“Grady,” I purred in his ear, biting his earlobe. “You wanted to know.”
“And now I’m going to file it away in a part of my brain which never gets used.” He flipped us over and settled between my legs. He kissed my neck. “I organized my bookshelves yesterday,” he whispered in my ear. “Alphabetical.”
“Oh.” I wiggled against him, feeling him harden, and I let out a fake moan. “Oh, Grady. I love when you talk organization to me.”
He chuckled. “You pretending to get turned on should not turn me on.”
I wrapped my hand around his neck and drew him toward my lips. “If you tell me you’re cleaning and painting today, I might have a spontaneous orgasm.”
With a groan, he slid against me. “Fuck, Maggie.”
“Exactly.” I drew my fingers across his back and then dug my nails into his ass. “Get on it. Or rather, in it.”
“Patience, Maggie May. I hear it’s a virtue.”
“Glad to hear you only see it as a vicious rumor too.”
He laughed against my ear, and the sound warmed my heart. How was it possible to feel this happy and content with him when I’d felt so much anxiety and angst about him for years? But every part of me—my heart, my mind, and my body—were so sure of him now that it created a different sort of anxiety.
His hand was on my inner thigh, smooth caresses that made me forget my train of thought. He was on the spot that made my body begin to ache with longing.
“I love watching you get turned on, yanked out of your head and into this moment,” he said, and he wrapped his fingers around my thigh as he shifted to press his hard length against my core.
He rocked back and forth, the movement subtle but oh-so right as he kissed me. And I locked my ankles around him, keeping the connection tight. His palm cradled my head, and each movement built more and more urgency in me.
“Oh God,” I murmured as he found the sensitive spot behind my ear, his tongue flicking over my earlobe and sucking.
“I’m going to make you come like this,” he said, as I couldn’t help digging my nails into his ass. “And then I’m going to make you come again when I take you from behind.”
“Yes,” I gasped, almost desperate for what he promised. “Faster.”
“I’m not rushing this one,” he said. “Not when I get to watch the expression on your face as you get closer and closer to coming undone.” He gazed down at me with barely restrained passion. “Sometimes all I can think about are the soft sounds of pleasure you make, the way you can’t catch your breath just before you come, how tightly you squeeze when you finally let go. If I could find some way to spend the rest of my life in this bed with you, that’s what I’d do.”
“You’d be a professional fucker,” I said, barely able to get the words out, my brain so focused on the movement of his body over mine.
A grin split his face. “Can you decree that a job as mayor?” The smile left his face as he stared down at me, his gaze shifting across my face, as though he’s reading how quickly I approach the edge. “An official job,” he murmurs. “Maggie Sullivan’s professional fucker.”
“Yes,” I said, clutching onto him, and then he slid into me, quick and smooth, and I gasped at the sudden fullness.
“I need to feel you,” he said, his thumb on my clit, circling as he thrust long and deep.
It was exactly what I needed, too, and I could feel myself tightening and cresting. “Grady,” I cried out as I felt the orgasm pulsing through me.
“Oh, fuck, Maggie,” he said against my ear. “You’re so tight. So wet. I don’t know how much longer I can hold it together.”
“Don’t hold it,” I said.
“Can I come on your stomach?”
I nodded, and he pulled out, pumping his large hand along his shaft as he spilled himself across my pale stomach, a guttural groan escaping.
When he was done, he leaned forward and kissed me before heading to the bathroom. There, I heard the shower turn on, and then he came back, scooped me into his arms and carried me there.
“Change of plans,” he said. “Round two can happen in the shower instead.”
“You’re going to get me all clean?” I asked, clinging onto his neck as he bridal carried me.
“I do like you dirty,” he said, glancing down at my stomach. “But I like you wet even more.”
In the shower, he set me down, the hot water the exact temperature I liked it. It wasn’t the first shower we’d taken together, but I still loved the feel of his hands on me, lathering soap across my body, taking care to get every inch of me slippery and clean.
“Do you want your hair washed?” he asked, reaching for the shampoo.
“Yeah,” I said, turning my back to him.
His long fingers in my hair were magical. There was something about the soothing rhythm of someone else’s hands working through the tangles, massaging my scalp, that sent tingles shooting down each of my limbs. If this were the only foreplay he ever did, I’d consider it a win, but he was surprisingly kind and considerate in and out of bed.
When he turned me to rinse my hair, he kissed me to distraction as he worked the shampoo out with his gentle fingers. Then he kissed down my body until his mouth was on my inner thighs, seeking entrance, asking for permission. I widened my stance, my hands digging into his hair as his tongue found my sensitive core.
Each lick and circle with the flat of his tongue made me long for more. The hot water beat on my back, a pleasant massage before cascading down my body.
“I love how you taste,” he said, and then he slid two fingers inside me, pumping in time with the movement of his tongue, and I clung onto him, barely able to keep standing.
“Tell me when you’re close, Maggie May,” he said, sucking on my clit. “I want to be inside you when you come.”
Between the swirling and sucking and his fingers pumping, I could barely think straight. “Please,” I said. It was all I could manage.
In one swift movement, he lifted me up and pressed me against the wall of the shower. My ankles locked around him as he slid into me, his mouth on mine, his thumb finishing what his tongue started.
“Oh God,” I said, my hands digging into the nape of his neck.
“Yes,” he said, thrusting deeper and harder. “Yes.”
And then I was tumbling over the edge again, crying out from the intensity of my second release. Keeping me tight against the wall, he followed right behind me.
“Drink?” Grady asked when I came out of the bathroom. “I gotta let the dogs out, but I can get you something when I’m downstairs.”
“Sure, thanks,” I said, drying my hair a little more with my towel before sliding back under the covers.
Once he disappeared out the bedroom door, I checked my phone and thought about ordering in some lunch. I worked such long hours I didn’t have a lot of fresh food in the house. He’d been lucky to find any breakfast ingredients.
Something in the bed vibrated. I threw back the covers, searching for Grady’s phone. At the bottom of the bed, I found it, and without meaning to, I read the sender. It was a message from Agent Jack.
The name made me laugh. Grady sounded like he was involved in the FBI or CIA giving Jack that contact name. As I went to set the phone on the bedside table, the words job and LA jumped out from the text preview.
A twinge of guilt stabbed my heart when I read as much of the message as I could see. His phone was password protected or else I might have tried to read the whole thing. A producing job in LA? That was a promotion, wasn’t it? A better job, more opportunities.
Why hadn’t he said something?
A cold sweat broke out under my armpits and across my palms. He hadn’t told me, which felt very deliberate. It wasn’t like there hadn’t been time for him to say something. The text suggested that this offer wasn’t new.
His footsteps coming down the hall startled me, and I almost dropped his phone trying to get it on the nightstand before he got back.
Entering the room, he gave me a half smile before passing me a glass of water. “You okay?”
My insides were a jumbled mass of confusion. What had I just read? Jumping all over him was a bad idea. Maybe he’d tell me.
Even if he ended up leaving, it’d be okay. I’d be okay.
My stomach dipped. After the morning we’d had, the text felt disorienting, like maybe I’d imagined how close Grady and I were getting, how much he wanted to be here.
I didn’t want him to leave. Asking him to stay would be selfish. Trent warned me that he’d never stay, and it looked like that prophecy was coming true. Grady had never been meant for Little Falls.
What about the mayoral race? What if he won? Would he stay or leave no matter what?
My mind spun with questions I didn’t want to ask. Truthfully, I wasn’t sure I could handle the answers to those questions.
“Yeah.” I focused on the ice in the glass. “Everything is fine.”