Chapter 13
Sophia
The Girlfriend
Something I learned growin’ up in Texas, surrounded by people who believed you were a hollow shell with nothin’ more to offer than a large inheritance, was this—
Men, every single last one of ’em, were gullible.
I waited for Grant to fall asleep and his arm to go limp before I shimmied out from his hold and tiptoed across the room toward the door.
A soft creak from the floor made me freeze, and as I waited for Grant to stir, I couldn’t help but notice where he’d left the gun.
He may have been gullible in thinking I needed him close, and maybe even part of me enjoyed having him curled up with me for a short moment, but he also stayed true to his word, which wasn’t like many others I’d met.
Not many others I knew, if any, would have been as protective over me as Grant had been. I had no clue what I’d done to make him like this, or if someone had paid him off to test me, but I intended on findin’ out before he woke up.
I shut the bedroom door as quietly as I could and continued tiptoeing on through the living room. When I spotted my clutch on the kitchen counter, I sprinted on the balls of my feet to get it.
Nothing inside seemed out of place. My lip gloss, lipstick, gum, wallet, and my ring were all inside.
I pulled out the ring, checking under the microwave light that had been left on above the stove for signs that he’d tried to pry the twenty carat stone out.
But there was nothing that my naked eye could see.
I drummed my fingers on the counter, looking around at the drawers and cabinets.
“Where are your secrets?” I whispered to myself before I left the ring on the counter and started digging through each drawer.
“Even inside is clean?” I shuffled through the forks, knives and spoons, then moved onto another drawer, and another.
Every drawer was organized, not in an obscene way, but enough to make me question if I was the crazy one.
I laughed, stifling the sound with the back of my hand as I found a drawer with a black apron that read, “My meat is 100% going in your mouth,” with the picture of a sausage beneath it.
“My sister got me that for Christmas last year,” Grant said from behind me.
I dropped the apron and slammed the drawer shut before pressing a hand to my chest. “Jesus fucking Christ, you scared the shit outta me.”
“So did you.” He folded his arms across his bare chest. “You weren’t in bed. Thought for sure you’d left.”
My brain fizzled, wondering why that hadn’t been my first reaction after checking my things. Instead, it was to learn more about Grant, not run from him. I could see his keys on the table from here and hadn’t even considered taking them when I passed them minutes ago.
“I don’t scare that easily,” I said, referring to the near-kidnapping. Well, the second one. “’Sides, you told me I’d be safe with you.”
“You are safe with me.” The weight of those words hit heavier than I’d expected.
“And oddly enough…you proved that.”
“Does that mean you’re takin’ me up on my offer? You’ll stay?” His eyes turned warm, less steely like they’d been when he saved me earlier.
I couldn’t help but think—what would Walton have done if he were in Grant’s shoes at the hotel?
He’d run and save himself, no doubt. Grant may have drugged me and stolen me away, but I’d never felt as safe as I had when I was with him.
Especially not after I saw what he’d do to anyone that did hurt me.
I saw the whole thing.
Leaning back against the counter, I bit the inside of my cheek. “I don’t know,” I admitted. “I have an entire life in Texas, and people will worry about me if I don’t go back.”
“Do you like your life there?” Did I like it there?
Not really. Not when my best friend was in Florida and the people in Texas expected too much from me.
Here, I was just Sophia. But I’d grown up in Texas, and as much as they irritated me, my family was there.
I was thinking about his question for longer than I should have, and his brow arched.
“It’s what I know, besides Georgia,” I answered.
“And Walton,” Grant added. Walton hadn’t been the only man I’d been with sexually, and not even my first real relationship, but I nodded for the sake of explaining all that.
He cleared his throat. “I get what it’s like, you know.
To be somewhere you feel trapped, waiting for the day someone tells you it’s okay to go somewhere else, be someone else. ”
“What the hell do you know?” I snapped.
The muscles along his abdomen moved with a slow, deep breath.
“My sister and I—we didn’t grow up in a good place.
I didn’t have anyone telling me how to fix it for us, so I had to find a way.
” He walked over to the fridge and grabbed a bottle of water for himself, then passed one to me.
I accepted it as he leaned back against the counter beside me.
“I don’t assume money fixes things. I don’t figure your life was the best because you could afford the world.
Havin’ love in this world is what’s most important, and you can’t buy that. ”
I took a sip from the bottle, trying to ignore a wave of guilt. I’d accused him of wanting my ring to get rich, and as dumb as it was to believe his views on money—the unimportance of it—I did.
So, he hadn’t lied. He didn’t want my ring, or my money, which left me more confused than ever. No one wanted to do something for me for nothing except Lyra.
We both sipped in silence for a few minutes as I wondered what he meant by not being in a good place.
What kind of life did he have as a kid? How did his life become what it was now?
What had he done? One thing was very clear, though.
He might not have been a psychopath if he cared for his sister as much as he did.
Psychopaths, from what I knew, couldn’t feel love like other people did.
I finally capped my bottle with only half the water left inside. “Where is your sister? Does she not live here?”
He slowly lowered the bottle from his lips and met my eyes.
“Not anymore. She got her own place since she makes enough from her races.” He smiled softly.
“She’s real proud. Shit, I am too.” I couldn’t help but smile just watching him light up.
“She always tells me I’m too protective over her and she needs her own life.
It was hard to let go at first, but Hayes lives down the street so I trust she’s safe. ”
“It must be nice having two really great friends.”
He nodded, dropping his shoulders. I hadn’t noticed how tense he was.
Was it because of me? “It is. I didn’t have anyone other than Tallulah when I was a kid.
” He tapped his fingers on his water bottle.
“Carver and Hayes just seemed to get me when I moved here. It’s hard to find that when you know you’re different and everyone else around you seems so—”
“Normal?”
Grant’s grey eyes slid to me. “Yeah.” His gaze shifted to where my teeth clamped over my lip, then flashed away.
“Anyway.” He straightened and set his bottle back in the fridge.
“If you’re staying then I have to warn you, I only have one bed in the house.
I’m fine to sleep on the couch, or we can just put a wall of pillows up, whatever you prefer. ”
My forehead pinched in confusion. “Figured the whole point of me stayin’, at least for you, was to get in my pants.”
“No, darlin’.” He looked me over, a controlled heat burning in his eyes like he didn’t know how to feel.
“The whole point is to give you a safe place to think about what you’re going to do.
There is always a choice, Sophia, and a woman like you deserves to live the way she wants. The way she chooses to.”
“You really don’t think I want Walton, do you?”
His eyes darkened as they locked on mine. “Not a chance in hell is Walton the man for you.”
I raised my chin. “What makes you any better?”
“I’d never lay my hands on you, for starters.” I swallowed down the response on the tip of my tongue. “It also only took me a day to figure out what you like in bed.”
I coughed, choking on my own spit. “Excuse me?”
He smirked, seeming closer to his age, for once. “Tell me, Peach. Does Walton know what you like?”
I blushed furiously. “I don’t know what you mean.”
“Sure you don’t. I doubt anyone has ever asked what you want. Probably more concerned with getting themselves off.”
“And you’re not like that?”
He strode up to me and took my chin between his fingers to tip my face up to his.
His breath coasted over my jaw and up to my ear as he said, “I prefer to make who I’m with come on my fingers, then my tongue.
I prefer to make their legs weak and minds numb before I fuck them back to their senses, only to make them lose it all over again.
” My lips parted as his slid up my neck.
“You have certain preferences, just like me, darlin’.
” He pulled back, making me whimper. “If you want me to be yours, to scratch that itch no man has ever been able to, all you have to do is say the words, and I’m yours. ”
“What if I—” My voice strained as his knuckles stroked down the side of my neck, sending shivers down my spine.
“What if you…” His fingers snaked into my hair, close to the roots, then tugged gently.
My body was turning weaker than my mind, which was shouting for me to push him away. Nothin’ about wanting him made sense beyond physical attraction. I finally let my mind do the work because my body was ready to go feral.
I reared back. “What if I don’t want you to touch me?”
Confusion flashed over his features. His hand slowly fell to his side, then he took a step back, like he was snapping out of a daze. “Right. I’m…uh”—he pressed his knuckles together in front of his chest—“I’m goin’ to go take a shower.”
He was gone before I could say anything else.