Chapter 20
Sophia
The Drawn Line
Awarm breeze caressed my cheek, the only part of my body not shielded from the open window across the room.
Sunlight danced on the wooden floors, broken up by fragments of leaves, as I swung my feet over the edge and stretched my arms up.
I’d slept hard, and when reminders of last night flitted through my mind, I turned, expecting to see Grant behind me.
I remember cuddling up close to him last night, adjusting a few times against him as his body welcomed mine.
It was peaceful. The whole place was, and that shouldn’t have made me wary, but it did. “Grant?” I hollered, unsure if I should move. “Grant?” I called louder, my fingers digging into the blanket as I looked around the room from my place on the bed, too frozen to move.
The door swung open so fast, it made me jump. “What’s wrong?” Grant’s eyes darted around the room, his chest bare and heaving just as hard as mine was. “What happened? Are you okay?”
We stared at each other when he was done looking around, searching for whatever had set me off, before uncontrollable laughter ripped through my throat. His arms crossed over his broad chest. “Not funny, darlin’.”
“I didn’t mean it to be,” I replied honestly, waving my hands. “It was so quiet, and you weren’t here.”
“I’m not goin’ anywhere. Just didn’t want to wake you.” He leaned against the door frame, his roaming gaze on my skin making my stomach flutter. “You okay with that? Me stayin’ close?”
I nodded slowly. “Yeah. Please.”
“You have my word. I won’t be far. So, don’t go scarin’ me like that again and just trust I’m always right here, for as long as you want me to be.”
“Okay,” I whispered, the knot in my stomach slowly unfurling. I glanced away from his grey eyes, needing to distract myself from why that idea made me feel things I shouldn’t. “What time is it?”
“A quarter past ten.”
“Fuck.” I stood, ready to search for clothes until Grant chuckled and shook his head. “What?”
“What’re you gettin’ ready for?”
“Um…” I took in his faded jeans, slinging low on his hips, scruffy-looking stubble that matched his disheveled hair, and the pencil in his hand, before finally staring at his bare feet.
He looked untamed, like the forest around his cabin, and it was doing things to me I never thought possible. “The day?” I finally settled on.
“You look pretty ready for the day I had planned out, in my opinion.”
I spread my arms out wide, his flannel half-buttoned and hanging loose on my body, stopping mid-thigh. “What kind of day was that, exactly?”
He shrugged half-heartedly. “The kind where we both don’t know what day of the week it is, or care that there is a world that continues to go on without us needin’ to be involved in it.”
“Mmm.” I walked up to the window and breathed in the fresh air. “That sounds like a dream I can’t afford to have.”
“I thought you could afford anythin’,” he deadpanned. I turned and scowled at him. “Just one day, Peach. After that, you can go back to worrying and planning and thinking. But today, you’re just Sophia. Can you do that?”
I’d tried to do that for years, but always fell short, crawling back into my bed, or someone else’s, at the end of the day, knowing none of whatever I tried would last. But what was one more day of trying?
We were alone out here, and for reasons I couldn’t quite understand, Grant made me feel safer than anyone else ever had.
“Fine.” I dropped my arms to my sides, my shoulders falling with them. “But I have one condition.”
He grinned. “Knew you would, Peach.”
“If I’m just Sophia, then you’re just Grant.”
“Yeah.” His eyes softened. “And we’ll just do things that make us happy without a single fuck to give for anything, or anyone, else.” I nodded, agreeing as he rubbed his knuckles along his stubble. “I think that’s a fair condition.”
“Okay, then.” I started, stepping up to him slowly. “So, just Grant, what were you doing before coming in here to make sure I wasn’t dyin’?” His eyes turned molten as I trailed my fingers down his arm, ending on the pencil between his fingers. “Have somethin’ to do with this?”
“Maybe. But I think I might need to restart now.”
“Did I ruin it?” I asked, actually concerned for whatever he’d been drawing. I’d panicked, no doubt interrupting him, and he had come runnin’, but didn’t seem mad at all about it.
“Don’t worry ’bout it. I think my heart wasn’t fully in it, anyway.” He jerked his chin toward the kitchen behind him. “Want some coffee? Breakfast?”
“No diner?” I asked with a teasing tone.
The corner of his lip twitched, then he shook his head. “We’re stayin’ in today.”
“Then I’ll take both, please.”
“Good.” He tucked the pencil behind his ear before threading our fingers together. “I got both ready.”
Grant sat across from me, flipping through his sketchbook as I ate oatmeal. When I asked to see one of his drawings, he lit up. You could tell it was his pride and joy, just like his truck, and it was endearing, and…cute. Attractive in a way I wasn’t used to.
Grant was right. He was growin’ on me.
He took my bowl when I was done, then came back only to tug me through the back door.
I giggled, feeling a lightness to my steps.
Grant eyed the porch, then put up a finger, signaling for me to wait before darting off.
He returned with a blanket and the bottle of bourbon I’d stolen sips of before, setting both out beside the steps leading down to the yard.
“What’s that for?” I asked, leaning up on my toes as he finished.
He grinned back at me. “I was right.”
I rolled my eyes. “’Bout what, this time?”
“’Bout my last sketch lackin’ heart.” Before I could question it, he was taking my hand and pulling me to the blanket, sitting me down next to the bourbon. He took two paces back, admiring his work. “Yep. This is gonna be much better. I can already feel it.”
I giggled, placing my fingers around the bottle. “And what is this for?”
Gathering his sketchbook and positioning a chair across the porch, he said, “I dunno. Grabbed the closest prop, but you and my liquor seemed to get along just fine yesterday.” He smirked as I scowled playfully, swirling the base of the glass bottle along the deck.
“Make a pose you think Just Sophia would be proud of.”
I leaned back against the wooden post, trying not to think too hard about what Just Sophia would do, and letting my body guide itself, like it had in the hot tub, and then again in the back of Grant’s truck..and again in—
“You’re so fucking sexy,” I heard him murmur as his eyes shifted between his sketchbook and whatever pose I’d ended up in—one leg bent at the knee, the other stretched out, the bottle’s lip pressed to mine but just on the bottom, like a tease.
Judging by the draft, I believed my nipple was barely covered on my left side where the half-unbuttoned flannel had shifted.
I tried to hide a smile. “You findin’ your heart?”
His eyes flashed to mine, soft grey clouds with a dark storm brewin’. “Think so.”
I wasn’t sure how long I sat there, watching him draw me, hearing the pencil move against paper with purpose. The image of him biting the unsharpened end of the pencil was burned into my mind, erasing any thoughts I could have had that weren’t about him.
“Grant?”
His pencil stopped, eyes flicking up to me. “Sophia?”
“What’s your last name?”
A soft smirk formed on his lips. “Brooks.” He went back to drawing, but I could tell he was waitin’ for more.
“Middle?”
“Don’t have one, baby.”
“When’s your birthday?”
“October 2nd.”
“When did you start drawing?”
“Ever since I could hold a pencil.” He paused, rolling the pencil between two fingers. “Mighty curious about me.”
“It’s only fair. You seem to know everything about me.”
“Not as much as I thought I did.”
My brows drew tight. “That a bad thing?”
“Not at all, Peach.” He grinned, his pencil strokes slowing. “Almost done.”
“You gonna show me?”
He didn’t answer as his wrist flicked, thumb smoothing and rubbing over the page in a corner.
When he set his pencil down and looked fully up from the sketchbook, I bolted to him, wrapping my arms around his neck from behind.
Looking down at the paper, my heart sank into my stomach, then rose to my throat.
“Holy shit, Grant.”
“You like it?”
“Like it?” I scoffed. “It’s…it’s perfect.” The way he’d drawn the light on my skin and the way my eyes were shaded was breathtaking. “I don’t look like that.”
He tilted his head toward mine. “You’re right.” He put the sketchbook and pencil on the floor, then pulled me onto his lap, fixing my legs on either side of his hips. “You’re much prettier than what I drew.”
I blinked in shock. “I’d ask if you have eyes, but I can see you do.” My fingers slipped effortlessly to the nape of his neck, twirling the loose curls. “Maybe it’s your head that’s a little off.”
“I think”—he pulled my other hand up to his lips, pressing a soft kiss to my knuckles—“my head is finally in all the right places.” The air between us turned thick and heavy as he dropped my hand and settled his on my thighs, the fading bruises disappearing under his touch.
I broke the silence and glanced down at the sketchbook. “Do you always draw the girls you're with?”
His thumbs tapped on my thighs. “No, Peach.”
“So, just like a few of them, then, or—”
“None.”
I swallowed thickly. “What?”
“No one else.” He brushed his nose over mine, then his lips, and my breath caught in my chest. “The only woman I’ve drawn for myself is you.” He cupped my cheek, tucking my unruly curls behind my ear.
“W-why?”
“Because, Peach.” He curled a finger under my chin, drawing our lips closer. “They weren’t you.”
We stayed like that for what must’ve been seconds but felt like an eternity. “Yeah, right.” I pushed my hand to his chest and made to stand.
He gripped my wrist and wrapped his arm around my waist, keeping me on his lap. “Why’s it so hard for you to believe I want you?”