Chapter 31
Chapter Thirty-One
EMMA
Someone’s calling my name.
Is it Kamila? Did she drag me home from the party last night?
“You have to wake up, Princess.”
The voice comes in clearer this time, deeper and more masculine. Also, Kami would never call me Princess.
Calloused fingers brush my face, and I slowly open my eyes, quickly blocking out the sunlight that’s hitting my face. My head is pounding.
“Fuck. It’s so bright in here.” My eyes adjust to the light as I see Grayson sitting on the edge of his bed, smiling down at me. “Hi.”
“Hey,” he says gently.
I stretch my arms out and look up at the wooden ceiling. I do a double take.
Wooden ceiling, light blue walls, queen-sized bed, Grayson.
I shoot up from the bed and glance down at the unfamiliar oversized shirt I’m wearing.
“Am I in your house?” I squeal, making my head hurt more.
“Technically, it’s a rental, for now anyway, but yes.”
Rubbing my temples, I try to remember what happened last night, but my memory gets hazy around the time I called Grayson in the bathroom. I lift the sheet to check if I still have underwear or pants on and see that I’m wearing large sweatpants.
Looking up at Grayson, I raise an eyebrow. “Did we…?” I let the question hang in the air.
He laughs and shakes his head. “Don’t get me wrong, you wanted to, but you also wanted to take a shower and run around the place wet and naked.”
I stuff my face into my hands and let out a loud groan, feeling extremely embarrassed. “I didn’t.”
“Here.” He pulls my arm and hands me two ibuprofen with what smells like ginger tea.
“It’s lukewarm for your stomach. You threw up one more time before your shower.
I also made you some toast with a little butter.
I would’ve made you something better, but you shouldn’t eat more than that after everything last night.
” Grayson passes me a plate with two pieces of toast, each cut diagonally.
I look up at him and see unfamiliar, gentle eyes staring back at me, with a smile to match. “Thank you for taking care of me and my crazy ass.” The skin around the corners of his eyes crinkles in amusement. “So, we got back, I showered—”
“You demanded a shower,” he emphasizes, picking up a cup of coffee from the nightstand.
Taking a bite of my toast, I roll my eyes. “Drunk Emma is the worst.”
He shrugs. “She’s…a lot, but entertaining.” Narrowing my eyes, I ask him what happened next. “Well, I helped you into the shower and stayed in the bathroom in case anything happened. Don’t worry, I didn’t stare even though you tried pulling me into the shower with you.”
I almost spit my tea out. “God, Grayson. I’m so sorry.”
He waves a hand around. “It’s fine. It was slightly annoying but funny.
” He’s being much nicer than usual. Grayson’s always been a good guy, but he’s showing much more kindness than his usual self.
“Then you ran around the apartment naked and wet. I chased after you, wrapped you in a towel, forced you to get dressed, and brushed your teeth. You finally calmed down when I laid down in bed with you, and we talked.”
I stop mid-chew. Oh no. Drunk me talks more than the already talkative sober me.
“What did I say?”
Grayson shifts his eyes to me and then down to his cup of coffee, takes a sip, and responds.
“That you’ve always been unlucky in love and want to find the person you want to spend the rest of your life with…
soon.” I close my eyes. What the hell was I thinking?
Technically, I wasn’t thinking at all. “Then I asked you if you had anyone in mind.”
My head snaps up. “And what did I answer with?”
Grayson sighs and puts his mug down. “You said, ‘No one that’s currently available.’”
I swallow the toast and take a sip of my ginger tea, feeling nerves building in my stomach.
“Grayson, I was drunk…”
“Drunk words are sober thoughts.” He raises both eyebrows, testing me.
My appetite vanishes with just one triangle of toast remaining, and I set the plate aside.
Looks like it’s time to tell him my sober thoughts. “Truth time?”
Grayson crosses a leg under his knee and faces me. “Shoot.”
I fold my hands together on my lap and breathe in and out, preparing myself.
“I grew up reading the greatest love stories of all time. The tragic, all-consuming, angst-filled, happily-ever-after, sexy romances, and since then, that’s what I’ve wanted for myself.
For my life. A love that consumes me, sex that fulfills all my fantasies, and a man who would get on his knees to beg for my forgiveness if the time ever came.
” I shrug. “What I feel for you is more than just sexual attraction. It’s exciting and overwhelming, but I don’t expect you to fulfill the ultimate romantic role in my life.
You asked me for time, and I’m granting it because I like you as a person and a friend.
Our sexual chemistry is also unmatched.” I exhale a deep breath.
“And yeah, I have a crush on you, just like you have one on me. If you didn’t, then you would’ve only asked for sex and not told me that you may see some sort of future with me. Am I wrong?”
Grayson’s body stiffens, and his eyes swim with a million emotions, none of which I can decipher.
His jaw twitches, and I wait patiently for his response.
I’m too tired to freak out over his silence.
The exhaustion from last night is finally hitting me, yet I feel a hundred times lighter than I have in months after telling him the whole truth.
“No, you aren’t wrong,” he whispers.
My stomach dips at his confirmation. One I expected, but it’s one thing to suspect and another to hear.
We stare at each other, vulnerability and heat hanging in the air between us. His jaw twitches once more before he lunges at me, causing me to lie on my back.
I gasp as his finger traces my face, and he breathes out my name like a prayer.
“Emma.” His forehead gently presses against mine.
“Grayson,” I repeat his name in the same tone, and his lips cover mine hungrily, in a way they never have before.
It’s not soft, it’s passionate—urgent and exploratory, and it takes my breath away. It’s as if he’s trying to swallow every sound and memorize every movement I make. He keeps his hands on my waist and my face, and although I feel him harden against me, he doesn’t take off any of my clothes.
Why is he kissing me this way? Is it his way of admitting he has a crush on me?
The dictionary defines a crush as an intense and usually fleeting infatuation, but I know that’s not what most people think of when they know they have a crush on someone.
This kiss feels different from a passing infatuation, it’s overwhelming everything in me.
The combination of forceful dominance and dreamy intimacy within it.
Instead of fireworks like our kisses usually give me, it hits something deep inside, and hummingbirds come to life.
Their quick wings beat, and the feeling makes me come alive, hitting something in my chest. A feeling that scares me, after what I just told him and admitted aloud for the first time.
His tongue dives deeper into my mouth, making us both moan, and my mind now focuses on how wet I’ve grown. His hands roam to my breasts, and he pinches a nipple, making my back arch. I push him as hard as possible until he’s sitting up to take his shirt off.
I come face-to-face with his tattoo of floating feathers and numbers that seem to be coordinates. I touch the tattoo, looking up at him.
“It’s the coordinates to the house I grew up in, and the feathers…”
Have something to do with his parents. I nod, understanding that the more we speak, the more the moment seems to fade.
He tucks his hand under my chin and lays me back down, kissing me passionately again, moving his hips and pressing his hard dick onto my pussy.
A moan slips out, and he whimpers again.
His whimpers are going to be the death of me.
Then my phone rings, completely killing the mood.
Grayson pulls his mouth away from mine, eyes wide with disbelief over what just happened. Confusion and awe are evident on his face, but they disappear in a second.
“You should get that.” He passes me my phone from the nightstand, and Levi’s name fills the screen.
“Emma! Fucking finally, dude,” he says before I get the chance to greet him.
I sit up, and Grayson shifts aside to let me. “What’s wrong?”
“What’s wrong is that Kamila is heading back to your guys’ suite from Cam’s room to get ready for the soup kitchen, which is in forty minutes. I covered for you, telling her you caught a ride with a friend from the paper you ran into at the party.”
I take a quick look at the time and see it’s nine a.m. “Fuck, okay, thank you. I’ll head back now.”
“Where are you? Who are you with? Are you okay?” He fires the questions at me as I stand and signal to Grayson that he needs to drive me back now.
“I’m fine, and I’m not far from campus.”
Levi groans, clearly irritated. “You owe me an explanation, Emma.”
“You’ll get it, Levi, but right now I need to go.” Grayson grabs a reusable bag, which I assume is full of my clothes, and then his car keys as I put on my cowboy boots over the sweatpants.
“Soon, Ems. Promise you’ll tell me what’s going on soon.”
Putting on my jacket, I look at Grayson, who is watching my phone tucked between my neck and shoulder. “Soon, I promise.”
We hang up, and I explain to Grayson a simplified version of what just happened. Five minutes later, I’m jumping out of his truck and running to my dorm room, praying that I beat Kami.
Unlocking the door, I call out her name, and when no one answers, I shake my boots off, quickly changing into my own pajamas just before Kamila walks in.
“Hey, are you feeling okay?” she asks, dressed in Cameron’s clothes.
I yawn and pretend like I just woke up. “Yeah. Hungover but okay.”
“Good. Are you gonna shower?”
“You go ahead. I already did last night.”