Chapter Twenty-Eight
America
I’m still damp and cold when we stumble into the hotel room, though Gray pumped up the heat in the car and gave me a spare suit jacket he had on the back of his seat.
I can’t shake how awful tonight was. With my arms wrapped around my midsection to hold the jacket closed, I can still feel Everett’s grip on me as he held me in place on his lap. I swear the ghost of his dick is haunting my thigh.
He came so close to taking more from me than I bargained for. My stomach gurgles its complaint of my behavior. Of my decisions that led to me being on his knee like that. Covering my mouth, I hide a burp.
I’m lucky it ended where it did. I’m happy. Gray wants me, and I want him. But it still happened. And I can still feel Everett touching me.
Gray’s phone vibrates. It did that the entire ride home. He only looked at it once before he turned the ringer to silent. It has to be his boss. His ex-boss now. How long will it take Everett to complain? Has he done so already? Or is Gray’s boss wanting to know what the hell happened to make him quit like that?
I can’t go to sleep in Gray’s arms feeling like this. Tainted. “Can I use your shower?”
“Yes. Of course.” He wraps an arm around my shoulders from behind and drops a kiss on the top of my head. He lets out a pensive breath before removing his arms. “Let me see about a fresh towel.”
“Thank you.” I follow him through the bedroom and wait while he makes sure there’s a towel for me.
Turning on the water, he checks the temperature to make sure it will be comfortable. “Call out if you need anything. I’ll be right outside.”
I put my hand on his chest to stop him from walking out. After tonight how can he possibly want to touch me? Yet, I can’t stand to be out of his arms. “What if I want you to stay?”
“I…” he glances around and then rests his hip against the bathroom counter, “…can be right here.”
“That’s not what I meant.” I want him. Not just to talk to. But as close as two people can get. I don’t want to feel Everett’s touch anymore. I don’t want him in my head. I don’t want any trace of that stupidity left on my soul. He never really wanted me and I… I don’t want that to be the thing that I’m feeling. That I’m thinking about. He doesn’t deserve my sadness or my time.
I can only imagine what Gray is thinking about what transpired. He grew quiet in the car. Thoughtful. Perhaps the reality that I’ve been with someone else—almost in front of him—sank in. “It’s okay. I get it. It’s going to take some time before you’ll want more than kissing.”
“That’s not it.” His voice is gruff. “Damn it. I was holding myself back when I was kissing you. Do you think I don’t know that you don’t have any panties under that skirt? Do you think I forgot that I watched you take them off? It’s branded in my fucking brain. The way he touched you is branded in my head, and all I want to do is make sure that the only touch you remember from tonight is mine.”
“Then why are you hesitating?”
“I don’t want to push you.” He walks a circle away from me, putting an arm’s length between us. “I don’t want you to feel like you have to do anything. After tonight I don’t want any of it to be because you think it’ll make you belong. You already do. If any part of you balks in anyway—”
I run and jump him. My hands around his neck, I crash my lips on his. “I will always want you. Have always wanted you. Ready is my perpetual state of being when it comes to you. If you need me to spell it out for you, Gray… Touch me, or I might die. Fuck me, or I might succumb to the darkest night. Fill me, or I might pass into the next life without ever having truly lived.”
“Poetic.” He holds me tightly. “And dramatic.”
“Shower.” I point over my shoulder at the glass door. “And I’ll suck your dick while you call me your dirty little cum slut.”
“Fucking hell, too far.” His reply is strangled.
I start to giggle. I can’t help it. Everything that happened tonight is too much. It’s all too much. My ribs start to ache. I can’t keep myself upright, I’m laughing so hard. I do the wrong thing, and I say the absolute worst things. No wonder I suck at relationships. Tears tip over my lashes. Stream down my cheeks.
Gray lowers me down his body. Holds me tight against his chest. His hand rests protectively on the back of my head as laughter melts into sobs. I cry until my head aches, and I have to gulp for oxygen. Then I cry some more.
Eventually the tears slow, and I settle. It’s longer still before speech comes back to me. “That was so not hot.”
“Oh, it was hot,” he says. “But I want no chance of you feeling bad about yourself tonight. So you’ll be my good girl. My sweet and filthy good girl, maybe. At most.”
“Oh, I like that one.” My eyes practically roll back in my head. The warmth that spreads through me is lovely.
“But we don’t need to go there. I can just hold you.” He lowers my feet to the tiles. His lips caress my ear as he parts the lapels of the jacket and slowly undresses me. Hooking his pinky under the strap of my bra, he lowers it from my shoulder. “After we’ve showered. Now be my good girl and unzip that skirt.”
I reach around and tug on the zipper, until my mini is loose and it easily glides over my hips. At the same time he unclasps my bra. Both end up in a pile on the floor.
I dig my fingers into the waist of his pants and yank him to me so that I can nibble on his lips again. He unbuttons them before breaking away to kick them off, revealing all those ridges and lines I find fascinating.
I turn around to climb into the shower while he removes his boxer briefs. He has his own hair care and body products on the shelf. They’re all lined up and equal distance apart. I grab the body wash, flip the lid, and squeeze so much into my palm that it runs off the sides.
I rub the whole lot between my legs until the suds make it look like I have a long, soapy merkin. It helps me feel better. It even makes me smile a bit. I’m about to spin around and show Gray when he growls.
“That asshole.” His fingers brush over the back of my hip.
The flesh is tender. My shoulders sag as I realize what this fresh burst of anger is about. Everett’s thumbs are imprinted on my skin on the front of my hips too. Just when I was starting to shake him off. “He bruised me.”
Gray falls to his knees. His fingers move to and fro over my flesh. “It’s going to take a while for these to fade. I’m so sorry I didn’t move quicker. I should have hit him harder.”
So much for showering to remove the stain of this night. “They’ll fade.” Eventually.
I step under the spray and let it wash my happy little merkin away. I’m used to my moods changing on a dime. Often with an intensity that leaves me breathless. Tonight I’m on a rollercoaster with no end in sight. Gray brings the heights. Only for me to spiral back into the depths. Sad is truly the last thing I want to be.
I close my eyes and will myself not to shed another tear. I only want to be happy. I have the man I have loved forever in the shower with me. I don’t want to dwell on what we went through to get here.
He presses his lips to one of the bruises and then pulls back. “Will you let me try something that might make a difference?”
“What?”
He sweeps his thumb over the tender flesh. “I can give you something else to think about while I camouflage them. That way until they fade, you’ll see the marks my mouth left on your skin instead of his fingerprints. You’ll think of us instead of him. Will you let me cover them?”
“Please.” I nod fervently.
He sucks an angry oval into his mouth, holds onto it long enough that it hurts.
But the ache is sweet, and it makes my clit pulse. My thighs tingle.
He does it again. Bringing a blush to my skin and changing what I’ll see when I catch glimpses of them in the mirror for the next few days.
He covers all eight of them on my back, before he turns me to face him. He presses his lips to my belly, breathes against my skin. “I’m so sorry.”
I tangle my fingers in his hair while he finishes bringing new color to my flesh. “Gray, I need you to touch me. I need your touch to be the only thing I can feel.”
He strokes his fingers up and down the inside of my thigh.
He turns his attention to the wetness between my legs. Puts his face so close to my pussy that I almost swoon when he doesn’t touch the tip of his tongue to my clit. “You can tell me no.”
“I’m the one who told you to touch me. Gray, I want you. This. Us.”
“I know, but if you change your mind—”
“I won’t.” I shake my head, eyes burning. He’s so sweet. So considerate.
Not many people would understand how caged I felt tonight. How I couldn’t see another way forward while we were in the moment. How my agreement was a wall I put up to protect myself because for some damn reason I don’t have the ability to say no, though I wish like hell that I did.
Gray saw it. He saw me. With him I get to feel seen. That’s always been something I love about him.
He keeps his gaze locked on mine as he leans in and licks me from entrance to clit. When I widen my stance without thinking about it, he says, “Good girl.”
I smile up into the spray, letting it pummel my face while he laps at every inch of my pussy. I could get used to his praise. It hits somewhere inside me that craves to be told that I’m not a complete screw up.
I go back to watching him as he adds two fingers to the mix. His blue eyes are heated as he finds my G-spot. His brow creased with concentration while he massages the sensitive area until an orgasm wells up inside me.
Continuing to massage, he flicks and sucks my clit at the same time. A secondary orgasm throbs through the sensitive little bundle. My knees wobble and I thrust out both hands to keep my balance as he makes me scream.
He laps at me until the pleasure dissipates. Turns his lips to each thigh and bites me gently before he rises to his full height. “Let’s finish getting you cleaned up so that I can take you to bed.”