Chapter 30
Sabrina
I smile through telling Zen that I have to go because my mom says Jitter has diarrhea, which I know they know is a lie.
Then I sneak out the back door without a word to Grandpa or Mimi, who are sitting at chairs at the desk in the kitchen, leaning in to each other and talking faster than I’ve heard Grandpa talk in ages.
It’s not fast —Grandpa doesn’t do anything fast, and I don’t think Mimi Cartwright does these days either—but it’s faster .
I catch phrases like three kids and favorite grandson and so hard to lose my sister .
Like they don’t want to waste a minute and they’re jumbling up every bit of catching up after nearly seventy years apart in half an hour.
Pretty sure they don’t even notice that I’m leaving.
I slip and almost wipe out on the icy asphalt, but I finally reach my car at the very, very, very back of the lot. Just as I’m sliding into the driver’s seat, though, the passenger’s side door opens, and Grey lets himself in.
My heart thumps in utter panic. My fight-or-flight instincts decide freeze is the way to go.
And then something even worse happens.
Two tears slide down my cheeks. “Go away.”
“You told me about your mom and your grandma so we’d be even when Mimi got here. So I could use it against you.”
“You’re very dumb for a mathematician.” He’s damn brilliant, and he doesn’t belong here.
Not because we don’t have smarty-pants residents, but because he’s not built to run a café or a kombucha bar. He’s built to solve puzzles and manage beehives and use that brain to fix the world’s problems.
Sometimes I feel like I barely know him, but other times I watch him staring down puzzles at one of the tables, or poring over blueprints, or just getting lost in thought, and I know— I know that he needs something bigger in life.
That he’s hurt right now. That the people who shouldn’t have let him down in his home life, in his work life, in his school life have all failed him.
He was in his mid-twenties when he invented a better cereal bag.
There is so much more that this man can do with his life. So many more contributions to the greater good of the entire world.
If only people would stop hurting him.
I want to be that person.
I want to be that person who shows him that there are people who want the best for him.
And for the first time in my life, I understand why people fall in love. Why they take the chance. Why it’s worth the risk.
I’ve spent my life mastering gossip to make the world a better place.
What if loving someone makes the world a better place?
“Sabrina.”
“Please go. I don’t want you to see me like this.” I don’t want you to be nice because that will be the final straw to make me believe in things that still terrify me.
He takes one of my hands in his, his long fingers wrapping around the back of my hand, his thumb brushing my skin, and I realize he’s not wearing a coat.
No coat. No gloves. No hat.
He didn’t stop to grab any of it before following me out here.
But his hand is warm, and his grip is firm in the best way, and just holding his hand is making my panic recede and my heart race for other reasons.
My nipples go erect.
My vagina finally pushes herself out of the steel box I’ve locked her in the past few weeks.
“He ultimately won’t care what you do to it,” I whisper. “Even if he loved parts of the café, this won’t hurt him the way you want it to.”
“He hurt you,” he says.
“He hurt Emma. He didn’t hurt me. He pissed me off.”
“He hurt you.”
“I’d have to care about him and his opinions for him to hurt me.”
“ Sabrina .”
I want to look at him, but I’m terrified of what I’ll see.
Kindness.
Empathy.
Understanding.
Grey, Super Vengeance Man , determined to tear my cousin limb from limb for putting my family’s café in danger.
Super Vengeance Man showing up to avenge my injury would be the worst.
The absolute worst.
“Please just tell me you hate me for calling your grandmother and that I’m fired and that you’re buying all of downtown so that if I never want to see you again, I’ll have to move.”
“Why do you want me to hate you?”
“Because I like you too much and that’s a bigger kind of scary than the size of my anger at Chandler.”
He doesn’t answer.
Not with words. But with his hands, he brushes his thumb over the skin on the back of my hand. His other hand oh-so-gently pushes my hair back over my shoulder, and then his fingers twist in my curls.
My breath catches. It feels like fairies are dancing across my scalp, little bits of pleasure radiating over my skin.
He lifts my hand to his mouth and presses his lips to my palm, and my stomach drops to sit on my thighs.
“I was ready to hire a private detective to track you down after Hawaii.” His voice is husky, deeper, his words slower, like the confession weighs more than his vocal cords can handle.
“Even after you disappeared. Even with the awkward flashing of the maid and the brush-off note. You were magic. You were this magical, sparkling, determined angel of a woman and I wanted to find what was wrong and fix it. And now I’m what’s wrong. ”
“You are not what’s wrong.”
“I am. Now I’m hurting you.”
“Your idea—what you want to do—it’s fun. It’s exciting. It’s new . The people here will love it in their own way.”
“You won’t.”
“I will. I’ll adapt. I’ll find a new purpose. It’s not about Bean & Nugget. It’s about Snaggletooth Creek. It’s about my community. I can—I can find it still. I just need to remember that.”
“Sabrina.” He kisses my palm again, his hot lips against my skin making my vagina ache.
“Please go back inside.”
“That’s what you want?”
“No.” Dammit .
I open my mouth to correct myself, to say what I should say, even if it’s a lie, but before a single sound can escape my lips, he’s brushing his against them.
And god , they feel good.
Like they were made for kissing me.
I squeeze his hand and hook my other hand behind his neck, pulling him in for a deeper kiss.
This isn’t what I should do, but it’s what I want .
I want this funny, intense, vulnerable man.
I want him to kiss me and come home with me.
I want him in my bed. I want to laugh with him over coffee and tea in the morning.
I want him to walk my dog with me. I want to show him my home, my town, all of it, and watch him fall in love with all of it the same way he fell in love with the view on our hike.
I want him to stare at me like he stared at the sunset.
I want to shield him from the people who hurt him and I want him to be the solid shield between me and the people who hurt me.
I deepen the kiss, leaning over the center console and into his space. A low, eager rumble in the back of his throat with his hands roaming lower down my back makes my vagina clench.
We’re in the far back of the lot.
Everyone else is inside.
No one will see us.
And that’s the thought process that has me climbing over the console and into his lap, where I’m squished between him and the dash.
He fumbles for the seat controls.
“Hands on me.” I lick his neck under his beard and reach for the switch. “Got this.”
“No interruptions.” God , that husky need in his voice.
It’s making my panties wet.
The seat whines and slowly, slowly, slowly slides back to give us more room.
He snort-giggles, and oh my café au lait , is it adorable.
How is he this sexy and irresistible despite everything ?
“Don’t do that,” I order.
“Do what?”
“Laugh.”
“You like it when I laugh.”
I shush him with my lips sealed over his, thrusting my tongue into his mouth until he makes that desperate rumble in his throat again. I shift in his lap so I’m straddling him and reaching down to recline the passenger seat at the same time.
We angle back sllllloooooooowwwwwwwllllly.
And now it’s me.
Now I’m kissing him and pawing at the buttons on his shirt with my free hand, and I’m the one snickering.
He snort-giggles again.
The seat millimeters back. It’s not even inching. It’s millimetering.
But then he slides his hand up under my skirt, and I’m not laughing anymore.
My breath catches.
The seat stops because I’ve lost control of my fingers.
All I can do is part my thighs wider while his hand explores my ass, teasing it lightly and then kneading it and then sneaking beneath my panties to touch my clit with his knuckle.
“Wait,” I make myself say.
He freezes.
I gulp in air and drop my head to his chest. We’re half-reclined and he has his hand inside my underwear and I don’t want him to stop.
But I need him to.
Just for a minute. “I don’t want the café.”
“Sabrina—”
I shift again, my eyes crossing as I brush my clit against his still hand, and I make myself look him straight in the eye.
“No. No . Listen to me. I can sleep with you, or I can fight you for Bean & Nugget, but I cannot do both and still live with myself. I want you. I want you . Home isn’t a building.
Home isn’t the past. Home is wherever you’re loved. That— this —it matters more. To me.”
He still has my pussy in his hand, still frozen.
“I will not hurt one more person in my life the way I hurt Emma,” I whisper, and my voice cracks.
I mean it.
The café is his. I’ll stand by his side and help him turn it into whatever he wants.
He’s trying to break free of all of the things in his past that hurt him, while I’m trying to cling to everything in my own past that brought me joy without challenging myself to reach deeper beyond what’s always come easy.
“I believe you.”
“ Why ?”
“Because I’ve watched you. I’ve studied you. I’ve tried to not like you, to not want you, but no matter what you do, no matter what you’ve done from the very first moment we met, I can’t help but have the utmost respect for you.”
“You’re supposed to tell me I’m an asshole and you know I’m using sex to try to get my café.”
“It’ll take more than sex to convince me to give you back your café.”
“ I don’t want it .”
He smiles.
The grumpy jerk smiles . “May I please move my hand now?”
“To do good or bad things with it?”
“Both?”
My vagina clenches again. “Can you do the good first?”
He crooks a finger between my thighs, sliding it from my clit to my vagina, and my eyes cross.
I whimper when he slips his finger inside me, rocking against his hand.
“This kind of good?” he murmurs while he fists my hair in his other hand and pulls me closer to lick my earlobe.
“More,” is all I can say.
“Like this?” He adds a second long finger, circling and spreading them inside me while I rock against him.
“Yes,” I pant. “Don’t—deserve— oh fuck right there .”
This isn’t right.
I shouldn’t be the only one feeling good right now. I should be undoing his pants. Stroking his magnificent cock. Licking his magnificent cock. Sucking on— “ Oh yes yes yes god yes please please aaaaaaaahhhhhhhh !”
Stars explode behind my eyes as I tumble over the edge and into the depths of a deliciously heady orgasm. My thighs clamp around his hand while sensations I haven’t felt since Hawaii rock me to my core.
“So damn beautiful,” he breathes, still teasing my climax higher.
“So good,” I pant through the absolute heaven that is Grey Cartwright’s fingers inside me.
And it’s not enough.
I lean forward and kiss him as the tremors leave my body, sucking on his lower lip, remembering I have two working hands and putting them to use on his pants. “Take my panties,” I order between kisses.
“Another pair?”
“ Oh my god , stop being more adorably funny.”
“Only if you quit being so damn sexy.”
This .
This is the man who crept under my skin in Hawaii. The man who made me feel like I’d be okay when I was sure I’d never be good for anyone again. The man who has been so hurt by so many people but is still willing to trust me.
I pop the button on his pants, reach inside to free his cock, then slide into the wheel well of my car so I have a better angle to lick that beautiful, thick, straining erection.
“Sabrina—”
I swirl my tongue around his head, and he cuts himself off with a strangled moan.
It’s cramped down here. I bang my elbow on the door when I grip the base of his penis and my other elbow on the gear shifter when I push myself up just far enough to suck his head into my mouth.
There’s barely room for my hips and my back is pressed to the dash, and he’s making the most incredible noises while I suck him deeper.
“ Sabrina ,” he gasps.
I roll my tongue up the underside of his cock, swirl it around his head again, and then take him to the back of my throat.
He gurgles something incoherent and fists my hair in his hands. I cup his balls and roll them together while his hips vibrate under my arm like he’s trying to hold back from thrusting into my mouth.
I suck.
I tease.
I love it .
Making him lose control, pleasuring him , treating him is making me ache to have him inside me again. I want him to play with my breasts and my pussy and kiss me until I can’t breathe.
I want him to fall asleep in my bed and wake me up by pinching my nipples and then take me from behind. I want to sit in his lap and feed him scones for breakfast and then I want him to carry me back to bed.
I want to walk Jitter with him.
I want to have snowball fights with him.
I want to take him to Marmot Cliff and show him the stars on a moonless night.
I just want. Him . I want him in a way that I know is so dangerous, but also so right .
His grip tightens in my hair. “Can’t—hold—Sabrina—I’m?—”
I tease his balls and rub my tongue along the underside of his cock once more, and it suddenly spasms as he comes down my throat with a moan of utter pleasure.
So. Much. This .
The two of us. Laughing. Arguing. Making up.
I am so head over heels for this man.
“Sabrina,” he pants as his body sags.
I let his softening cock go, pressing a kiss to the tip before attempting to climb out of the wheel well. “So, you wanna come sleep on my side of the wall tonight?” I ask.
“No.”
Everything inside me goes still with fear. “N-no?”
“I want to stay awake on your side of the wall all night.”
Tears hit the backside of my eyelids. “You are such a goof.”
“You like that.”
“I do.”
He’s falling asleep in my passenger seat. So much so, in fact, that he merely murmurs a soft mm when I tuck him back into his boxer shorts.
It’s impossible to suppress a smile at the sight of him so relaxed.
Almost as impossible as climbing back out of the wheel well.
And that task proves so very difficult that I ultimately end up tumbling out of the side of the car when Grey finally stirs enough to realize what’s wrong and help me out.
Worth it, though.
Especially once we get back to my house.