Chapter 13 #2
A quick check of the time confirms it’s late enough that Grady should be finished with work, or be close to it. I’m done for the day; I have a fiancé to smack in the head and kiss senseless.
A strange mixture of relief and anxiety swirls in my gut at the sight of Grady’s car in the driveway.
He’s home.
Guess we’re getting this over with, then. Good. I hate leaving things to grow and get out of control. Except he’s not in the living room, or our bedroom, or our still kind-of, mostly deconstructed bathroom, or the kitchen.
The sound of Hades barking outside takes me to the back door, and I finally spot Grady, kneeling on one knee and throwing the ball for our dog.
Grady looks up and smiles in a way that normally makes my heart beat faster and my palms sweaty. Okay, maybe it’s still doing that. But also, we have very important things to talk about, and sex is off the table until this is sorted out. No distracting me with all his hotness.
His smile falters as I approach. “Lake?”
Putting my hands on my hips, I try to give him my best reproachful look. “Why didn’t you tell me that it bothered you that I was having coffee with Sadie?”
There. Out in the open, ripping it off like a Band-Aid.
Grady freezes, ball in hand. Hades gets impatient and lunges for it, easily taking it from him. He trots away victorious, tail wagging high.
“Lake—”
“If I’d known, I would never have gone!”
“Which is why I didn’t say anything.”
I love this man so much, but damn, he can be infuriating. “That’s the stupidest thing that I’ve ever heard.”
“I trust you.”
“And what, you had to prove it?” I burst out.
Zach’s words haunted me the entire drive home.
They’re still haunting me. But it might still hurt.
The last thing that I ever want to do is to hurt Grady.
I simply hadn’t known, and maybe that’s na?ve of me, but I grew up in a household that always talked about feelings and aired bad blood immediately instead of letting it fester.
Honest to a fault, with a freedom that allowed for grievances to be aired and wings to spread.
Avery and I always knew that we could be honest with our feelings, and that we wouldn’t be shamed for them.
It allowed our wounds to be torn open so they could heal.
I need Grady to be honest with me, so that I don’t hurt him. I need him to help me with that.
Grady stands and wipes his hands on his pants. “I have no right to tell you that you can’t see a friend of yours. I’m not in charge of you.”
“That doesn’t mean I don’t want to know if something upsets you!
” I want to shake him as much as I want to kiss him.
“Wouldn’t you want me to tell you? The decision about what to do with that afterwards is yours.
In this case, it should have been mine.” My voice is elevating, and I can’t seem to make it stop.
I hurt him, and now I’m hurting. Wrapping my arms around myself doesn’t help.
I should have been given the opportunity to make it right, to choose what to do given all the facts.
Grady trails the pads of his fingers down my cheek and tips my chin up. “Lake, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to take the decision from you. It wasn’t like that.” When he reaches for me, tugging me against him, I let him.
“You’re all I want, Grady,” I mumble against his chest. He smells nice. When I tug at his buttons, he helps until my cheek is against warm skin. Better.
“What you had with her…” Grady trails off, like he isn’t sure what he wants to say. I don’t care what he’s going to say. All of it will be wrong.
“It’s in the past, where it’ll stay. Even if we ignore the fact that both of us are getting married to other people, she chose her career, and Grady, I choose you.
Always. Every time.” Leaning back and fisting my hands in his collar, I force him to look down at me.
“When she left, I let her go. I didn’t even try to fight for her.
If you left? I would follow you to the ends of the Earth.
If you had some career opportunity in fucking Spain, I would pack up everything and go with you.
It doesn’t matter what I had with Sadie, because what you and I have is incomparable. ”
Grady’s throat works, his eyes darkening.
Then his lips are on mine, and thought disappears on the wind.
Fuck, nothing feels the way Grady’s kisses do.
Nothing. Incomparable is such a good word when describing this man.
He uses the perfect amounts of teeth and tongue, and butterflies dance in my stomach, like they’re having a party in there.
The focus and intensity of his attention is unlike anything I’ve ever experienced before.
Not even the world burning could pull me away from him.
“If something upsets you,” I whisper dazedly, trying to recapture the conversation when he lifts his head from mine, “I need to know. We’re partners, and we have to talk about it. Don’t shut me out. Please.”
“You’re right.” He kisses the corner of my mouth, cradling my face in his large hands. “I’m sorry. The idea of you being anywhere near someone that you used to love drives me insane,” he admits. “I’m so afraid of losing you.”
Now my heart is thumping for an entirely different reason.
“I wasn’t in love with her.” Not if this, what I feel now for Grady, is real love.
No one has ever come close. “And you’ll never lose me.
I promise you that there’s nothing you could do that would make me leave you.
” I pause. “Unless you take away my nachos and strawberry-glazed donuts.”
“And suddenly, there are stipulations,” Grady says with a dry chuckle.
“Food is serious business.” Especially food that can be eaten straight from Grady’s dick.
He kisses me again, and I can feel his smile against my lips. My brain melts out of my ears, and I drag him inside, determined to have my wicked way with him now that we’ve sorted this all out.