Eliza
My head spins as the truck rumbles through Garnet Shores’ quiet, low-lit streets.
It isn’t from the wine.
Anson Gold just offered me a full-time job.
One that comes with a promotion and a leadership position.
And instead of saying an eloquent This sounds like an incredible opportunity, and I appreciate the consideration, I sat there like an electrified fish before stuttering an awkward collection of syllables.
I think I redeemed myself when I debated the efficacy of data-driven personalization with Anson, and he didn’t rescind the offer before we left, but still, it wasn’t my finest moment.
Grayson sits quietly beside me, both hands on the wheel, his posture unusually tense. He hasn’t said a word since we closed ourselves in the truck ten minutes ago.
“Did you know?” I ask into the silence.
He glances over. “That he’d offer you a job?” When I nod, he responds with a grim-sounding, “No.”
So he’s upset. At Anson, for not telling him? Or at the possibility that I might stay?
I replay our earlier exchange.
Is that your type?
No.
You are.
His confession threw me for a giant, rollercoaster-sized loop. Unspoken tension—this quiet, torturous attraction—was one thing. But speaking it out loud made it…real. Actionable. Showed me that his neurons are just as lit up for me as mine are for him, and they’re done trying to deny it.
Yet here he is, stiff as a board, fingers tight around the wheel like the worn leather is all that’s keeping him from losing it.
“The wine was delicious,” I say, wading into safer territory.
“It was.”
I try for a joke. “Your brother’s risotto makes my chicken look like cheap takeout.”
“No, it doesn’t.”
Oookay, then.
The truck bounces as we enter his driveway. When I open my door, the shadowed woods around his property sing with crickets and cicadas that haven’t gotten the message about strangely moody Grayson.
And I can’t stand moody Grayson, so I take a page out of their book and keep talking. “I’ll be up and out early tomorrow morning to go for a swim.”
This one, Grayson acknowledges with a flick of his eyes, but then he leads the way to the front door without a word.
To hell with dancing on eggshells. “Did I do something wrong?”
“No.” He unlocks the door, swings it open, and holds it for me to enter first.
“Did your brother?”
“This isn’t about my brother.”
Entirely confused, I brush past him, trying to read whatever’s in his eyes and finding them too shadowed to discern.
“Then why are you upset?”
He follows me inside and closes the door, flicking the low entry light on. Every plane of his face is pulled taut as he says, “You’re misreading me.”
“What should I be reading?”
Instead of answering, his gaze leaves mine, dragging down to my lips. Pausing there, then descending my neck to the lines of my collarbone and thin straps of my dress. He’s three feet away, stock-still except for his roving eyes, but every nerve ending he scans goes sharp with keen awareness.
Those honeyed eyes drag back up, slow and deliberate, before gripping mine.
Now, in the soft glow of the entry light, I can see the intent in them. The ardent, single-minded focus as he disregards my question and asks, “Are you at least considering the job?”
The gravelly edge to his voice, the stiff stillness of his body, gives his question an uncompromising weight it wouldn’t otherwise have. Like the words yes and no stand at the edge of a cliff, each one with the power to tip some invisible scale.
Or break it altogether.
Which is why, as my response forms in my mind, I take a single, small step toward him. It’s maybe ten inches, but with the way my pulse kickstarts, I might as well be hurdling across a ravine. Landing somewhere I can’t return from.
It’s there that I say, “Yes.”
His nostrils flare, and his eyes roam again, following the same path they’ve already blazed. Except this time, they don’t return to their starting point.
They stop on my lips.
With utter decisiveness, he grinds out, “Fuck it. That’s good enough for me.”
And like an animal finally released from its cage, he erupts.
His mouth crashes into mine, arms scooping around my back and hauling me against his hard body. There’s no pretense. No slow seduction like the beach. It’s feverish, almost jarring in its intensity, his tongue pressing against mine as he kisses me.
But kiss is inadequate.
It’s consuming. Unapologetic. Needy. Like I’m oxygen, and he’s held his breath for far too long, denying himself what he aches for.
His fingers tighten and the room spins, the hard wood of the door meeting my back. One hand cushions my head and stays there, bracing me as he increases the pressure, demanding more. He tastes of wine and man and heady desire, and I moan into his mouth, drowning in it all.
There’s firm pressure on my ass, a broad hand, and a bolt of need shoots to my clit. He uses his grip to press himself into me, his erection grinding into my lower belly, and just like on the beach, I’m fucking finished in a shameful amount of time.
Doesn’t matter that it’s been thirty seconds. That we’re dressed. Grayson is the storm, I’ve been dropped into the eye, and this isn’t ending without him absolutely wrecking me.
I start hiking up my dress, needing more. Needing what only teased me at the Secret Spot.
“Quack.”
I freeze.
My lips are wet and swollen as Grayson breaks away, searching for the source of our interruption. His hands stay where they are, his body glued to mine, but panic rides me hard. “Please, don’t stop,” I breathe.
The plea is unnecessary, because Grayson’s already moving. His other hand lands on my ass and lifts. My legs wrap around his waist, and we move through the house, his pace steady but urgent. A man set on his intent.
It sends my already-buzzing hormones into goddamn orbit.
Never in my life have I been carried to a bedroom like this, and oh my gosh, it has to be the hands-down hottest thing in the world.
I nibble at his neck, nuzzling into his heat, the musk of his skin. I need a car air freshener that smells like this. We pass through a doorway, and I lift my head to take in Grayson’s room bathed in a soft light. There’s a plain oak bureau. A few picture frames. Cream walls.
He kicks the door closed, and the snick of the latch slices through the room, as decisive as a gavel. Some kind of decree that all pretenses are over. He wants me, I want him, and neither of us are leaving this room without giving in to it.
It must strike him the same way, because some of his urgency dissipates as he carries me to the bed and lowers me onto the neat navy comforter. I prop myself on my elbows, knees open in invitation, wanting all that urgency back. Wanting him to jump my bones and break this bed.
Instead, he slows down even more—to a freaking stand-still—standing over me at the edge of the mattress.
He cocks his head, lips quirking with intrigue. “That’s the first time you’ve said please.”
Does that really matter right now? “Didn’t realize you were keeping track.”
His hands travel to my knees, leaning on them. “I pay very close attention to everything that comes out of your mouth.”
Knees. What an unsexy part of the body. But the heat of his sprawling grip has my pulse thrumming impatiently.
He applies pressure to his right hand, and that knee straight-up swoons, falling open like an automatic door. That hand slowly slides up my bare thigh, pushing the hem of my dress up with it, as he drawls, “All those insults. All those clever quips. A please stands out.”
His fingers stop mid-way up my thigh before he shoves my left knee open, his left hand now beginning its unhurried crawl up my leg.
“Since you like it so much, let me give you another.” My voice trembles in time with my thighs. “Please stop stalling and show me you know how to fuck a woman.”
All his forward momentum stops—the exact opposite of my request. “Did I leave any room for doubt on the beach?”
I lick my lips, drawing his attention there. “On the beach, you had the help of an aphrodisiac. Who knows if you can do it without one?”
A lazy, smoky chuckle comes from deep in his chest. “You and that smart mouth. Never stops, does it?”
“Never.”
Whiskey eyes blaze brighter. “I don’t think that’s true.”
In one smooth motion, he levers up and pulls his shirt off. Then, with the efficiency of a man who works with his hands all day, he jerks my dress to my waist, lifts my back, and slides it up over my head.
There’s no shame in the way he looks his fill, pausing on my bare breasts and panties. My chest is small, my underwear a plain and utilitarian black. But when he gruffly mutters, “Yeah, I’m a fucking goner,” any doubts about whether he likes what he sees begin to scatter.
And when he grips my ribs and plops me further back on the bed like I’m an empty oyster cage, those doubts completely snuff out.
Because I’m keenly aware of how he’s handling me. The way he’s used his strength to put me right where he wants me since we started this at the entryway. No hesitations. No guessing.
It might be the biggest turn-on of the century. Worthy of the history books. At least five chapters in my autobiographyyy—
He drags a knuckle up my seam through my damp panties. “Let’s see how smart that tongue is while I fuck you.” He punctuates it with another pass of his knuckle, and my entire body jolts. Rough fingertips hook inside my waistband. “That a yes?”
It’s an If you don’t insert your cock into my vagina right now, I’ll combust.
I nod shakily.
“Already out of words, and I haven’t even filled you yet,” he teases, removing my panties with an efficient jerk. “A little disappointing, Boston.”
His playfulness gets my neurons firing again. “Wouldn’t want to crush your ego so early in the game, Grayson.”
“Early?” he repeats, shoving out of his pants, his boxers going with it. His cock juts out from a neat nest of dark hair, thick and long and erotic as hell. “You think this is early in the game?”
Yes. No. I don’t even know, because my heartbeat ratchets to its highest gear as he leans toward his nightstand, retrieves a condom, and tears it open with his teeth.
Turns out I don’t need an answer, because as he kneels before me and rolls the condom on, he corrects, “Baby, we’ve been playing this game since I found your sweet little ass in my office, and you leaned back on that desk like you own it, and effectively told me to fuck off.
” He lowers toward me, one hand bracing beside my body, the other gripping my hip as his blunt tip teases my opening.
“But now? The game’s done.” All his momentum pauses, his only movement his chest brushing my breasts and his eyes, flicking between mine. “We aren’t playing it anymore. Are we?”
“No, we’re not,” I whisper. Honestly. Easily.
His throat bobs, and he drops his head to kiss me—a short, sweet press of his lips that spears right into my chest.
Then he pulls back and thrusts. All the way in.
Oh my—
A primal groan spirals out of my chest, like his dick just punched the sound out of me.
Is that even anatomically possible? I’m entirely full, stretched around him, aching with the abrupt invasion, reveling in the rawness of it all.
My fingers dig into his solid chest, having flown there at some point.
“Thatta girl, squeezing me so damn well.” The words are near-pained grunts, his eyes squeezed shut, that sinewed arm braced at my side trembling with restraint.
He retreats and thrusts deeply again. Another moan escapes me, and his eyes flash open. “Yeah,” he drawls, pulling out, then thrusting in again. “You’ve got no words.”
No, I don’t.
I clamp my mouth shut, holding the next cry in as he thrusts again, and again, his hand on my hip ensuring I meet every plunge.
“No, gorgeous,” he pants, moving in a steady rhythm now, pleasure stacking with each deep drag of his cock. His hand leaves my hip to cup my cheek. A stern thumb shoves into the corner of my mouth, urging my mouth open and staying there. “I’m gonna hear every pretty, nonsense sound you make.”
Those rough words alone yank another moan from me, and then my eyes close, my body lost to the feel of him, mouth braced open under his hand as he increases his speed. His breath pants out in a fast staccato, laced with low curses and grunts that prove he’s just as undone as me.
Without warning, that hand jerks out of my mouth and targets my clit. Twists. Presses. His sweaty forehead falls into my chest, hot breaths sweeping across my skin as he locks in, and I’m enveloped in the heat of him when the orgasm sweeps through me.
Spasming around him, I cry out. He removes his hand, hips now jerking wildly as he works for his own release. A few more seconds, and he’s coming, the muscles of his shoulders twitching as his tempo slows, then stops altogether.
Our heavy breaths mingle in the air, my chest heaving beneath his forehead, still pressed between my breasts. His sturdy body is a heavy, heated weight on my torso, comforting and soothing as my body finds its equilibrium.
When he finally lifts his head, pure male satisfaction colors his golden gaze.
I wait for that satisfaction to morph into regret. Pray that it doesn’t, because I don’t think I could recover.
But all that gaze does is shift to my breasts, which are right in front of his face. “Didn’t get to enjoy these as much as I’d like,” he says quietly, kissing the curve of each one before extricating himself from me.
“Maybe I’ll give you another opportunity.”
He glances down at me, star-fished out on the bed. With a knowing hitch in his cheek, he says, “No need to include the maybe.”
I should have some witty reply, but I don’t, because he’s right.
He’s about to have plenty more opportunities—endless opportunities.
Until you leave.
No—if I leave.
Because now, returning to the city, leaving Garnet Shores, is no longer my only realistic option.
And when a gloriously naked, half-hard Grayson returns from the bathroom with a damp washcloth and proceeds to wordlessly clean between my thighs, I let myself lean in to the possibility of staying here, even though I haven’t made up my mind, haven’t even started to unpack the pros and cons and long-term outlooks of each potential path.
Grayson closes the lights, rejoins me in bed, and tugs me back to curl around me, and my brain turns into straight-up happy mush as he kisses the back of my neck and says, “For the record, Eliza, I love every single word that comes out of that smart mouth.”