Chapter 34
When Madeline showed up at Grant’s tiny house with a bottle of wine a little after eight, he opened the door to her before she even knocked.
“You knew I was coming, didn’t you?”
He shrugged, his eyes as warm and blue as that beautiful sparkling lake they’d visited together that summer. “Let’s just say I hoped.”
Grover wagged his whole body in a stiff but happy hello—then side-eyed them as if suddenly feeling awkward and ambled off the porch to lie down beneath a nearby tree.
“See? Even Grover knows I want alone time!”
Grant’s eyebrows lifted. “As in . . . alone-alone time? In that case, what are we standing around for? Come on in.” He made a large, welcoming sweeping gesture.
Madeline laughed and obligingly entered but grumbled, “Alone-alone. You are starting to talk like me.”
“For a while now,” Grant agreed. “But it’s not so bad.
After all, I fantasize about us growing seriously old together.
We’ll sit on the porch, day in and day out, with our ten dogs and one cat—just one.
We’ll drink spiked tea and laugh a lot—but we’ll never talk because we don’t just finish each other’s sentences, we already know what the other person’s going to say before they say it. ”
“Your fantasies need a lot of help, Grant.”
“True,” he said, mock sorrowfully. “You really have your work cut out for you. We should get started now.”
“That comment shouldn’t be at all hot or cute.”
“Shouldn’t be . . . but was it?”
Madeline shook her head, smiling.
“No?” The timbre of Grant’s voice changed. “How about this?”
One minute, Madeline was standing in his cute little home, making—and fielding—lame jokes, which she loved, but still . . .
The next, the bottle of wine she was holding was spirited away, and Grant had lifted and deposited her on his granite-topped island.
His body was wedged between her thighs, his hands were on her hips, kneading her buttocks, and although the moment was super quick and nothing had even happened yet, Madeline could hardly breathe for wanting.
She undid his flannel button-down shirt, exposing his chest and a treasure trail of fur that started at his navel and disappeared into the waistband of his jeans. His nipples, dark as plums, hardened as the air hit them.
He must’ve felt fair was only fair because he made quick work of her shirt too.
Madeline’s skin was burning—no hot flash necessary—and when his eyes widened at the sight of her satin-encased breasts, all her nerve endings tingled.
Releasing her breasts from their confines, he held them for a moment, just admiring them.
Then he gently brushed her nipples—and then not-so-gently rubbed them until they were as erect as his. Her insides turned to molten lava.
“It is like riding a bike,” Madeline whispered joyfully without meaning to.
“I had a BMX. I could do amazing jumps with it,” Grant whispered back, equally nonsensically, then lowered his mouth to kiss her.