Chapter 25
Twenty-Five
Gray
One second, I’m in fucking heaven.
The next, the nightmare that’s my life has reemerged.
“Get up,” I order, levering myself off Faye and yanking up my sweats.
Her head is turned away from mine, cheeks flushed in what, minutes ago, I would have said was because she was aroused.
Now…it’s embarrassment.
And horror.
Because Courtney is watching us through my fucking window, pounding on the glass like a lunatic.
“Red,” I say more sharply. “Get up.”
Faye’s gaze jerks to mine, but she still doesn’t move. So, I scoop her up, cradling her against me as I stride from the room, ignoring the total disaster I’ve—and then later we—made of the space. Mostly because the total disaster that is my life has shown up.
Just when I was starting to think things could be different…
Courtney fucking reappears.
And if that isn’t fate reminding me I shouldn’t be doing this with Faye then I don’t know what is.
“Gray,” she whispers and I clench my jaw as I move down the hall to the guest bedroom, not wanting to feel her gentle hand on my cheek, the soft stroke of her fingers down my chest. “It’s okay.”
I shove into the guest bedroom, move straight through it, not stopping until we’re in the attached bathroom.
Setting her on her feet, I crank on the shower.
“Wash up,” I order.
Because she’s covered in banana bread detritus.
But also so the sound of the water will hopefully drown out Courtney’s screaming.
I turn and walk away from Faye, hating that mere minutes ago I was planning on taking her to my room, on slowly washing every inch of her body…then tasting her until I accepted the challenge of making her come on my cock again.
That’s not going to happen.
Because of fucking Courtney.
“Gray.”
I flinch. God, why does my name on her tongue feel like torture now?
A reminder of what I can’t have.
Because, fuck, I can’t have it.
“Shower, Red.”
She slips in front of me, her hands settling on my chest, eyes coming to mine. I can’t read what’s in them, except that maybe there’s a flicker of humor in the brown depths. “So many orders,” she says lightly.
Despite the shit-show outside, I chuckle. “Clean up, baby. I’ll deal with her and be right back.”
She winces.
“It’s okay,” I say. “I’m used to Courtney’s shit.”
“No”—she touches my jaw—“it’s just…I need to talk to you about that.”
“Why?”
“Well, she called last night and…” Faye tells me about their conversation. “I was going to warn you when you got home but I guess I fell asleep and then this morning well…”
Our time in the kitchen.
Well, yeah, we’d both been a little otherwise occupied.
“I’m sorry,” she whispers. “I should—”
“Don’t apologize.” I settle my forehead on hers. “How could you know she’d go nuts?”
“Because she acted insane on the phone?” she asks. “And because you told me about her. So, I’m sorry, honey. I—”
The doorbell goes.
I start to pull back. “I should—”
“Stay,” she says, one hand lifting, settling on my jaw. Flour still dusts her hair, like the universe is giving me proof that what just happened between us was real.
And God, I want that.
But there’s knocking and the doorbell going incessantly and every time I’ve tried to ignore Courtney into submission, she’s just gotten more determined, more insane, more nightmarish.
“Stay,” Faye says again, stepping close, her body going flush to mine. “Shower with me.”
There’s a thud and she jumps.
I start to pull back. “I need to take care of—”
“Gray,” she says more firmly, perhaps even bordering on order territory.
“Red,” I warn.
She steps back, shimmies out of her tank top that was still bunched around her middle.
And fuck, the shimmy does all sorts of glorious things to her tits.
“Stay with me. Stay in this moment. I haven’t had too many good ones in the last few years and I’m thinking you haven’t either.” She takes my hand as I’m reeling from the truth of that, from what I’ve been too much of a coward to admit.
I’m lonely.
“Don’t let her take it from you. From us.”
And how can I possibly deny her that? Especially when I want it so badly.
So, I ignore the doorbell that’s still ringing and allow her to pull me toward the shower stall.
And I think…
Maybe it might be my best decision ever.
“Taste,” Faye murmurs much later in the day, the kitchen now filled with the smell of delicious banana bread and not burned loaves and spoiled milk and whatever nonsense I’d conjured up this morning.
It’s also clean.
Neat as a pin.
Something I insisted Faye didn’t have to help me with after I’d taken on the challenge of pleasuring her in the shower.
(And accomplishing that twice).
But she had helped me and together it hadn’t taken too long.
Then we used one of the recipes I found, one that Faye thought might be closest to her Nana’s recipe to bake up the batch she’s just pulled out of the oven.
“Taste,” she says again, holding the piece she’s sliced off up to my lips.
I snag her wrist, press a kiss to the inside of it and eat the proffered chunk.
“Delicious,” I tell her after I’ve chewed and swallowed. “Almost like Nana’s?”
She flinches slightly before forcing a smile on her face. A smile I hate. Because it’s fake. Because it’s not Faye’s.
Because I don’t like that I’ve hurt her.
“We don’t have to talk about it,” I say, smoothing back her hair. “I didn’t mean to poke a sore spot.”
“It’s not a sore spot.”
“You flinched.”
A sigh. “You’re right,” she says. “I miss her and I wish she was here and I hate—” A jerky nod to the window, to the remains of her house on the other side of it a painful reminder. “I hate that I lost what I had left of her, of them.”
“I’m so sorry, Red.” I draw her close, smoothing a hand down her spine, yet even as I do that, my eyes are searching for any sign of Courtney coming back.
Because by the time we made it out of the shower, she was gone.
Nothing left behind aside from fingerprints on the glass and scuff marks on the front door from her trying to kick it in.
And how long before she’s back?
Before she’s doing worse than knocking on windows and trying to kick in doors?
Faye’s next words are as though she’s read those exact thoughts ping-ponging through my brain. “About this morning…”
I tense.
She leans back. “You were going to tell me what happened between us was a mistake, weren’t you?”
I force myself to continue looking at her.
And a second after meeting my gaze she nods, whispers, “Yeah, that’s what I thought.”
“Red—”
Pulling from my arms, she slices off a piece of bread and passes it to me, another for herself then bites off a hunk of hers.
“I get it,” she says. “The urge to run, to stop this before…” She exhales.
“Before I get too attached.” She shoves the rest of the slice in her mouth, chews, and swallows.
“And maybe that would be smarter, safer, especially since we hardly know each other.” Her voice drops.
“But every time I think about walking away…”
“What?” I rasp.
“I’ve written almost fifty books,” she murmurs after a long moment.
“And in every single one of them, there has been this exact moment—the past wanting to tear my heroes apart, coaxing them into remaining exactly as they were because the possibility of a beautiful future, of changing and growing and being vulnerable with a person—no with the person—who can hurt them most deeply is absolutely terrifying.”
My pulse speeds, fingers tightening into fists.
“And even after fifty books, I don’t think I’ve captivated that terror properly,” she whispers.
“Because living it”—her gaze comes to mine—“even thinking about the possibility of having it is…” A shake of her head.
“I don’t know if I have a word for it that’s more intense than terror.
” She takes a breath. “Because that’s what it is. ”
A beat.
“Abject terror.”