28. Elliot
28
ELLIOT
I’m convinced one more lap across the room will wear a hole straight through the hotel carpet. I left Peaks half an hour ago, unable to continue sitting in the same room as Grady without looking at him.
I heard what they were saying when I walked up. Grady has feelings for someone he’s sleeping with. Someone who clearly isn’t me since he tried so hard not to have the conversation while I was there. We never talked about being exclusive, so I can’t be upset about that, but if he has feelings for someone, we need to stop doing this. I won’t be the other guy again. I won’t stand in the way of his feelings .
A soft knock draws me out of my head. That must be Grady. I didn’t say anything about him coming over after the awkward moment at the bar, but no one else would be knocking on my door. I trace the line I’ve been pacing to the entryway, but I don’t reach for the handle.
What are feelings , anyway? Feelings have such a broad scope they could mean anything. It doesn’t mean I can’t sleep with Grady one more time, does it? If he doesn’t say anything, it’s on him, not me.
I immediately hate myself for having that thought as I wrench open the door.
“Hi.”
“Hi,” I parrot back, unsure what else to say. Talking seems like a bad idea. Talking will lead to Grady telling me about this other guy he’s falling for, and I’ll have to admit Scott was right while eating cookie dough on the bathroom floor. Again .
I don’t want that, and I know how to avoid it. My fist closes around the front of Grady’s t-shirt, dragging him into the room. Our lips crash together before he can say anything else, cutting off whatever explanation he’s preparing to give.
Grady melts into me, his hands digging into my hair as he walks us backward. He stops long enough to engage the deadbolt on the door, and I use the momentary break to strip my shirt over my head. His eyes trace along my chest as I pull him into another kiss. No words, no thinking, just feeling .
We’re across the room before Grady manages to get his shirt off, and then we’re fumbling with each other’s jeans and kicking off our shoes before dropping onto my bed. He’s kissing me like this is the last time, and I hate it. I don’t want this to be goodbye.
“Fuck, Elliot, hang on?—”
“Please,” I shake my head, sliding one hand into the front of his underwear to run my fingers along his hardening cock. “I know, okay? I know, but I just...I want you to fuck me. Please, Grady.”
His forehead drops against mine, a deep breath whooshing out of his lungs. “Okay.”
That’s all it takes for the last of my conscience to shatter. Grady’s hands are on me, his mouth pressed to mine, and I do everything in my power to commit it to memory. The way his muscles feel beneath my hands. His hair gripped between my fingers as he kisses a path down my chest. His mouth around my cock, fingers buried in my ass as he hums deep in his throat.
Those soft blue eyes meeting my gaze at every turn.
“Grady,” I sigh, unsure what I’m asking for but knowing he’ll give it to me. “Please.”
“I’ve got you, Princess,” he promises, shuffling up the bed until his cock is pressed against my ass. “Breathe in for me, beautiful.”
My heart shudders in my chest as he presses forward, the stretch sending little shocks along my skin. “More,” I murmur, shifting my hips as much as I can while folded in half beneath him.
Grady nods, his lips brushing mine as he starts to move his hips back and forth. It’s slow, his hands running along every part of me he can reach as he fucks me into the mattress. It’s an eternity and no time at all for my orgasm to build to the point of no return.
“Grady.” I hate how soft my voice is—how close I sound to the brink of tears. I refuse to cry about this when I don’t even know if it’s goodbye.
“Come on, Elliot,” Grady presses the words into my neck, his teeth scraping against my collarbone as he drops kisses across my skin. “Come for me.”
It’s too soon, I’m not ready, but I couldn’t stop it if I tried. Pleasure simmers through my body, wave after wave of bliss followed immediately by a hollow sadness.
Grady follows me over the edge, catching his breath against my shoulder before getting up. I expect him to get dressed, but he disappears into the bathroom for a moment before returning with a washcloth. He silently cleans us both, his brow furrowed in concentration the entire time. After a long moment of watching each other, he drops the towel on the floor.
“Scoot over.”
Then he’s wrapped around me, his arms holding me to his chest as he pins my legs to the bed with one of his own. We’re cuddling. He’s curled around me under the shitty hotel comforter, and he seems perfectly content to be here. What kind of feelings can he have for someone else if he’s here cuddling me?
I fall asleep before I can work out the answer, and when I wake, Grady’s still there. He’s no longer draped around me like an octopus, but he isn’t far. His light blond hair is a golden mess in the early morning light, and his soft breathing keeps time as my thoughts run away.
A deep rumble of laughter breaks through the silence of the room. “I can hear you thinking, Elliot.”
“That’s not possible,” I murmur, burying my face into the pillow between us so he doesn’t smell my morning breath.
Grady smirks, his eyes still closed tight as his hand runs along the outside of my thigh. “Then how did I know you were awake?”
“You have one of those hyper-specific superpowers?”
“You’re more willing to believe I have a superpower that tells me when someone is awake than the fact that I might have heard you sighing and shifting around?”
“I was not sighing,” I groan, rolling away from him.
I don’t get far before a massive hand wraps around my waist, dragging me backward against Grady’s chest. “You were sighing, Princess. What’s wrong?”
“Should you?—”
A soft beep breaks through my question, followed immediately by the sound of the door trying to open. It doesn’t make it past the deadbolt, and I hear a soft curse from the hallway.
“ Shit, shit, shit, ” I hiss, jumping out of bed in a scramble to find Grady’s clothes. He chuckles when his jeans slap against his chest, and I turn angry eyes in his direction. “You think this is funny?”
My words are barely more than a whisper, but Grady hears them well enough to murmur a soft “yeah” around another laugh.
“Elliot?” Colton’s voice filters through the gap in the door. He sounds more curious than angry, but that does nothing to stop the panicked pounding of my heart. “Do you have someone in there?”
He sounds impressed, which is frankly a bit annoying. “Yes,” I call back, not thinking through my desire to shove that fact in his face.
“My bad, man,” Colton chuckles again, and I hear him shift on the other side of the door. “I’ll grab some breakfast. Do your thing, Puppy.”
I close my eyes at the ridiculous name, frustration growing in my chest. A hand wraps around my wrist as the front door clicks shut, a sharp yank dragging me back onto the bed. Grady’s eyes are shadowed by his pinched brows, but I don’t get a chance to ask what’s causing him to make that face before he pins me to the mattress beneath him. “Sounds like we have some time before he comes back.”
“Are you sure?—”
Grady’s phone vibrating distracts us both from what I’m about to ask. “Get here. Now,” is all I hear from the other end of the call before Steal hangs up. Grady gives me an apologetic look, his body still pinning me to the mattress.
“You’re coming to dinner tonight?”
“Of course,” I mumble, shuffling awkwardly beneath him. “If you want me there, I’ll be there.”
He nods, leaning forward to kiss my temple before jumping off the bed. He’s dressed and out the door in less than a minute, and I’m left staring after him with too many feelings swirling in my chest.
Twelve hours later, I’m standing in the lobby waiting for Grady to arrive. After the game, he texted me that he was hopping in the shower and would meet me here at eight.
GRADY
Theo said, “Wear something nice”, which could mean anything from a full tuxedo to jeans without holes, so interpret at will.
The lack of a tuxedo in my travel bag made that decision for me. I went with my nicest jeans, a dark green button-down, and the leather jacket I’ve been carrying around since Nell dug it out of the back of my closet.
I’m standing in the lobby, contemplating if I should have snuck out to buy a suit today when the elevator doors open. Grady is leaning on the back wall, his broad shoulders straining against the seams of a light blue button-down. The outfit he chose is similar to mine, minus the jacket, and I breathe a sigh of relief at the sight.
“You ready?”
“Yeah,” I nod, shuffling my feet as we turn toward the lobby doors. I half expect Grady to head downtown, but he directs me across the parking lot and into the passenger seat of an SUV. It’s completely blacked out, down to the stitching on the dark leather seats, and I frown at Grady as he gets into the driver’s seat. “Is this a rental?”
“No,” he shakes his head, turning in the seat as he reverses out of the spot. “It’s my brother’s. He insisted on dinner in a part of town that we wouldn’t want to have a rental in.”
That seems cryptic enough to require follow-up questions. “Is it dangerous?”
“In a way,” Grady admits, but he reaches for my hand across the center console. “We’ll be okay in this car, though.”
I want him to explain further, but I can’t get the questions out of my mouth as I stare at our entwined fingers. It’s a twenty-minute drive to the restaurant, and we spend most of it in silence. Grady’s nerves seem to be getting the better of him, his thumb rubbing rhythmically against the side of my finger.
“Are you alright?”
“Yeah,” he assures me, though his voice doesn’t sound as steady as I think he hopes. “I’m just...there’s something you need to know.”
“Okay?” Is he going to do this here? He’s going to tell me about the other guy before we go to dinner with his brother? And I just have to act like nothing’s wrong?
“My brother is,” he trails off, a serious expression pinching his brows together. “He works for some dangerous people.”
That isn’t what I expected at all. “Oh?”
“Yeah,” Grady’s fingers loosen around mine, and I quickly adjust my grip to hold his hand tighter. He gives me a small smile, but I can see the tension sitting around his eyes. “If anything happens, you need to listen to Theo. Whatever he says, you do it. Do you understand?”
“Of course,” I immediately agree, despite not understanding in the slightest. “Is there anything I can do to make this less dangerous for us?”
He’s quiet for a long moment before a soft laugh breaks free in his chest. “That’s such an Elliot question.”
“Well, I am Elliot,” I point out, unsure if that’s a compliment. “Is there anything I can do?”
“Yeah,” Grady pulls to a stop in front of a small restaurant. The moment the car is in park, two young men in all-black suits come through the door. Grady distracts me from watching the men by tilting my chin in his direction. “You can hold my hand.”
“That’s all?”
My door opens before Grady can say anything else. One young man ushers me from the vehicle as the other talks to Grady on the opposite side of the car. They seem to know one another, but the conversation is too quiet for me to hear what they’re saying. Grady grabs my hand the moment we’re in arm’s reach of one another, pulling me into his side and dropping a kiss on my temple.
I can’t figure out why he keeps touching me like this if he’s in love with someone else. Shouldn’t he be trying to put space between us so he can let me down easy, or whatever that ridiculous saying is? I’m not sure if it’s good or bad that there isn’t time for me to ask him these questions before we step through the front doors.
The restaurant is one large room with only ten tables spread across the space. Each is draped in black fabric, with dark red chairs that look far too comfortable for a restaurant dining room.
It’s a matter of seconds before I spot a man who can only be Theodore Grady, and it isn’t because he’s one of only two other people in the room. He looks exactly like my Grady. Theo’s light blond hair is shaved closer to his head, and a short beard covers the lower half of his face, but otherwise, they could be twins.
A beautiful woman stands at Theo’s side, long dark hair flowing in waves over her shoulders and blending into her jet-black dress. They look old money rich, standing in the middle of an empty restaurant at dinner time on a Friday night. The kind of old money rich that drips more blood than gold, and I suddenly realize what Grady meant when he said Theo works for “dangerous people”.
Grady’s older brother works for a mafia. An honest to God, “on this, the day of my daughter’s wedding”, Mafia .
“Matthew.”
“Theodore,” Grady smirks, pulling his brother into a hug. “This is excessive.”
“This is the pared-down version,” the woman snarks, rolling her eyes as she steps forward to hug Grady. “You should have seen what he wanted to do before I stepped in to stop him.”
“Helicopters?”
“You know it,” she says with a deadpan expression that makes Theo narrow his eyes at the two of them. It’s so similar to the playful glare Grady always gives Mills when he’s being a shit, and I almost laugh.
“It’s good to see you again, Charity.” Grady smiles at her as he reaches a hand behind his back, inviting me to step forward. “This is Elliot,” he grips my palm in his as he says my name, pulling me forward until I’m standing at his side. “Elliot, this is my brother Theo and the object of his obsession, Charity Lawson.”
“So, I’m the only one who didn’t know that was a thing, then?” Charity gives Theo a hard side-eye before turning her attention to me. “It’s very nice to meet you, Elliot.”
“You, too,” I murmur around the lump in my throat. She’s next-level beautiful, and it’s even more intimidating this close. I suddenly feel like the ugly duckling at a swan beauty pageant.
Theo steps forward, reaching out a hand with a raised eyebrow. For a moment, I think that brow is directed at me, and I’ve already managed to do something wrong, but he turns toward his brother with a smirk. “You have to let go of his hand, Matthew.”
Grady makes a noise as he unwinds our fingers, and I immediately reach out to shake his brother’s hand. “So, you’re Elliot.”
It isn’t a question so I’m not sure how to respond. “Yes?”
He turns toward Grady, that knowing brow raised again. “You gonna keep trying to lie to me, or…?”
“Fuck off,” Grady snorts, shoving his brother’s arm until our hands break apart. “Where are we sitting?”
Theo’s deep chuckle is so much like Grady’s that I nearly do a double-take. They walk toward a table in the center of the room, leaving Charity and I to follow behind them. Neither of us moves for a moment, and I realize she’s watching me with a curious look.
“Uh, should we?—”
“I’ve never seen Theo nervous before.”
“That’s him being nervous?” The words squeak out of me, and Charity smirks at my shocked expression.
“Yes, and it’s kind of adorable, but don’t tell him I said that.” She links her arm through mine, directing us toward the guys. “I think he’s afraid he’ll scare you off, and never hear from Matthew again.”
That makes me frown, our steps slowing to buy another moment outside their earshot. “I don’t have that kind of influence on Grady. We’re just friends.”
Charity’s eyes scan my face, an unreadable expression hidden in the rich honey color of her irises. “You actually believe that, don’t you?”
“Of course, I do.” I frown at her, a question forming on my lips before I have time to stop it. “Don’t you?”
“As the authority on being the object of a Grady man’s obsession,” she turns just enough to draw my attention to the men standing at the table. They’re both watching us, and it’s hard to spot the difference between the looks on their faces. “I have to disagree.”
Everything spins as I slip into the seat at Grady’s side, my mind moving a thousand miles an hour. What if I’ve been looking at this the wrong way? What if Grady does have feelings for someone he’s sleeping with...but that someone is me? Could Grady have feelings for me?
“Elliot?” Grady’s soft voice breaks through my thoughts, bringing me back to the present. “Are you okay?”
“I don’t think I’ve ever been better.”