Chapter 22 Grayson
GRAYSON
Climbing the stairs back to Alessandra, he felt lighter. Purposeful. Now that he’d settled the problem, Grayson had a question or two for his Lexi. It never occurred to him that she would leave. He’d specifically told her not to.
After knocking on the restroom door to make sure she wasn’t there, he stalked back to the couch and sat down with his phone, intent on being furious. As her number rang, his eye caught on the cheesecake box. One word was scrawled across the top - ROOF.
He tilted up the lid to see how much she’d eaten - and blinked at what was left of the cheesecake.
Lexi had eaten through the middle of each piece.
Some chunks large, some small, and he had to close the box again to get the mess out of his sight.
Are you OCD, she’d asked him. He walked up to the roof shaking his head.
A jacket would have helped, he realized after he opened the roof door into a gust of wind.
At the sound of the door, a pair of dark eyes turned to watch him approach.
Lexi sat bundled inside two blankets on a chaise.
He noticed she was on the same chair they’d watched the sunrise on. It felt like such a long time ago.
“I thought I asked you to stay put,” Grayson said once he was next to her. He tucked his hands into his pockets against the cold.
“I’m still here, aren’t I?” she asked.
“You’re not where I left you,” he pointed out.
“Yeah, well, since I’m not an inanimate object, I get to use these leg things to walk around.”
Grayson blew out a sigh and decided to let it go. He had more important things on his mind. But first-
“Aren’t you cold?”
Lexi shrugged. From inside her blanket ball, only her face was visible. He decided not to tell her she looked adorable.
“Not really,” she said, and shifted inside the blankets, bringing out one of his mugs. “I made hot chocolate.” She took a sip before tucking the mug back under the blankets and looked at the sky. “I was thinking it might snow.”
Sitting outside in a veritable blanket fort with hot chocolate, hoping it might snow.
Yep. Adorable. He knew it was too early in the season to snow, but he didn’t want to tell her.
She looked sweet and hopeful. It was at odds with everything he’d seen from her so far, but he liked it.
Color-changing, he thought, thinking of the stone.
“Can I sit with you?” he asked.
Her smile would have brought a lesser man to his knees, he thought, and almost took him out as well. As soon as she nodded she held out the mug for him to hold.
“Inside or outside?” she asked.
It took him a second to understand she was talking about the blankets instead of whether they should go indoors.
“In,” he said. After a good bit of maneuvering, he sat behind her with her between his legs, and the both of them bundled inside blankets already warm from her body heat.
Grayson noticed she didn’t hesitate this time before snuggling back against him, and decided to credit her comfort level instead of the cold.
They traded sips of hot chocolate as he organized his thoughts.
“I saw you ate your cheesecake,” he said, his voice dry.
Lexi snickered in front of him. Grayson got serious. He needed answers.
“When I saw you downstairs, Miss Lexi,” he murmured against her ear, “another man was making you blush. I didn’t like it.” He kissed her on the cheek so she would know he wasn’t angry. “What was it about?” he asked.
Lexi became suddenly engrossed in the knit blanket in front of her. He stared hard at her profile. Unless he was mistaken, she was blushing again. What the- understanding dawned, and he hoped he was right.
“It was about me?” he asked.
The guilty surprise on her face as she looked up at him gave her away. Grayson felt the smile stretching his face. His mood took an upswing and he hugged her close to him.
“It’s not a big deal, dammit,” she mumbled under her breath. “Kris was just asking how we were doing.”
Grayson’s hand was pressed against the front of her throat before he even thought about it.
“It’s a very big deal,” he said, “to me.” He bit the side of her neck, and she arched into it.
After a moment, she let out a sigh and relaxed back into him. There it was. He pressed a series of little kisses along her neck and leaned back, absurdly content.
“I’m sorry for leading you around by the hand,” he said. “I got jealous.”
Lexi turned over her shoulder to face him. The small space between them instantly chilled, and he shivered.
“So you’re like… insecure?” Lexi asked.
Grayson’s brow lowered.
“No,” he said sharply, and jerked her back against him. He said nothing when she snorted.
“All evidence to the contrary,” she whispered.
“Not normally,” he mumbled. “I seem to have a very strong response around you, Alessandra.”
“To what?” she asked.
“To everything, apparently. I’m not really sure what to do with it all yet.”
They stared up at the stars in silence.
“Me either, sometimes.”
She continued before he could form a reassuring response.
“So how did you get to be a Dom?” Alessandra asked.
His Alessandra and her questions. He found himself answering as he looked up.
“My parents didn’t mean to have me. I was born a decade after my brother and sister to older parents, so I was essentially an only child. I’m not very close with any of them. My sister is a lawyer, and my brother is a doctor.”
Alessandra twisted around to face him with raised eyebrows.
“Yes,” he said, “we’re one of those families.
There was nothing wrong in my family, I’m just not very close with any of them.
” He nuzzled her hair as Alessandra burrowed into his chest. “I was almost thirty, the black sheep of the family because I didn’t have the high profile career.
College was easy, I even picked up a Masters, but answering to other people didn’t work for me. I quit every position I had.”
“Shocker,” Lexi mumbled, and he jerked his arm back against her stomach so her breath whooshed out.
She chuckled and slapped his arm playfully. He smiled and went on.
“My grandmother had just passed, and I came into some inheritance. I was living in Boston at the time but I came back for a week in Philly to be with my family and catch up with friends. I was invited to a party and there was this couple there. The girl had a particular kind of necklace on.” He pressed a kiss to her neck and felt her shiver. “I couldn’t take my eyes off it.”
“It was a collar?” she asked.
“It was a D/s party, and nobody told me beforehand.”
Alessandra’s laughter shook her shoulders, but she kept quiet.
“Anyway,” he continued, steering the conversation away, “I hope that answers some of your questions, Miss Alessandra. I’m what is termed a natural Dom. And I like to be affectionate. So public displays of affection are part of the package between us.”
Lexi was silent a moment.
“How much PDA?”
“Holding hands, sitting on my lap, casual touching, and a kiss here or there, at least in the club,” he said.
Lexi nodded. There was a point he wanted to make very clear with her.
“Alessandra…” Grayson paused. He needed to look at her for this. Needed her to understand how serious this was. He pushed until she was facing him completely.
It was awkward getting her legs around him under the blanket, but once they were over his hips, he tugged her closer until she was almost on his lap. Faced with its own personal idea of heaven, his dick leaped to attention, but he did his best to ignore it.
“Nothing that you and I are doing beyond that is a part of your contract; your job here. I don’t ever want you to think you have to.” He placed a hand on her sternum, and was thrilled when her shoulders dropped a little, relaxing into his grip. But she still hadn’t said anything.
“Do you understand me?”
Lexi chewed on her bottom lip, but said nothing. What was taking her so long to answer? Was she having second thoughts?