Chapter 22 #2
I shrug, then decide to give her a little snippet of what’s been going on with me.
Only Maria knows about Grant at this point, and I can’t bring myself to talk about it with Joan or Gwen.
Joan would be great, actually, and she’s the best advice-giver I know, but I don’t want to feel the heat of anyone else’s judgment on me.
“My dad really let me down yesterday,” I say instead.
“He was supposed to meet me for dinner, and he stood me up. It’s not surprising, just disappointing. ”
“I’m sorry, babe.” She sticks her bottom lip out. “If it makes you feel any better, all I do is argue with my own parents. We alternate between periods of radio silence and periods of out-and-out war.”
“Dad never fought with me,” I say. “He pretends to be interested in a relationship, then he flakes.”
“You deserve better than that.”
I stare out the window as we get closer to my apartment. “Remember how I was talking about stargazing recently? How excited I was about it? When I thought I might change careers?” I look up at the sky.
“Yeah. What are you looking at now? There’s only cloud cover.” She giggles. “How much have you had to drink?”
“Only enough to make me contemplative.” I turn back to her. “I sometimes like having the option to do something different. It feels like getting older just means more doors closing, more choices that aren’t available to you.”
“You sure you’re okay?”
“Yeah. Just hoping I’m making the right choices right now.”
“It’s always scary, committing to something. Or changing your mind about something. You reconsidering med school?”
“No. I think that’s my path.” I sigh. “Just an observation.”
She drops me off at my building with another concerned look in my direction. I reassure her that I am indeed okay and make my way to my first-floor apartment.
I stop short before I get to my door. Grant sits on the curb outside. His hair’s disheveled, like he’s been running his hands through it. He stands quickly when I approach.
“Kendall.”
“What are you doing here?”
“I needed to talk to you, and you weren’t answering me. I realize now how crazy that sounds. I’ll leave if you want me to. But I’m hoping you’ll give me a few minutes.”
“Okay. You can come in.” My eyes close for a moment. “I know we need to talk, anyway.”
Grant’s gaze snags on me, then he does a double take when he sees what I’m wearing as we walk into my apartment. “Good God. You look . . .”
“You like the slutty M&M look?” I shimmy a little, and he watches. A slow flush climbs his neck. “What else is Halloween for if not this kind of getup?”
I love how he looks right now. He’s wearing a hooded Kentucky sweatshirt and jeans, and the sight of him in his casual attire reaches somewhere primal in my brain and yanks, like I can’t help but be drawn to him in this relaxed state.
A little beard scruff covers his jaw. He’s got that bleary-eyed, dark-circles-like-bruises look common to residents, like he’s a member of the undead on Halloween night.
It doesn’t sound sexy, I know, but the fact he could be sleeping, and he’s here instead brings a rush of affection to the surface.
“Aren’t you freezing?” He scans my bare legs after I close the front door.
“Again, Halloween. The discomfort is kind of the point.”
I know why he’s here, and what we should be doing—we have things we need to discuss. As we stare at each other, though, him with the look of someone starved, I can’t think of anything but how I want to lose myself with him for a while.
I close the door behind me. Before he can open his mouth, I grip his sweatshirt and tug him toward me.
When I touch my mouth to his, he pulls back, though with visible reluctance.
“Can we talk?” He grips my waist in his broad hands. His fingers pinch the material of my shirt, like he wants to rip it in half. I would let him, actually. When else am I going to dress up like a candy?
“I want to do this first. Is that okay?” I step into him, but I don’t make another move. “Please?”
He opens his mouth to speak, then his eyes flick over me and he groans, long and tortured. “Damn it.” He kisses me with the fervor of someone discovering it for the first time.
He backs me up against the door. His hands skim under my shirt, down to my thighs, roving everywhere he can touch skin. An inferno starts low in my pelvis and spreads to my thighs, and up my body, making my breasts heavy and my breaths shallow.
“Grant.” The breathy, high-pitched way I say his name doesn’t even sound like me. It spurs him on, though, and before long he’s grabbing fistfuls of material and tugging.
“I’d like to rip this fucking thing off,” he says when he leans back again, pulling on the hem of my blue skirt.
“I was just thinking about that,” I say. My chest heaves. “Do it. It’s cheap.”
He pulls at the skirt with both his hands, tearing the fabric, then he works with it until there’s a split up the entire side.
The elastic won’t give, though, so I shove the whole thing down and out of the way.
He tugs my shirt over my head, too, so that I’m standing in front of him in nothing but my heels, bra, and thong.
He steps away to survey his work. “I think I would give up everything I have just to touch you right now,” he says. It’s a simple statement. The boost to my ego could power a small star.
“You don’t have to go that far. I’m here.” I spread my arms out. “Touch me.”
He surprises me by kissing me again. It’s soft, easy, until we touch our tongues together, then we’re angling our heads and gripping each other.
I work at his own shirt and he steps back so I can pull it off him.
I run my hands over the hard planes of his chest. His body is the kind of thing people write songs about.
I pull him toward the bedroom and we laugh together when he unbuckles his belt and almost trips over the leg of his jeans. I never pictured him as someone I could laugh with, but here we are, giggling like we don’t have anything to worry about.
His eyes stay on mine when he slips my thong off, then unhooks my bra. When I sit on the bed, he slips his arms under my legs and pulls me to the edge. Watching him manhandle me might be the sexiest thing I’ve ever seen.
He literally licks his lips when he opens my legs. “I haven’t come in almost two weeks again. I can’t promise this won’t get me there, just putting my mouth on you like this.” His eyes flick up to mine. I’m propped on my elbows. “I made myself wait.”
“Good job.”
He shivers, then chuckles. “I never in a million fucking years would think I’m into that, but you’ve unlocked something.” He keeps smiling as he puts his mouth on me, kissing up one thigh, then the other, then licking a path all the way up to my clit.
I turn my head into a pillow to stifle my moan.
My nerve endings light up as he works—and he does treat it like a job, like eating me out is the thing that gives him purpose.
Soon I’m writhing and rolling my hips. When he plunges a finger inside me and crooks it so he’s stroking along the front wall, I tip over, climaxing so hard I call out his name.
His smug grin when he climbs up and over me brings a rush of warmth to my chest. Should I be alarmed? I don’t even care.
“How do you want me?” I tilt my head.
“Hands and knees,” he says, as though he’s been dreaming about it. He sits up like he might be going for the wallet he left in his pants, which are in a pile outside my door.
I start to move, too, but I look at him before I do. “Has there been anyone else?”
“No. No one but you. Not for months.”
“I’m okay with going bare this time if you are. I’ve got the IUD, and I haven’t been with anyone else either.”
He gulps. “I’ve never had sex without a condom.”
“Never?”
“Not with my last girlfriend,” he says. “And before that, I never dated anyone that seriously.”
We’re both sitting up on the bed now, looking at each other.
“You sure?” His hand touches mine as though he wants to ground us, make us think about what we are doing. I trust him, though, in this way at least.
“If you are.”
He trails his fingers up my arm. “Yeah. I am.”
He pulls off his boxers, then he kisses me again, letting his hands roam all over me. I’m on fire.
When I move to all fours he positions himself behind me. He nudges at my entrance and I guide him inside. The first sweep of sensation pulls at all my nerve endings, like all the perception in my body has narrowed to the place where we are joined.
“Oh, Jesus,” Grant says from behind me. He props his forearm on my back and leans over me. When I turn to look at him, it’s like he’s trying to get his composure. “I can’t handle this,” he pants.
“You can.” I shift back against him, and he groans again. “Can you move, though?”
With a soft whimper, he pulls out a little, then pushes back in, and I prop myself on my elbows. It’s good—amazing, even—but I need a little more.
“Can you touch my clit?”
He reaches around me and strokes, and this. This is better than anything.
“I’m serious, Kendall. I’m not sure I can stand it.” His breath is shaky, his words choked off on a strangled sound. “You feel . . . and you’re so fucking hot.”
“Don’t come yet,” I tell him.
He moves with a little more purpose. His fingers keep up their rhythm, and before long I’m starting to feel closer, like I can tip over that edge again. His breathing is labored, though, and the taut way his hips move tells me he’s also close.
“Stop,” I say.
“Goddamn it.” He drapes himself over me.
“Poor baby.” I move forward so he slides out. “Lay on your back.”
He follows my instructions. He looks absolutely wrecked, though, and I’m delighting in it.
“Will you ride me? Please?” He sounds like he’s going to cry.
I straddle him, then grasp his cock and rub it against my clit. I start to put him inside me again but only let the tip in before I pull him back out.
“Please don’t tease me, baby. I am hanging on by the barest fucking thread here.”