Chapter 9
CHAPTER NINE
There was going to be trouble.
Ariel watched the young Missy with her lover and took a deep breath.
Over the past week, she noticed Missy getting a little too attached to Grant, but Ariel decided to let him work it out and not interfere. She trusted him and knew his intentions were honorable. She also trusted his business instincts and knew he’d make the right decision.
Except tonight was Tombstone time. High Noon. Ariel was about to stake her turf and Grant was going to have to deal with it.
Things had changed between them. After their night together, a new connection between them had formed.
Ariel was trying to sift through the realization she loved him, and the knowledge she’d be moving to Chicago.
Their celebration dinner had been rescheduled due to a work emergency, so they were finally meeting tonight after class.
Tonight, she’d tell him everything.
But right now, Ariel had to deal with some peer jealousy.
She’d just joined the intermediate students and was feeling her way through the group dynamics, going deeper into her practice.
Missy was one of the students. She had been deliberately cold toward Ariel, her gaze continuously roving her body as if comparing and judging her inferior.
Missy was an excellent student and far in her practices; her asanas were graceful to watch and she usually served as a model to the others.
Because of her status, Missy spent more time with Grant than the others.
She spoke with him in low, intimate whispers and always placed a hand on his arm.
Or grabbed his hand when she laughed as if she had no idea she was doing it.
She watched Missy go in and out of his private office as if she had a personal key, and Ariel knew Grant allowed it because he was training her to serve as a mentor to the others.
She watched Missy from under heavily lidded eyes. The studio was cleaned up and the students had been counseled. There was no reason for her to remain, yet Missy hung around. Ariel wanted to urge the girl to leave, but kept silent.
She respected Grant’s decision to keep their relationship a secret, and she didn’t want Missy to discover the truth. Suspecting was a whole different ball game from confirming, and Grant didn’t need any conflict right now.
The willowy blonde plastered herself to Grant’s side as she listened to him speak.
She wore a skimpy halter top that emphasized her heavy breasts, and her Lycra pants left nothing to the imagination.
She had pulled the clip out of her hair, and Ariel spotted heavy makeup on her face, not appropriate for a workout.
Ariel shook her head. Grant was the only man to ever see her both vulnerable and unpolished.
Stringy hair, wet from sweat. Makeup run off her face.
Arms shaking with exertion and a trucker’s mouth when she couldn’t hold a pose.
Sometimes tears when she held a posture long enough to break through some emotional barriers.
Not to mention her trouble with keeping up her pedicures, which were always exposed with everyone’s feet bare in class.
Yet, Missy seemed polished and manicured and perfumed and… ready for action.
Ariel smothered a laugh at the thought and decided to break up the party.
She reached the couple and enjoyed the spark of warmth that lit Grant’s eyes when he spotted her. “Are you almost ready to go?” she asked casually.
“Absolutely,” he said. “Missy, I would dedicate more time to your meditation. You seem like you’re ready for a breakthrough.”
“I am. I was hoping we could discuss a few things.” Missy raised an eyebrow in her direction. “Would you mind if I stole Grant for a bit longer?”
Grant opened his mouth but Ariel interrupted. “I’m sorry, Missy, we were going to catch a bite.” She smiled in apology. “I’m starving from that workout. Can you catch up with him later?”
Missy took a small side step until she was flush against Grant. “Oh, that’s so nice you’re getting something to eat. Can I join you? Would love to discuss the practices more, and maybe Ariel can learn a few more things. I know she’s new.”
Silence descended.
Ariel waited for Grant to make a decision. A standoff had officially been called. If Missy joined them, it would solidify their relationship as friends, and there would be no romantic dinner. But if he did say something, Missy would know the truth and expose their secret.
Missy looked up at Grant with expectation. Ariel waited patiently for her lover to choose.
Grant smiled warmly at Missy; a mentor, a teacher, a friend.
“I’m sorry, Missy, I’m taking Ariel out to dinner to celebrate something very special.
I made reservations so we won’t be able to have you join us tonight.
” He squeezed her hand in reassurance. “But I’ll see you tomorrow during morning class and we’ll have plenty of time to discuss it. ”
Without hesitation, Grant took Missy’s elbow and led her to the door. “Have a great night.”
The blonde literally gaped at the obvious dismissal, and Ariel spotted a disturbing mix of envy and resolve. She tossed her hair, said something else to Grant, and disappeared.
“Ready?” he asked. “Do you want to use the bathroom to change first or shall I?”
She stared at him and realized he had chosen her.
“You told her.”
He waved his hand in dismissal and raked his hair back from his forehead. “Yeah, I thought it was time. She suspected anyway.”
“What if she tells the other students?” Ariel pressed. “I don’t think she was too happy knowing you were dating me.”
Grant nodded. “I know. I guess she’s going to have to get over it and so will the other students. I’m done hiding you.”
Her heart bloomed in full expansion and made a mockery out of the Grinch.
Her skin felt suddenly too tight for her body.
He pretended to be casual. She knew differently.
She knew it took everything Grant had to trust her and their relationship, to let the truth out.
Ariel realized she had to tell him her own truth.
Tonight. She had to tell him she was leaving.
Ariel closed the distance between them with a leap, and then she was in his arms. He murmured low and caught her hard as she launched herself through the air.
She stabbed all ten fingers into his long hair and pulled his mouth down on hers.
His arms snagged around her waist and held her tight as her tongue thrust between his lips and she took him on a wild ride, her fingers pushing up his shirt to caress all those carved muscles in his chest, his arms, his back.
She squeezed his buttocks and with one hard tug, his pants came down with his underwear, exposing his arousal to her hungry hands and traveling fingers.
He managed to do the same to her in a few seconds and then they were both naked. He quickly donned a condom. “No dinner?” he gasped, lifting her up so his cock pressed against her wet opening.
“Screw dinner.”
His mouth came down and laved her breasts, pulled her nipple between his teeth and sucked.
She groaned and urged him to go faster, wanting him to lose the fragile thread of his control when he loved her, wanting him to stop holding back.
Ariel grasped him between her fingers and worked him up and down, sliding her thumb over his sensitive tip, guiding his length between her thighs.
“Yes, yes, yes,” she chanted, thrusting her hips upward, ready to claim him and both explode over the edge.
“You want this?” he asked, his cock moving into her, sliding inch by precious inch.
Ariel punished him with her fingernails and her teeth. She bit his earlobe, raked the skin over his back, and urged him to come inside her. She wanted, no, needed, him to surrender to her tonight.
“If you want it, tell me. Tell me everything.” His voice was a low growl as he massaged her breasts and teased her clit with the hot flesh of his arousal, getting her so close yet not close enough.
“Put your cock inside me!” she demanded, opening her legs wider, her back pressed against the hard wall, willing him to do it, just do it.
“Not until you come for me. Come. Now.”
He grasped her hips, positioned her, and slammed his cock into her wet opening.
Ariel came hard in a rush of wetness, her voice tearing on a scream that cut through the studio.
But he wasn’t done, he thrust in and out of her, again and again, lifting her up until the second orgasm ripped through her.
She collapsed against the wall, falling against his hot, damp skin, his erection still pulsing inside of her with hot demand.
She groaned and admitted defeat again. He still refused to come inside of her. Not unless it was on his terms.
The thought worried at her like a mouse with a piece of string, but he was easing back and forth over her sensitive clit, slowly, so slowly she didn’t even realize he was moving until the tension built again in delicious intervals, the friction of his cock against the swollen nub so outrageously pleasurable, tears burned her eyes.
She fought the fall, not wanting to have another orgasm, and she cursed him, but he just laughed and held her still, working himself inside of her again and again until she came, her flesh pulsing almost painfully from the release.
This time he let her slide down to the floor, still inside of her.
Only then did the full emotions hit like a hurtling freight train, and tears leaked from her lids as she surrendered to the final collapse of all of her clever ideas of love and distance and realized Grant Madison had changed her life and she would never be the same.
* * *
Grant held her close, stroking back silky strands of her hair from her face as she cried.
The tears dropped slowly on his bare chest and a piece of him broke loose inside of him.
Her vulnerability and openness tore him apart.
It reminded him of the night they spent together a few days ago.
The pain and doubt in her face had torn him apart.
He’d shown her a way to heal, but he’d never been with a woman so open and committed to the process.
Not even his wife had been able to join him that intimately, knee to knee, breath to breath, heart to heart.
The experience hadn’t just brought them closer, it had ripped apart barriers and left him raw and exposed.
Grant figured he’d have plenty of time to work it out. But now, he realized she needed to tell him something, something he wasn’t going to want to hear. Tension gripped him like a vise. He breathed slowly. “Tell me what’s wrong, Ariel.”
“The promotion.” She paused. “I have to leave. I have to move to Chicago by the end of the month.”
The breath whooshed back out of his chest and he sought to find a grip as he sorted through the complications. “Okay. For how long?”
“If I succeed? Probably permanently. If I fail? They’ll give me two years to make a go of it.”
He battled his sudden weakness to beg her to stay.
Grant reached down deep and vowed he’d never ask her to give up the promotion for him.
This was her dream, as the creation of his school was his.
He understood the passion of loving what he did, the pull of the work as a constant tease to his consciousness, the satisfaction of completing a day with students.
He fell into bed at night and felt full in a way that had nothing to do with food.
Ariel was a talented woman who was going to make partner.
She’d run the Chicago office and make a name for herself, far away from her Iowa origins.
He loved her even more for it, understood her like he had no other woman.
In that moment, he decided to let her go.
And never tell her about his true feelings.
His tone contradicted his slowly crumbling heart. “Then we have a month together and we won’t lose a moment.”
Ariel stiffened beneath him. Her words were hesitant. “Do you want to do the long-distance thing? Grant, I can’t imagine walking away from you. I—”
He stopped her by smothering his mouth over hers.
If she said the words he wanted to hear, he’d fall apart.
She would stay, and they’d never know what she could have been.
Her lips softened, became pliant beneath his until she quieted.
“I don’t want to lose you, either. But you’re moving because this promotion is what you’ve been waiting for.
I’m so damn proud of you, Ariel. You go to Chicago and kick some ass.
But I think we need a clean break. You don’t need the distractions of a long-distance relationship, and I don’t know if I can handle it. ”
The ravaged hurt on her face almost made him take the words back. Almost. Grant knew it was the only path for them, and words of love would only tear them apart and make things harder.
Slowly, he lifted her up and they got dressed. “It’s getting late. Let me take you to dinner and we’ll talk more.”
They drank wine in the candlelight of the expensive French restaurant. He tried to enjoy the crisp white linens, the rich sauces and delicate fish. They toasted to her success and talked. But not about the promotion or the unspoken questions they both wanted to ask.
And didn’t.