His kisses sweep across my face and back to my lips again as if he can’t possibly get enough.
He sits me gently on the swing. The wooden plank is smooth as my bare ass scoots to the edge.
“Spread your legs,” Grayson says, making no apologies for taking in every inch of my body.
It feels powerful to watch him want me. To know that this man, this alpha male, is taken with me—even if it’s only for this moment in time.
I grip the ropes on either side of me and separate my thighs. He drops to the ground in front of me.
“Oh, my gosh,” I moan as he grips my legs and pulls them farther apart. “Grayson.”
He dips his head but pauses, looking up at me. The picture of his face framed by my bare legs makes me shiver.
“You know what I said about being ninety-nine percent sure that no one would find us?” He grins. “I lied. It’s about sixty-five.”
“What?” I bark, but he silences me with his mouth.
I gasp as every sensation becomes heightened. More. Too much.
His beard scratches my skin as his tongue licks up my slit. My body trembles as it tries to process the feelings and the situation.
I release the rope with one hand and lace my fingers through his hair. He parts my body with his tongue, taking his time as he laps up my wetness.
“Oh, my fuck,” I hiss, my eyes rolling in the back of my head.
I lean back on the swing, extending my legs out to the sides to allow him more room. He inserts one finger inside me, and I threaten to crumple.
“Grayson,” I moan as he leisurely works his finger in and out of my opening.
I have literally never been this wet before. I can hear it.
Shit.
Holy freaking shit.
His eyes find mine as he presses kisses along the hypersensitive skin of my thighs.
“You,” he says, pressing a kiss near my swollen clit, “are so fucking ready for me. Do you know how hot that is?”
“No,” I eek out.
He presses a kiss to my clit, and I yelp.
He grins. “Very.”
“Good to know,” I mutter, grabbing both ropes again.
“Hold on tight. I’m going to make you come in my mouth, and you’re going to want to scream, but don’t. If you scream, I’ll stop.”
My body flexes at his words. Every bit of blood in my body pours to my vagina, making it red-hot and engorged.
I need relief. And I need it now.
“If you don’t start,” I tell him, “I’m going to—shit!”
The contact of his lips to my pussy is enough to make me nearly scream. He bites gently on my clit as a warning.
“Oh, like that’s going to help,” I moan, my head falling back. I quickly raise it again so I don’t pass out.
“Keep quiet,” he warns as he works his fingers again, adding another.
“Keep going.”
He laughs against me as he rolls my swollen bud around with his tongue. He swirls it around and around, his fingers strumming a beat that works me higher and higher toward the brink.
My eyes roll back in my head, and my vision gets hazy. The rhythm of Grayson’s assault on my body becomes nearly too much.
“Grayson,” I pant, the word almost a whine. “Grayson …”
He sucks me into his mouth as he twists his fingers, hitting a spot on the wall of my vagina that is akin to lighting a match in a house of gasoline.
I explode, come completely apart in a chaotic climax like I’ve never felt before.
“Grayson!” I scream, unable to control myself.
A flock of birds lifts from the trees, warning their friends that a woman is scaring the daylights out of them on the forest floor below.
He rides the orgasm out with me, sucking and licking and stroking me until I fall limp. My head feels heavy, my body reminiscent of what a run might feel like if I were so inclined to participate in that barbaric activity.
Grayson rocks back on his heels and stands. He heads to our pile of clothes and grabs his T-shirt. “You take instructions for shit,” he says, wiping his face off.
“Yeah,” I say, my voice hollow.
He laughs. “Stand up.”
“Do I have to?”
“Actually, no. You don’t. Just flip onto your front.”
I pull myself to a sitting position to see him rolling a condom down his cock. All of a sudden, I’m back in the game.
As instructed, I lay my belly on the swing and keep myself steady with my hands on the ground.
He pulls up behind me and grabs the edge of the swing, dragging it toward him.
“You know, you could—fuck!” I shout as he completely fills me.
My eyes water with the contact of my still-tender body. I try to get my bearings as he grips the swing on both sides of my body and works me back and forth against him.
The tempo is different this time. It’s harder. More intentional. More rogue.
It’s heaven.
I squeeze my eyes shut and feel him inside me, splitting me in half as he pumps deep inside my body.
It doesn’t take long before I find myself clawing at the edge of the orgasmic cliff yet again.
“I’m going to come,” I tell him. “I can’t help it.”
“Come, baby.”
Baby.
That’s all it takes.
I scream out, getting fucked harder for it. The wood bites into my stomach. My fingers burn as the forest scratches at the tips as I scurry for something to brace myself against.
Fireworks blast through my vision. A bomb goes off in my core. My heart beats so fast that I think I might die.
Grayson stills inside me. A low, guttural sound emits from his throat, and I try to turn to see him fall apart, but there’s not enough power left in me.
I’m done.
Finally, after what feels like an hour, he drops the swing back to the starting point and helps me to my feet.
Sweat darts his brow, and a flush kisses his cheeks.
It’s a good look on him.
He reaches out and brushes the hair off my forehead and grins.
“Was that good enough for you?” he asks smugly.
“I mean, it was okay.”
He slaps my ass, making me laugh.
“Get dressed,” he says as he turns toward the pile of clothes. “We need to get you cleaned up.”
Suddenly, the percentage of being found pulses through my brain like a time bomb.
“I could kill you,” I say, racing to get my clothes back on. It’s not as sexy, and I’m not quite the risk-taker after the fact.
He slips his shirt on. “Why?”
“You lied to me. First, it was ninety-nine percent and then you get me naked, and it’s sixty-five.” I grab my bra. “You fucker.”
“Yeah, I lied.”
“So it’s sixty-five? That’s marginally better than a fifty-fifty chance no one would find us.” I glare at him as I twist my bra around and over my breasts.
“I lied about one of them.” He tosses me my shorts. “Now get dressed, and let’s go before you figure out which one it was.”
The smile he gives me is different. It’s warm. It’s personal. It’s unlike anything I’ve ever seen from Grayson Blake before.
It’s honest, as if I’ve finally met the true Grayson Blake.
This might be the only time I truly get to meet him. And, despite my best interests and all the things I know to be true, I kind of hope I see it more.
I shimmy on my shorts and shoes.
“I’m ready,” I say, blowing out a breath.
Instead of leading me back to the path, he stands there and watches me.
“What?” I ask.
He shakes his head. “You really are a prize, do you know that?”
I grin as he turns away and heads back to the trail.
A prize …
I’ve never thought of myself as a prize, but even though there was no cuddling afterward, and e
ven though he didn’t say it was good for him, maybe I am.
Maybe I am.
Eight
Haley
“So, the flames?” Kaylee sits on the other side of my sofa, her legs crisscross applesauce, and her hands holding a slice of pizza. She’s been holding it for ten minutes. Every now and then, I notice a glob of cheese or a droplet of oil roll off the side and land on her knee. “Did the flames dance?”
Her enthusiasm over my outing with Grayson nearly matches mine. That’s why she’s my friend and has been my friend for years. Despite our age difference, her being a single mom and me being just a few years older than her child, I can’t imagine being closer to anyone.
“Will you be mad if I tell you that I didn’t notice?” I cringe as she gasps. “I know, I know. Failure on my part.”
“Major failure.” She shrugs, bringing the pizza to her lips. Finally. “Just pay a little closer attention next time. I want the full visual.”
She grins bigger as my smile falters. The pizza lowers again.
“What?” she asks.
Energy pulses through me and I spring to my feet. I have nothing to do, no reason to be up and moving. So, I head to the kitchen that opens up to the living room and grab a few paper towels off the counter.
My stomach is a storm of excited butterflies and nervous ants. It’s a flutter of happiness and a scamper of anxiety all at once.
“I don’t know,” I say slowly, “if there will be a next time for me to pay attention.”
The words are mine. They came out of my mouth. But, somehow, they sound hollow and disconnected from me. I hear them cutting through the air. I recognize my voice. I even know what I’m saying is based on facts. Still, maybe it’s that I don’t want to believe it—that I want to hold on to the tiniest thread of hope, and that’s why it doesn’t resonate. That’s why it’s hard for me to lasso the concept and reel it in.
I’ve stayed away from you. I’ve made it my fucking life’s mission not to be alone with you or get involved in your life from the day we met … You’re a problem for me … I’m not interested in the things you’re interested in. I don’t do relationships. I don’t want to take care of someone.
I don’t want her to be my problem.
I lift my gaze to Kaylee and shrug.
Grayson was brutally honest with me, so it’s better that I accept what he said and move on … let him stay who he wants to be.
“Did I not tell you—was I not right when I said he was into you?” she asks.
“Yes, you said that. But—”
“No.” She shakes her head from side to side. “No. I saw this coming a mile away. And, since my Love Detector is—”
“Oh, no,” I say, cutting her off. “Let’s put away that nasty four-letter word.”
She sighs.
“This was … he fucked me, Kay. That’s all it was. Let’s put down the radar gun and calm down.”
A dollop of sauce falls off the side of her hand, and I can’t take it. I take the bundle of paper towels, march across the room, and cover her thigh. She doesn’t even appear confused, and I wonder if she was aware of the dribbling the whole time and just ignored it.
Weird.
I sit back on the sofa. “It’s fine. I mean, do I hope he’s sitting at home right now thinking about me? Sure. Have I already mentally played out how our second time together might work? A few times. Is it true that I’ve been both excited and nauseous about the idea of him sitting across the bar from me while I work every day and wonder if it will be different? Yes, ma’am. The hopeless romantic inside me is straight-up dying right now—wilting away with visions of the bad boy and good girl, the broody mechanic and the forever romantic.” I pick up a pillow and slam it onto my lap. “But I’ve had visions before, and they did not end happily, dammit. So I have to be pragmatic.”
“Pardon my French but bullshit.”
I rest my head against the tired couch and look at the popcorn ceiling.
What Kaylee is saying right now is what I’m usually telling myself. Forgo common sense and statistics. If you want to try it with the ski instructor, Haley, give it a go! Who cares that every red flag is waving in the wind and that he ticks every box of a commitmentophobe? You can make this work. Miracles happen! He said you’re pretty, and he is the one initiating this. Go for it, girl!
The girl—read me—should not, in fact, have gone for it. Because all I now have is unreal memories of exceptional fucking.
“I want to pick up on that can-do vibe you’re tossing out,” I say, noticing a cobweb in the corner that I know I’ll be forever too lazy to remove, “but maybe I need to be a little more guarded this time.”
“You only live once.”
“And I’d like to do it without testing how many times I can break my own heart.”
The sofa dips as she moves. I think she finally puts the pizza on the coffee table, but I’m afraid to look.
“Listen, Haley. I wouldn’t be hyping you up for this if I didn’t think it had legs.”
The mention of legs makes me realize that mine hurt. They ache so good.
“I don’t even want to know what that little grin is about,” she says with a laugh. “But you have to see this for what it is, okay? Chemistry’s been building between the two of you for practically forever, and the lid was just removed from the … what do they do chemistry experiments in?”
I shrug. “Canisters? Vials? Beakers?”
“Insert the appropriate word because I don’t know either.” She shrugs. “But it’s hit the boiling point. It’s time. He knows it, or he never would’ve let what happened today happen.”
She does make a point. And, better yet, it’s logical. It’s not based on my desire for round two but facts from an outside perspective.
Grayson doesn’t just hook up with women at the bar and stumble out with them on a Wednesday night. It doesn’t happen—it’s never happened in all the time I’ve worked at Fireside. His modus operandi isn’t to mess with women’s heads or to lure them in and then walk away.
And no one, and I mean no one, talks badly about him.
Well, not women anyway. There are men who have tangled with him here and there, and he’s never a favorite of the random patrons he helps Corbin eject when things get rowdy. But women don’t whisper behind his back that he’s a jerk or a player.
That says something.
Right?
“Can I tell you something?” she asks, her voice hesitant.
“Sure.”
She wiggles around on the sofa before finding an acceptable position. A long sigh escapes her before she goes for it.
“It’s been a year since my marriage took its first blow.” She frowns. “And I’ve spent the past twelve months—more if you count the months leading up to our divorce when I didn’t see the writing on the wall—piddling through life. Surviving. Putting one foot in front of the other because I have a daughter who needs more than me ensconced in bed with pizza every day.”
“Look at how far you’ve come, though,” I say earnestly.
“Absolutely. I am. No doubt. But … but I’ve wasted a lot of time just surviving. And before you say anything, I was in survival mode for a reason. I get it. It’s acceptable. But”—she pauses, wiggling around again—“I’ve missed out on a lot of my life by not living it. And the one date I went on was so damn bad …”
I can’t help but laugh at thoughts of her date with the cheese deliveryman and how he talked about himself the entire two-hour period. And how Kaylee retreated to the bathroom, called me, and instructed me to text her with an emergency in precisely six minutes so she could escape.
“I gave up after that. I retreated back into survival mode because, while it gave me nothing to look forward to in life and basically muted me, it was safe. I liked safe.” She reaches over and takes my hand. “But safe is not living. Safe is no fun. And you are too young, too gorgeous. The world is full of so many opportunities that living safe is not an option for you
.”
“Or you.”
She rolls her eyes and withdraws her hands. “This isn’t about me.”
I fall back into the pillows. I appreciate her words of wisdom, and they do make sense. But still …
“It feels different this time,” I tell her. “I don’t know if I’m usually prepared for things to fizzle out, but I’m not disappointed when it does. It sucks, and I wallow around in self-pity for a while, but I never feel disappointed.”
“Because that feels safe.”
“Maybe.” I frown. “With Grayson, it’s so different. On the one hand, it’s surreal. But on the other, it’s comfortable in the scariest kind of way.”
She smiles. “Of course it is because it’s not the safe road—which makes it right. Love is a scary thing.”
I narrow my eyes, making her laugh.
“I’m being serious,” I say. “This isn’t love. An infatuation, maybe. Definitely lust. But I can’t get all hung up on it.”
Even though I think I already am.
She grabs her phone off the coffee table. “It’s Anna. She’s locked herself out of the house. Again.”
“Hide a key.”
“I have,” she says, standing. “Twice. And she takes the key to get in and then leaves it in the house or loses it. Do you know how many house keys I have floating around Cherry Falls?”
“You probably need to address that.”
She laughs. “Yeah, but it’s Cherry Falls. So what’s the worst that could happen?”
“True.”
She pulls me into a warm hug. “If you need me, call me, and I’ll come back. Or you can come over, and we can have a sleepover. I’ll even cuddle with you.”
I grin. “You’re the best.”
“I know.” She heads for the door. “Just don’t overthink this with Grayson. Let it percolate naturally. Let it flow—not to be confused with let it go.” She opens the door. “I’m so, so sick of that song.”
“Bye, Kay.”
“Bye, Haley.”
The door shuts softly.
I fall back on the sofa again. An invisible weight sits cock-eyed on my chest, and I can’t seem to slide it off or just let it crush me. It’s in an uncomfortable angle that makes my insides squirm.
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